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.
Finalist -Independent Podcast Awards 2024
*music: the coffee jam ©stereo_jam
The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Lisa Rookes: The Chaos and Glory of a Writer's Journey
Buy Me A Cup of Coffee and exclusive 'The Conversation' Merch
Ever wondered what happens after you land that dream literary agent? Award-winning journalist and novelist Lisa Rookes pulls back the curtain on publishing's hidden realities in this eye-opening conversation with Nadine Matheson.
Lisa shares her journey from early agent excitement (receiving eight offers of representation!), the sobering reality when her manuscript didn't sell and her new novel, The Empty Cradle. Through candid storytelling, Lisa dismantles the myth that good writing automatically leads to publishing success, explaining how timing, market trends, and commercial factors often matter more than quality.
Amy's so sure that her husband, Joel, is deeply invested in their future together. After all, it's his dream of a family together that has them trying so hard to have a baby, despite a series of disappointments. It's this certainty that leaves Amy absolutely floored when she learns of Joel's affair with her best friend.
Heartbroken and horrified, Amy flees to a dilapidated cottage in a Yorkshire village, a place she'd bought with dreams of making it feel homey and warm. In the new village, she feels like a clear outsider, but a group of local women soon take her under their wing. They gather for a routine book club, they say. Before Amy knows it, these women are in her life, and in her home.
Amy wakes one night to find herself outside in the fields. Strange offerings seem to be left on her doorstep. And the surveillance camera she installs shows shapes creeping around her house in the night. Strangest of all, she suddenly finds she's pregnant. A pregnancy that feels like a cruel joke.
The book club is incredibly invested in Amy's pregnancy. And it migh
Find your mercury placement in your birth chart and activate your personal voice codes.
"Enjoying 'The Conversation'? Support the podcast by buying me a cup of coffee ☕️! Every contribution helps keep the show going.
https://ko-fi.com/nadinematheson
Don't forget to subscribe, download and review.
You can purchase books by the authors featured in our conversations through my affiliate shop on Bookshop.org. By using this link, you’ll be supporting independent bookstores, and I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Follow Me:
www.nadinematheson.com
BlueSky: @nadinematheson.com Substack: @nadinematheson Instagram: @queennads
Threads: @nadinematheson Facebook: nadinemathesonbooks
TikTok: @writer_nadinematheson
Writing's amazing and being an author is incredible. It's a privilege. It is an absolute privilege to create stories and worlds and narratives that people read and are entertained or inspired or educated by. It doesn't matter what kind of writing you do.
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 hope that you're ready for the final episode of season three of the Conversation.
Speaker 1:Yes, we made it.
Speaker 2:We made it through. Can you believe it? 62 conversations in season three. You had the delight of listening to authors such as Amanda Prowse, bp Walter Elvin, james Mensah who else did we have? Roxy Key, fiona Lucas, mw Craven, anna Mazzola Hmm, I'm trying to think Maz Evans who else was there? There were so many John Mars, remy Cohn, claire McIntosh, sa Cosby, patricia Marquez. There were so many amazing conversations, and I also started the new section of the podcast called Coffee Break, and I also started collaborating with Page One, the Writer's Podcast.
Speaker 2:So season three has been fantastic, but obviously I could not have done it without you, the listeners, because the listeners are what keeps the podcast growing. Your support has been fantastic, so thank you to everyone who has either bought me a cup of coffee or has bought merchandise, because there are the conversation mugs and pens available. All the links are in the show notes, as per usual, but I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you to everyone, and I hope that you will stay with us throughout the summer, because I'm not going to disappear. I will still be here. I will be releasing what I'll be calling fan favorites of season three of the conversation podcast, and I'll also be sharing episodes from page one, the the writer's podcast, so you will not be left alone this summer. And remember, you can always get in touch with me. Either send me an email to theconversation at nadinemathesoncom, or you can follow me on social media and feel free to send me comments and DMs Nice ones, but you can DM me Right.
Speaker 2:So let's get on with the final episode of season three, and in this week's conversation, I'm talking to award-winning journalist and author, lisa Rooks, whose new novel, the Empty Cradle, is out on the 14th of August, which means that you can pre-order it now. Pre-orders are important. Authors like pre-orders, so make sure you pre-order it. And in our conversation, lisa Rooks and I are talking about why timing matters in a writer's success, the illusion of early success and how to embrace the chaos of a writer's journey. Now, as always, sit back. We'll go for a walk and enjoy the conversation. Lisa Rooks, welcome to the conversation. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Right, lisa, I am very sorry if you can't hear this pug barking upstairs. He's having a meltdown. My teenage son has shut him in his bedroom, which is normally the pug's favourite place to be, because it's, you know, full of like dirty old, like mouldy plates to eat, and you know yeah, keep joy.
Speaker 2:Well, I was gonna say apologize if you hear the dust men. They've decided to turn up.
Speaker 1:Oh, have I taken my bin out? Oh, no, I have. Thank you for the reminder.
Speaker 2:I always say before we start recording these conversations will go from the tangent. This has got to be the first tangent involving spin men and I'm sorry, reminders right, and I will ask you, lisa, would you like to tell me well, not even just tell me how would you describe your publishing journey so far?
Speaker 1:oh, um, I would tumultuous. Is that a word? Have I made it up? I think it's a word no, it's a word.
Speaker 1:It's a word, um. So it not not easy and not smooth, but then is anybody's really well, although, what you do hear it. Don't you just hear these people that write a book, get an agent, get the deal, happily ever after? Um, I've learned a lot on my on my journey. So I first, so my background is that I'm a journalist and I was a crime reporter for years and years and years and years, so I'm really lucky and I'm very grateful to have always been writing as a career.
Speaker 1:I decided to start writing fiction when I started teaching, and and I think it's because while I was teaching journalism, I wasn't doing journalism and I just missed it. I just I always joke that if you cut me open, I've got ink in my veins and I absolutely missed all that working with words. So I decided to have a go at writing a novel and I did the Curtis Brown creative course. Um, oh, you did, yes, and actually how to write for children and young people, which is not what I do at all now. But my first book that I wrote while I was with them, um was actually a retelling of Tess of the d'Urbervilles in a contemporary setting, called how to be Hardy, and I was gobsmacked because I you know, when you first start writing and you first start trying to find out about the industry and how it all works, you know, you think that getting the agent is going to be the hardest thing ever and I was there manifesting it. I was manifesting all these agents like asking me for the full manuscript and you know, I did everything that you meant to do. I sent it to everyone, I did my pitch letter. I was there refresh, refresh, refresh on your emails and it actually got a really amazing reaction and I was so lucky because I got eight offers of representation for the book and I was so overwhelmed and I couldn't believe it was happening. This was my lifelong childhood dream.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that getting an agent was just a tiny part of this whole process in my head. You get the agent and that's it. You're nailed on. So, after choosing, choosing my agent, um, which was I couldn't believe I was actually getting to choose an agent. Honestly, I felt like such a princess believe I was actually getting to choose an agent. Honestly, I felt like such a princess. Um, it went out on submission and didn't sell and so you know, like when you're next? Not at all. I know, and you know, when you watch x-factor and they make it to judges, houses, and then they're like sobbing grass going. But I've come so far, I can't go back now. That's how I felt and I was like oh man, what have I done? So I had to, you know, lay on my bed, listen to Johnny Cash. You know for a while, my post, my post was it Ring of Fire?
