The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Welcome to The Conversation with Nadine Matheson, where best-selling author of the '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.
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The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Clare Mackintosh: Entering the Wrong Room and Finding Your Story
What happens when you accidentally walk into the wrong room? For Clare Mackintosh, it launched an unexpected police career that would eventually lead to her Sunday Times Bestselling debut, 'I Let You Go'.
In this fascinating conversation, Clare shares the surprising twists that led her from management studies to policing to becoming an author with over three million books sold worldwide. We also talk about the challenges of writing a series and her new novel, Other People's Houses'.
For writers at any stage, Clare's journey demonstrates the value of embracing unexpected paths, maintaining creative bravery, and approaching your writing career with both analytical rigor and artistic integrity.
Even on the most desirable street, there's a dark side . . .
The Hill is the kind of place everyone wants to live: luxurious, exclusive and safe. But now someone is breaking and entering these Cheshire homes one by one, and DS Leo Brady suspects the burglar is looking for something, or someone, in particular.
Over the border in Wales, DC Ffion Morgan recovers the body of an estate agent from the lake. There's no love lost between Ffion and estate agents, but who hated this one enough to want her dead - and why?
As their cases collide, Ffion and Leo discover people will pay a high price to keep their secrets behind closed doors . . .
Is an opinion platform hosted by Marvin “Truth” Davis. My life and career...
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really hard for emerging writers, isn't it? Because, they do. It is sensible to see what's selling, but equally, what's selling now isn't necessarily going to be selling in, you know, a year's time or two years time.
Speaker 2: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're enjoying your week and I love saying I hope that you're enjoying the summer, because I cannot think of a better time of year. I actually think that summer is my favourite time of the year and I hope that you're all enjoying it. And as I look at my calendar, I realise that there are only three weeks of the conversation left. So we've got this week, week after and in the week after that, and even though I feel a bit sad that it's just the end well, not quite the end, but we're coming up to the end of season three. I'm really excited about season four because I already have amazing guests lined up for season four. So this will never be goodbye, because there will always be more. And this week, if you happen to be at Harrogate or the Fexton Oath Peculiar Crime Writing Festival taking place from the 17th to the 20th, I sound hesitant, but I know those are the days, but if you are going to be at Harrogate, I will be there also. So if you see me, say hi, and I'm looking forward to it also. So if you see me, say hi and I'm looking forward to it. Right, let's get on with the show, because today I'm in conversation with Sunday Times bestselling author Claire McIntosh, whose new novel Other People's Houses is out now, and in our conversation, claire McIntosh and I talk about authors being the CEOs of their careers, the challenges of writing a series and the moment Claire McIntosh knew she was writing a good book. Now, as always, sit back. We'll go for a walk and enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 2:Claire McIntosh, welcome to the Conversation. Thanks for having me. Right, I have, I'm kind of going to read your bio from the back of your latest book and then I have a follow-up question. So, do your very good? Yes, like I've been nominated for an Oscar, all right, all right, okay. So Claire McIntosh is a police officer turned crime writer and the multi-award winning author of seven Sunday Times bestselling novels translated into 40 languages. Sunday Times best-selling novels translated into 40 languages. Her books have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide and have spent a combined total of 68 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller chart. So my follow-up questions, like I, was like wow, that's impressive. But my follow-up question was when you think back to your debut, because I let you go, unless you're going to tell me that I'm wrong. It came out 10 years ago, yeah, yeah, 20 in 2015.
Speaker 1:So I was thinking what were you hoping for when you wrote I can tell you that I have such a specific answer to this because and the reason I remember this really vividly, because I remember my agent looking at me sort of with kind of in stunned silence because one of the first questions I asked was what does success look like?
Speaker 1:and yes, because I came from. I came from the police where, yeah, things were very data driven, um, and certainly, at sort of the level I was working, it was important to know the stats, like what are we aiming for, what? What's, what are our crime reduction targets? Well, and so it made sense to me that in this new job of mine in publishing, one would know what one was aiming for. I obviously I know now that no one ever tells you what they're aiming for, and so that I mean to me the logical thing is that a publisher would say, right, this is the book we're publishing, this is you know the, the number of copies we're expecting to sell, this is the return we're expecting, this is what we're expecting you to earn from it. And I know they have those conversations internally but they don't tell authors it, right. So I so I said to my agent okay, what does success look like? And once she laughed a little bit, she said it's really hard to tell with a debut. We're really, you know, this is the start of a career. She said, honestly, it's actually better not to have a massive selling debut because you've got no other books, you've got no backlist, so readers have got nowhere else to go. Much better to build a slow and steady career, maybe break out on book five or eight. You know that that is a great thing to happen.
Speaker 1:So we were really setting expectations low. The deal had been small. Setting expectations low, the deal had been small. I, in fact, I don't, I don't mind sharing it so I was. I signed a two book deal for 15,000 pounds, so I let you go effectively. Yeah, so I let you go. Seven and a half thousand pounds, which I couldn't live on but was still a really amazing thing for me. You know this was someone who was prepared to pay me to for my book. So it was. You know it's a huge confidence giver, isn't it? Yeah, and so my agent said look, if a debut sells around 5,000 copies, between five and ten thousand, we would be really pleased with that. You know, that would be a solid start for a completely unknown writer.
