The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Welcome to The Conversation with Nadine Matheson, where best-selling author of the 'Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley' series Nadine Matheson sits down with fellow authors for insightful, honest, and entertaining conversations. Each episode dives deep into the world of writing, from the publishing journey to overcoming challenges, the experiences that shape their work, and anything else that comes up when great minds come together. Whether you're a fan of gripping stories or curious about the life behind the books, 'The Conversation' promises thought-provoking chats and moments of inspiration.
If you'd like to be a guest or have a message or question, reach out to us at theconversation@nadinematheson.com.
Finalist -Independent Podcast Awards 2024
*music: the coffee jam ©stereo_jam
The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Jo Jakeman: Author Realities and Balancing Ambitions
Ever wondered what it's really like to be an author in today’s publishing world? Join us for an enlightening conversation with the talented Jo Jakeman as she pulls back the curtain on the realities of an author's journey. From the exhilarating moment of landing an agent to the rollercoaster ride of book sales, Jo shares the highs and lows that TV glamorization often overlooks. As we approach 2025, we dive into the pressures of book tours, the unexpected twists of defamation lawsuits, and the resilience needed to thrive amid it all.
In our exploration of storytelling across different mediums, we talk about Jo's inspiration behind her new novel, "One Bad Apple".
One Bad Apple
One murder. A school full of suspects...
Welcome to Aberfal Boys High School. Independent jewel of academic and sporting excellence in the South-west -- until the headmaster is murdered in his study. And now the Year Seven School Mums' WhatsApp Group really do have something to talk about...
Clare Withoutani: OMG have you heard about Newhall?!!!
Becky Rupertsmum: Helen-Louise just texted. Can't believe it.
Asha: Not heard anything. What's happened?
Pam Geoffreysmum: What's he done this time? They're going co-ed, aren't they? I knew this would happen.
Clare Withoutani: Can't believe it, Becky. I'm in shock.
Pam Geoffreysmum: Are we going co-ed?
Becky Rupertsmum: No, Pam. Newhall died.
Pam Geoffreysmum: Oh GOD. Seriously??!! Can't believe it. So sad. He'll be such a loss to the school. The boys will be devastated. Will the school be offering grief counselling?
Rose Oliversmum: Anyone know what pages they're meant to do for chemistry? Ollie's homework diary says 'do questions 1-4' but no page numbers!
As the resulting police investigation reveals more and more of Aberfal's long-hidden secrets the list of suspects who
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With this job. I'm thinking, if I rock the boat because I don't know whether I'm going to get another contract, there's a million authors behind me wanting this. I don't want to be the awkward author although I see a lot of awkward authors still getting all their book deals and things you know but I'm trying to be the nice author who always meets the deadlines, who doesn't kick up too much of a fuss.
Speaker 2:And I don't think that gets you anywhere. To be honest, it doesn't get me the loyalty that I thought it would. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Conversation with Nadine Matheson. Not only is this episode 99 of the Conversation, it is also the final episode of 2024. Because, yes, today is New Year's Eve and we made it. We did it. Give yourself a pat on the back. You have made it to the end of the year. You have made it through Christmas. I hope you've had a wonderful Christmas break and I hope that you're excited for 2025.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited. I already have some amazing conversations lined up for the new year. I have a great conversation to start off January. I have a great conversation to start off January, which will be episode 100. And I'm finding that really hard to believe because next month, for the end of next month, this conversation podcast would have been going for two years, and I didn't think I would be going for two years. In fact, I didn't think much.
Speaker 2:I'm the kind of person I just decide to do something and just see what happens, which is completely different to how I am as an author. As an author, I'm very much a planner, but with other things in my life, I just decide, yeah, seems like a good idea, let's see. Let's see how it goes, and I'm glad. I'm glad that I decided to see how this podcast goes, because it's going really well and I enjoy talking to my guests every single week. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to everyone this year and I can't wait for you to join me next year. So, however you choose to celebrate New Year's Eve whether you're on your own playing music and decide to go to bed at five minutes past midnight, or you're having a party with family and friends, or you are standing outside freezing your off at Tower Bridge watching the fireworks however you choose to spend it, have the best New Year's Eve and I wish you all the best for 2025.
Speaker 2:And my final guest for 2024 is the brilliant author, jo Jakeman. We talk about her new novel, one Bad Apple, and we also talk about how the tv version is so much different to the real life version of being an author, her experience of being sued after a reader accused of defamation, and the best way to respond to reviews. Now, as always, sit back or go for a walk and enjoy the conversation. So, jo Jakeman, welcome to the conversation. Thank you very much for having me. You're welcome, right, my first question for you is when you, before you know, you got, you got your deal, you got published, did you know what you was letting yourself in for?
Speaker 2:in terms of.
Speaker 1:I thought I was letting myself in for, like, red carpet events and a yacht. This is not, not quite. No, you don't know, do you? I think when you're an aspiring writer, I don't think you think past that next step. I think we're all guilty that, no matter where we are in our career. I think I wrote thinking, wow, I'd love to get an agent. And then you think that's the deal. You think, oh, I've got an agent. And then it's oh well, now I need a book. Deal.
Speaker 1:I've got a book deal, and then it's oh, but that book needs to sell, and somebody needs to stock it, and uh, and it just goes on and on. And now I need to replicate that and I don't think you have any clue, and I think, if you did have a clue, that that's how much further you still have to go and you keep going. I don't know whether I would have started off writing. I think, well, no, I wouldn't start. It wasn't not that I think I would have always written. I think it would have been nice to maybe know that it wasn't going to be all plain sailing. And you know, having a book out there wouldn't suddenly gain me a load of adoration and money and wonderful book tours that I see some people going on. I wish I'd have known that.
Speaker 1:The different, um, the spectrum really of what writing is and what success is and how. So much of it isn't under our control.
Speaker 2:What sells yeah, I think that's the thing like you come into it and you really are rosy spectacles about it. It's just I've said it like repeatedly that your whole I say knowledge of publishing, your whole perspective, it comes by what you see. Like, I always, always prefer back to tv movies where you know, like their editors send them off on a cruise so they can finish off their book and they have these amazing launch parties filled with champagne and loads of people. So you kind of that's the image you kind of have ingrained in your head. I remember a murder.
Speaker 1:She wrote where exactly that happened, where she was like yes, I'm on this cruise because I handed my book in early and this is a gift from my publisher. I remember that episode. Has that ever happened to any? And now we're being fed it by Netflix. Look at this. Yeah, it's good. Look at this.
Speaker 2:Bookshelves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having this. You know that recent one with Laura Dern, I can't remember what it was called now.
Speaker 2:Oh, and Liam Hemsworth. I haven't watched it, but I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that one Come to this beautiful writer's retreat for free, Just for free. We're fed. That aren't we? You know, we would like a little bit of that. That would be all right.
Speaker 2:I think the equivalent you get is just like meeting your other writer friends in Costa. That's as extravagant as it gets.