Speaker 2:were you listening to?
Speaker 1:Ring of Fire, it has to be and then I pulled myself together and thought you know what? Um, rejection's rejection, okay, it wasn't good enough. What have I learned? And luckily I'd got really good feedback from the publishers that I'd submitted to. So I had a good look through the feedback applied.
Speaker 1:It had another go at another book, was really excited, went out on submission, didn't sell and I'm like I'm gonna get dumped by soon. I am gonna get dumped, but every little step you learn something. And uh, one publisher had come back and said look, this book just isn't quite right for us commercially, but we love these writing. Please write us something else. So I had an amazing chat with this publisher who I bet I should, maybe should remain lameless. Um, they coached me through the next book, again for children and young people. It was for young adult writing. Um, wrote the next book, sent it to them. They were like oh yeah, no, you've done a really good job, but no thanks. And you're like, oh my god, and so much, this is three. And you just think I think I may be.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm just, you know I'm a news writer, maybe I'm not, you know, a fiction writer. But my agent said no, we're not giving up. And you know I have to give her a lot of credit. I'm not actually with her anymore, but she really didn't, you know, drop me. She didn't say you know, if you don't sell something, we're gonna have to part ways. She was great. And she said I'll never, I'll never let you go. I believe in you and I give a huge credit for that. She was absolutely amazing. And she said maybe you're just a little bit too dark for children and she's like why don't you give it? You know. She's like you've been a crime reporter for so long. Why don't you just actually do that whole cliche and write what you know? And I always think writing what you know is really boring, because why do you want to write what you know you want to yeah right, I don't know when you're a writer to explore new worlds.
Speaker 1:So I thought, right, okay, I'm going to give it a go. So I decided to write an adult book, which was called Paper Dolls, and that book was based on my experience as a newspaper editor and it looked at missing white women syndrome. So it was looking at two women well, it was actually in the book two kids that disappeared on the same day. One was white and got loads of media attention.
Speaker 1:One was black and didn't get any media attention, and that was that was Paper Dolls, and it was a bit of a look at the sort of systematic racism of the press, um, which was a difficult book to write because I'm really aware of my white privilege, but it was all to do with decisions that are made, the way that the police deal with missing persons, appeal, um, and that was great, and so I was very happy. I got three offers for paper dolls and that was published by Quirkus. I did. I got two book deal and the lesson was the follow-up, which was based on power imbalances in universities, which actually is my current career because I'm a university professor, so I don't know how I've managed to escape with my job still intact, I'm not gonna lie. And then my newest current book. I changed publishers and currently with Orion and the Village. Well, actually the book came out in e-book format back in the last year and then came out in March, april, in paperback.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's a bit of a segue the Village this is under my maiden name. It's actually really nice, I think, for my parents to see my maiden name on the front cover and this is actually moving slightly away from the sort of crime thrillers and slightly more of a blend of a bit of a hint of supernatural.
Speaker 2:It's more like folk horror.
Speaker 1:And then my follow up book is out in August. So there you go. There's my little bumpy journey you know what it's.
Speaker 2:I think we've said it so many times, like on this podcast is that there's all the advice in the world, all of the advice and you can go on all the courses you know, find a talk on how to get an agent. You can probably go on YouTube. Yeah, go on YouTube, do a search and you'll find a million videos about you know um, submitting to agents and agents doing their agent talk, but no one. There's very, very, very little information about what happens after that and the whole submission process and the trauma of the submission process oh, it's so soul-destroying, isn't it?
Speaker 1:especially like some of the feedback's a bit brutal as well, and if I gave some of the feedback that some of the publishers gave to us to my students, I think I'd get my p45.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not exactly because when you teach and also because, like, even when god, I shouldn't even be saying that when you're like marking exams and stuff, you're not. It's all supposed to be geared to the positive yes as opposed to yes. Exactly that's all it is. And if I actually yeah, oh god, if I'd actually written down on the paper what I was thinking in my head, yeah, I probably wouldn't be teaching. Sometimes I'm like, what were you even in my class? Were you paying attention?
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe the publishers should have just sent that back. Wtf, no, not for us well, it's crazy, but yeah.
Speaker 2:But you said you get all that, get all that agent information. But then the trauma of, and the thing as well, when you said you've you've got eight agents who've asked for your manuscript. You just think the natural trajectory is going to be well, if eight agents wanted it, eight publishers are going to want it and it'll be easy, happy days and I think because I got sort of courted by all the agents because they'd all offered to represent.
Speaker 1:I was so excited. Um, I went down to so I'm from the north. I came all the way down to the, the dizzy heights of London, um, to meet them. I got taken out to the Groucho Club and all of this, and of course, what they're doing is they give you the hard sell. So of course, I expected, I think, the book to sell, because they were like we see this for it. This will happen. You know, I know this editor and this editor are going to love it, they're going to jump on it, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:So they're giving you their strategy and their ideas for the book, the book, and it's just so hard not to be swept along, and especially when it was the big name agents as well, and the glamour of it all. And then, actually, unless a publisher and an editor love it, none of that means anything. So it was scary. I do have to say, though, I've had like, like I said, I'm not with my previous agent anymore. My new agents are amazing, absolutely love them, and I do think that having a good relationship with your agent is sort of the key to to writer's success, because if it can be a lovely collaborative process and you, you know, you've got that love and support, then I think that makes all the difference when you're feeling a bit like a failure no, it does.
Speaker 2:But I mean I was gonna say I'm like I'm a bit more blunt than the whole. Everyone's being nice too long. I I worked out very early on. I was like everyone's blowing smoke up your ass. They're blowing smoke. Yeah, they want you. And there comes a point because I do remember thinking that when I was meeting with publishers and I do remember thinking, because you get swept up in it all, oh, you, you do. You get swept up in all the adulation and all the we think you're amazing and your book's amazing and we have, you know, all the big dreams they have for you. You get completely swept up on it. And at one point I remember sitting in a meeting and I did say to myself just put your lawyer hat on, because they're blowing smoke up your arse and you need to be sensible. Yeah, yeah, thank god, you know you haven't. I have my agent, but I had to have that talk with myself because you can get swept away. And then when you're swept away, you're not prepared for anything else that comes afterwards.
Speaker 1:I really wish I'd thought of it that way actually at the time. What I should have done on that train back from London is sat with my journalist hat on and gone right. What are the facts? You know, you don't have a deal, kind of thing. Rather than excited, I should have actually sort of nailed down the facts. But you know what, I don't regret any of it, and it was. It was all very much a teachable moment for me, because now as well, in particular, I'm just so grateful for the book deals that I do have and it's made the books all the sweeter really, because I think if I'd have just got that book deal, I would have just maybe been a bit cocky about the whole thing. I don't know, but it's made me. It's made me quite humble about the deals that I have got.
Speaker 2:I mean I've always asked. I mean not always asked, but I sometimes ask are you glad that you had, you've had the deal, and I say the success? In whatever way the success falls for you, are you glad it's happened now or would you prefer to have happened maybe when you were young or when you had that first run at it?
