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
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The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Elaine Garvey: Escaping the Shadows
What would you sacrifice to pursue your truest creative calling? For Elaine Garvey, the answer spans decades of her life, multiple career shifts, and countless moments of self-doubt.
The Financial Times has already hailed her debut novel "The Wardrobe Department" as the "Best Debut of 2025," but this recognition comes after a twenty-year journey filled with rejections, financial insecurity, and unwavering determination. "If I came home and said to family, I want to be a writer," Garvey laughs, "you might as well say I want to be a horse."
This conversation between two passionate writers crackles with authenticity as they explore the hidden realities of creative pursuits. Garvey opens up about the profound financial barriers that keep many working-class voices out of publishing, revealing how she deliberately stepped down from a promotion to create mental space for her writing.
Whether you're a creative struggling to find your place, someone fascinated by the hidden dynamics of theatrical workplaces, or simply curious about how stories come to life, this conversation offers both practical wisdom and emotional sustenance. Discover why, despite all obstacles, Garvey believes that "if all the world fell away, we would still be doing this."
Mairéad works all hours in a run-down West End theatre's wardrobe department, her whole existence made up of threads and needles, running errands to mend shoes, fixing broken zips and handwashing underwear. She must also do her best to avoid groping hands backstage and the terrible bullying of the show's producer.
But, despite her skill and growing experience, half of Mairéad remains in her windy, hedge-filled home in Ireland, and the life she abandoned there. In noughties London, she has the potential to be somebody completely new - why, then, does she feel so stuck? Between the bustling side streets of Soho, and the wet grass of Leitrim and Donegal, Mairéad is caught, running from the girl she was but unable to reveal the woman she'd hoped to become.
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If I came home and said to family, you know I want to be a writer, you might as well say I want to be a horse. They just don't understand. I want to do this. That's insane. Why do you want to be a horse?
Speaker 2:Why do you want to be a horse? Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Conversation with your host, nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well and I hope that you had a good weekend. Usually, I would say I hope that you have a good week or you had a good week, but the best thing about this time of year in the UK is the number of bank holidays. So we just had Easter and we had our four day weekend a couple of weekends ago, and this past weekend we had our early what is it? Spring May bank holiday, and then we have another one at the end of the month and then we have our next bank holiday in August. So I hope you had a great bank holiday weekend and I hope you have a really good week.
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. I'm also quite happy. I'm in that lovely delusional bubble of starting something new. I call it a delusional bubble because you're not thinking about the edits that are yet to come. You're not thinking about things going wrong. I'm just starting a story and I'm just seeing where it goes and it's just a nice place to be. So I'm enjoying the time and there's no crazy deadline looming above me, so that's a nice place to be, and another nice place to be was my conversation with today's guest, elaine Garvey.
Speaker 2:With today's guest, elaine Garvey. Elaine Garvey is the author of the Wardrobe Department, which is her debut novel, and I think when you listen to this conversation, you'll just hear the joy in both our voices and the reason why I enjoyed. Well, one of the reasons why I enjoyed this conversation so much is because on the day I think it was a Wednesday and I just finished teaching a three-day course online and I always find teaching online it takes so much more out of me than when I'm physically teaching in person. And I was teaching advocacy and communication skills and I loved my group. You know I was called on the baby lawyers. I loved my group of baby lawyers the trainee solicitors but at the end of it on a Wednesday at four o'clock, I was exhausted and I just wanted to just curl up on the sofa and just hide away from the world. But I had to do my interview with Elaine. But Elaine is so joyful and it was so much fun talking to her and she had such a nice spirit and I said all these things to her at the end. So this isn't anything new to her. But yeah, it was a really good conversation and I hope you enjoy it. So let's get on with the show.
Speaker 2:In today's conversation, elaine Garvey and I talk about the journey from rejection to recognition in writing. Journey from rejection to recognition in writing discovering your true calling as a writer and defining success. Now, as always, sit back. We'll go for a walk and enjoy the conversation. Elaine Garvey, welcome to the Conversation. Thank you, nadine. It's a joy to be here. It's so good to have you. You're very excitable. It's a big deal for me. We're talking of big deals because I was doing when I said I was doing my research, and I went on Amazon because I was looking at your book and the first thing it has in bold is Financial Times best debut of 2025. Have you seen that? You must have seen this. How you feel? How did it make you feel?
Speaker 1:well, um, I think it's. I went through a long, long period of rejection and it's almost the flip side, but it's like the same coin. So whether it's it's still someone's personal opinion, no, it's a very nice thing to have. Um, I'm not gonna. But if you for me to sort of stay on the level and stay um, keeping focused on the work, I think I just have to let that wash over me and not take over, if you know what I mean. Um, yeah, it's, it's nice when you get a thumbs up and an encouragement, because you need that to keep going. Yeah, but at the same time, you can't let that that outside validation, um, be what matters the most, because the next time, when it doesn't come, where are you?
Speaker 2:I think that's the thing because, um, I'm on social media, so I'm on threads and I don't know. It just seems to be more prevalent on threads than it does on, like blue sky. I'm not on twitter anymore, but it just seems to be more prevalent on threads and the fixation on the reviews and what people think, and then, and understand, and understand it, because you can't help but not feel well upset by someone criticizing your work and my own response is always don't, the reviews aren't nothing to do with you, you know, yeah yeah, what's that?
Speaker 1:you know that? Um? What's her name? Iris alfalfa. She says other people's opinions are none of your business no, but that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:That's how I feel, and I always feel like I need to try and say it in a nice way, but I can't find a nice way of saying it. I just want to say don't get fixated on it, because it becomes all consuming and you're forgetting about the reason why you love to do what you do in the first place.
Speaker 1:I did read something where they said you know that review tells you more about that reviewer, really, than about the piece of work you give it to another person and you get a totally different opinion. But, um, but it's nice when they come in with with positive reviews.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna lie of course, as soon as I saw, I was like, oh my god, that must be so good, because I know you work, so I say so hard and your process has been so long to get here. So how long, how long has it been? Because I have a number and I was like that can't be.
Speaker 1:I know, yeah, I was talking to um another writer and she said it takes your whole life to get your first book. You know, right, everything you've done up to that point. It's kind of circular. You know, you keep coming back to this idea. Um, the I wrote the first draft of the first scene, uh, in I was doing a fiction workshop, so that was 2018, 2019. Um, and that's when I was doing a fiction workshop, so that was 2018, 2019.
Speaker 2:And that's when I was able to begin this story, but I think I've been living with it for 20 years or more. 20 years, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I saw 2002 and I was like that can't be right. I know, I know, I know I found a notebook from that time and, um, the same words were reappearing in this story. It just shows you, like, um, I read a poem when I was a teenager maybe 17 or so and I really liked it. It was, uh, called Sweeney Astray. It's a translation, and I just carried it with me everywhere I moved and all the different places that I lived, and I didn't know why, um, it wasn't until, you know, 2018 and I reread it and I thought, oh, this relates to my character, because this is her mindset at the very start of the book, and maybe that's why I carried it with me, uh, for all that time, because you just, you just don't know, um, where the story is going to come from.