Speaker 1:It is, or maybe somebody in Waterstones actually saying yes, we do stock up. That's the most we can hope for.
Speaker 2:What were you doing before? So who were you before? Who was Jo Jakeman before she became Jo Jakeman? The author.
Speaker 1:Kind of a few things. I was a recruitment consultant was my main job really before but I gave up work a few years before starting to write for a few reasons uh, my mum getting cancer and it wasn't very good prognosis.
Speaker 1:I got um signed off with chronic fatigue syndrome, understandably there was a lot going on and I decided I couldn't go back to an office job and I wanted babies and I couldn't have babies, naturally. So the whole IVF thing, um. So I just I spent years just managing my health and managing my family and I've got my beautiful boys now, um, and then it was a case of I don't want to. You know, I want to be there for my family. I don't want to go into an office and be dragged here and there because, as a recruitment consultant, like my clients might be in York one day and Brighton the next.
Speaker 1:I was on the train a lot, and I couldn't do that. And, um, I'd always kind of taken a notebook on holiday with me and my relaxation would be writing in a notebook, um, and so I thought, well, let's see if I can make something of that. And it was only ever a hobby to keep my brain going whilst the kids had a nap, or, you know, when they started school, I thought, oh god, I'm gonna have to get a proper job. I don't really want to. Let me see if I can write books.
Speaker 1:And then I wanted something I could do from home that was flexible, um, and I'd you know, I've been in quite a corporate world because I was a recruitment consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Oh right, and so it was. It was very, very different. Um, I'm just kind of scared of getting back into that again and getting so sick, and I thought that was going to be the only option for me. So, um, yeah, I mean I'm incredibly grateful that I got that, that god book d book deal and I have been able to to largely stay home with the kids I mean, they're 16 now um, they probably don't need me around, but I'm here, I'm still not going to leave them around, I'm still going to be that parent, whether they like it or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm the helicopter parent, but it's hard though, isn't it? When you think about that world, that corporate world or any kind of, let's say, high pressured job and that part of your life even I think about being a solicitor it's very much structured and it's not. You don't really have control of your time and how it's organized. It's all arranged by someone else and you obviously have to answer to someone else. Your time isn't your own, and even the time in between I say in between you going to see clients and and then returning back to the office, that time isn't your own either. Because I remember they would say I remember one of my bosses would say oh well, you don't drive, like just take the train, meaning you can do work on the train. I'm like I don't want to do work on the train, I want to sit in the car and sing along to the radio for an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need that Two hours while I drive to Bristol and then go to court and come back like you need that, that space. And I found as well, with that kind of um, that kind of job, especially when I was living in London, the social life was part of the job, like the networking with your colleagues, because you're kind of like, well, who's going to work with me on this, on this? You know, on this contract there was a lot of like if you weren't there for the drinks on that night, then you're not getting the job. You know you've not. You've not got the ear of the senior partner and so it. It was an all encompassing my social life and everything was based around my job. And then, as soon as you're out of that loop, when you're either doing something for yourself, your family, your kids, I feel like you're already slightly forgotten. You're already out of that loop. When it's that competitive and you've got targets, it's really difficult to maintain yeah, a lot.
Speaker 2:I always used to say that I never drank as much until I became qualified as a solicitor and I worked in a my. I worked for a firm in Soho and because I was working for a firm in Soho I couldn't drive, so I'm always on, you know, got to get the train to work, to train to court back. So and then the social life is part of being a lawyer, because you have to socialize with the barristers because the barristers won't work with you and then you obviously you want to know what barristers you want to work with, and it's this to and fro and it's and it's continuous all the time. And yeah, and then when I stopped, I think, when I took redundancy, and then it kind of it's so it slowed down because then I was controlling my life and how I choose.
Speaker 1:You know the days, the days I wanted to work, and you realize in that social side kind of drifts away and it takes an adjustment, also because you're so ingrained in you yeah, and I think when we're working in that environment, we think that we're being looked after by our employers because there's a gym on site and there was, there was a hairdresser's on site. You don't need to go anywhere, you can just live within these walls and in this life and you think, oh, aren't they good? But they're not meaning. You never go home and you know you're not going home. So you know you get some perks, but are they perks? I think they just sucks you in and there's no life outside of it and I couldn't go back once. Once I was out of it, I knew that. That was why I was completely burnt out when I couldn't go back.
Speaker 2:I always say to the baby lawyers when I'm teaching them, I always say to to them make sure you've got something outside of this, like I know, this is your, this is your career, so this is what you want to do, cause obviously we're in this room together and I'm training you so you can cross examine people in court, but have something outside of this job, because this job will become all consuming and you can lose yourself in it and you need to just keep a hold of yourself. So I'm like, whether you just, like I said I don't care if you like baking or you just like going ice skating or you just want to paint a couple of days a week I said have something yeah, remember who you are within.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. I once did a talk to um university students of MA in creative writing and, um, they do that question what advice would you give to our students? And I was like, become an accountant. It's something you leave at the door, you can go home and they'll look to me a bit. And I was like I'm joking, no, my advice is read a lot. I mean, nobody wants the truth, really do they?
Speaker 1:Because, they've got so much hope and potential and those you know, the rose-tinted glasses we talked about um and that's, and you don't want to take hope away from people and that exciting um, and they don't want to hear it when you go. It's not going to be like that, but very, very slim chance. It's going to be like that for you because they'll think they're going to be that one. They're going to somehow balance it all and be a success, no matter what career you're you're looking at, I guess.
Speaker 2:I think you need that, though everyone needs to have that. You need something to aim for. You need some big glittering jewel in the sky to say, like that it's within my reach. Because you said, if you're, if you're told the truth, yeah, you either don't believe it.
Speaker 2:Because I remember when I was doing my, when I was doing my creative writing, ma, and I can never remember the author, some an author came in and she was explaining to us how, you know, once you sign, it could take two years from your book to to go from being signed with the publisher to being on the shelf. We were like two years, what are you talking? Doesn't take two years because you've written a book. Why would it take two years? And then she was explaining how difficult it is to not only get into supermarkets but how much um influence the supermarkets have on the book itself in terms of book covers and titles and things. And we were like, nah, she's just I don't know what she's doing, but no, she's just saying it all fake for no reason. Yeah, just like for no reason. And just, yeah, that's not how it works.
Speaker 2:And then you get into it, you sign, and then I remember the first publisher I met. It's like yeah, and it was 2019. It's like yeah, so we'll think about publishing your book in 2021. Yeah, what? What? We're in 2019. What do you mean? 2021? Yeah, it's done.
Speaker 1:It's ready to go.
Speaker 2:Let's get it in the shelves. Yeah, exactly what do you mean? Two years? And in the supermarket thing as well. And I said it before with my, with my first book, the jigsaw man, the. The font is in orange now, but on the proofs it was in, the font was white. Yeah, so the jigsaw man was white, I think my name was white, and they sent the. Obviously they're talking to the supermarket and the supermarket said it didn't look finished. So because of that, yeah, because of that they changed the color of the font and it worked. They changed it from white to orange, which was better, more I catch yeah, it was more.