Speaker 1:So I took that number, thought about it and thought, ok, I know what my target is. My personal target for this book is 50,000 copies. This was in paperback, it didn't have a hardback, went straight to paperback. So I to sell 50,000 copies? Um, because I figured I, I don't know 50,000 people. Um, my mum can't fit 50,000 copies in her loft, like you know. The 50,000 copies means a bunch of strangers has bought this book, and so that was my target. I obviously had limited control over this target, but it really helped me knowing what I was aiming for.
Speaker 1:And then it just went absolutely bananas. It came out in e-book first, actually e-book and trade paperback and the e-book came a bit of a kind of word of mouth I'm not going to say sensation, it wasn't that big, but you know it was. There was a momentum to it. And then the game changer was, um, getting a Richard and Judy pick, uh, and that changed everything, changed the course of my career really. Um, and so that we discovered, so the ebook had come out in the November, uh, 2014, and we found out about R&J in February 2015. It was going to be published in paperback in in April, and so then, of course, everything changed. There was suddenly a big marketing push, the print run was extended, uh, you know, the the selling was bigger, just everything changed. Um, and slowly, you know, the the selling was bigger, just everything changed, and slowly, you know, the numbers crept up and eventually it had sold a million copies.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone on this podcast where I've had to ask the question that. Did you? Were you surprised at how the publishers and like the marketing team and public and the publicity team, how their strategy changed once they realized that you weren't just going to be um, no offense, but like a 15 grand, two or seven and a half grand?
Speaker 1:I don't think I can answer that because I don't know what it would have been like without R&J. You know, I know what it was like just in e-book and I know I felt peculiarly that's a hard word to say flat. You know it just, and I, having spoken to lots of authors, I know this is quite common that your, your publication week comes and, um, you don't have a book in the shops. And you know, in my case this was because it was just an e-book at that point, so there would never have been any books in. But actually the same applies for many, many authors who haven't managed to get slots in um supermarkets. You know, maybe a few local shops are stocking, but basically we're talking about online retailers and so it felt a bit flat and a bit of an anti-climax after such a long time working on the book.
Speaker 1:But I didn't know, I didn't know what. I had no point of comparison. I didn't know what a marketing plan would look like for, you know, a seven and a half grand deal, this, a 70 000 deal, um, I've, I've seen the difference over time, because my deals are a bit more than that now, happily, um, I'm very grateful, I am for them. So, of course, I've seen that marketing spend go up. I've seen, you know, a lot more publicity, attention um it's but, but none of us know what anyone else's experience is, do we?
Speaker 2:no, you're going, I mean you're going to it so blind and I've said it repeatedly, like on this podcast is that when you have, when you've had another career, so writing is not your, your main, hasn't been your main job, so you've had another career, but you know what to expect. And if you and let's say I'm just using being a lawyer, we've been a police officer as an example you know that I can't need to make do this application. This is going to be the training process and then, once I've trained, I know these are my options. So you're kind of you're guided at each single step and there's people around you who can advise you and help you. There's mentors, there's just people there, whereas you do this. Right, I don't know why I'm pointing at my desk, but you do this writing job and you're like you're on your own. You know you know nothing, even when you sign, I think you you have your agent there, but you're still relatively learning as you go you are, of course you are.
Speaker 1:The one thing I would say is that I think it's really important for authors to take control of their careers and to see themselves as the CEO of their own company, so that for me, that translates to giving myself training, investing in my business, identifying where my skills gaps are and finding training that will address them, and if that training doesn't exist, then I will create it. So, um, when I, when I first left the police and I was writing, I Let you Go and I think I might have. I signed quite soon after, but there was a big delay before publication. Basically, I had no money and I needed to earn, and so I was doing a lot of other types of writing and I just approached it like a career shift. Like if I'd been changing jobs from policing to being a teacher, there would have been a really clear career structure in place. Like you know, go and do a GCE and I don't really know what the structure is, but you know you'd follow that, and so I did the same.
Speaker 1:I created a plan for my career change, which involved okay, I'm going to do some copywriting for businesses, I'm going to do some freelance journalism. What do I need. I need to learn how to pitch, I need to learn how to generate ideas, how to write an article, all those sorts of things, and I just followed the steps and there have been things I've wanted to learn about the business. So I wanted a really solid understanding of marketing, but all the courses I found online were a bit generic or I would have spent kind of all day having content of which only maybe 10% was what I needed, and that doesn't represent good value to me. So I approached someone who I knew was, you know, really good in marketing within the publishing industry and I said, okay, this is what I'm looking for. How many people do I need to get in a room for you to make it cost effective for you to deliver some some training for us?
Speaker 1:And I put together a one day training package and then, you know, split that basically with a bunch of other writers, which meant that I got exactly the training I wanted. It was great for other people who also wanted that training, but I wasn't paying for something I didn't need, and so I do that all the time. And, yes, we, it is hard because we don't know everything, but you don't know everything in any job do you? You go in to a career, you know the kind of the core structure of it and then you're learning on the job and you're getting better at it. And so I think just as we get better at the craft of writing and we do that through reading and being edited and you know, just practicing all the time so we get better and more savvy at the business side of being an author.