Speaker 1:I read this lovely, lovely poem. There's an Irish poet called Elaine Micheal and she writes she wrote this poem called cat in the bed, and so she's staying in her friend's house and in the middle of the night their friend's cat she wakes up and the cat is, um, combing her hair and trying to get its nose into her ear, like with a really urgent message, and she's very tired and she falls back asleep and then the cat starts crying. So she gets up, she goes out in the dark, in the cold, and she's barefoot. And she's standing there trying to understand what this cat is telling her. And she says isn't that like poetry? You're up at three in the morning trying to figure out what this animal is urgently trying to tell you and you can't do it. Yeah, so it does. Sometimes the process feels like that.
Speaker 2:How do you keep going though? Because I think a lot of you know rejection is so much a part of this writing journey, I was like I don't. It doesn't matter how successful you are, at some point you will have experienced rejection, but how do you keep on going over such a long we're not talking like a couple of years, it's like it sounds so bad decades you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:No, you're right, I think. In the beginning and I don't know if this is me or being female, or however I was you know the society I grew up in when I got a rejection, I took it personally. I thought oh, there you go, you can't do this. You see, you knew all along you couldn't do it.
Speaker 1:And what I've learned now, at this stage, is it's not you can't do it, it's just information. It means it needs more work, or you sent it to the wrong person, or it's just another hurdle, like I said, the flip side of the same coin, success or rejection, it's someone's personal opinion, um, and I think what, what kept me going is I just have this determined thing, uh, that won't let me alone, like the cat in the night that keeps coming back and saying you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. And I think if you, I learned eventually to trust that and um, uh, the, the, if your desire to create something overcomes your fear of doing that thing, you're on, you're in a good, you're in a good place when did you know that it's what?
Speaker 2:it's what you wanted to do?
Speaker 1:I don't remember wanting to be anything else since.
Speaker 2:I was conscious.
Speaker 1:Almost this is what I wanted to do. I know, yeah, and yet it took me so long.
Speaker 2:I think that's the thing, because you know, if you're saying that, well, you have no memory of wanting to do any other thing. You just want to be this creative person, you just want to write, and then there's such. It's like there's such a long gap between the creation of the desire and then it actually happening. I don't know. I've been to so many people who would just be like, well, no, this is just taking too long.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and you have to go through, you know, learn so much about yourself, to overcome it and then to deal with, um, the things that come. Yeah, maybe it's just the way our world is now. It's not set up for you. If, if I came home and said to family, you know, I want to be a writer, you might as well say I want to be a horse. They just don't understand I want to do this. Like that's insane. I think, yeah, why do you want to be poor?
Speaker 2:but I think that's, but I think that is that it's so familiar like statement, to like everyone, to majority of writers. If they were like their younger selves were to say to their family, to their parents, yeah, I want to be a writer, they'd be like well, but why and what exactly? I think if you don't want to be a journalist, they understand that. That makes sense. But being a writer is like and and what, and then what. And then how are you going to live? What are you going to write?
Speaker 1:there's too many questions it's the uncertainty we, we, we struggle so much with uncertainty, and that's the whole thing about being living sort of a creative life. It's like the ultimate uncertainty. Um, it's. It's where creativity is at its best is when you're not attached to a fixed idea. You don't want this end result and you block out everything else. You have to be uncertain to be open to all the possibilities, all the places that could go. I think that's possibly what I was doing. I was trying to write a story that I wanted to write and it wasn't the right story, if you get me. I was trying to force it into a place that didn't want to go, where I needed to let the uncertainty in, let the possibilities in and then see where it went from there so how would you describe your writing journey um?
Speaker 1:changing this. It's not. Yeah, I didn't plan this. I thought I was writing a short story and I I think I did yeah, yeah, and so it rambled around. So reworking it was tough because I think the next time around I would like to plan better, I know, yeah, so maybe for the next, for the next time it'll be a different process, but this was quite um, trying to tap into the logic of the story and to create this reality where things worked, because you'd, I would get to like a crossroads in the piece and I think, oh, I have to go back and fix that earlier thing that I put in because it doesn't work now, and so there was a lot of that um in the rambling way that I wrote this one but you know, when she said you started writing short stories first because it's my, this was actually like my first question that I wrote down to myself.
Speaker 2:Does it feel strange to be described as a debut when you've been writing for so long and you've had short stories published?
Speaker 1:oh, I hadn't thought about that. Um, no, no, it doesn't bother me at all. Um, I was surprised myself that I managed to write. I mean, this story is not that long. I don't want to give the wrong impression it's maybe about 55,000 words, like it's not that long is it really? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So which you know in terms of, I know most people would be at least oh god, I'm notorious, like my editor will tell you, I overwrite and I'm trying every book. I'm like no, I will get it below, literally I will get it below a hundred and it's it's never below a hundred thousand. I would love to be like that. Oh see, I want to be the other. No, I want to be the writer who just delivers like 92 000 words. It's like.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to carve it out of stone, it's just. You know, it's like a tug of war I got lots of stone you've got softer, softer stones. Yeah, we need a bit of both, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, and maybe, maybe, as I you know, gain more confidence. Um, that will become.
Speaker 2:That will change too, I hope don't you feel confident with your writing?
Speaker 1:No, oh God, no, no, not at all.
Speaker 2:Even when you're getting the reviews and you say, before this book being published, you're getting your short stories published. Doesn't it feel like, ok, I'm taking another step and it adds a little bit more to your armour, or does it make?
Speaker 1:you just feel more exposed. It doesn't make me feel very exposed, yeah, maybe because I'm not used to this like. This is all very new for me that they're talking about um because for a long time, uh, so it was a few people that had read a few scenes and then for a long time it was just me and my agent who had read the full manuscript and maybe a couple of people in her agency. And I remember going to a dinner um with people from the publishing company and there were other people around the table talking about the characters in my book and my mind was just blown. I couldn't. They're talking about my story. It was very strange. This might sound quite naive, but I hadn't completely realized or factored in the fact, you know, that this would go and have a life of its own, that other people would read it and talk about it, even when I'm not in the room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's weird. But you know what I don't think. You know I don't think it's weird and I don't think it's unusual thing to say because you know for so long. It's just you and your book. Whether it's a year, two years, ten, it's just you and your book. Whether it's a year, two years, ten, it's just you and those pages and those characters. And you obviously have that desire that someone will, an agent will see something in it and sign you and then you get the deal and then it will be out in the world. But the actual idea and the realisation of it actually being a physical, tangible thing that other people are going to pick up and read and not only read, they have their own interpretations of scenes and characters and they breathe a different sort of life into it I don't think any of us think about that at all until someone comes to you and says, elaine, I read your book and this is what it meant to me.
Speaker 1:I agree, I agree completely and I think you know the story is alive when it means different things to different people. I think that is just really incredible. Um yeah, if I thought too much about other people reading it, it probably would have stopped me from from writing it, so it's better to put that to the back of your mind while you're making it. Yeah, I think?
Speaker 2:definitely, because it's always. You know, as a writer, the first thing, especially when, when you join like a writing group or you go and do a course, the first thing in your head is not oh my god, can I write? It's? Oh my god, other people are going to read this and what and what will they think. And then it's not only what will they think of the work, is what will they think. And then it's not only what will they think of the work, it's what will they think of me, because your work is an extension of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost like I mean I don't go into other people's workplaces and sit in on their performance reviews. It feels a little bit like hell. That's exactly what it is. You know, I never thought of it like that. Yeah, my brother told me he was driving back from Dublin with his wife and, I think, maybe one or two of his daughters, and they put the audiobook on in the car at the weekend. I just I couldn't think about it because it was just too strange.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like someone walking in on you in the bathroom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I live in a very small place, like everybody knows everybody. So when the book went into the shops last Thursday, someone stopped me in the queue in the chemist and they called out hey, I saw your book. Someone stopped me in the middle of the swimming pool, like it tapped me on the shoulder.