Speaker 2:It was marked, so they had a point. However, if that hadn't happened, I would still would still would have believed that the supermarkets would have had that much impact. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Everybody has a say in it and I think a lot of people who don't write don't understand. I was talking to my mother-in-law. She's in hospital at the moment and I go and we just chat a lot.
Speaker 2:She's always saying how's?
Speaker 1:how's your books going, how's this going, how's that going? And I sort of say, well, you know, I've just got my edits back and she's like oh, you don't let somebody else tell you how to write your book, do you? And it's not quite that it's. You know, somebody's trying to make it better and somebody's pointing out I've had three tuesdays in a row, and so you know and I don't think other people understand the impact that actually, what we've done is actually a small part of the, the whole package. Um, if it, you know, if it fails, it's all on us, um, but if it succeeds, then it's a, a group effort yeah.
Speaker 1:I think people don't understand. I think I didn't understand. I think I thought really that um editors would fact check for me as well. I thought, yeah, I kind of figured that. Um, I'm not sure if it works like that, but you know, surely they've got people, yeah, people, and no, that is on me, um, so, yeah, I I'm very grateful for the editors and people who find you know, who pick out those things where I've got the wrong. I mean, I had on my edits that have just come back. They pointed out you've said here she's got all boys and three pages later she talks about her daughter.
Speaker 2:Isn't it amazing how much you miss when you get get your edits?
Speaker 1:back at some point as I'm writing and I've re-edited it and I've changed it. That would be better if she had all boys and um, and I've not picked it up. So thank goodness for those other eyes looking at it and and like other people, looking at your, the cover of jigsaw man, and going, yeah, it needs to pop more, because I don't think we can see it, because we're a little bit too close, aren aren't we?
Speaker 2:No, you can't see it at all. And the thing is, when you're debuting and you've just got you know it's just your proof, but it's your book and that's the first time you've got your book in your hands for the first time as far as you're concerned, well, this is it. I've made it Like what more is there to do? Like I've someone pops along and says, nah, this will not do yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And you know, and I know we're told not to look at our reviews. A lot of people say don't look at reviews and you'll get loads of those amazing reviews and they'll be great, and then you'll get that one star, two star review and that hurts, doesn't it? Because it feels like a personal, a personal attack because you put so much in of yourself into, especially when you, when it's your debut I think I'm, you know, I'm far thicker skinned about all that kind of stuff, but when it was my debut it hurts. When somebody was like I don't really know, like, whereas with this one, the book that's just come out, I had one bad review that really stuck out. It was a two-star review and it said, could have been a good story in a better author's hands.
Speaker 1:I was like oh well, I had to say that because my mouth was just open yeah, and I just think I wonder why you said that.
Speaker 1:But thanks, and actually I kind of read that and and, and I sort of laughed about it kind of like spat out with tea a bit, all right, cheers, and, and then I move on and I, you know, and I don't, I don't think about it, whereas of like, spat out my tea a bit, all right, cheers, and, and then I move on and I, you know, and I don't, I don't think about it.
Speaker 1:Whereas with my first book I constantly look and I kind of want to reply to them and say, well, I'm sorry you think that and I knew, and I reply, no, I've never replied, but there have been times when I've wanted to. Um, and also with my first book, um, I got well, somebody tried to sue me for defamation of character, thinking one of my characters was based on them. So I've been very sensitive about well, since then, like I'm very sensitive about making sure, oh my god, yeah. So now I write with a reader in mind, where I didn't do that with my first book because you don't do you, but now I'm so scared somebody's going to see something and go. Is that me?
Speaker 2:but yeah, I know I've had, I've had ex-clients email me and ask me if they're in the book, because I'm like, no, because I didn't represent you for murder. You're not a serial killer as far as I know. So no, it's like you're not in the book.
Speaker 1:But I think they want to be in the book but for someone to, I say, assume that the character is them and to go as far as to try and take legal action yep, they um, they hired carter ruck and so they went big and they said that they um, yeah, the antagonist in my book was based on them and, um, I mean, it was my. The book was about domestic abuse and they felt they were the domestic abuser. And I'd already spoken to my editor about you know where I had taken from real life, and so she was very clear, we were all very clear, and she actually said nobody's going to say anything because nobody's going to put their hands up and go. That was me, because people don't don't say that.
Speaker 1:But there was one thing in this book that said this person was, um, investigated for gross misconduct in their job. And they said I don't want anybody thinking that I was investigated for gross misconduct in their job. And they said I don't want anybody thinking that I was investigated for gross misconduct. And I thought you don't care if somebody thinks that you are capable of domestic abuse. You know, and that was telling and basically it all fell apart because I mean I had to do a point by point because he was like I had a colleague called Chris and this person's got a colleague called chris and I had to do point by point. We've all had a colleague called chris.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one in one yes, I had to go through all of this and basically the upshot was nobody is linking this book to you unless you pursue this, and then they're going to link the book to you. So that's how it all fell apart, really. But, um, but my, my publishers were excellent. They were like because he wasn't basically wanted money, he was like he wanted damages for his reputation, and the publishers were like he is not getting a penny. Um, they were so angry on my behalf. They were brilliant because I felt sick. I felt like I'd let everything down my publisher down the whole lot.
Speaker 1:I felt really sick and they went this is a book about domestic abuse and somebody's trying to silence you. That's not happening. So, um, you know, I would have loved to have talked about it a bit more, but because if I do say too much and things are linked to this person, then he has a case, so I can't really even talk about it much, apart from very vague terms.
Speaker 1:Um, but you know, it really ruined me for my second book because I second guessed everything and I lost all my confidence writing um, and so, yeah, every I used to take things very, very personally because you know, and the last, this last book that I've just written One Bad Apple, it's about murder of a headmaster in a in a prestigious boys school. My kids went to a boys school um a few years back, though in state school now they went to this prestigious boys school I was. So I actually kind of contacted the teachers going please read this and make sure it doesn't sound like any of you because I was like you know I'm so scared somebody was gonna go I'm suing you because you know you're saying this and they all read it and went it's all right, we don't recognize anybody but that's such an unnecessary additional pressure on you as a writer that you do not need and especially like you know how hard it is to write that second book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that first book, wherever a reason it's, you always say you don't write it under the pressure of a contract, like you may have written it when I wrote mine. You know I may have written it when I wrote mine. You know I may have written it because I had to submit it in time for the deadline so I wouldn't fill the course. But you know no one was paying me money for it.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what was going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know what was going to happen to the book afterwards, so I didn't have that pressure of the second book. You under contract and you know you kind of you want it to be just as good as the first one and you want to make sure readers come. There's all these additional pressures that and what you don't need on top of that is wondering am I going to get anyone coming to me saying they're going to sue me because I think it's about them?