Speaker 1:oh no, I am glad it's happened now because I think, with age I'm I think that it's a great age. I think that I am more able to deal with rejection. I think that I am wiser in general about process, about the world around you, about not feeling like this success is the only thing that defines you or validates you. I think that if this had happened in my 30s, when I first started writing, you know you're a different person then, aren't you? And if I'd have come up against obstacles, if my career hadn't taken off, I would have perhaps felt like that was the end of the road and I perhaps wouldn't have gone on and achieved other things in different areas of my life, because you know, most writers don't do this as a full-time career. There's no way.
Speaker 1:If this had happened to me in my 30s, would I have gone on to have achieved professor status? Probably not. So I think, yeah, it's come. It has come at a good time. Plus, I've got all that life experience to draw on in terms of thinking about the material for the book as well, so I know more about the world around me.
Speaker 2:No, it's always. It's something like I always think about because I remember when I I think I was about 20, maybe 26, and because of my mum, like that, I know. When I was 20 I know I thought such a baby, but I felt like my mum always said I do things the long way around, so I didn't do a straight law degree, I did like a million always said I do things the long way around, so I didn't do a straight law degree, I did like a million other things. I did American studies and history and then I did a conversion course, then I did a master's in international relation and then did all this other stuff.
Speaker 2:And then I remember so when I did finally start the training to become a solicitor, I remember sitting there at 26 and I was on the phone to my mum and I was like the phone to my mum and I was like I'm gonna be so old when I qualify, I'm gonna be 29, because if I'd done it straight, if I'd done the straight law degree and done the straight training contract, I would have been maybe 23, 24 I think, when I qualified.
Speaker 2:So back. So then I was thinking I'm gonna be 29, I'm gonna be so old but now, looking back, I was like 29 was nothing and but also I'm glad it was. So nothing but I'm glad also I've had, I would say, like 20 years working in like criminal law and being part of that. I'll say that, sister and then, using all of those I said, all those life skills I think I've learned about, especially about people and how people work, yeah, yeah, and how they respond. It's probably the same like when you're a crime reporter, seeing how people respond in situations. Not every, not everyone's going to be the same like. I have all of that and I can now use that in my writing in my whatever. I've 40s, I'm 48 absolutely.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think you're absolutely right. I've been able to feed in like the trauma-informed approach that I used to have to my reporting. I've definitely been able to put into the books and just in general, I think you have more emotional intelligence, don't you? The older that you get? Yeah, and that can just help and and make probably give a lot more depth to your characters.
Speaker 2:I think yeah, no, I'd know. I definitely think so because, um, you know when I think, when you was talking about um, when you was being, I can't see my, see, my brain's gone. Now we're talking about prairie menopause come for us both. God, this fog has come for us both. I knew I was going to edit this out Come to me, god, my brain went, come to me.
Speaker 1:I think we showed the bitter truth of the menopause brain fog Keep it in.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to edit this out. I'm going to keep it in because Lisa and I were talking about premenopausal brain, brain fog and how you just forget things, and I've just completely forgotten it. But now it's gone.
Speaker 1:I remember what we were talking about.
Speaker 2:Lisa's got brain fog. Lisa's got to come and get my words out. Now Lisa's got brain fog. Lisa's got to come and get my words out. Now Lisa's got brain fog too. Anyway, as I was saying, you know when, in the beginning, when you was writing your books and you were first started to write, you was writing children's books, but obviously you have this crime reporting background. You've got this journalism background. Do you feel that it was more like a conscious decision that I'm not even going to go anywhere near, like my previous career, let me just go away, do something safe, because that's how I felt in the beginning, which is why I didn't write crime yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. I just I think, like from doing crime reporting for so long, it just sort of drags you down after a while and I'm sure you must have had the same of your profession like your whole world is dark. And I actually I wrote an academic book, um, or co-edited academic book, with a colleague, um, emma Hayward, and we wrote a book about trauma in the media and actually how it feels to be a journalist, being exposed to vicarious trauma day after day after day after day and the impact that that has on your mental health and the burnout after a while when you sit there and you listen to court cases about child abuse and child neglect and murder and rape and assault, and then you're going out and you're interviewing victims, families, and after a while you just begin to see the world is a really awful place and there's no light, it's just shade. And I think that's why I decided that I wanted to just move away and think and and you know I've I love teenagers.
Speaker 1:I have two teenage sons, um, and in general I find, in I find teenagers much more interesting people than grown-ups. I kind of love where they are in, their psyche and their development. I love the, the way they make decisions, the way they rationalize, the way that they see the world, and I just thought you know what I need? Yeah, look, just like you said I need, I need some light in all this shade, and so I wrote. I wrote it sort of comedically and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed going back to my own sort of teenagehood. I had quite a troubled sort of upbringing and I think, in a way, writing for teenagers was my sort of cathartic attempt to fix some of the problems that I'd had when I was younger as well. If you can fix the problems of those main characters and give those a bit more of a happy ending, then perhaps I was trying to give myself that too.
Speaker 2:But it's kind of like, you know, when you have those conversations in the shower, when you replay an argument in your head and you say this is what I would have said and it would have been the perfect response.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I argue my entire way there. I'm back and I've got an hour-long commute either way. So you know that's a lot of arguing in my head.
Speaker 2:I do it's a lot of arguing. But I feel like you kind of do the same thing in your work, in your writing. You, you kind of you, can kind of put the world to rights and make sure you know, make sure there's equilibrium again when through your, through your book, but it's also how the same way, how, yes, I've gone no, I was just saying you can kind of seek justice for everyone that's wrong with you.
Speaker 2:You can write it in your books, yeah, which I kind of yeah, and I was going to say like it's even I think, when you're talking about how dark, like your world is. But as a crime reporter, that's exactly how I saw being a criminal solicitor, because I'm like, I'm in darkness every, all day, every day, and it's not nine to five, it seeps into your weekend. And then I've always said that you need, you need to be able to compartmentalize yourself and either you learn to do that very quickly or you can just naturally do it. But I always said, because I was so, everything was just so dark.
Speaker 2:You know the things I'm working on, even like I say, a shoplifting is not even normally. Just well, back then it wasn't just a shoplifting, it was usually a shoplifting because you've got a drug um addict client who's trying to feed their habit, and there's this entire history behind it. We just want us to come home. You have to come home and just watch the most. I just thought reality tv, because I'm like it's the complete opposite, it doesn't need any brain cells.
Speaker 1:So I'll just go to the complete opposite and watch that thank god for maths right, because without things like that, without you know married at first sight, how do you possibly decompress in these careers? Yeah, no, I totally, totally know exactly what you mean there yeah, um, yeah, the decompression is key and yeah, look at what we both wrote.
Speaker 1:Here we are here. I am writing about really creepy, sinister dark things. But the thing I guess for me is that because sort of with my new publishing deal I've been able to explore that kind of slightly supernatural world, that's been quite good for me, because that means that I can sort of step outside that dark world and give, you know, give it a little bit of fantasy, or is it also?
Speaker 2:or is it? But also, we can always put context for everything. Yeah, you know, it's not just coming out of a google search, it comes from some kind of life experience yeah, absolutely, although I mean, what do you think about that?
Speaker 1:what do you think about the right, what you know? Because, like, it always makes me cringe that that phrase, but do you, do you subscribe?