Speaker 2:I've always said that I remember the first day I qualified as a solicitor, which would have no we're in June now. So, yeah, so it's 19 years ago. And I remember my first day. I walked into court and, brandon, and I said, you've done the training, so you know the I say the academic side of it. And I walked into court and I didn't have much to do. It was the most straightforward. I think it was a section six hearing back then, a committal hearing. So all I had to do is say, yes, it's ready to go up to the Crown Court. That was literally all I had to do. But I walked into the courtroom, looked around and I said I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know anything Like I've made the mistake.
Speaker 2:But, as you said, you'll always pull those, those initial insecurities. But you do learn on the job. Every single day you learn something. Yeah, and I think also I was listening to you when I think back to when I self-published my first book. I feel like that was probably my apprenticeship, because I recognized very early on what my skill sets are and what I know I can do and what I knew. I'm just I've either got no interest in doing it and I need to find someone who can do this for me. So in a sense I kind of had like my little apprenticeship in publishing before I got a traditionally publishing deal.
Speaker 1:I have so much respect for independently published authors. You know they're a successful indie author has got to have the, you know, the full gamut of of skills, not necessarily to to do everything themselves, but the, the skill to recognize what needs doing and then make that assessment about whether or not they can do it themselves, whether it's, you know, worth their time, their money, whether they've got the ability or whether they're outsourcing. It's a. It's a very different business. And they've kind of write the books as well and often write, you know, six times as fast as those of us in traditional publishing who are generally writing a book a year yeah, I always say self um, when you're self published, independently published writing's the easy, it's the most straightforward part of the whole process.
Speaker 2:The work comes in well, and not even finding a cover artist, that's straightforward enough. And finding an editor, it's like okay, now I need to work on a marketing plan, now I need to work on a publicity plan and I need to know the difference between marketing and publicity. Now there's so many things. So, yeah, it's hard work it.
Speaker 1:Now there's so many things. So, yeah, it's hard work it is. Yeah, it is I. There's a bit of me that would really like to self-publish Really. Yeah, because I love the business side of things, you know I, I love the marketing and the PR and, yeah, and the control, I suppose, and sometimes because I do a lot of marketing myself, it's sometimes I sort of think you know, I'm doing, I'm doing a lot of what I would be doing if I was being, if I was self-published, but I'm not getting the royalty rate that I would be getting if I was self-published. Um, but there are an awful lot of things I'm not doing that I have a fantastic publishing house doing for me and also I cannot write fast enough to to be an indie author yeah they.
Speaker 1:I don't think I know any indie authors who only produce a book a year, um, and frankly I find it hard enough to do that.
Speaker 2:I can't remember who I was speaking to, but I've spoken to an indie author on here and I think he's putting out three books in the year and I'm like how, how I'm managing, I'm managing to get one book a year, the idea of getting three books, not only just the first draft written but edited and ready to go. So no one's coming back at you and saying there's a whole giant plot missing in the second act no, it's just, it's a relentless schedule, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm this year. I'm writing a novella as well as my sort of contracted book. Well, they're both contracted, but you know, the day job book is my, my full-length thriller, and um, the novella is only 30 000 words and it just trying to sort of fit that in. So I will, I will manage it. Um, it's due in another month and I'm about halfway through. So it's, you know, it's sort of achievable, but I couldn't do a full-length novel as well.
Speaker 2:I think it's madness, commendable madness Clay, when did you realize you could write and always, always saying I not only just write, but tell a story?
Speaker 1:um, sort of forever. Honestly, I I think I think a lot of writers know that they can write, in the same way that kids know whether they're good at football or music or maths. You know, very occasionally you get young people, kids who love something but are terrible at it, but it's quite rare. You know, normally the things you love are the things you're good at and vice versa. It's sort of they fuel each other because you want to do them and so you practice them. So I knew as a kid that telling stories in all their forms actually was what I was good at. I was very good at drama, did a lot of am dram and sort of performances dance, ballet, tap, all sorts of things and it was all to do with storytelling. And writing in particular was something that I loved and wanted to do. And as I got older I it sort of.
Speaker 1:It grieves me slightly that nobody in my secondary school, no sort of adult, no teacher, pointed me towards a creative career. I don don't, I don't really understand it. So I I went to a very academic school where they really sort of nurtured their Oxbridge kind of candidates, you know, and I was not that um, and I just sort of bimbled along in the middle. You know it's just quite average. But amongst all the careers advice, no one sort of said oh, have you thought about journalism? Or just nothing.
Speaker 1:I think I did one of those ridiculous computer career questionnaires where it must have been like really early, early computers where you answered questions and it sort of spat out a job and it said librarian, which you know is, is fine. Except that I don't, really I didn't know anything about the structure of of librarian careers and I don't think then they were quite as you know. Nowadays I know librarians who have master's degrees and all sorts, um, so I think it was a very basic. Oh, you like books, you should work in a library. Um, and because I didn't know anyone who who worked in creative fields, it didn't, it didn't occur to me that there were jobs, I mean, I feel a bit dense now thinking that like obviously, but it's not it's not unusual for anyone to say that.