Speaker 1:that's horrible yeah, it was different. I mean, I'm really pleased that my publishers at the time were great, because we had to rework that second book quite a lot, because what I, what I dialed in, was really quite surface level, you know, because I was like scared to really go there and so I had to work quite a lot with my editor to really bring that that book out, because I felt quite stifled creativity yeah, with my creativity at that point, um, you know, and like say I'm, I'm over it, over it. But you know, it's always there in the back of your mind when you're writing something, because I think sometimes we don't realize that we've picked like something that somebody will do. Or you know, I, you know there might be something in a book and somebody will say, oh, hold on, did we do that? It wasn't that.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, maybe that's come to mind yeah, I mean always, yeah, I mean we do to a certain extent. I always say we're, we're like magpies, because they always say to you in the beginning like, write what you know. In a sense it may not be what happened to you personally, but why write what you're aware of? And and so you do. And I do think, as writers no matter regardless of whatever genre you're writing, in you you are a bit of a magpie and you'll pick little bits here and there of it might be a conversation you overhear when you're in the on the bus, or it might be, you know, something you might have spoken about with a relative or so. So you do all just a characteristic.
Speaker 1:Or you saw the way someone picked up a cup and you thought that's a very strange way to pick up a cup and it sticks in your head and you put it in a character and I think we all I mean I do that, we all do that and I think a lot of our writing, the most powerful writing, is when it has a grain of truth in it, so that you know you're really connecting with that feeling of a fear or whatever it happens to be, and that's probably come from something you've been scared of in the past. Or you know your fear of loss or any of those things you know a lot of it comes from a personal place, because that's the best writing you can do is when it's authentic, um, but without going. Obviously I'm basing it all on you, which I do try very hard not to do. You know I really um, you know I really do think about that now in a way that I didn't think about previously.
Speaker 2:I just find it so. I mean, it's what you're saying it's like the book's about. Automatically, I just want to say DV, because that's what we're saying cool, like for the case, it's like domestic violence, yeah, but you know the book's about domestic violence and but your issue is not the fact that you would be associated with domestic violence, but the idea that you would have done something wrong in your job. Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1:That's the disconnect that that is that both fascinates me and also just thinks what on earth yeah, and I can't believe Carter, you know, sent the letters in the first place why nobody's looking at that and going are you sure you want to go forward with this? Wow?
Speaker 2:it is no, it doesn't seem it is bonkers. It's like absolutely bonkers. I would just, literally I would just, I would just keep my mouth shut giving given you, if I had to be a bitch about it, I just would have gone on somewhere Amazon or Goodreads or somewhere Waterstones, give you a one-star review and just go away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a normal person. Right, Like a normal person.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't go in. And A normal person, yeah, I would just be bitchy and petty, I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go, it's a legal route.
Speaker 1:It's a street for revenge on the pettiest level Be petty.
Speaker 2:I didn't think I had a petty streak, but no, I would just be petty. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's a book sale, isn't it?
Speaker 2:You read my book, so this is what I always say. This is what I always say. This is what. This is what. After, like, the first book came out, you said you'd get the reviews, or people get in contact with you on DM, on whatever social media platform, and initially those I would respond to because I'm like, oh, someone's taking the time and if it was like a sensible question or a query or what they thought was a correction, I would respond. But after I think I did that for about three, four times, I thought I've had enough of this, I'm not doing that anymore. And then you know you was talking about like the review you read and you just ended up laughing at the end of it.
Speaker 2:And with my third book, the only reason I read it it was because I think the Kill List at the time it hadn't actually been published yet. Okay, or I don't think it had been. Maybe it had been published. And there was this one star review just floating around on Goodreads. I'm like, what on earth is this one star review about? And normally I just wouldn't bother and I thought curiosity got the better of me and all it said was boring and I just started laughing. I just thought, literally I was like. Is that it? You couldn't even put any work into it. He just wrote boring and I know my books are not boring, no, they are not boring?
Speaker 1:that's the last thing they are.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh yeah, I just laugh every time I think about it. I'm just like boring and I just chuckle because I just thought it was funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll say I think somebody it might have been Louise Beach. The author did um, a whole poem made up of her negative reviews and the the. The chorus at the end of each line, at each verse, was I'd give it zero stars if I could. And I thought it was a really good way of just laughing about those reviews, because does tell you a lot more about the person leaving the review and you know, and that two-star review that said would be a better story in another author's hands has now disappeared. I don't know whether they took the review down or or what. I find that quite strange. I was like somebody taking this poor person out on my publisher team. I don't know what's going on, but, um, yeah, my two-star review is now gone and I'm missing it a little bit review hit too.
Speaker 2:I love it. Listeners, it's time for a very short break. If you're enjoying this conversation with Nadine Matheson, I want to help keep the podcast going. Why not buy me a cup of coffee? Your support goes such a long way in keeping these conversations flowing. Just check out the link in the show notes of going back to when you did your um. You did your course. You did it with Curtis Brown, didn't?
Speaker 1:you yes you did?
Speaker 2:yeah, I did my research. Yeah, but how did you feel in that initial? You know, like I say that initial the first time you would step, I say stepped into a classroom when you've know I say that initial the first time you stepped. I say stepped into a classroom when you've been I suppose that's not what you trained for, if that makes sense and you've just been writing your notes in your notebook when you was on holiday and now you're in this, I say, forum with other writers. What was that? How did that happen?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's so exciting, isn't it? Because you feel like you're doing something, um, to take you forward in your craft and and you've, you've been accepted, you've applied, you've accepted. So you have a feeling of like, oh, I've got something here. So you go in very, very like optimistic and excited by it. But then that was the first time I was peer reviewed, you know, and you've got 14 other people on this course trying to improve your writing, and I mean, I was in tears more than once, going I can't actually do this.
Speaker 1:It turns out I'm rubbish and, um, there's a lot of people as well on there. They were like quoting, like Camus and stuff and like your books that I just. I even emailed the um, the guy who was running it, who's like doing all the admin for it, and I said I think there's a mistake letting me onto this course, because everybody here has done an MA or they've done this and they're, all you know, done degrees in literature. And he went oh, no, no, no, this is. It's always like this the first few weeks somebody waves their willy, shows how much they know.
Speaker 1:I'm just hanging um, and so I did and it was great and actually I I owe it everything really, because that first the foot, like especially the opening, like the working on the opening with my peers and them going just little things like I can't quite see this.
Speaker 1:Could you be clearer on that? Remember, we're not in your head. Could you describe? You know, okay, okay, and I go back and I rework and rework and then when the course finished, so finished in like the September and then York Festival of Writing, you know the um, the competitions they do, friday Night Live and Best Opening Chapter, the stuff I'd been working on on the course I put into Friday Night Live got shortlisted for that went and won it and that's how I met my agent and that was. That was the work of like 14 other voices as well, picking that opening apart. And you know, and I'm not sure I would have got to that point without other seeing how other people saw my work and going what worked for them and what didn't, and also being able to pick those other writers that were never my readership group.