Speaker 2:Hey, and that just goes on and on and on. So, yeah, no, I wasn't expecting that. I suppose that's the thing when you're living in a small community, that you know it's not like me living in the middle of the city. You know I could publish, I'm sure half you know I think I live in a muse and there are 12 houses in the muse and I think, only my labour peers, definitely in June. I think there's only two out of the 10. I don't know, not including me, yeah, so I reckon two out of nine Nine of them know that I write.
Speaker 2:Wow, oh, my God Wow yeah which is a bit odd, yeah, but you're not gonna have that in a small community because they, they know you that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they know you, they know everyone connected to you, and which is lovely, which is mostly a very positive thing. But it's strange when you're picking up your prescription and someone calling out over the counter. Yeah, I can see why, why someone has so. Mairead is the character in the book and she um, she's working in a theatre in London, but she's an Irish immigrant. I can totally understand why somebody for somebody like that to become anonymous in London. It must be, uh, it must be a really positive part of moving to a big city yeah, well, it's so easily done, because I was talking about this the other day to someone.
Speaker 2:So where I lived, it's like you know, I have, it's like, anyway, you have houses, then you have blocks of flats and about we're talking about how a couple of years ago they found the woman in a block of flats across the park. So between my house and the flats is a massive park, so on the other side of the park, in the house, they found this woman and she'd been dead for about a year. Oh god, I know, oh, my god, I know. And the thing is is that it's like how can you your name? I mean, I would know one of my neighbors had kicked the bucket, like if I had, could you always see, because our little I said our little muse is so small, so you are aware of what's going on. But I thought you know if your name would be dead for a whole year and you're just walking past every day, past that house, past that flat, yeah, and that's the, I suppose, the scary thing about being in a big city, that people can be so alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a city alone and anonymous yeah, and disconnected like cut off and whoever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah hmm, I know that wasn't very um happy, do you? I'm always interested in people like um where they come from in terms of like their families and things. Did you come from a creative family?
Speaker 1:you said you've just known that you've always wanted to write from day one um, yeah, I think everybody is creative up, you know, I think that's just a human, uh quality, do not know? Uh, my mum is a dressmaker, so I did my mum's a seamstress as well. No way, yeah. So did you grow up with the sound of sewing machines and threads?
Speaker 2:oh, my god grew up with the sound of the singer. It wasn't just like the little one you put on the tabletop, it was the proper industrial oh sorry machine. So it's that sorry to the people listening they're like what on earth was that sound? But Elaine knows what I mean. I don't exactly what you mean constant machine sound. Yeah, yeah, we grew up. Yeah, we grew up the sound of that. Yeah, that was like the music, the theme tune of our childhood the singer machine going and do you sew?
Speaker 2:Did you ever learn to sew? I learned to sew, but I don't sew, not like, not like my mum. Could? I mean I can repair something, you know. So I wouldn't want to get a hole in your shirt. But I'm not, I'm not. I couldn't just make something from scratch, or, yeah, pattern and stuff. I couldn't do any get a hole in your shirt. But I'm not, I'm not. I couldn't just make something from scratch or pattern and stuff. I couldn't do any of that. I can cut out the pattern, you know, if you pin it, and I can mark the bit with the chalk. I like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a brilliant skill. I think it's probably because it's associated with women so much. It's not valued, but it's a. It's a really brilliant life skill and I wish I could sew better, because I think that would be a really cool thing to be able to do.
Speaker 1:I tried to teach myself to sew for this book. It's hard. I mean I would make something, something, realize I got it backwards, I'd rip it out. I'd do it again and realize I'd found another way to get it wrong. I'd rip it out. I'd do by the fourth time I'd have, you know, the zip or the seam or whatever in a wonky line.
Speaker 1:But you know it's hard, it's really hard so my mom was a seamstress and my dad, uh, worked in construction and then they broke up when I was a kid so he moved away and my mom raised uh, me and my brother and sister in a small place near the sea on the northwest coast in Ireland. Um, and she did. She is a poet now. She joined a writer's school, probably maybe in her 40s or so, um, and they formed a really good network, like. They're really supportive of her and they meet up regularly all the time, um, and supportive of me too. They're great people, um, but she wasn't writing when I was a child. She, I mean, she didn't have time, um, but maybe it was in the back of her mind, I don't know yeah, so she was there doing the sewing and were you writing stories as a kid?
Speaker 2:because I was always doing little projects.
Speaker 1:I had like epic poems. I had a little notebook, a school jotter, and I filled it with a poem about a spider. And then my sister my sister is really creative um, um, she we used to put on plays, like with our neighbors and our cousins, so she would recruit everybody, she would lead the whole thing, like she'd be the casting agent, director, makeup artist. She would also be the leading man and the leading woman, um, and she'd orchestrated all. And we had a great time up on the garden wall putting on shows but thinking we were in the sound of music. Um, yeah, yeah, and I did get fired by her not doing what she told me to do, not doing what she told me to do, yeah, so I mean we had a lot of fun. We had. We had, um, very imaginative games, um, because it was the 80s, so you went outside all day and you entertained yourselves, yeah, with very few um gadgets.
Speaker 2:I do think it's funny when people like you'll see all these memes, all these little um, they're not poems, but yeah, maybe like these little memes on social media, and it's like if you're gen x, you're a child of the 80s, then you're just told to go outside and play. And actually no, I was talking about it to my brother as well, like my mum's in the summer be like go outside and play and I would come back in and I would come back in. I'm bored, go back outside, but I'm bored and there's no one outside to play with. I don't know everyone else's God. They're like go outside and play. So you're literally encouraged, you're just off, you go Ow and you're probably only about eight and nine years old.
Speaker 1:And if you lived in a rural place, you had to play with whoever was nearby. You might not like them, they might not like you, but there was nobody else.
Speaker 2:I think that's the case even if you're not in a rural place no-transcript, like with oh yeah built. A tree house wasn't a tree house, we just had the floor floor. It didn't have the walls, but it's so good because you get to.
Speaker 1:You get to exercise your imagination wildly, like you can be whatever superhero you want. You can have whatever superpowers you want and you change the story as as as the day goes on.
Speaker 2:It's great so how did your family respond? Like the first time they read your work, because it would have been like your short stories they they wouldn't have read it, uh, apart from my mom, actually.
Speaker 1:Um, my mom was brilliant. She just said don't worry about what anybody thinks, just you write what you need to write, um, and you're doing great. And she read the a draft of this book before it went to print, because I was a little bit nervous, um, and she had no problem with it. Um, so this is the first time that anyone apart from my mum and my family has read my work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah but I know I keep coming back to the years thing because I think, you know, for a lot of people they spend, right, it doesn't need to be writing. It could be they just want to be an artist, or they are, they want to make music and they spend so many years doing other things and then till they finally take, take that leap and do the thing that they really want. But you know, but when you say this, it's all you've ever wanted to do something, that's what I'm saying. It's like it's such a long time, yeah, to be working on your craft. It wasn't like you were doing you know anything. It's not like you've been a pilot somewhere else, you were being a writer and then for it to be this book and this publication, for them to first read your work well, I suppose that's not even unusual, actually, when I think about it yeah, and I don't think about it too much, I suppose, um, I I worked, I had quite a few jobs, but I did work in theatre for a long time, for about 15 years.