Speaker 2:I feel like I did it in the beginning. I said which is why I ended up writing like I wrote sci-fi. I said I did the whole. I say family drama, if you want to call it a rom-com. I did everything. So I'm like I didn't want. It wasn't the fact that I couldn't write what I know. I didn't want people who knew me coming back to me and saying Nadine, you've been doing this job for x amount of years, how could you have got this right? It was a stupid little story I was telling myself. It was like, probably in my way of trying to avoid criticism by not writing what I know until I really until I realized actually no, but I really do want to write what I know because I do.
Speaker 2:As dark as that world is, I did actually like being a god. It sounds really strange thing to say I need a therapist. I like being a part of it yeah, no, I did too.
Speaker 1:I completely understand. Maybe it was like trauma, bonded or something with our careers. Maybe is that what's that, what's the name of that syndrome that that hostages get with their kids? Oh, Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, but it's probably true. I think that is a therapist stream, that isn't it?
Speaker 2:but I think there's probably a degree of Stockholm syndrome with any career that someone does. If you're in it for a long, long, long time and, as you said, it's not something you, you can just close the door on and shut your computer down on at 5 30 like it follows you home yeah, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's proper stalker, isn't it? Yeah, oh, my god, we've all got new scenes to write now, haven't we?
Speaker 2:it's got us thinking about our book. So, lisa, when did you know? Sorry, go on.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was just going to ask you a question. I was going to ask um like building on that in terms of yeah writing about the worlds that we know. Do you always, do you ever, panic that people like your friends and your colleagues are going to spot themselves in your writing?
Speaker 2:I think I get the opposite. People assume. They just assume they're like oh, is that me? No, no, it's not you.
Speaker 2:I said before I've had, I've had old clients which I always find amusing, like they found they find me on Facebook or LinkedIn. Weirdly, had them finding me on LinkedIn, um, asking me, am I in your book? But it's like they want to be in there. But I said before, like I've used, I've used friends names as placeholders and then unfortunately, they the placeholders then become, but then become permanent because the character has kind of they then become that name. If that makes sense and it's hard to then remove, yeah, I can't take it. But um, no, people, they, they like to think they're in the books but um, they're not. But I've been influenced. I've been influenced, so probably not by friends, but sometimes by clients, like I say, their traits or a particular fact about their case which I think is really I said it's so interesting, it's so good, like I need to use it or it might just be interesting to me, but it kind of forms a bigger part, yeah, of their character. Love that, what about you?
Speaker 1:um, yeah, I've all. All my friends think that they're in the book, but but my especially, especially one of them with the village, um, and the main, well, the, the woman that goes missing. The character's name is joanie Blackwood and she, um, she's, let's say, sex positive. It's very clear there's elements of this character that is my childhood best friend and when she read it she rang me up. She's like, oh, my god, lisa, my mom is gonna read this book and see what I used to get. So I think I feed in stories and anecdotes and situations to sort of flesh my characters out rather than base my characters on anybody. But everyone's sort of yeah, bits of people's life experience feed into the building of the new character 100%. So I think, rather than spotting yourself in a book, you'll definitely spot something that's happened to you in one of my books well, I've got this, this book that I've been writing, and, um, I realized the character's ex-husband.
Speaker 2:I was writing him and I was like this is basically an ex. If he ever read this, I was literally like every bad quality I've given him, I'm like that is all him. But it wasn't. It's not even cathartic, it's just fun at this point.
Speaker 1:I love it, love it. I was doing um, I did the Huddersfield Literature Festival at the weekend and I was doing um a talk with um Yvonne Battle Felton that wrote Curdle Creek, and she was saying that while she was going through her divorce, every book that she wrote, her husband was in there and died in some sort of way, repeatedly, chapter after chapter, book after book. There's a theme. Yeah, there is a theme. There is a theme.
Speaker 2:Lisa, when did you realize that you could tell a story? I always think it's an interesting, more interesting question to ask them when did you realize you could write, but that you were a storyteller?
Speaker 1:probably when I was tiny, my mom always said that I used to just talk the hind leg off a donkey and I used to tell constant stories to my teddy bears, to everyone around me. And actually this is, this is really cute. My mum had a boyfriend at the time who was an artist and he wrote me tiny, tiny, miniature little letters from the fairies and he actually built this so cute. He built this whole world for me because I had quite a difficult time when I was little and there was characters. There was a seagull called Cecil that brought the little letters. There were these two fairies that lived at the bottom of my garden in a chimney pot. He actually made this chimney pot with tiny little milk bottles in there and everything. I know it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:And I used to go to school and tell everybody that you know I had these fairies, that Cecil had delivered them another letter, that I was getting a teddy bear they were going to send so they could watch over me while I slept, and then I'd talk about the fairies adventures. Apparently, bert had been cleaning out the chimney on all sorts of stuff and I'd go in into class and tell everyone this and I'm sure those teachers must have thought I was on mushrooms or something, because I believed it. I just believed it. It wasn't. As you know, this was fact to me.
Speaker 1:And I used to go every morning and all the kids would say to me right, lisa, what have the fairies done? What the fair has done at your house today? And then I'd tell everyone a little story of what had happened. Um, and then I do think on my school reports it said I was a bit of a fantasist, but I suppose I believed it. But I, yeah, I love telling stories and you know what. That's why I became a reporter. That's why I became a reporter, that's why I became a journalist as well, because that's all we are storytellers.
Speaker 2:I think that's you know, it's so cute. But then even if your teacher had said you were a fantasist in your school reports, I mean that is what you obviously not the crime writing, not the crime reporting. But you know, with the book, because I said when I think about my school reports, always she's very good, but she talks too much. And I'm like, oh, look what I do for a living, like I continue to talk for a living as a lawyer, I'm always talking, doing this part, I'm talking. So, yeah, the talking, she talks a lot. Lisa, you know, as when you're teaching the, the undergraduates, journalism because I was thinking of when I'm, when I'm teaching my own, your own trainee lawyers, and they always have a myth, like they walk into their first class whip and then you have to dismantle that myth. So for me, as a lawyer, they always think that you can stand up and shout objection. You're like, no, we do not shout objection it's not.
Speaker 2:America, yeah, and the judge does not have a gavel, so just ignore that. What is like? I'll say what is the number one myth that your new journalism's walk into the classroom with?
Speaker 1:that you have to completely say no so they think that they're allowed an opinion. I don't mean just as a student, but I mean as a journalist. They think that you write the stories that you're passionate about, that you believe in, that you create a rhetoric that you're, you know, issuing a rally cry or trying to change something, that you have an angle. The first thing we've got to strip from them is that you're telling both sides of the argument that journalism is balance, that it doesn't matter what you think.
Speaker 2:What your reader cares is what you know, and that's how you develop trust you know what there's so much synchronicity between, like, what you do in journalism and what I do in law and basically what we teach, because I always I'm a bit more blunt I always say to mine you're robots, you have no opinion, you don't think about enough, you don't feel nothing, there is nothing, you are the tin man without a heart. You just you're just dealing with the fact, yeah, and your client's version of events and yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:Dealing in facts, absolutely. And, I think, trying to strip. When you're teaching them how to write journalistically and in a news fashion, like stripping out adjectives, stripping out adverbs, stripping out any sort of exposition, you know, it's just, and they think and this is I do find interesting they then think this is really boring the way I'm writing. There's not, but actually it's not. You can still create really impactive compelling sentences and stories. It's just, less is more and therefore that works in all kinds of writing, isn't it Is that you don't need to use 20 words when three will do. You just need to get the right three to create the same amount of impact as that other 20 would would have previously done it's something I always say and it's something I always have to like.