Speaker 2:So you know when they're going well.
Speaker 1:I don't like this and this doesn't work for me. Being able to go, yeah, but I'm not trying to go for the, the middle-aged bloke with this one. You know who reads Camus? I'm not. You're not my audience, you know so who reads Camus? I'm not, you're not my audience, you know so I'm.
Speaker 1:You know, it was really. It was really really useful for me to see how other people reacted to my writing, because that's what you don't have when you're sitting in your room and writing. So I really think that made all the difference. But, yeah, there were one or two times when I called my husband and gone they hate it, everybody hates it. Um, but I had also worked out how many people are successful on this course. I'd worked out how many people got publishing deals, how many courses they'd run, and I worked out it's like 1.6 people per course run get a publishing deal. So I had in my head I needed to be in the top 1.6 percent. So I was absolutely. I put everything into that course because I was like I will be, I will be that top person in this class. Um, because I'm quite.
Speaker 1:You know, I do like my statistics and things like that and I know a lot look, we know a lot of this is look, um, but I'm still in touch with a lot of the people from that course and at the moment I'm still the only one traditionally published few of them gone on to self-publish, um, but I was always, I was always going to be that 1.6 percent and, yeah, I think on board all of that.
Speaker 2:What I saw is criticism at the time, but really did harden me up and make me a better writer for sure, because I always say it doesn't matter how experienced you may have been or the amount of years you've spent in your other job, in your other profession, and how proficient you were in that job. When you then move into something it could be anything, I don't know you could be doing pottery for the first time you move into something new and all of a sudden it's like it's like your first day of school. You don't know anyone. You feel like you don't know anything. Actually, I put it, I I equate it to the first day I went into court after I qualified.
Speaker 2:You know, you do all the academic stuff, you do all the theory stuff, all the practicals, and I walked into court and my first thought was I don't even know where to stand. And I've made a mistake, that was. And I didn't know where to stand because no one told me that. Like, where do you stand if you're the defense in court? Um, but I always remember thinking I've made a mistake, like I all them years, I, what was I thinking? But you have to go through those moments, yeah you're so out of your depth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's the same as when I did the same, similar to when you. When I started the creative writing masters and that first time of the first piece of work that I wrote and I think it was on, I think we had to do an assignment on character, I think, yeah, we had to introduce someone. It's just a thousand words and you know, I wrote this piece and then everyone else's piece gets submitted and I think we started off with 12 in a group and then we ended up with just 10 and you read everyone else's work and you're like, oh my good god, like what, what, like what, what? Is this Not in a bad way, but they're so good? And why am I here? What am I doing? Someone made a mistake and I'd won a competition, which was why I was on the course.
Speaker 2:And I was still thinking that way, like no, this is a mistake, but then the best thing, it did it again. It introduces you to to um, I was gonna say peer pressure, but no, being read by your peers, yeah, and being and being critiqued, and there's that. And having to sit in the criticism like you can't run away from it. You're sitting in a, you're sitting around the table and everyone's giving their opinion. You have to sit with that and you kind of have to get your ego out of the way and be like actually, yeah, you, you might be right. Actually, no, I think you know six weeks later, no, you are right, which is why I I dedicated my first the jigsaw man. I dedicated it to my, to my group, because everyone had a say in it, yeah, even down to.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, it's hard to say like even with like editors now, like I'll still like get editorial comments back and I'll have to sit with them for a while. Because my first reaction is kind of like well, first, like the fear of opening the email, is she going to hate it? She hates it, she hates it. I can't write, um. And then when you do open it and it's like, well, I'm not sure about this character, and you go oh yeah, I love that character and having to sit with it and go, okay, is she right, or whatever it is that they've picked up on.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll strengthen it then, because I want that character to stay. I will, I will make it the character it is in my head. Um, it's finding that, isn't it not having a knee-jerk reaction? Or or just saying, fine, yeah, I'll change it to your, your vision. There's a certain amount of strength that you need in that to be able to take on criticism, know which is the right stuff, but also when to stick to your guns. And I think that that is really difficult when you start in this industry, because you know, you do tend to think well, everybody knows better than me in all of these, like when you're doing your MA, when you're you know, when you're doing your course, and you look at other people's work and you go. Well, they know what they're doing. They've obviously been around this more than I have.
Speaker 1:They probably know better and I think you know I've I've done that a lot with, um, especially like foreign deals, like when people have sort of come up with, like I didn't like the title, um, that um the Americans came up with for my first book, because I'm just saying it's random, and then, like the exes, I'm like how do you go from sticks and stones to the exes revenge?
Speaker 2:and so I couldn't do the word association, no, I hated it.
Speaker 1:And I thought well, they know their market.
Speaker 2:They know their market.
Speaker 1:Go for it, go for it.
Speaker 1:If you think it's going to work, go for it. And it didn't do that well. To be honest, my book before this one, what His Wife Knew, hated that title. It changed a huge amount of times. So originally it was dead to me when I first wrote it. But then a big um series came out I think it was a netflix series called dead to me, yeah, yeah, and there was too many, so you know they didn't want that.
Speaker 1:So, um, my editor at the time came up with who killed? Who killed oscar lomas, who was the main character. Actually he wasn't main character, he was originally called rick and it. Who killed Rick Lomas? And I went that sounds like who framed Roger Rabbit. Yeah, and she spoke to marketing and they came back and said I think the name Rick's too American. Could you come up with a more Englishy name? So I changed into Oscar, which really then changed his character to me. A Rick and an Oscar were different. And then his brother had to change name because it needed to be something that his parents would. So his brother became a harvey. So much changed for that title.
Speaker 1:And then, when it came down to it, my canadian publishers went. We think that our um readers might think that it's a true crime story and they don't know who oscar lomas is. So we're going to call it what His Wife Knew. And then my British publishers went okay, so much had changed. And I said yes to the Canadian one because I thought again, you know your market.
Speaker 1:I didn't like the title because I didn't want my main character to be his wife in the what His Wife Knew. I didn't like it but I thought fine. But then my UK editors went we don't want the same thing. That's happened before in America, where we had two different titles. So now we'll go with what his wife knew. And I wish I'd. I wish I'd push back on that, but I was in that whole. You know better than I do. What do I know? You know, and then I've probably saddled with. But you know, I have titles that I don't think represent the book and titles are so important for somebody to pick that book up in the first place. Yeah, I just find it passive.
Speaker 2:A title really um it kind of goes back to you know I was saying before, like in your previous life, in your previous jobs, you are so sure of yourself and sure of your position and your role and if you have to argue a point or make a point or say no to something, you can do that quite definitively and not you're not thinking about the repercussions of it, you're just not. You're like I've heard you, this is what I think, end of. But with this you're like yeah, maybe you must be right, even though something inside your gut is like no, I had that with this job I've never had with any other role is I'm scared to rock the boat with this like in any other job.