Speaker 1:Um, so what would you call it? Arts adjacent. So I was in the arts supporting other people's work, and then it just comes to a point where you think, oh, I should be doing this for me.
Speaker 2:You know, time is marching on yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Like it can either do two things for you to be so adjacent to the dream that you want for. Like it can either do two things for you to be so adjacent to the dream that you want for yourself. It can either just make you think, well, I'm never going to be able to do this, it's never going to happen, and these people are doing it better or it can fuel you. I can't speak.
Speaker 1:It could fuel you yeah, yes, I agree, um, and you also get to see how, what. So when I, when I did finally tell people I was writing a novel, I told a couple of people who one who works in costume and one who works in props and I was nervous because I said, look, it's set in a theater. I'm writing a novel. They didn't know I wrote it all and they said, of course you are. They weren't surprised, they just like accepted it and um encouraged me and didn't make me feel inadequate and I thought what was I so worried about? They were great. Yeah, a lot of it's in your head, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think definitely. It's why so a lot of people will be. You know, they'll still sit at home, they'll still, they'll stay in the job and not do the thing they want to do, because you can convince yourself to do many things other than the things you should really be doing.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that's that's completely right. Yeah, and I suppose that's a whole big conversation. No, were you, yeah, there was no creative as in you could. Teaching is a full-time job, right, but you know you could teach and then in your spare time you could do your little writing hobby thing, but you can't. Yeah, I know, um, I know a lot of teachers and it's a full-time job. It's not something you can double job with no, I mean, I only do it.
Speaker 2:I only do it as a freelancer, I'll say, training the baby lawyer. So I was working teaching three days this week and the idea and there've been times when I've covered classes or I've taken on a full class for a full term and to do that five days a week and then to be marking exam papers and then doing assessments, doing all of that and then trying to fit in writing your own stuff in the spare time. It's hard because you are drained. You're like you're emotionally, physically, mentally drained, and then to find that creative spark through tiredness is hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I mean you say that and I didn't, like I was. I had a full-time job right up until the pandemic more or less, and so you, you've got these really tight spaces. I used to try and write before work. I tried to write after work. I went to a four-day week to try it, and it's just so hard on the body and then in a way, you get angry with yourself that again you're not doing the thing that you really want to do and it becomes this punishing cycle when it should be something joyful. You should fight from a place of joy, not from. Oh my God, I have to do this before I die.
Speaker 2:I can't do it before I die. No, you should never be writing from that space. You shouldn't be doing anything from that space no yeah but it's hard to find the joy when you know you need to pay your bills and make sure you got food in the fridge yeah, and it's scary.
Speaker 1:So when I, when I signed up for that writing course in 2018 and I took took stock of how I what I wanted to do and how I was actually spending my time and examining that, and then I went to part-time work for maybe a couple of years before the pandemic, so I was doing part-time work and then I was writing as much as I could the rest of the time, so it was still, you know, a full week, but the drop in income was terrifying. Like the first year, I was crying in doorways, you know, because you're just worried about money all the time. What stops people from their getting their first piece of work done? It's lack of financial stability, so I mean poverty and then lack of time. You can have as many ideas as you think will make a good story, but having an idea is not actually what will help you to write the story.
Speaker 2:You need, um, just that base level of financial security and the time to spend on developing it yeah, I think I'm sure I was reading something yesterday and they were talking about how writing had very much been. It'd been a, there'd been a class separation. Yeah, in terms of the writers, which is why you know majority of say what working class people and working class people right, writers of a working class background, they will tell you, you know, being a writer, they never saw being a writer as an option. Because who can afford to be a writer? Absolutely, because you need, because you need, you need to work, whereas if you have, I suppose, family money, then you don't need to think about okay, how am I gonna pay my bills, how am I gonna get? Yeah, you're not thinking about that, because that pressure's taken away from you that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it very much seen as a luxury and also a waste of time because you know you're not putting food on the table, whereas we know it's not. That's not true. Now, what did happen? One of the greatest things to come out of covid was, um, the department of the arts in ireland set up a basic income scheme. So it's a pilot three-year scheme where artists were given a like a basic income sort of minimum wage level, uh, which I I have a place on that scheme. So that made a huge difference yeah, it's just changed our lives.
Speaker 1:So you get like the base level, uh, once a month you get a payment, um, and it's linked to you know, you do your reports and you do your taxes and all the rest of it, um, but it just means you don't have to worry about going under, um, now it finishes this summer. I don't know what will happen next, but yeah, it's been life-changing for so many people.
Speaker 2:There's about 2,000 people on the scheme at the moment they just take so much pressure off you, oh my god because, you can, you can just focus.
Speaker 2:Because they say in the UK I don't know if they yeah, it said yeah, but I don't know what's wrong with me today but they say in the UK it was like England, yeah, it'd be England, ireland, northern Ireland, wales and Scotland that the average income for I was going to say solicitor, because that's what I've been doing all day, I've been teaching. Let me get my brain on track. So the average income for a writer in the UK is, I think, 7,000 pounds.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean what?
Speaker 2:a year. If it was a month we'd all be laughing, but that's a year that my brain can't work right now to work. I know it's, it's nothing. You can't survive on that no, you can't.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. And I mean, that's a good year for no, I don't know many writers who can survive on writing.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, it's not possible really which is why you know you wouldn't. I mean, people are asked oh, are you a full-time writer?
Speaker 1:and the majority of people will say no, I'm not like, you can't afford to be full-time yeah, imagine a world where it, if it were, like an apprenticeship and anyone who wanted to could apply, and then you got. You know, you got a like I don't mean a mad wage, but just a livable wage we need a livable wage, because I've just calculated it.
Speaker 2:So it's seven grand a year. It's 583 pounds a month. That's not covering anything. And I'm trying to think back when I was at uni, I think, the student, I'm trying to think what the student grant was, remember that was a grant because they were giving you money. So I think when back well, that was like back in 1998, though, from 95 to 98, so I think it was like just under four grand a year, but that was back in 1998 and you could top that up with a grant, with a loan. So, realistically, you could probably be taking time, that's studying, maybe like eight grand for a year, but you can. You know that was. That was, oh god, it was 30 years. Oh shit, sorry, it was 30 years ago it doesn't seem that long when I was at uni, but it was oh my god, it was 30 years ago yeah, you know that's 30 years ago.
Speaker 2:You got now seven grand. You can't.
Speaker 1:You can't even rent a room for 500 quid yeah, yeah, oh my god, yeah, I mean that was he was going to put that down on their um, uh, job application for him or career, you know advice I just feel like I'm really bringing down the tone of this.
Speaker 2: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. Elaine, what does success mean to you? Do you ever think about what success would mean?
Speaker 1:oh, success would be writing full-time in security. Not just stability, but security, yeah that would be, that would be incredible. Um, that would be a nice place to be, uh, but failing that, um to continue to, to, um, to go into these imaginary worlds and and make a living breathing peace, um, yeah, that's, that's so, um, fulfilling, yeah how do you stay motivated?