Speaker 1:All the grownups I knew worked in, but they had proper jobs, inverted commas. They were doctors, lawyers. They worked in Tesco, they were office managers, they were teachers, you know, they just they had jobs that they went to kind of nine to five, monday to Friday. They didn't paint pictures, they didn't dance, yeah, they just didn't do those creative things. They certainly didn't write books, and so it never once crossed my mind and I had no idea what I was going to do and it stressed me out. Actually my older sister had wanted to be a teacher since she was about four and used to make my sister and me sit and um and and have like math lessons at the weekend, I know, and she never, ever deviated and has now been a teacher for like 30 years. So I was really I felt quite inferior, that I had no idea what I wanted to do and just kind of bimbled. So I did A-levels that I liked English, french and German really to read the books and to talk about the books and write about the books. So I did that in three different languages, which I loved, went to university to do French and German, to do more of the same, you know, just sort of language didn't had no idea about my career, um, but I'd spent a gap year in Paris and was very fluent in French and had just sort of temporarily forgotten all my German in the way that you do if you, you know, if you're immersed in one language. And again, I think, kind of bad advice really. I went to see someone in admissions at university my first week and went I can't speak German anymore and German had been my really strong subject at school, I was really good at A-level and she went oh, just switch, whereas I think probably if I just stuck it out, you know, my German would have come back and I'd have been fluent in both, have come back and I'd have been fluent in both. So I panic switched to, uh, business studies, having never done it before, like proper, proper panic choice. Because it was, I think, I think I'd gone there the last sort of day that you were allowed to switch.
Speaker 1:So I might have done architecture or English, or drama, like what was I thinking? Oh, I know. Or drama, like what was I thinking, oh, I know what I'll do, I'll do a business degree. But I was so worried about what job I was going to get. What am I going to get you know, with a French degree, what I didn't understand and I tell my kids so my kids are doing A-levels at the moment and what I tell them all the time is do not think unless you know for certain what career you want. Do not try and sort of reverse engineer anything. Pick the subjects you love. Nobody cares what degree you've got, no one cares what a levels you've chosen. They just want you to have them if they're necessary for the next step of your career. So I, what would have been lovely is for someone to have said well, let're necessary for the next step of your career. So I, what would have been lovely is for someone to have said well, let's think about what do you really love? Oh, you really love words and stories and storytelling. Brilliant, let's do an English literature degree anyway.
Speaker 1:So I did French and business, and the only thing I would say about that is that in hindsight, I think it switched on a bit of my brain that I didn't know existed, that I now use all the time that kind of business savvy, marketing instinct. Yeah, that maybe I might never have discovered. And so, even though there were bits of that degree that I hated so much, I would almost be in tears at the prospect of going to a lecture. You know I did not want to learn about production techniques in Japan. What was I doing there? I hated global economics and I mean I cannot. I don't know my times tables, like I cannot do maths. I cannot put two numbers together and and make it make sense, um. So I really, really struggled. I had to work incredibly hard for about half of that management degree and the other half I just loved, because publicity marketing, yeah it was storytelling you know um, and so I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't regret it, but I think I would have had a much better time doing English or drama or linguistics or something else.
Speaker 2:Everything you said, it's just like it was either triggering off a memory of mine or it's just reinforcing the same thing. I say any of the kids around me in my family like if I'm talking to my godchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, and they're like, oh, what should I do at uni? And I said I'd rather you spend three years at uni doing something that you enjoy, because that degree is not going to tie you into whatever you then decide to is going to be your career later on in life. I said it wasn't for the fact I completely messed up my A-levels because I got bored and I did end up.
Speaker 2:I didn't do law but I did history and I loved. I just loved history and I wanted to do American Studies because I was basically obsessed with the place and I did it. And no, I loved my degree, it was the best, and I also knew I could do a conversion course later on and then become a solicitor. But also I think it was about a month ago, maybe two months ago I was in my cupboard and I found my old school reports when I was 14, 15 and it's the same thing you were saying. It's like you know what you enjoy. You know books. I know my creativity, my English teachers. They're saying you know, she's so creative, her, her writing is good.
Speaker 1:You can see, you can hear the, the characters when they're talking and you're like, well, you can see all that you should have said be a writer no, and you know I, I'm not saying that I, you know, if someone had said, oh, you should write a, a book, um, I'm not saying I would have done at that particular point or that it would have been any good, because actually I think it's the life experience that you know it has made me the writer I am, but I think it might have planted a seed. Yeah, um, and yeah I did. I did carry on writing a little bit and actually I wrote when I was living in Paris the first time. So I spent two years in Paris and the first time I was there I wrote most of the novel. I wrote a novel, I was obsessed with George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, paris and London, and I was working in a as a hotel receptionist in one of those hotels where people sometimes don't stay longer than an hour, like that just kind of blew my mind.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was at the time, so I was set, what was? I just turned 18 and, um, you know, summer baby, sheltered summer baby from the home counties, uh, went off to Paris, fiercely independent, would not sort of take any money from my parents. I was going to do this on my own and got this job and honestly, it took me I don't know like maybe two months to work out why people would check in and then like go after an hour. So naive, anyway. So I wrote, I started writing a book then, which I had a working title of Baguettes and Brothels, and I really, really loved it. I loved that feeling of putting together something that was much bigger than anything I'd done before. I'd written short stories and terrible poetry and a lot of I did a lot of kind of pen pictures, I suppose I I used to watch if you ever watched Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, yeah, and so I used to watch those.