Speaker 1:I was, you know, like you say, I was like confident in my footing. I knew what I was doing. I knew the job inside out. With this job I'm thinking, if I rock the boat because I don't know whether I'm going to get another contract, there's a million authors behind me wanting this. I don't want to be the awkward author although I see a lot of awkward authors still getting all their book deals and you know but I'm I'm trying to be the nice author who always meets the deadlines, who doesn't kick up too much of a fuss, and I don't think that gets you anywhere. To be honest. It doesn't get me the loyalty that I thought it would.
Speaker 2:Um it um, oh god, what was I gonna? It's gone out my head now. No, that's it, I think. What it is is that I think there's this feeling that when a publisher takes you on and they give you the deal whether it's a one book deal, two book deal, whether you get 10 grand, 100 grand, whatever I feel like there's a you need to, you need you feel grateful and there's this whole notion of gratitude and because you're so grateful that someone has taken a chance on you, now your book's going to be out there somewhere. Yeah, you don't want to rock the boat. You have to sit in that notion of gratitude and really, yeah, you can be grateful because, yeah, you got a deal, you got your book.
Speaker 1:But that shouldn't then just stifle how you react, like going forward how grateful did you feel when you were a solicitor, or you know, that's something do you make. I'm so glad.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you for giving me a job no half the time I'd wake up and I'd be like I'm knackered because I've been in a police station since four. I've just come home I've had three hours sleep, if that two hours sleep, and now I've got to go to court or I've been doing. I've been stuck on a trial for three months and really what I want to do now is have a week off and not, you know, just sit in the office for a week. But I can't do that because I've got another trial starting on Monday. So I never felt I'm so glad you're giving me. I mean, yeah, I like getting paid, but it's like I don't. You don't have that notion of gratitude, and then you'll just take anything no because you feel because it's almost like a partnership.
Speaker 1:They're paying you to do something and you do that job to the best of your ability and, yeah, they've got to uphold their end of the bargain as well, and if they're not a decent employer, you go elsewhere, because you have the choice and you start. You start looking elsewhere, whereas, yeah, with this look, yeah, no, imagine.
Speaker 1:Imagine if I started phoning up other editors going yeah, I'm not really sure about this. You know, what might you offer me? What perks might you offer me if I came to work for you instead? It doesn't work like that it just doesn't.
Speaker 2:It shouldn't be a light bulb moment for me, because it's like it's obvious what you're saying. Like I would not get off like when we finish our conversation, I'm not going to get off the come off my stream yard with you and then just run, go through all the editors I don't know I've bumped into in the past, suddenly email them, be like, yeah, I'm calling them Steve. Steve, let's do lunch, steve, you just want to do that. Well, first my agent would be like Nadine, what are you playing at? Like, what are you playing at? This is not how it works, but you just wouldn't no, you wouldn't dream of it, would you?
Speaker 1:no, it's a. It's no, it's a bizarre industry, and we've all signed up for it.
Speaker 2:I think it's 88 conversations I've had so far. Yeah, you'd be. You find it very difficult to find someone who hasn't said this industry is just strange. I like I don't understand it and it didn't. It doesn't matter whether they're a debut or whether they're 10 books in, whether they've been doing it for two years or been doing it for 15, 20. Everyone has said something similar along those lines of this industry like it, they, it is a really like a love hate relationship with it it is.
Speaker 1:We've still got that hope, haven't we as well, that we're coming back to what we're saying before. We still got the hope that this is all gonna work out and we're gonna get paid a decent wage for what we're doing and we're we are able to do something we love.
Speaker 1:And if I wasn't getting paid, I would still write, you know, yeah, that's what it is if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd still right, you know, taking that outfit, I would still right. It's what I want to do. It's what I do to make sense of stuff in my head. It's what I do to relax. It's um, you know, you need that creative side of things. So we know we're gonna. We're gonna do it anyway. So we are gonna put up with a certain amount, aren't we? And we're scared it's gonna be taken from us. Yeah, that's the reality of it isn't it?
Speaker 2:what has all this? What has all this taught you about yourself, though, joe? This whole process is ongoing journey I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think I lost myself for a few years um especially, you know, having the kids and stuff and like being only existing as an extension to, like you know, the boy's mom and and everything and um.
Speaker 1:And then when I was um sued after the first book, I lost my confidence a huge amount, and so it's taken me probably to the last a couple of years to feel like myself again and be a little bit more forceful in what I'm writing um. So now I feel like I'm through all that and I'm feeling now quite resilient and quite strong and not scared to speak my mind and um, yeah, I know it's not like. I know that, especially as women and everything, we we kind of go you have some kids, I love your book, or whatever. Oh yeah, well, it's not my best, or, you know, you kind of like yeah.
Speaker 1:I wanted to say a bit more like I'm really proud of this book. You should read it. I love it. You know I'm kind of I'm I've stopped being so apologetic. I think that's what I've learned about myself that being nice and like kowtowing to people, everything gets you nowhere. And so, yeah, I've learned a lot about myself, probably when it's been the most difficult, when you know when the money's not been coming in through the book, from you know, from the books, when life's you know I've ever been fired, the whole world's been fire. I'm just trolling what you can control, not getting so stressed about it. I'm getting a lot better at that now. I mean, I'm also in therapy, which probably helps.
Speaker 2:Therapy makes the world a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. I might send my next book to my therapist, to be honest.
Speaker 2:Can you see that change in yourself yourself, so being more feeling more confident and not countering to anyone? Can you see that being reflected in your, in the way you write?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah for sure, or in a really bizarre way. So when I wrote one bad apple, um, people were saying this is a change of direction for you and I didn't realize it was a change of direction and it is cozier than my other ones and. I honestly had not chosen to do that. I hadn't sat down and gone. But, like none, of the murders happen on the page.
Speaker 1:You know, it's all it's happened already you know it's a mystery that they're trying to solve and I think that what it is. I've always written about something that's affecting me or I'm trying to make sense of, so, like domestic violence or, um, my uh third book dealt with, uh, suicide, because I'd lost a really wonderful friend to suicide, um, and there was a you know a lot of issues that came about that. So I'm writing about that and you know, and that's, that's dark and emotional stuff and I was throwing murders, bodies in there as well, you know. And then with this one, I just kind of sat down and I just wanted it. It naturally became more humorous as I was writing it. It was just a bit ridiculous in this really opulent setting of the the school with, like the kid, you know, the parents with the lexus, but then you've also got the one with the rusty van, because I was the one with the rusty car, you know, and um, and all that, and it just it became a funnier book and a lighter book.