Speaker 2:I constantly have to remind myself because I overwrite, which is like you're using 10 words when one word could do. Yeah, and I always say, I always say to the students you need to get, you need to learn how to get rid of the noise and see past the noise and just get through to the facts of it. And then we always have to say to them as well you don't, as well as being a robot, you don't even use the words, I think, because it's not about you, so you don't think anything, you don't believe anything. It's we'll say I submit, because you're submitting on behalf of someone else as opposed to thinking for yourself on the journalistic side you're not allowed to think or submit.
Speaker 1:You just have to quote other people. But it is your job to make sure that what you're quoting is correct the same like you can't lie, you'll get struck off. You can't make stuff up so do you want to know something funny? Um about me and you that? Do you know that? Um, in a recent study, it turns out that journalists are the second most hated profession in this country. Do you know what the first is?
Speaker 2:we're public enemy number one and two.
Speaker 1:Well, apparently, yeah, I am number one and you are number two mean, oh, you know, I just try to help people.
Speaker 2:We're just, we're just, we're just doing our job. Because I know it's it's like no one likes the defense lawyers. I know we haven't gone up on a tangent no one likes the defense lawyers but I'm like if you get in trouble, you're gonna need me. And the amount of phone calls I've had from I'm not even saying friends and family, I'm talking about friends of the friends and family who have managed to get in touch with me because, oh yeah, nadine's a lawyer, she can ask you, she can help you. I have no idea who this person is, but they just want some advice and I've given it so when you need us that's yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:You've got to be there and I've done the same in terms of the media side of things. So we are important.
Speaker 2:They don't like us yeah, yeah, they don't like us. Yeah, yeah, oh, it's a good thing. I don't have self-esteem issues without being a corner crying.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what. Do you think you can? That goes with being a writer, doesn't it? The self-esteem issues listeners.
Speaker 2: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. Going back to being a writer, if you were to advise anyone so if you're going back onto one of these courses how to write courses I'm talking to I'm not saying an aspiring writer, just a writer going through the process what would be your advice to them as to how to get through the rejection, because it can come at any stage.
Speaker 1:That's the thing with it yeah, absolutely, and I think I wish something I wish I'd known when I was first starting out, I guess, is that the success of a book, or whether someone chooses to take it on to represent you, or whether someone chooses to take you on to publish it, and then what happens to that book after? It's often not how good that book is. There's lots of or certainly not you know any suspicion on how good the writing is. There's so many ingredients to what makes a book a success, and that is the right time, the right place. The current market trends, whether agents or publishers, have just got something that's just that tiny bit too similar on their list. It often isn't about the writing, it's about the book as a business, as an asset, and I think that I didn't fully understand that.
Speaker 1:I thought to be a successful writer. All you had to do was write a wonderful book. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much noise, as you said, around how you actually get the rest of the iceberg elevated.
Speaker 1:That actually has nothing to do with you and that's quite a hard pill to swallow when you think that you've poured your heart and soul into this book and then actually it's not going anywhere, because not because the writing was bad, but just because the market just isn't ready for it, it's just not the right time for it, or because the sales and marketing strategy hasn't worked the way they thought, or anything like that. But that's, it's quite hard. So, yeah, yeah, that's what my tip would be is that not to get despondent just because you don't have overnight success or you don't like earn out your advance in you know a year, or and and, or you maybe not get an agent at all. It really might not be anything to do with the writing, but much more to do with what they're looking for, what they need right now yeah it's.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's hard not to take it personal and I'm and it doesn't really matter what stage you are at your career, whether you are just at that submission stage or whether you're 10 books in or whether you've had the almighty success and then the next four or five books just haven't done the thing they wanted. There's so many other things at play absolutely a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:I, one of my, one of my friends, who's an author, he, um, he I better not mention him, just in case he doesn't mind that I'll talk about he wrote a very successful book a couple of years ago. Um, it wasn't his debut, but it just did really, really, really well and he was like well, that's it, I'm made. You know, I'm wearing designer clothes, I'm going on holiday. You know, he earned his advance over like six, seven times. In the first couple of months he was like dripping with success. And then his second book came out and the publishers just assumed that, because of the success, the second one would do well. And it just sank and he was devoured because he was like well, sales and marketing hadn't bothered, because they just thought, oh well, that first one was such a success we don't need to plow a strategy into it, because it's just going to sell off the name and it just didn't at all. And then he got dropped by his publisher.
Speaker 1:So you're right, really I know, even though it was kind of their fault. So so you're right, it can come at any stage and it is.
Speaker 2:I think this is like one of the things I've learned about publishing as well. You can't really take a cookie cutter approach to everyone's career, because what works, let's say what works for me is not going to work for you, lisa. What works for Lisa is not going to work for you, lisa. What works for Lisa is not going to work for me. And then there are some authors you said they may have had the ridiculous success that you dream of having their first book, and then it does naturally follow through their second, third and fourth and fifth book. But then there's other authors, like your friend, where they have the success and nothing.
Speaker 2:The second book it just drops. And I've seen it recently. I'm not going to name them, but I've seen it recently about two or three authors in the last couple of months where it's been there, they've had ridiculous success with their debuts. But then the second and third books have come out. And I've not because I'm like some bit of interested person, but I'm just like curious. So I'm looking, I'm looking at the top 50 chart. I'm thinking you haven't even placed and that's astounding to me because I would have just assumed. You know I shouldn't make assumptions, but I'm just assuming that because of all the success you would, naturally you, just you just fall into the top 10 yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:I know it's. It's a strange business, isn't it? And it's. It's brutal, it's volatile and it's completely unforgiving. So that's cheery, isn't it? However, it's also the best job in the world, isn't it? I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm just sitting there laughing because I'm like god it's depressing, but no, it is, it is the best, yeah, like you know what, though, is that, yes, it may be a dark world, but we're glad we're a part of it.
Speaker 1:Like we said earlier, it's um, it's not a dark world. Writing's amazing, and being an author is incredible. It's a privilege, it is an absolute privilege to create stories and worlds and narratives that people read and are entertained or inspired or educated by. It doesn't matter sort of what kind of writing you do, whether it's, you know, pulp fiction or literary fiction it's an honor to be able to produce that kind of, to actually be paid for it. You know, it's the dream, and to me it doesn't matter whether I'm a bestseller or whether I've just got a few people reading it. I still think it's an honour, and I'd still. There's still nothing else I'd rather do.
Speaker 2:But also as well, if you're writing, whether you are doing literary or you're doing supernatural or crime or romance, you are exposing people or making people aware of things that are going on in the world. Like you know when you're talking about your first book, paper Dolls in the world, like you know when you're talking about your first book, paper Dolls, and how the media responds to when a black child or person goes missing in comparison to a white person, and I did the same in the Jigsaw man, like how the media responded to the black teenager going missing in comparison to the white girl when she got all of the news and some people it's just not on their radar at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're only then learning of it through your books and it makes them probably then after that, oh, let me.
Speaker 1:It makes them look at the world a little bit, not in a bad way, but it opens their eyes up a little bit more, which is a good thing, yeah, yeah, and you don't have to be getting you getting highbrow literary prizes to be able to do that, so it's great. That's why I don't really like sort of the writing snobbery. So I've got I've got friends that are like, oh, I'm just reading some trash at the moment.