Speaker 2:because I think again, it's you know, you want to write. You've gone through this journey, you've got your first book out. How do you keep? Yeah, how do you keep going? What keeps you motivated?
Speaker 1:um, the things, the unexpected things, like the connections that have come about because of the wardrobe department, because of publishing this book. I could never have envisaged it. There is an audio book version of the story and it's read, narrated, performed by an actress called Denise Goff. She's top of my list. I thought it was a pipe dream to put her down as someone who I'd like to do the audiobook of. And it happened and I was. I remember waking up the morning after I was in London and I was staying in like student accommodation and going. Denise Goff is reading my book. I mean, that's going to keep me going for the next 20 years you know what, it's nice to be excited about it.
Speaker 2:I think there's so many. There's so many stories you just hear again, like the seven grand story, the rejection, which I said was just an inevitable part of being a writer, the imposter syndrome. And then when you are published, you know the dream you have in your head of what it means to be published doesn't match the reality. Yeah, so it's nice.
Speaker 1:It's nice to see that you're excited yeah, I think when, um, if you can, well, if I can, um, separate myself from the product and just focus on the process, that's really good for my head. So the product has kind of taken care of. People do get excited about the physical book being out in the world, and that is wonderful. Wouldn't it be dreadful if it dropped like a stone? And that hasn't happened. I mean, you've read my book, nadine, this is amazing and it hasn't happened.
Speaker 1:If you keep, keep track of that um, and I there's there is that phrase trust the process. So you just show up every day, you do a little bit every day. You I'm not talking like nine hours, um, just whatever you can do that day. If you show up, you trust the process and then, long term, you're thinking in decades of, uh, you're, you're, you're going to be still doing this. I meet up with an online group because they're in different countries, different places, and one of them is an artist called Jules Bradbury and she said in one of the meetings if all the world fell away, we would still be doing this. I thought, oh, that's lovely, no matter what, we can still do this.
Speaker 2:I think you need that because when you look at the state of the world, especially what's you know, I can't help but not bring up like what's going on in America. When you look at the state of the world and how people want to, I say carve up the world as if you know it's got nothing else to do with anyone else. Like you need to hold on to something. And yeah, you've had creativity, you've had your work because you just go, you just simply just go mad yeah, and, and to keep that.
Speaker 1:And you know that long-term thinking, these things come in cycles. That person will come and go. I mean, nobody's getting out of here alive that that time will change, you know. So, um, and the world keeps being beautiful. There's still so much, um, yeah, wonderful stuff happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is because, even with this podcast, you know, when I like before this, I said I was teaching the baby lawyers today and it's nice, it's nice to see them grow. So it's nice to see them on day one, when no one wants to open their mouth or look at you, and then on day three, and they're cross-examining someone. I'm like look at my little baby duckling. They're doing so well. So you have those moments and you have those moments where you just simply take a walk and you just see, I don't know, you see a mad squirrel running up and down performing gymnastics. So, and I see a mad squirrel running up and down performing gymnastics, it's like you can find moments in the crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or just even a nice bit of sky that you can see that you didn't, or the stars come out, or whatever. You know, the everyday is wonderful. Yeah, we get a lot of barsters working in theatre, by the way. Oh yeah, because they all fit their actors. Well, they do I love this word. They they go deviling during the day, so that's they're like they're not getting paid for that and they're doing that full-time, like Monday to Friday, maybe nine to five, and then they take an evening job so they start doing front of house and box office and bar work and quite a few of them come into theatres actually, which is really cool, because when you get your new contracts and all the rest, you can kind of go hey, come here, can you take a look at this place?
Speaker 2:I need a lawyer. But you know what? But today, even in the course I taught today. So I had 14 trainee solicitors and at least four of them three I think two had wanted to be wanting to do acting and they'd applied to drama school. And all of that one had done it and then decided it wasn't for them, they need to do something more secure. So they decided to become a lawyer. And I always say, every time I teach the course, I always say to them I will find the actors in this course, and I always do. I don't know, I just think there's a somewhere within that whole which is odd. You know, being a lawyer it's not about you in this point, because I always say it to the, say it to the, to the, to the trainees. It's not about you, it's about the client, but somewhere within them there's this desire to perform and I don't know why that is, but that is what law is. I suppose. When you're an advocate, you are performing, you are performing yeah, you're taking on a role.
Speaker 1:Is it anything to do with watching legal dramas on screen?
Speaker 2:it could be a little bit of that. You get all the drama because I always say to them as well you know, we all watch too much tv, the jurors watch too much tv, you lot watch too much tv. And when you think of law and you think of court cases, you're not thinking about all the prep work that went into it. You're thinking about do you, you know someone's? Even though we don't say objection in this country, you're still thinking about someone screaming objection and doing your big jury speech. Yeah, that's. And just examining someone and make them cry. That's that's what you're thinking about so it's that, it's that high drama.
Speaker 1:I think it probably attracts people and is it more suited to an extrovert personality like do you have to kind of? You know you want that confrontation, you're able to? No, I don't know actually because there's some.
Speaker 2:You know, there's some lawyers who are very just. You wouldn't know. It sounds a bit bad. You just wouldn't notice them in a room. They don't have that sort of presence, but they will go into a courtroom and do what they need to do, but outside of it I don't know. It's an interesting question. I might have to like canvas a bunch of lawyers that I know. If any of them would think, I think we would assume that they would think that we would think that they're extroverts. We would just assume that.
Speaker 1:And that's probably true of actors too. A lot of people assume they're extroverts, and often they're not. They're not. I imagine it's really good training, though they're not. I imagine it's really good training though. Um, I know a solicitor who became a writer, and I think it must be brilliant training for um for writing?
Speaker 2:yeah, because it makes you. You're forced to be disciplined because you have it's all about deadlines, and so you know court judges saying to you I need something by x amount of time. Everything runs to a timetable. And also, which is why I don't know why I overwrite, because I haven't been trained to overwrite, I've been trained to put all the information in a very concise way, to be concise, to be succinct, because you can't have these documents, these applications, just you know, going on forever and being all waffly. I always say to the baby lawyers you need to take the noise out and just focus on, but yet here I am 120,000 words.
Speaker 1:Your alter ego of the writer is much more fluid.
Speaker 2:Maybe, maybe, exactly. That's exactly what it is, elaine. What was it like? Because I think the cover for your book is amazing. And you know they always say, you know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and yeah, you definitely, you definitely should, but your cover is. I love your coverage, your cover. It looks like it's just art. That's the way I see it. So what was your when you first saw your book cover? You know when your publishers are like this is the concept, and then you felt you held it in your hand. What was those two moments like for you?
Speaker 1:oh, that was so, yeah, um, I was nervous about it beforehand because I had people who you know, friends, who had difficult experiences with their. This was a dream come true. They sent me an image like in an email, and it was just, there was one option, and I thought, okay, but it's perfect, actually perfect. So the the story is about, um, uh, so this Irish woman who works in a costume department in a theatre in London, um, and part of her job is dressing people backstage, and there is a dresser in Dublin who looks very like it's a. On the cover it's a young woman's face with a really cool haircut and it's a painting by an American artist called Ruth Shively. And we had a lovely email exchange and she said it's from, it's from photographs, uh, from people in either St Petersburg or Moscow.