Speaker 1:And then when people started saying to me, oh, we're changing direction, why have you done that? And I I stopped and I thought, right now I don't, I'm not saying I won't ever do it again, but I'm sick of mining my own trauma for entertainment. You know, it feels like I just I was putting a bit too much of myself on the page and um, and I didn't realize it wasn't. I'm still. I'm still in there. You know my, my humor, my observations and everything is still in the book and it still deals with bullying and one of my kids was bullied and I wanted to go in and throttle people at the school and I wasn't allowed to. So I have to write a book about it instead.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm kind of done with kind of looking at the most painful parts of my life and go, oh well, let's talk about child loss, let's talk about violence, let's talk about familial relationships. They will pop up, but I don't think they're going to be the focus of my books anymore and I think a lot of that comes from being more comfortable in myself and not feeling that I'm a result of a lot of traumatic experiences, but completely didn't realize that that's what I was doing until, actually, I wrote the next book after One Bad Apple and my editor went whoa, that's a bit dark first one, and in the end she wanted something a lot cozier. So I parked that book, for I've had to write one that's a lot sort of cozier um, which I really loved writing again because it wasn't traumatic. So it's, um yeah, strange that my, I think, my writing.
Speaker 1:You could probably look at my mental state by plotting my books and seeing how that's changed. So I think I'm just in a better place generally. Yeah, yeah, I mean, we live in Cornwall now and I swear that's why there's more romance writers down here.
Speaker 1:They're all walking along the beach holding hands On the sand watching the sunset in the water between your toes, Exactly. It's easy to do romance down here, but yeah, so I think just generally far more positive, far more positive.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you, even though I feel like you've kind of had to be spoken around it One Bad Apple. I was always asked would you like to tell the listeners of the conversation about your book? One Bad Apple.
Speaker 1:One Bad Apple is about the murder of a headmaster a beloved headmaster, at a prestigious boys' school in the South West and it's a bit of a locked room mystery. There's his PA outside his door. The school is locked. There's a cricket match going on outside his window of you know all the parents, their grandparents visiting school, and then he's found dead in his office. Apparently nobody could get in or out. So how did it happen? And he's beloved and nobody wants to kill him, but actually um, but it's a lot about bullying, and about bullying as an adult, about how um and that's come about because when I was annoyed with the boy who was bullying my kids, I then thought hold on, he's got those views from somewhere.
Speaker 1:oh, the parents. And then I'm eyeballing the parents across the cricket pitch and sort of saying, all right, that's what you teach your son, is it? And then you're realizing, well, he's acting out, he's got a bad home life. And then you realize there's also pressures from the other parents and there's a lot in the book with WhatsApp groups where the parents are sort of solving the crime but they're also bullying each other. And I've been part of some of those WhatsApp groups and it doesn't change, does it? We think it changes from school, but actually it's still what you cleave.
Speaker 2:It doesn't.
Speaker 1:It really doesn't.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so it's about a murder of a headmaster, but it's also about the continuing bullying and cleaves and never quite fitting in it's weird because I, when I first started teaching um, because I'm teaching in the law, I was teaching in the law school and it's freelance, I'm up there like every day, but I remember the first class I taught and because in the law school. So they're, they're postgraduates. So let's say, the youngest is how old you when you graduate? 21. So yeah, the youngest would probably be 21, 22, and because law school you can have mature students to whatever.
Speaker 2:And I honestly thought in my head you're in law school now. You paid a lot of money to come here because it's not cheap. You're postgraduates as well, you're gonna. I just assumed wrongly. They're going to behave a certain way and I had this group and I'm watching the dynamics in the group and you can see the little clicks that are developing and some of it's to do with where you went, where you did your undergraduate degree.
Speaker 2:So it is the Oxbridge versus basically everyone else, and then those who have money and those who don't have money. And then I'm seeing that the bullying like take place on the table of these students and I'm like what honestly? I'm like what is wrong with you? You are in my head, I'm thinking you are grown-ups. You should be. You should not be paying to come to law school and behaving this way. I shouldn't have a student which I did have a student coming to me at the end of the class upset and I'm saying you know, I'm like yeah, I'm like yes, I've seen it and you know you deal with it and that, and I was annoyed at myself for being shocked yeah, yeah, but I mean workplace bullying is a big thing as well.
Speaker 1:You know, not just in studying like you get to workplace and there's cliques and there's bullying, and there's everything in the workplace there's. You know, not just in studying like you get to workplace, and there's cliques and there's bullying, and there's everything in the workplace there's. You know, there are parents that talk to each other and parents that don't. You know, when my boys join their new school and I'm standing there on the outskirts where all the mums who've known each other for ages are all chatting and like looking over at me, and you know, and it's, and it, oh my God, it's like being at school again and I'm like how many of you see me? This does not bother me anymore. It always will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm always thinking I'm too old for this, I'm tired. Like, aren't you tired?
Speaker 1:Why? Why put your energy into this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my knees hurt. I should have taken my cod liver on and I didn't. It's taken my cod liver on? I didn't. It's like who's trying for this? It's true. What are you? Before we go into your last four questions, what are you working on next?
Speaker 1:um, I don't know um I do. I'm doing an MA in writing for script and screen yeah, so um I it's a part-time course I'm, are you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a part-time course. I'm through the first year. It's a two-year course. I've just started the second year.
Speaker 1:So I do have to write another book and I am working on ideas for it, but at the moment we're just finalising the book that comes out next September. So I'm just doing proof pages and I should already really be into an idea for the, for the next, the next book after that, and, um, I don't have any fully fleshed ideas because I'm finding it quite difficult to focus on two different mediums and I'm so excited and into the whole script and screenwriting at the moment and, um, I'm quite like a nerd about that and I'm getting really obsessed by book to screen adaptations and why, um, like 25 percent of the top viewing uh, viewed um programs on Netflix at the moment have come from either books or um or comic books. They're all. They're all sort of IP basically, um, so I'm kind of fascinated by all that.
Speaker 1:So I'm this module I am looking at how I would adapt my book for screen. So I'm actually looking at how I would adapt One Bad Apple and it's, and that in itself gives me more of an insight into how the book works and how different it is for a visual medium, and what works better in a book and what works better on television, and um it's, you know, it's blowing my mind in such a good way, but it's also stopping me getting into my next book because I'm thinking too much about oh, I'd love this to get adapted for screen.
Speaker 1:So how would I make you work on screen without losing something that is so precious about a book. So, um, yeah, I'm all. I'm just so into that at the moment I almost can't think about right in my head. I've thought I'll start the new book in January. As long as I've got an idea by the end of this year that it's all worked out, I will.
Speaker 2:I will start writing the new book in January did you not find it because I did a tv screenwriting course with Curtis Brown? Yeah, and um god, and my pilot is still my.
Speaker 1:Sorry, my cuckoo clock's just gone off. Oh, that's not the sound, is it? I should have switched that off. I'm so sorry. We might keep it in, it's all right.
Speaker 2:I'll keep it in. No, but I did my TV screenwriting course with Curtis Brown and the pilot is still on my computer, not finished, but I found it and I need to get my head around this. I found it not hard, but I had to work really hard on switching my brain from screenwriting to well, from prose writing, novel writing to script writing. Yeah, like it was such a it was. Yeah, it was hard, actually it was. It's such an effort, really difficult do it, yeah, but it wasn't. I couldn't just switch it like this.