Speaker 1:I'm like don't say that no, writing is trash. Don't say that it might just be light and entertaining and comedic and you know escapism, but it's not trash. No, it's not in this.
Speaker 2:No, and there is skill. I mean, I'm reading a romance um rom-com at the moment. I love a nice rom-com, but I'm reading it and I didn't even know about different levels, of what different spice levels meant in terms of rom-coms, like I'm just rubbish. I had to go and google and so like um, level one is just, I don't even. I think level one spice is like you're just touching hands.
Speaker 2:Level five is full blown, probably porn hub, but I'm reading this I'm reading this rom-com and I think they've they've labeled it as like a spice level three and I'm reading and the sex scenes are coming. I'm reading this rom-com and I think they've they've labeled it as like a spice level three and I'm reading and the sex scenes are coming. I'm like I could never. I'm like I could never. I could never write such scenes. But then also, I'm reading the book. I'm like it's this craft in it. It's not trash. You have, you have to plot this. There's so many different things going on in this rom-com and I'm like, I'm like I applaud you.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you, it's not. It's not trash at all. No, it's not, it's skill, it's skill. But just, you know, to a different audience, writing to different audiences is a skill in itself. So knowing who your reader is and what they want and what they're going to respond to, um, yeah, yeah, it's a thing.
Speaker 2:Would you ever write? Would you ever write a rom-com?
Speaker 1:so, interestingly enough, um, after my first two books, um, my, my former agent did suggest I went for something a bit more light-hearted and I did try and write a rom-com, but it just wasn't for me. I just and I'll tell you why, you know, sort of when the whole rom-com chiclet kind of thing boomed in the sort of late 90s, early 2000s, they used to really annoy me because as a young woman at that time I was so desperate to get on the career ladder and make a success of myself. I didn't care about a man, you know, or a partner, that wasn't what was on my resume and I used to just get really annoyed about the fact that all these books seem to be centered around young women that were doing great in their job but couldn't find a man, whereas what I wanted was, you know, women that could find any man they want, any night of the week. They might not stick around, but what they can't do is get their foot on the career ladder. And that's what I wanted to read about.
Speaker 1:And I got. I got frustrated that it was all about romance and not about what mattered to me at that stage in my life. So I didn't finish my rom-com. Well, actually I did. I turned it into something else and I ended up having the woman kill her tinder date and then I realized I was not writing a rom-com so well, you know it's interesting.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. You say that, though, because one of my friends who's a crime writer. She was saying the same thing about um, like the current alliteration of like rom-com. She's like I was just why can't I just read about a woman in her late 30s, early 40s, doing her job? You know, maybe she's looking for a relationship, but having all these rubbish experiences that some of us have had, because why can't it just be normal? Why does it have to have this desperation built? Yes, that's why you're right. So I said why don't? So maybe you should write it and you know and why?
Speaker 1:why do you have to have a fairy tale? Because they all, all rom-coms have the fairy tale ending and you know, you, it's unrealistic and I think it can make you feel like a failure when the market is saturated with these Cinderella stories, because they all are it. Yeah, there's more to life than the person that you end up with it's about. I'd love to write a rom-com where you're actually sort of the main character falls in love with themselves and actually, you know, has a much more of a journey towards self-validation than seeing it through the eyes of anybody else.
Speaker 2:I think, um, someone asked me I can't remember when, though it must have been a, might have been a panel. They asked me about having a responsibility or feeling as if I had a responsibility when I write crime fiction, and I think my answer was simply that, you know, crime fiction, it reflects society. So, yeah, so I don't feel like I should shy away from particular topics, because this is the world we live in. Yeah, and even with my characters, with Henley, it's in the case of. You know, these are the things she's battling, not just outside in her working day, but also at home, and when you're looking at her at home, we should all be able to relate to that. You know you're trying to balance life and career, and maybe your husband's being a pain in the arse and you're being argued. You know there's so many different things. You, we can all see ourselves in that absolutely 100 percent.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, yeah, I'm telling you, would I, would I maybe give that a go, would I do a rom-com that has a slightly altered. Maybe I could write an alternative rom-com.
Speaker 2:I could write an alternative one. We all need everything you know. We need a little bit of everything you know, you're right. You're right. Lisa should ask you about our book, not our books. Your books, yeah sure, which one do you want to talk about? The village or the empty cradle? Um, let's talk about the empty cradle, because it's coming up okay, would you like to tell the listeners about the empty cradle?
Speaker 1:I will. I will okay. So, um, this is. I'll give a very brief plot summary. It's about um, a woman in her early 40s who is married and trying for a baby with a husband other. She's not really convinced, she wants one but he does and she feels like she should and she's a property flipper and she feels like she should and she's a property flipper and she finds out right at the beginning of the book so I'm not giving any spoilers here that her husband has been sleeping with her best friend. So ultimate betrayal. But she realizes she's more hurt about the best friend than she is about the man and so she decides to.
Speaker 1:She's just won a bid on a, a rundown old cottage in a Lancashire village that she was going to flip and put out for Airbnb, and she decides to instead move there, do the cottage up herself, regroup, decide what it is that she wants out of life. And she's not been very good in the past at making female friends. And when she moves to this village the women are in a book club. They're lovely, they're warm, they're vivacious and effervescent. They sort of welcome her in and she feels sort of like she's able to make connections for the first time. But then she finds out, wakes up after a book club night with wine, she wakes up on the heath naked with these strange sort of smears all over her body and then finds out shortly after that she's pregnant. So, but when she goes for her scan it turns out that the dates don't match up and she must have got pregnant after she moved to this village. Um, but she's not had any sex since she moved to the village. And these women in the book club become obsessed with this baby that she is carrying, and I shall leave it there.
Speaker 1:But, um, it was. It's a little bit. A little bit Rosemary's baby, a little bit. Um, oh, what was that? American horror story? One can't remember what it was called, never mind. Yeah, I can't remember what it was called off the top of my head, which is annoying. Um, so, yeah, so it's sort of it's slightly body horror, slightly folkloric, slightly, um, sort of a look at how people treat childless women and sort of the the madness around, sort of childbirth craves, and also a little bit of the witch trials coming in there as well. So lots of little ingredients. I really, really enjoyed writing this one. In fact, I would go as far to say, as this is the favorite book I've written, I've really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed some of the some of the research that I got to do surrounding it and, uh, and some of the some of the gory scenes were lots of fun before I ask you two questions about following on from the book.
Speaker 2:When you was um explaining what happened and then you said she was pregnant, and I'm in my head thinking no, no, I'm sure she said she wasn't seeing anyone after she left the husband like no, no, I'm sure she said she wasn't seeing anyone after she left the husband like no, no, you're not thinking. No, I didn't miss that.
Speaker 1:I'm sure she didn't say that so, yeah, I kind of love the fact that there is no love interest, so that's good, so well, or is there? You'll see if you ever went, so so but yeah, it's not, certainly not focused around um her relationships with men, much more focused about her relationships with women.
Speaker 2:Before I do actually ask you two questions about the book. What was it that made you move away from doing? I'm just going to say straightforward, crime fiction to the supernatural, because you're not the only author who's um doing that. I interviewed linwood barkley a couple of weeks ago and his new book, whistle, is um similar that crime fiction of a supernatural. I say, what's his new book called whistle. Yeah, whistle, whistle writing it down.