Speaker 1:She does, she does a series of wonderful portraits of women, um, and then the design was by, so the publisher is Canongate and the designer of that is Rafaela Ramaya. I might be pronouncing that incorrectly, um, but she just, I mean it's, it's, it's, uh, it's the most beautiful um object as a book. You know, I should have it here beside me, but it's somewhere. Um, yeah, and the way they've presented it. Uh, oh yeah. I think it's stunning and anybody who I mean, I know, people who you know, they have dyslexia and various things and they work much more visually, so they're not going to read the book, but they really like the cover.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, this. This sounds this is going to sound like a maybe a very silly question, but you know, when you have your book in your hands, did it reaffirm to you that this is what you're meant to be doing with your life, that you really are a writer, or you? Didn't, you didn't need to have the book in your hand to know wow, um, that's a lovely way of putting it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to think about it like that from now on yeah, yeah, why not? Um, yeah, I read, I read my horoscope last week. I don't usually do that, but because it was an unusual week and it was a full moon and the book was out and it said the horoscope said are you ready to take your space? And I thought, oh, that's yeah. So here it is taking its space. Um, yeah, and it's in a shop window now in my local hometown, uh, and I've walked past it a couple of times and thought my book is in the window.
Speaker 2:It's so cool it's such a cool. You know what that is amazing. No, I haven't never. I've never seen my. It's weird. I've seen it on shelves. Obviously I've seen it on shelves. I've never seen it in a shop window any of my books but I've seen. Um, I call her my niece. My niece sent me a picture. She must have been about 11 at the time. She's like auntie, look and she walked past the books when she saw it in the in the window. She sent me the picture, but I've never seen it myself. Wow, I think that might.
Speaker 2:I think that might be cooler than seeing it on a shelf, seeing it in the window, because that's someone saying you need to look at this. Forget coming in. You need to look at this book in the window.
Speaker 1:Look, yeah, wow yeah, yeah, because you know there's there's a lot of great books out, especially at the moment. There's a lot um, so it does mean something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right, absolutely so, elaine. Would you like to tell the listeners of the conversation about your debut, which has been called the best debut of 2025, the wardrobe listen. I would have it tattooed somewhere, so would you like to tell the listeners of the conversation about the wardrobe department?
Speaker 1:absolutely I'd love to. Yeah, so we're, we're going back to it's the year 2002 and it's around March time. So we, um, we meet. Meet this young woman backstage.
Speaker 1:Her name is Mairead, she's 27. She's working in, so she's working freelance in a costume department in a theatre, and she's Irish, so she's a fish out of water. She doesn't really know the codes and it's a tough workplace. It's precarious work and there's kind of bullying and harassment going on and she's not really sure how to negotiate it and she has survived up to now by not saying very much. But in this, in this workplace, in this time, it's, it's, it's uh. Her colleagues keep asking her to talk and they find it bad manners when she doesn't talk, because she knows if she says the wrong thing to the wrong person, she'll get fired, okay, so there's all this kind of power dynamics going on and adjustments, and then, as we spend time with her, she has to go back to Ireland for a funeral.
Speaker 1:And it's only when she returns to Ireland that she realized why she left to live in London. It's not while she's in London. While she's in London she's questioning herself all the time why am I here, why am I doing this? But when she goes home, she realizes what she's done it and she starts to see the same patterns at home and when you're in an intense situation it's very hard to see the bigger picture. You know that this problem is structural, it's not personal, and I think that moment of her being able to step back and because she's home for a funeral, it's kind of this really intense time, ritual time, and people are a little bit more reckless in what they say because someone close to them has just died, and that's a, that's a pivotal moment for her. When she goes back home. So you're in her emotional and material world, it's a first person narrative. Um, I'm asked, am I Maraid?
Speaker 2:You know what I was gonna ask you? I was gonna say are you? I was gonna say have you been asked?
Speaker 1:Elaine, yes, yes, I have. Yeah, I never worked in costume in theatre. I was always kind of customer service, so I relied on the generosity of people who have done that job and who were able to give me a steer here and there. I have definitely got things wrong. Okay, if someone who does that, yeah, but, and that's part of it, you just have to accept that and keep going yeah, do you see, even though the character's not.
Speaker 2:You know she's not you, but do you see? Well, not even her. Do you see yourself in any of in any other parts of the book?
Speaker 1:well, I think I'm in all of them. Um, um, yeah, I think I'm in every character and I hope you know that they feel like they're a real person and that they're living, breathing, thinking about their next meal, um and and again, they mean different things to different people.
Speaker 1:You know, someone will will maybe try to um related to actual people in real life. I think what I did with this when I was writing it I was looking for a question and I didn't find the question until the end. And the question is really if, if this is, if this character lives in London in 2002, what reality does she need around her in order to exist? So it's not just this one person with a monologue. She needs a whole network of people to bring this story to life. So who are the characters that are going to bring out the aspects of her that you want highlighted? So in in that, I think everyone. Well, ok, that is a generalisation.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people who work in the arts will know about the precarity of the work. Sometimes it's contract to contract, it's a gig economy, like the original gig economy, and you can lose your job very easily and in that situation, people are vulnerable and there is quite a lot of bullying, and there's definitely a lot of bullying and there's definitely sexual harassment as well and um, it continues. It's not you. People generally just move on they. When people do stand up to it, often the abuse gets worse. Um, because there's that power imbalance. Often the abuse gets worse because there's that power imbalance. Yeah, and I don't know how to fix it, but I know that it's very prevalent. There was a survey done by one of the unions, back to the interviewed, I think, 1,400 people in the film, tv sort of screen world, and 92 percent 92 percent of them said yeah, I've experienced bullying or harassment, or I've witnessed bullying or harassment.
Speaker 2:That's phenomenal, that's structural yeah, it's institutional, it's so ingrained, yeah, it's like the only comparison I can think of is um comes from my osteopath with my scoliosis. Only because he would say when he was um, he was treating my back and he was saying, like, the pain I was having in the muscle, it wasn't just surface, it goes, it's so deep and it's like an old, old, old, old old injury. So when you're talking about that so that's why I'm using it as a comparison when you're talking about bullying, it's so ingrained, it goes down so deep and it takes so much work. It's not just, you know, just having a couple of new policies, definitely and it's not one individual, you know.
Speaker 1:Remove one and the next one just pops up. Yeah, I think I that's amazing about your back, by the way, and um, I hope it's. I hope you're you, you're being well looked after oh yeah, I, I might do.
Speaker 2:I was sitting here with a deep heat patch on my back all day, but you know you, just what can you do? Yeah, you roll with it. Before I go on to your last set of questions, elaine, what has your publishing journey, your writing journey? What has it taught you about yourself? What have you learned about yourself?
Speaker 1:um that I find it hard to talk about myself uh that unless you're a narcissist?