Speaker 1:I had to like, of course I'm thinking well, I know, yeah, you're going to teach me about character. I know about character, you can teach me, I know about what you know. So I came into it thinking I, I knew a lot. Now, like, teach me the magic on on 10. But actually like the whole thing about like the symbols within stuff and, um, you know, just having not she walked into the room and sat down, you know, and trying to do so much with dialogue without having all that in a monologue going, which I rely on quite a lot in my books, which I didn't realize until this, and trying to convey so much with so little, um, yeah, it's been a real eye-opener for me and I'm like now the worst person to watch a film with. So I'm like, oh, do you see what they did there? Oh, yeah, yeah, and look at the motif going through it.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I'm that first and I and I do find it difficult if I've been having like a few days working on a script when I then go back to writing the book, I find it difficult to to get my brain into that kind of like the descriptive mode and everything. Yeah, it's, I do think it will help my novel writing. Um, because I'm learning to put a lot more into a lot less. Um, you know, by using symbols and things and really making the dialogue count and I always thought that dialogue was one of my things I was strong, strongest at, um, how I realized actually there was a long way to go. You know, I'm not at succession level. Uh, you know, all these kind of things that I admire. Um, yeah, it will definitely help. Um, but it's, it's. The mediums are far more different than I expected them to be.
Speaker 1:I just thought it was another way of telling a story, and it is.
Speaker 2:It's not yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not just um. I would say it's not just dialogue, because that's what I think. That's what you think script writing is you just you're just putting the dialogue in. Forget about everything else, just put the dialogue in and it's not just throwing the dialogue in?
Speaker 1:no, it's not not at all. And you know I'm doing okay on the course, you know I'm getting, I'm getting the grades that I need. I'm, you know, still on course for for a distinction, and yet I'm so frustrated with myself that, um, they're going oh well, you know you could have done this and you could have done that to to elevate it even more. And I'm they're pointing out that I um, it was just like the things that I'm just not bearing in mind. Like, um, I submitted something to my tutor and he went. There's a reason why all the bad guys are women in it. Like you know, what message are you sending? I was like I wasn't really sending a message, I was just I think I was having a bad day and you put it on the page.
Speaker 1:I just put it on the page and he's like think about the messaging that you're putting through the mess. You know I'm having to like think on a far different level yeah, you wouldn't. I don't think I actively think about the messaging when I'm working on my book at the end, once I've written it, I'll then think about the themes and then make them stronger, or yeah something.
Speaker 1:I've got a vague idea when I start, but this is very much like page by page make every scene work doubly hard. It shouldn't just be doing one thing, it should be doing three things. And um, yeah, um, like I said, I'm loving it, but uh, this is pushing me out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 2:So much we need that. I think we need that sometimes to be pushed out of my comfort zone, so much we need that.
Speaker 1:I think we need that sometimes to be pushed out of our comfort zone and I think, when we've used writing as our creative outlet, I think it's important to have another creative outlet when that becomes your job. So this is my other thing that I can let off steam with now.
Speaker 2:I didn't even think of that. I need to find another creative outlet then. Yeah, I never think about it. Can you paint? Can you knit? You know what I used? I was thinking all the things I used to do when I was like in primary school. So I used to knit because we had like we had I don't know how it happened we had a knitting club in school and I used to do knitting, but then I I also used to me and my brother were also in a chess club. Oh nice, we used to go after school. So, yeah, I'm going to have to regress back to my childhood and see what I used to do. All right, jo, your questions. Are you an introvert or extrovert, or hybrid of the two? Hybrid of the two?
Speaker 1:Definitely I'd like to sound an introvert, but I'm actually fine with people.
Speaker 2:but then I will need three days just withdraw from the world. Yeah, that's it okay. What challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most? And people always think these are bad challenges or experiences.
Speaker 1:They can be good ones yeah, I think, uh, parenthood for sure, like the struggle to become a mum and then bringing up twin boys, um, and uh, yeah, it's helped me develop a lot of patience. Um, yeah, and it's um, I know, I know it's not always the like the popular thing to say, but, um, I love being a mum more than anything else. It's like so much meaning, so that's the thing that's really influenced me the most, I think.
Speaker 2:If you could go back to when you were 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Speaker 1:It would be to not sell that house. Do not sell the house and then just think you have lots of money to spend. Buy something else, jo. Oh my goodness, why did you get off the property ladder?
Speaker 2:you fool you know what that question is always, at some point it always brings up either I should not have sold the house, or I should have bought the house, or should have bought the flat. Because when you were 25 years old I'm assuming I'm when you're in your 40s yeah, when you're 20, everything was so cheap, so cheap, and you've got 100 mortgage. Yeah, and yeah, I, I didn't, I didn't buy it and I went to see it and I had the offer and I didn't buy it I had the house.
Speaker 1:I moved out. I rented it to students. They made a mess of it. I thought I can't be doing with this hassle, sold it.
Speaker 2:What an idiot you learn, we live and we learn and try not to live in the past. We try to keep moving forward. But finally, jo, where can listeners of the conversation find you online?
Speaker 1:um, I'm mostly on Instagram and uh, facebook at. Jo Jakeman writes um, I try and be on Twitter as little as possible now because it's an absolute dumpster fire.
Speaker 2:Oh, I deactivated my account today.
Speaker 1:Did you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you won't find me on there. After what I said, give you a month, I think. No, I think from now you won't find me on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I stopped and then I saw that I was like tagged in a few reviews because I had the book come out a couple of months ago. And then I felt like I have to go on and say, well, thank you for your review, blah, blah, blah. But then you still see other things and you go, yeah, I shouldn't, I shouldn't even come on here. So I think deactivating my account is probably a very good idea, but I just try not to go on, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:The thing is, whilst it was still there, you were still like, oh, let me just pop in. And every time I popped, even I wasn't using it. But every time I popped in I was like why on earth did I pop what? Why like what? There's literally nothing. It's not how it used to be. It's not going to be what it used to be. And then today, um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I just find it difficult to say goodbye to 5,000 followers, because I don't have that kind of followers anywhere else?
Speaker 2:No, I would. I've said goodbye to five and a five and a half, something like that. Yeah, and what I saw today when I deactivated it was a whole bunch of requests for people to follow and I was like, oh, you just have to find me somewhere else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be fine, it'll be fine of course it will.
Speaker 2:It will so, joe jakeman. That just leaves me to say thank you very much for being part of the conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's conversation with nadine mattison. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Be sure to tune in every tuesday for a brand new episode featuring more amazing guests. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a review. It really helps the podcast grow and if you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a cup of coffee or sign up on Patreon. The links are in the show notes and if you'd love to join the conversation as a guest, feel free to send an email to theconversation at nadiemaffersoncom. Thanks again for your support and I'll catch you next time.