Speaker 1:Um, reading that. Well, you know what I've always loved the supernatural. I'm really into it myself. Um, just, it's the kind of movie and the kind of book that Writing it down. Well, you know what I've always loved the Supernatural, I'm really into it myself. It's the kind of movie and the kind of book that I love to read. I'm a Stephen King girl at heart. I've always been fascinated by it.
Speaker 1:But I've never tried to write it myself. I don't know why. I just thought that, you know, it wasn't. I don't know, I don't know why I didn't. And then I think that once I'd been writing these psychological thrillers, I get I get bored of feeling like I'm in a formula and I didn't want to get stuck in a formula. So I wanted to do something that hinted at the supernatural.
Speaker 1:That wasn't technically a supernatural book, if you know what I mean. I didn't want to to do something that you know when you read it you think, oh my god, was that? Was that real? Was that in a head? What? What was the actual? You know answer there.
Speaker 1:And I I read, um, but just before it came out as a Netflix series, I loved Behind Her Eyes, and I know a lot of people were like, oh, about the ending. But I loved it. I loved that. That ending just flipped the whole book on the head and you reading all the way through thinking it's just a normal book, and then that happens at the end and and I just I really liked that and I thought you know what? Then, if she can do, it is, yeah, it's implied, supernatural as opposed to sort of yeah, straight, I think, because for me that's scarier. You know, in this world I mean, I love ghost stories and I love hearing about real people that have had like creepy things happen to them. Those sort of day-to-day horror scares me more than the big fantastical horror. So, um, I just think a hint that there is something else out there is is you know what keeps me awake at night.
Speaker 2:I think I mean I prefer that. But then I was gonna say that I I was gonna say, like I loved horror growing up in, like reading, I would say reading Stephen King, when you shouldn't be watching horror movies.
Speaker 1:But my brothers are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you ask my brothers about horror movies, I'd be like Nadine was the one who made me watch it when I was like eight. Well, but the thing about me, I can't cope with a haunted house. I went to my brother oh god no, I nearly passed out. I went to um my brother lives in Japan and we went to Fuji Q. Yeah, it's a theme park and you know Japanese horror movies. Just imagine that as a haunted house, and they it was. Their haunted house was a, it was a mental institution and you'd go in there. Yeah, exactly, I mean, if you see my, if I showed this bit of the video, I've just got my hands to my head yeah, and you walk in and it's literally it's a hospital.
Speaker 2:You walk in and we're going to the waiting area and they show a video of what happened. You know how the mental institution was before it this tragedy happened and then became haunted. And then they said to you and I think obviously I can't speak Japanese, so they had to say to my brother like, oh, if someone in your party is really really sensitive, we can give them a special badge. So if the I say the ghosts see them, they won't haunt them as much. So I was like, yeah, yeah, I'll take it. And Lisa, no word of a lie. It was four floors of this haunted house I have never been. I don't like it. I was so panicky.
Speaker 2:My apple watch, we did it. We put the blood pressure or the pulse monitor on. My pulse was going up. And then when we went down to a basement and it was, they made it freezing cold because it was supposed to be the mall. People are jumping that it was the. No, my brother loved. My brother loved it and it's my sister. They loved it. Me. I'm not. I need to get out, I need to.
Speaker 1:I love, I love being scared, but it's when you've got the actors. I just don't want to be touched and I'm really frightened. They always say the worst thing to do, but they lie, because I went to one. I went to a horror film convention with my friend a couple of years ago and there was like a scare maze. I'm like I'm not doing that, I'm not doing that, and she's like, oh no, come on, don't be such a wuss, come on, come on, come on her, you know, and they can't touch you, just get through it. They can't touch you. Oh, my god, nice. So first of all, I had to go through a crawl space. I had to crawl through somewhere and one of them grabbed my ankle and dragged me out. I should have heard the class, a swear words coming out of my mouth, with some nine-year-olds, you know, behind me in a nike tracksuit, being really hard, and I'm there using the C word and the F word with gay abandon and honestly, it was horrendous. So, no, I, oh it's no.
Speaker 2:My brother was like what's wrong with you? But you like this stuff. I said I like to watch it and I don't mind reading it. I don't need it. Yeah, I don't need someone breathing on me. And then it was was oh, get. It was the worst experience and they had these doors. You could leave, so you could leave early. My father's like you're not leaving early. Yeah, I wanted to leave.
Speaker 1:I took my my. My youngest son, um, is really into his horror. He's 14. I took him to one of these scare mazes last Halloween you know the ones where clowns with chainsaws chase you through and it's just like, oh my god, it was just horrible the whole thing. And he was just you are so embarrassing. I'm like, well, I don't know what you expect.
Speaker 2:Quite frankly, I don't know what you expect they think, because we write crime and we write the things we do and we did the jobs we did that this is just going to be a walk in the park and literally I'd rather be. I would rather be in the park eating an ice cream and watching the ducks. I don't need, I don't need this is it life stressful enough?
Speaker 1:you need to add feeling like you're about to be killed. You know we have that. Enough of them in, don't we?
Speaker 2:right, lisa, about the empty cradle. Did you face any challenges in writing your book?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, I mean, I'm I'm a, you know, a busy working mom. You know it's really hard to find time at any point in your life. So I tell you, my biggest challenge with writing is just finding the headspace to do it, because I don't have the luxury of having to be able to sit down for three, four hours at a time time. I wrote the empty cradle at the side of a football pitch, at the side of cricket training, sat in a car, waiting for, you know, a kid to finish from detention. It's great when you've got naughty kids, because when they get detention it's like free round kind of thing. So it's like get an extra hour of my day back while I wait for them and uh no, I joke kind of um. So I find it's quite hard to did it in fits and starts and that means that at the end of the book it was quite disjointed. So the second and third draft took a while for me to get it sort of all together.
Speaker 1:Um, but that's, you know, that that's my main thing is that, and also I have ADHD, so I just go off. Like you may have noticed, my brain goes off all the time and in any kind of writing that is my struggle, because I never I never do the plot, I never do the chapter by chapter plot. Um, I find that too boring and I don't know what my characters are going to do yet, because I don't know, because I haven't written them. So I like to be sort of pulled along by them. But that does mean that I can sometimes have to go back and delete 10,000 words because I realize I've just gone off on too much of a tangent and then, you know, a little part of you dies inside, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Um, so for me the challenge of writing is my focus. But I have to do it. I'm born to do it. So I just have my inner demons there to try and make myself sort of sit down. And, and you know it's good over there because my day job, because I teach, I do get, you know, a bit more downtime over summer, a little bit of downtime Christmas and Easter, so that does give me a little bit more time to get into the groove of it. But you know, the dream is, one day maybe this will be my full-time job. Who?
Speaker 2:knows one day, that's what we hope for. Yeah, to speak speaking of characters. So speaking of characters, if you could spend an afternoon with any of your characters from the empty cradle, who would you choose and why?
Speaker 1:oh, um, vic. So she is the best friend of the main character, the one that sleeps with a husband, so not really the nicest friend in the world, but she's also lots of fun and she has a lot of background and life experience and she, you know, mixes a great cocktail and I think she'd be a great person to go on a night out with. Probably wouldn't want to be a lifelong best friend, but I think that you know you'd be one of those nights out where you lose your shoe, you know, and you end up in a police cell. Yeah, you know anything. So she'd be. She'd be great for a good night out okay, so we're doing our last four questions.