Speaker 2:no one is, despite you know, being very talkative myself I don't like talking about myself you're like good god, it seems a little bit self-involved you know, yeah, yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1:It's so much easier to talk about someone else's work or to sell someone else's work or to summarize someone else's book, and when you have to do it for yourself, somehow I just get this sort of dental blank about it. Um, but it's important. You can't just talk about it, you know, to the select few people who will. You, you don't have to explain yourself to. You need to be able to talk about it to everybody, um, and make it relatable and um, I think that's really important because if people understand the process and what goes into it, maybe it will mean more to them. You know, maybe they won't download the stuff for free, maybe they'll, maybe they'll have, maybe they'll be more interested in how the work is made. In the same way that if, if you knew that there was an institution that was treating its staff badly, that might affect your relationship with that institution. But if you didn't know and you just use their products or services, um, uh, then maybe not so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think what did publishing teach me? I need to trust myself, I need to go with my gut. Uh, that's really good for me when I do that. Um, and there are a lot of people out there, who, who, who love books and who support books, and it's a very nice community. I've been very fortunate. I know a lot of people have had very difficult, difficult experiences in publishing. So far, so good for me I do. I completely trust the people that I'm working with and any advice they have given me has been right, and I'm learning to listen to them even more.
Speaker 2:I think that's why I always say I think it's so important to find your, find your community, find your tribe very early on as a writer. And you don't need to be, you know, be 12 times published and have a couple of million in the bank. You know it could be. This is your first project, your first short story or your first novel that you're right that you're working on, but you need to have, you need to find your tribe and have that support network yes, definitely, and to serve the story.
Speaker 1:So when I was writing this, I wasn't really in control. It was leading me, more so than I was leading it, and once I kind of surrendered to that and things opened up. So there was three things I needed to while I was, you know, out in the wilderness trying to write this story. The three things that made it click, that made it open where I gave the character a name, I gave her a job and I put her in the right location and then suddenly the words started coming and the dialogue started coming and I thought, oh, my god, I have story, so just keep drafting until you get to that it's always.
Speaker 2:It's such a nice feeling, though, when you, when your character and you're like me, so I see a scene have the character, and when they come together and you've got them in the right place as well, and when those those three things, like when it all comes in alignment, you're like oh yeah, this is what I'm doing yeah, the breakthrough, yes, like when you're doing something I don't know in sport, or when you're you're having a conversation.
Speaker 1:I didn't know. I thought that I didn't know I could do that.
Speaker 2:It's that moment of hallelujah literally like the heavens have opened, because you can have the character just sitting in your head or just sitting on the page for so long. But they need to be put in the right set of circumstances in order for it to work. And sometimes you're just forcing it and you're like this this is nothing and you know it's not working. You, you just, you just know.
Speaker 1:But then sometimes it comes together like magic just like yeah, I think that's what I mean when I say a story has its own logic and you have to unlock that yeah yeah, and you have to.
Speaker 2:You do have to trust the process and not focus on what's going on around you, because if you start, I feel, if you just if you're looking at who got the latest book deal, who suddenly hit number one, if you're focusing on all of that, you you lose track on what you need to be doing. Yeah, so, elaine even I think I already know this are you an introvert, extrovert or hybrid of the?
Speaker 1:two, I am so introverted it's ridiculous. I don't think I spoke for the first four years of my life. My mother probably thought I was you know. Yeah, I used to hide behind her legs and not speak. But but in saying that, I don't know if you find this, but I find extroverts easier to write. They come much more quickly. Introverts are much, much tougher. Even though I am an introvert, oh, you know.
Speaker 2:You know it's really interesting. I've never thought about my characters being extroverts or introverts before. I think I'm always so focused on them being. They need to be fully formed, like that's always my number one. They need to be fully formed. I don't want them to be flat. It doesn't matter if they come on the page for just for three sentences. They're doing a little cameo. They need to be fully formed. But I've never thought about whether or not they're extroverts or introverts. I'm gonna think about that from now on. I always ask the question, but I don't think about it in terms of my own book the character of the dad in this book, the word of department.
Speaker 1:His name is phelan and he's he's definitely an extrovert and he would wake me up in the middle of the night and tell me I should be writing stories for him. He'd be a great main character. I'm trying to go, would you just?
Speaker 2:I want to sleep yeah, oh, I definitely know olivier, who is one of the serial, the serial killer I say the main serial killer in my, in my first book, in the jigsaw man. He is definitely an extrovert because he was never I always say he was never meant to be a major character in that first book. He was just supposed to be. I always said he was just a device to keep the story going. Henley was just supposed to meet him, get information from him, and then she went her way and he just went back into his prison cell. He was never meant to be a major part of the story.
Speaker 2:But you know, you say someone comes onto the page fully formed and he has charisma, even though I can't describe the charisma, but like I could feel the charisma, and so him just having this little moment in a consultation room, it was just like he's not doing that, he's not doing that. So he's definitely an extrovert. Like you need to see him, but I never. I just find that really interesting. I think I'm to take that on board now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's out there now. He's got you.
Speaker 2:Well, he didn't just get me, he got my editor, he got my agent, he got all the readers. Everyone will always ask, I guarantee you, if I go through my emails now, my DMs, now someone's asking me is Olivier coming back Because he has that much of a presence? But I didn't realize, realize, I made him that way. But he is, and he is very much an expert. Well, I don't think Henley is. I think, if Henley, no, no, I think Henley's an introvert. Actually, I don't think she's an extra, she's the detective. I don't think she's an extrovert at all. Yeah, I think she's definitely an introvert. Well, you've given me something new to think about. Definitely an introvert, wow. Well, you've given me something new to think about. Thank you, okay. So, elaine, what and I always need to say this now, it could be a good or bad experience doesn't need to be the worst thing that ever happened to you could be a good one. So what challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most?
Speaker 1:I mean it's going to sound kind of bland, but, um, becoming a writer and being able to say I'm a writer and going making that transition from full-time work in other jobs to focusing on the writing, I, um, I had to go through a lot of um, I'm not going to say tough times, but I got promoted in a job and that was the worst thing that can happen to me as a writer because suddenly my headspace and my time went in all into my job and I had no time to write and so that all went down the tubes and I left that job and took another job which was much lower salary and lower status, and I was happier because it gave me more headspace to write.
Speaker 1:So that's a very strange journey, you know, when you're young and you think, oh, it's going to go upwards in a straight line, I'm going to start at this weight and it's going to keep going up and I'm going to just progress, progress, progress. And it doesn't work like that and you go on a big wheel and you go right back down to the bottom and that's been very good. That humbling, um, uh, lowering down the ladder, snakes and ladders, kind of style.
Speaker 2:That was good for me it wasn't didn't feel very good at the time, but actually it helped a lot you know it's interesting what you talk about when you're talking about work and work taking you away from your writing, and that's that is honestly how I think.
Speaker 2:So, even though you've seen, I need to work because you know, when I get a seven figure deal, then, yeah, things will be different. So I do, I do still need to work. But when I get the email saying Nadine, are you available to work to teach a course on such and such day, and the first thing in my head is not, yes, I'm. It's like, oh my god, it's going to take me away from my writing. Yeah, because I think I've said, well, not, I think I know fully, I fully accept and will call myself a writer first before I call my, then call myself a solicitor. So now, yeah, I work, like I'm not going to say no because I haven't won the lottery yet, so I will work. But I'm always I am thinking, oh my god, it's taking me away from my writing.
Speaker 2:I need to be writing yeah yeah same so, um, oh, I've lost your next question, and I normally do this off the top of my head. 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:I think 25 year old me would have a lot to say to me right now. Um, well, again, trust yourself. The. What I mean, the very practical thing I would say is uh, look after your health. Don't sit at a desk for long periods because you will destroy your back. Go to the doctor when you're sick. It's important, it's your health, is just the, you know, the foundation for everything else. Um, I don't think I would change very much. Um, again, I would say to her rejection doesn't mean you can't do it, it's just information. Um, yeah, keep going, trust yourself, you can do it.