Speaker 1:My parents used to love them and so, because you know, we had one tv and that's, everyone watched it, everyone watched it, right, so I would watch them. But I loved it and what I loved about it was the subtext. In these monologues you know, like you'd have uh, I don't know an elderly woman talking to camera about how of course she doesn't mind that her son doesn't come and visit. He's terribly busy doing his terribly important job, and underneath it you've got this incredible pathos about how desperately lonely she is. And I loved the subtlety of how you could say one thing but actually the reader or the viewer could interpret it in a different way. So I used to write a lot of those, a lot of disconnected monologues. But this novel I started writing in Paris was the first time I tried to fit a big sort of arc into a piece of work and I didn't manage it. I didn't finish that book. I've got no idea where it is, but it was the sort of, I suppose, the beginning of that ambition to write a novel.
Speaker 2:Listeners. It's time for a very short break. If you're enjoying this conversation with Nadine Matheson and 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. Goes such a long way in keeping these conversations flowing. Just check out the link in the show notes. How did you end up in the police then? Because it just it wasn't like you wasn't writing. You know, I always not. Like. I always say is that they'll talk about. Oh, this is your second career, so writing's your second career and you can always pinpoint. Yeah, when you decided, okay, I'm now gonna write, but you were always writing and it was always this. How did you end up in the police force?
Speaker 1:uh, this is just such an embarrassing story. It makes me out, it makes me out to be the biggest idiots that you will wonder what on earth the police thought they were doing taking me on. So I, so I was in my final year French and management, um, still didn't know what I wanted to do, really starting to panic, to panic about the pressure of what I was going to do after I graduated. And so I went to all the sort of careers fairs, yeah, looking at brochures, and I thought, and a lot of the people I did my management degree with because I it was 50 50. And a lot of the people I did my management degree with because it was 50-50 and my French cohort were much more sort of arty and the management ones were really quite kind of driven and serious. And so I did feel often like I was being split in two and a lot of my management peers were going to be management consultants and I was like I could be a management consultant. I suppose, um, I had done, um, my second gap year in.
Speaker 1:So my third year at uni was back in Paris, but not in a dodgy hotel. This time it was working as a, as a bilingual PA in a commercial property firm. So I had a bit of sort of business experience and I was starting to quite enjoy it. This was managing pension portfolios, business property portfolios, um, and so I was like, okay, a management consultancy, they earn lots of money. Um, I've got the degree for it. That that feels like a good fit.
Speaker 1:So I thought I'll go to a lecture, um, delivered by Anderson Consulting and about their graduate program, and we'll we'll see what that's like. So I was late for it. I was often late for things back then and I couldn't find the room because I wasn't really okay with the management block. I just, you know, went to a few, a few management lectures as I could.
Speaker 1:Um, got to the room five minutes after it started, the doors like slammed open with this horrible big kind of crash and everyone stopped talking and I went up the raped seats it was just all you know, terribly embarrassing and awkward and disruptive sat down at the back of the room and when I looked up there was a police officer at this at the back of the room and for a second I thought, oh my gosh, these management consultants earn so much money. They've like got to bring the police and they've got to bring security, um, but no, I was in the wrong room, so I had accidentally come into a room where the home office were there delivering a lecture on joining the police graduate program.
Speaker 1:Um, and I, I, because I was so British and awkward, I couldn't leave them because I coming in late, so I sat there, listened to this lecture and and then had a police career. I'm just very susceptible. The thing, the thing that did it, though, um, I know. Imagine if I'd gone into a room like of circus performers. I mean, you would have been on Blackwood Common near me.
Speaker 1:But what I tell you? What did it for me? There were a couple of things. One was that this it was a very, very basic, low, low tech 90s PowerPoint presentation which had a series of photographs of different jobs that police officers do. It's a bit like a kind of Lady Bird book. You know, here is a police officer on a horse at a riot. Here is a police officer helping an old lady across the road. Know all these different jobs, here's our detective.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing because it reminds me of when the um, I think we were 16 and careers day and the Royal Navy came to our school, and it's the same thing they do. They do the slideshow, but they just show you the good bits and they're like oh, here they are jumping off a cliff. Yes, I mean what they should have, yeah, what?
Speaker 1:they should have. Yeah, what they should have had is here is a police officer whose marriage has broken down, here is a police officer who can no longer sleep because of the awful um. But they didn't have that they had. They had all the good shiny bits, and I had have always had a real sort of problem with attention span. I get bored very easily. I need new sort of stimulus and I a lot of me was quite worried about the idea of just doing one job for the rest of your life. I mean, I just I could not, cannot think of anything worse. And one of the things I liked about the idea of being a management consultant which, ironically, I think I probably would have been quite good at was the idea of coming into a business, working out where the problems are, troubleshooting them and then pissing off to carry on actually making it work, so that that sounded quite fun.