Speaker 2:Lisa, are you an introvert, or are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?
Speaker 1:I'm an extrovert? I think I'm not. I am, and there are two sorts of people in this world, and I believe, those that recharge through being on their own and those that recharge through being with others, and I'm definitely the the latter. If I'm left on my own too long, um, I go a bit mental. So I absolutely love being in company. I'm a very sociable person. I'm an oversharer and, um, and yeah, I'm very loud. So, yes, I am a massive extrovert. I don't think there's any part of me that's introverted, to be honest okay.
Speaker 2:So what challenge or experience say good or bad? So what challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most?
Speaker 1:so so I mentioned this before that I've sort of I have I've had sort of quite a few challenges in my life and I've experienced quite a lot of loss, um, but I think it's probably the loss of my stepdad, that sort of shaped, shaped and changed me and sadly he took his own life and um it it obviously was a huge effect on the family, but it also just made me see things in so many different ways. Um, it's made me really aware of the male mental health struggle. It's made me really appreciate the little things in life. It's made me start doing gratitude, which I do every day, even before it became trendy, and it's made me look for those little glimmers of happiness. And I think it's taken me on a journey where, no matter how dark your day is or your world is, there is always, always something to be grateful for. Um, and I try and keep that positivity in my life now, um, I try and teach that to my kids too. So probably that it.
Speaker 2:Was it Leonard Cohen who says um the cracks are where the light comes through yeah, I love that quote yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:And you know, I was gonna say, well, I was gonna say to your point out which is not, it's not the same thing. But, um, you know, when we was talking about your book and moving into Supernatural, and I was just gonna say it's the reasons why you shouldn't really pay attention to trends, because right now there's a lot of. I've say it's the reasons why you shouldn't really pay attention to trends, because right now there's a lot of. I've seen it like the last six months publishers saying, oh, we're looking for horror books and supernatural. You wouldn't have known that two years I'm going to say two years ago, when you started writing your book, and now, two years later, it just happens. Yeah, that's what publishers are looking for yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And the thing is you can't start writing something because that's what they're looking for right now, because by the time you finish that book they're looking for something else. So you just can't keep on top of it, you just can't. It's luck, it really is luck as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2:I think that's the only time when maybe write what you know kind of actually works.
Speaker 1:Not write what you know, just write what you want to write right now, don't write for the market, because that market will have moved on 100 yeah, definitely, the market's closed.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, right. If you could go back to when you're 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Speaker 1:so I've just finished reading the let them theory by Mel Robbins and I'm going to see her.
Speaker 1:Oh are you. Oh, she's fabulous. I'm such a fangirl, I've got a proper girl crush. Um, I, I would say that let them I would. I used to like wrap myself up in worry about what other people thought, whether I was. You know, if someone didn't text me back, was that because they didn't like me? Was I not a good enough friend? You know what's going on. I think that if I could go back and just say just focus on you, don't worry about everybody else, just worry about you, be a good person, but don't, you know, live your life through the lens of other people, because that's what I definitely used to do and I was so desperate for validation and I'm quite sad now.
Speaker 1:Now I would absolutely go. Let them let people behave how they want, let that man treat you like crap, let you put your boundaries in and not put up with it. But don't look to see, you know, don't sit in second guess, thinking well, maybe he's treating me like that because I'm actually not worthy of his love, or you know, or maybe that friend is not being very nice to me because I'm actually, you know, not funny and no fun to be around, and people aren't inviting me to this because you know so. Rather than look like in that goldfish bowl of that world, going around you and past you and you in the middle of it, thinking that you just don't quite fit or you don't quite belong, or trying so desperately to get everybody's approval, just love yourself, surround yourself by the people of you, and just you know, am I, am I allowed to swear? I don't know, you can say it, you know. Fuck everybody else. Just you know what I mean, that it doesn't matter, it's all just noise you know what?
Speaker 2:it's too simple, it's just two little words, but I think they are the best words. So just just let them, because also, what they're thinking, what they're doing, what decisions they're made, sometimes it's got absolutely nothing to do with you and you create this whole story in your head yep, yep, and you just, and actually it's arrogant to think that it's all to do with you.
Speaker 1:Someone once said to me and I love this saying it is absolutely not your business what other people think about you, it's none of your business. Yeah, I'm like, oh my god, you're right, it's none of my business what other people think about me.
Speaker 2:Love that life is a little bit brighter when you get rid of all that. Yes, it does. Yeah, it's liberating. I don't know why I say four questions. It's not four questions. But Lisa, what is your? I call it. What is your non-writing tip for writers? So I say, could be drink water, yeah, write drunk, edit sober.
Speaker 1:I'm laughing, but it is a good tip.
Speaker 2:That is my tip. She doesn't mean literally you need to be pissed.
Speaker 1:No, you don't have to be drunk, but I like to have a glass of wine when I'm writing, and I don't know why not not maybe while I'm by the football pitch, but it's like. I just, I don't know, I like to. It's like, it's a, I think, for me. I love to create a romantic scene for myself while I'm writing.
Speaker 1:So I get my incense on, I get my lamps, get candles, I get like a you know a vibe. This is why I never get any writing done, because I'm setting my vibe up. I shouldn't get any writing. This is ADHD, um, but I have like a bottle of red wine because then I feel like a proper writer and then I want a typewriter. So you know, I can do that, um, but I think it helps. It gets things flowing and if I'm definitely stuck on a scene or a plot point and I've had a couple of glasses of wine, I might read, I could write some batshit stuff, but it's fine because you can't edit an empty page. So you can come back sober, see the mad stuff that you've put on the page, but there might be something brilliant in there. So yeah, I'm not saying you have to bring to be a writer, but I would say that that it's okay to write when you've had a few, as long as your edit's over.
Speaker 2:It means I have to take it back, because she does literally mean right when you're pissed, but no, let it flow, just let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let it flow, don't overthink it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god, no, definitely, don't overthink it. Yeah, definitely, god, no, definitely. I mean, I've said it before when I do my first draft, I just it's, that's just a story for me and I, the minute I, yeah, the minute I allowed myself to accept that it does. That first draft does not have to be perfect, that my scenes can just end and characters can just you can introduce characters and they you don't hear from them again, like I've done that. You've seen them come in in chapter five and they pop up again at the end of the book. I'm like I can fix it in a second. Yeah, so like later, the minute I gave myself that freedom yeah, I look, yeah, you're great.
Speaker 1:So someone described to me as writing forward and I love that. Just write forward, write forward, keep on going. You fix it all at the end. Because if you start messing around, going back and you know, rereading what you've written and editing what you've written, don't just don't, just keep on going, fix it at the end no, that is true.
Speaker 2:And finally, lisa, where can listeners of the conversation find you online?
Speaker 1:oh, okay. Well, social media wise, I am Lisa B Jerno on x, although I'm not on x as much anymore is anyone because? I'm not no, it's not the same place I miss um.
Speaker 2:I am Lisa B writer on insta we can find you, and that just leaves me to say, lisa Rooks, thank you so much for being part of the conversation.
Speaker 1:I've had so much fun. Thank you so much for having me.
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 nadiemathersoncom. Thanks again for your support and I'll catch you next time.