Speaker 2:I like that. Rejection is just information. Yeah, I think that's great. Um, I haven't have an extra question now that I've added on to my last final set of questions what is your non-writing tip for writers?
Speaker 1:oh um non-writing tip provided I then, what feeds you, what, what helps you?
Speaker 1:yeah, anything, it could be drink water um, when, if you're struggling with something, uh, sometimes I I think a keyboard and a pen and paper they're they're two different instruments, and I would often go back to a pencil and paper, um, when I'm struggling, or go outside and move your arms and legs or whatever you can move. Um, that's that's a really uh, that's that's how I um work out the problems. I just go out and move somehow until until your head settles down you know what I'm glad.
Speaker 2:No, that's a good one, that's that's a good one. But you know what? I was just thinking like I'm so glad it's not me, because I feel like I've been working, I've been working on this outline for this standalone for it feels like forever now and I was writing it on the screen and I would start writing it on the screen like so I'm on my computer and it's just, I'm writing it on the screen and I would start writing it on the screen. So I'm on my computer and it's just, I'm just, it's not making sense.
Speaker 2:The minute I went back to literally the pen and paper, this whole thing just flows. Wow, the screen was just like a block. I'm like I have a name. I know what. I know what it's called Always give things a title, have a name. I have a. I know know what it's called Always give things a title, have a name. I know the premise. But basically just doing this outline and it was taking me forever, I kept saying it was kicking my arse because it just felt like it was beating me up. But the minute I was like you know what, take yourself away from it, sit with the pen and paper, and it just. This story stopped and characters came and little situations came and little lines of dialogue starting coming.
Speaker 1:Well, came to me that's so cool, do you think it's? It's the connection between your hand and your heart and your head, and I don't know, is it the tactile?
Speaker 2:I think it's the tactile thing with me. I can't, because even if, like, we're going back when they were making a transition at work, so in court, from everything being paper-based and everything being digital and yeah, and I was like, nope, nope, I'm still printing stuff out, I am still, if you saw, like my witness statements, I'll print out my witness statements. They're literally highlighted to death. There's red scribble all over the play. One point. The whole witness statement was just green because I've just highlighted everything. But I feel like when I when I'm doing something like that tactile, I feel like it goes in my head more and yeah it process.
Speaker 2:There's an actual process, but when it's just directly on the screen, I don't feel like I absorb anything yes, there is something about and especially handwriting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's easier to take it in if it's handwritten. If I haven't handwritten something for a while, I kind of kind of you know I need to. Just, even if it's just a scribble or a scroll, I just need to put my hand on onto that.
Speaker 2:I've even got, like I'm showing you like my little blue little notebook and I just throw it in my bag now because I'm like, oh, if you get an idea, pull it in your phone. I'm like I don't want to pull it in my phone, I don't want to dig around in my phone. Let me just pull out this little notebook. So it's got even little, just random post-it note flow out of it. So it's just got little random things in it. But it just makes it feel a bit more. Oh, but it just makes it feel a bit more. Oh, I've written it down. So it feels a bit more real?
Speaker 1:I suppose yes, and for the same reason, I like reading physical books. Yeah, I love that. The book that I wrote. It's very analogue. There's no social media? Oh yeah, because 2002, isn't it 2002. And that was, I think. Now, thinking about it, that was deliberate. Yeah, I didn't want to have it. I wanted it more analogue.
Speaker 2:It makes it. I mean, in one respect. I know we're going on a bit, but it makes things harder. But then it makes things a lot easier when you haven't got. What I'm trying to say is that your characters have more to do. Yeah, because when you this day and age, it's easy just to have them. You know they're just on their phone, they're just sending a text, whereas back in 2000, you have to physically go and do, even though we had phones. I had a phone in 2002. I had a phone since 1995. No, yeah, in 1995, I got my first mobile phone, so it's not like they're completely alien. Yeah, yeah, I begged for one for Christmas.
Speaker 1:My mum and dad got me one, but it still mostly functioned as a phone. Yeah, it was just a phone. You couldn't do anything with it.
Speaker 2:You could make a call. I mean obviously.
Speaker 1:You could let them in and you could text oh my God, that was huge.
Speaker 2:It was so huge. I said I've got the phone and it was half, yeah, yeah, for your safety, because I was going to work in the evening so if I needed to call them. The other half was that I could talk to my boyfriend on the phone because he had a mobile phone and he had my mobile phone and you didn't have to use your parents phone. So, you know, you just run up your own phone bill. That was a shock. But but the moment we got text messages and I swear I was at uni, so maybe, and I yeah, so maybe around like 96, 97, and it was my. I was taking my younger brother and his friend, I was dropping them off at a club and I was going off to another club with my, with my best friend and I remember my brother's friend telling me you, you can send messages to people now and he was like what are you talking about? So that was a big thing with sms text messages. Yeah, it was about 96, 95, 96. It was a big, massive thing. Yeah, it was a revolution. Look at us, it was a revolution.
Speaker 2:But then, like going back to giving your characters things to do, because even with my last book and we have flashbacks to 1995-96 and there's a scene when I've got my character. He's sitting on a wall and he's watching what's going on. But I was saying to myself in night, if this was present day, you wouldn't just have someone just sitting on a wall. They'll be sitting on the wall, but they'll have, they'll be on their phone so they could be calling someone, texting someone, watching a movie. They could be doing so much. And I was saying to myself okay, what is he going to be doing in 1995? Sitting on a wall? He needs something to do. So I had to give him a newspaper, cause I thought that's what that's. You know you'd buy local paper or the free note freebie newspaper. Yeah, all these little things like you'd have to. It makes it harder, but it does make. It makes them work. You have to work with your yeah. There's no easy way out, like if you need to make a phone call.
Speaker 1:I had to have my character run home to make a phone call, not just pick up her phone exactly, and so the character in mind, right, she has to use a pay phone and she leaves her mobile phone in London when she goes back to Ireland.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, I mean it's you couldn't imagine doing that now, could you like? Oh, I left my phone at home. It's like how? No, I can't. You can't call no one, you can't even know if you don't carry a purse with you. Your phone, your bank cards are on there and you don't remember anyone's number now, yeah, yeah, it's also different, yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember. The only numbers I know is my own and my best friends and my cousin Edwin he would love a name check. Now. There were three numbers. Oh, my auntie Margaret. So there were only three numbers I know and that's because we all got our mobile phones around the same time back in 95 and their numbers haven't changed, so I had to memorize their numbers. But anyone else's number I don't know. And I know my old house number from when I was in school. I know the old phone number for that. Wow, that's really cool it is. I thought, okay, elaine, before I let you go, what are you working on next?
Speaker 1:oh, hopefully. Um, another novel, fingers crossed. Um, yeah, I am reframing it. It's a privilege. It's wonderful to be able to say that, that I'm going to write a new story, and so I'm looking at it from a positive.
Speaker 2:It's all great well, elaine Garvey, that just leaves me to say thank you so much for being part of the conversation thank you.
Speaker 1:It's again my pleasure to to be here and to talk to you, thank you thank you so much for listening to today's conversation with Nadine Matheson.
Speaker 2: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 nadiemathersoncom. Thanks again for your support and I'll catch you next time.