Speaker 1:And so suddenly I was being presented with a career where there were multiple jobs within one career, and that was quite exciting. The other thing that suddenly sort of happened is that I had been wrestling a little bit with the idea of doing something that was was all about making money.
Speaker 1:you know nothing else and my father was um, was a doctor, a hospital director in the NHS for his whole career and I think I just sort of have that kind of desire to serve and, and that police presentation sort of consolidated that for me. Um, and then the icing on the cake was they um, so I've got quite a competitive streak. And at the end of this presentation they said right, this is you know, that's everything we've got to tell you about this amazing career. Um, we're here to talk about the graduate program. We are expecting um between two and five thousand um applications this year. We will be taking between 10 and 15 um graduates.
Speaker 1:So here is the graduate form and here are the forms for standard entry. So you know, we advise you to apply for both if you're interested. Um and I just took the graduate form, um and applied and became one of 12 graduates that they took that year nationwide um on the what used to be the accelerated promotion um scheme, and that is how I accidentally became a police officer oh my god, I think it's the best story it's.
Speaker 2:It wasn't so not what I was expecting, because I think I came home from school that day and said oh mum, I might join the Royal Navy. She's like no, you're not, you can go around the world they do a good sales pitch, don't they?
Speaker 2:that's how they get you so young, because they do a really really good pitch. Claire, you know, when you was writing your debut I'll let you go was there a point in that process I'm going to ask you about because I'm looking at the time I'm going to ask you about your latest book? But was there a point in that process where you realized it occurred to you? I think this is good, I think this might be the one, or were you just? Let me just write it no, no, do you know?
Speaker 1:I've only had that feeling once and it's with. It's with next year's book, that that kind of yeah because. Because again it goes back to what we were saying at the beginning about not really knowing anything about the business. I didn't really know anything about what was a good book, so I was really excited about it because of the twist, um, and over the course of writing it so it was about sort of two years of editing it with um, my publisher I got less and less confident in it, even though the book I could see was getting better and better.
Speaker 1:I got less confident in the twist because I'd seen it so often and it felt like the most obvious thing ever. And so I had a tiny little moment, similar, I suppose, to what you're asking, when my editor said I hear you, you're worried about the twist landing. Let's send it to two authors. So we won't send loads of proofs out yet. We'll send it to two authors and we'll just let them read it blind and we'll see that's an odd metaphor you know without and we'll see what they think.
Speaker 2:And we sent it to Peter James and Mark Billingham oh my god, it's not like you sent it to I don't know.
Speaker 1:Pull down the pub, down the pub, no no, and the reason so the reason we sent it to those two, is I had, um. So two, three years previously, I had set up a literary festival in my then hometown of Chipping norton and didn't know anything about publishing or lit fests, or I wasn't writing a novel then. I just wanted there to be a lit fest in my town, and because there wasn't one, um, I set one up and one of the, and in that first year, mark um billingham and peter james had come to the line up and so I had. You know, I sort of I didn't know them well at all, they weren't friends, but I had enough of a connection to be able to say I've got a debut coming out, would you read it? And they very kindly said, yes.
Speaker 1:Mark emailed me, I think just a few days after getting this proof, and said, um, what a twist. I am green with envy and I thought that's it. I've, that's all you need, I've nailed the twist, um, and so that, I suppose, is that's when I kind of thought okay, maybe, maybe I really have written a good book.
Speaker 2:But I think we doubt ourselves, don't we with every book, you know it always feels impossible that we can pull it off again yeah, because you know, like when I read out your bio in the beginning and it's so extensive and so impressive, but even though you've got your, what number book is this is? This isn't.
Speaker 1:This is number eight um, yeah, other other people's houses is number eight, but do you know? What I would say, though, is it is impressive, it does sound impressive, but so I've sold about three million copies, yeah, but over a million of those are I let you go. And so then, actually, you're talking about two million split across the other seven. So it suddenly becomes you know not that it's not brilliant split across the other seven. So it suddenly becomes, you know not that it's not brilliant. I'm really pleased with every single one of those sales, but it's you know I Let you Go is doing a lot of a lot of work, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And uh, you know I'm I'm really I'm comfortable with that. I read, um, have you ever read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert? Yes, so I love Big Magic. Listen to it at least once a year on audio. And one of the things she talks about is how Eat Pray Love was obviously this phenomenal worldwide sensation and you know I Let you Go is obviously nowhere near that but how people are always saying to her gosh, I bet you wish you could write another Eat Pray Love. And does it feel really hard, you know, trying to live up to it. And she talks about how you just need to make your peace with the fact that actually, that might be your best work. You know. It might be your best creatively. It might be your best seller. You don't have to match up to that. It is. You know, this is a long-term career, a long-term investment. It's not about the quick wins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's why I was going to say that, even though this is your eighth book, there is a reason why every book, you'll never feel like 100% safe with it, because you are kind of starting again and you want it to be successful, so you're going to have all like those first night nerves. You're always going to have that with each book that you write and then it's published you are, of course, you are, and and you're, you're moving the goalposts all the time.
Speaker 1:So I was thinking about this morning, actually about, uh, knowing I was speaking to you and I'd gone to the gym and I was putting my weights up, as I do, I suppose, every week every couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:You know, increasing the reps, increasing the weights. If I just kept those the same I wouldn't get any better. And you know every workout would be the same and it would be boring. And so every single book you are pushing yourself. A good writer is pushing themselves to be better. It is part of the unwritten contract between the writer and the reader that you know. I pledge to do my absolute best to give you something different, better, more exciting than the last book I gave you?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think that's. Um, someone asked me I can't remember when it was asked me a few months ago what I'd learned from doing these, these interviews, these conversations, and I said I think it's been mainly, especially in the last, I say the last six months is just being brave with your writing, because it's when you're being brave with your writing that you're pushing yourself and that you're making yourself. You are becoming better as a writer. I don't know if I've taken anything on board for all of these conversations. I think that has been one of the number one things just being brave, and everyone has the same concerns yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And it's difficult to be brave because the publishing industry doesn't always want brave and you know, lots of, lots of authors want to mix up genres a bit or, um, you know, try something a little bit new and can sometimes be discouraged. Um, I Let you Go was rejected a lot by publishers for the same reason, and the reason given was this feels like I'm quoting this particular one. This was one one publisher. For some reason it's imprinted in my mind. This feels like an uncomfortable mashup of women's fiction and police procedural and I cannot see where we would position it in the market.
Speaker 1:So that would have been 2013, like that yeah now I would say that nowadays, that you know uncomfortable mash-up of women's fiction and police procedural is exactly what sells actually, and what that is is domestic suspense, which wasn't really a thing in the sort of you know 2009-10, but very much was a thing a few years later with the Girl on the Train and Gone Girl Before I Go to Sleep, all those sorts of books, and has continued to be a trend. So, yeah, being a bit brave can be quite hard, but you're right, it's what improves our writing, do you?
Speaker 2:think you know when you're talking, when you are talking to like new writers and I don't want to say aspiring writers, because once you're writing, do you think? Um, you know when you talk, when you are talking to like new writers and I don't want to say aspiring writers, because once you're writing, you're writing. But new ones, they're trying to get their books, just trying to get through. Get an agent. Do you like? Try and reinforce that to them, because sometimes they can be fixated on. You know well, it needs to be this sort of book, because that's what's in the charts right now. I need to emulate this sort of writer, because these are the writers who are successful. So what do you say to them?
Speaker 1:It's really hard for emerging writers, isn't it? Because they do? It is sensible to see what's selling, but equally, what's selling now isn't necessarily going to be selling in a year's time or two years time, going to be selling in, you know, a year's time, um, or two years time I. What I tend to do is try and encourage them to sort of pull out of those books the ingredients that makes it so good. So I always advise people to read outside their genre. So look at the top 10 top 10 on amazon, top 10 on Amazon, top 10 on Sunday Times read all of them and work out what has put those books in the top 10.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes what's put that book? There is a celebrity name or it's a massive marketing spend, but sometimes it's a much loved series. And if it's a much loved series, then what is it about that? Is it the setting? Is it the character? If it's fantasy, you know, is it about that? Is it the setting? Is it the character? If it's fantasy, you know, is it the, the creation of the world? What just pin down? What is it that makes that book so great? And that's the takeaway that you want for your own story all right.
Speaker 2:So, because I'm very much aware of the time clear, because it just always speeds past would you like to tell the listeners of the conversation about? I'm holding it up other people's houses and then I'm going to ask you some questions.
Speaker 1:Your last set of questions other people's houses is uh, can be read as a standalone. It is the third in a little series set on the border between north wales and cheshire featuring wel Welsh-speaking detective DC Fionn Morgan and her English counterpart, ds Leo Brady. It starts with the body of an estate agent found in an upturned kayak. This is purely because I was gazumped about 10 years ago and I've never forgiven the estate agent who dealt with it, so I murdered one. Apologies to the ethical estate agent who dealt with it. Um, so I murdered one. Apologies to the ethical. That's why I'm right. Um, so yeah, so Fionn is dealing with a uh, a murdered estate agent in Wales across the border. Leo is dealing with a series of high value burglaries in a kind of um sort of waggy area of cheshire, really rich neighborhood. Um, I love writing about very rich people behaving appallingly and ultimately getting their comeuppance.
Speaker 1:That's one of my favorite subsets of society to deal with okay, so two questions following on from that.
Speaker 2:So did you face any challenges? In writing.
Speaker 1:Other people's houses yes, I mean lots, but specifically because I think series books are really hard. I've got so much respect. But people who have written long-running series, um, I honestly thought it would be easier than writing standalones. Um, because you know you've got your characters already, you've got your world, just throw another mystery at them. But I don't find it that way at all, because actually you've got your universe but you are creating another world. It's not the same world, because if it was, you'd just be killing off all the same people and it would be like murderers. So you are creating new characters in new worlds and on the you know the flip side, you you're hide bound by things that you introduced in previous books, so you can't change people's ages. The geography is where it is.
Speaker 1:I keep wanting to sort of have Fionn knit back to the station to do a quick interview and I can't because the geography means that she's 45 minutes away and like it's an hour and a half in the car round trip, and that's the reality of rural policing. But it doesn't work for my story. Sometimes I gave Fionn a dog in book two and it absolutely was the bane of my life. In book three I would get halfway through a chapter, and then I'd be like well, who's got the fucking dog? Like you know, I got asked. It's so annoying and you can't take it away, can you?
Speaker 2:I can't remember. It was an edit, a comment or a copy edit. It was some kind of comment I got in my edits and it was like I'm so glad to see the dog because Henley has a dog and like we haven't seen the dog since page whatever, and I was like no, because, like, you've got work to do and you can't look after a sodding dog, I just I got halfway through the book and I thought this is so, so difficult.
Speaker 1:I, in my real life, I have three teenagers, three spaniels and a goat to look after on the daily, and now I've saddled myself with a fictional dog as well it's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's so clear. If you could spend an afternoon with any of your characters, whom would you choose and why?
Speaker 1:definitely Fionn in a heartbeat she is. I mean, I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with her, like I wouldn't, um, I would want to go on holiday with her, but I'd have a night out with her in Comcoed, which is the small Welsh town where she lives and works, um, and I think she'd be a lot of fun. She's very stubborn, she, um, she's quite impetuous, but that can be quite fun on a night out. So yeah, definitely feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah a night out's enough, not a. You're not doing a week, yeah a night out or a swim.
Speaker 1:I might go swimming with her, she, she and I, she and I both, um, so yeah, we might go for a cold water swim.
Speaker 2:That would be fun, okay all, right, now we're doing your final. We're doing your final four questions. Yeah, you're not gonna do, I'll say you're not gonna do a week in Marbella with a. Oh okay, claire, are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?
Speaker 1:I am an introvert, Well hybrid, I don't know. I'm one of those people who are super sociable but need to shut the door and recharge and do not speak to me.
Speaker 2:OK, so what challenge or experience I say good or bad in your life shaped you the most?
Speaker 1:Oh, a sobering one the death of my son. So my son died 18 years ago and it was a catalyst for doing what I want to do really, you know, for writing, for pushing boundaries, for being brave. Um, yeah, I think it. It fundamentally changed who I am and what I want out of life because that's that's what led to your um.
Speaker 1:It's not a memoir, but it's like your non-fiction yeah, yeah, I wrote I mean, yeah, I don't know what it is really. Uh, it's sort of published under memoir, it's called. I promise it won't always hurt like this yeah and it is a sort of um a look at how grief changes over the course of time and how we can learn to carry it more easily okay.
Speaker 2:So if you could go back, even I think I have an idea what you might say. But 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:oh, man, um, there's so many that are broadcastable um, 25, um, oh, I don't, I don't think I would don't change anything. I the only thing I would love is for my 25 year old self to feel as confident and as happy with herself as I am now at 48. So I guess that would be my pep talk to my younger self okay, and what is your?
Speaker 2:I say your non-writing tip for writers. I always say this could be drink water walk oh, uh, well, cold water swimming.
Speaker 1:I know it's such a guardian answer and I almost hate myself for being so evangelical about it, but it is so restorative. Um and yeah, if you, if you haven't got a lake or a pond or something, cold, cold showers, do the same thing it's magical.
Speaker 2:And finally, actually, this will just lead on to the last question, because I'll always ask where can listeners find you online? But, claire, you're everywhere, especially on'm.
Speaker 1:I am everywhere. I I like TikTok, mostly scrolling. I scroll a lot, but I also like doing videos. I'm on Facebook, the Claire McIntosh Book Club. If you want to come and talk about books, Instagram, Claire Mc writes. But yeah, just Google me, google me and you'll find me.
Speaker 2:How easy, before we say goodbye, how easy did you find I say, transitioning over to tiktok and I don't know, taking on board like what's trending, and then incorporating that and applying that to you as a writer because everyone can do it, everyone's comfortable doing it, everyone really wants to do it, because I'm not happy to scroll but you do it really well.
Speaker 1:I do enjoy it. I always say to emerging writers pick the channels that you naturally enjoy and good at and ignore all the others because, honestly though, it is counterproductive trying to do a platform you're not comfortable with. It always feels cringy when you're watching it. It's uncomfortable to do. Just don't do it. You know, if Instagram is what you love, then just do Instagram.
Speaker 2:Your readers will find you yeah, I always say the same thing. I say find the one that resonates more with you. You don't have to be dancing on TikTok if you don't want to no, I don't, and I don't do any dancing.
Speaker 1:I don't dance, not in public. Anyway, she does cold water plunges.
Speaker 2:That's what Claire McIntosh does and, on that note, just leaves me to say Claire McIntosh, thank you very much for being part of the conversation.
Speaker 1:I loved it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to today's conversation with Nadine Matheson. 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 nadiemappersoncom. Thanks again for your support and I'll catch you next time.
