Ashley Kalagian Blunt on novel structure, strategic selling and compartmentalising when researching

Natasha Rai interviews author Ashley Kalagian Blunt about her thriller Like, Follow, Die. Blunt shares an elevator pitch: a Sydney mother, known as “the most hated woman in Australia,” faces a homicide detective at her door as three narratives (mother, cop, and son ages 12–19) converge around whether she reveals secrets about her teenage son. She discusses the novel’s origin as an Audible Original, how removing a key twist reshaped the story, and why this book was easier to draft than Cold Truth, for which she discarded a full manuscript. Blunt also describes researching the manosphere and education for boys, her move from genocide-focused nonfiction to crime for strategic and creative reasons, her path to publication and agents, and tips for writers: maintain momentum (even one word a day), join a strong writers group, and prioritize structure.

00:00 Podcast Intro
00:56 Meet Ashley Blunt
02:00 Like Follow Die Pitch
03:24 Building The Detective
05:00 Audible Origin Story
07:17 Writing Process And POVs
10:13 Manosphere And Policy
13:16 Schools And Respect Crisis
15:12 Staying Sane In Dark Research
17:50 From Memoir To Crime
25:35 Early Writing And Ego
29:08 Illness And Finding Craft
32:21 First Publishing Contract
36:16 Novella Becomes Debut Book
39:54 Switching Publishers
42:50 Rejection and Resilience
44:01 Affirm Press Breakthrough
45:53 Going Agented
49:14 US Subagent Reality Check
53:41 Two Book Deal
57:35 Writing With Chronic Illness
01:02:55 Momentum Writers Groups Structure
01:08:40 Why Structure Is Rarely Taught
01:13:35 Final Thanks and Wrap

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Transcript

Speaker 0:08

This is The Book Deal Podcast Where you will discover the inspiring stories behind your favorite books.

Speaker 2 0:16

We interview seasoned and debut authors, as well as publishing industry professionals, to bring you the best tips and advice on how to get that elusive book deal.

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So, no matter what stage of writing you're at, we've got you covered. I'm Tina Strachan.

Speaker 0:30

I'm Madeleine Cleary.

Speaker 2 0:32

And I'm Natasha Rai.

Speaker 3 0:34

And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors.

Speaker 4 0:37

One deal at a

Speaker 0:38

time.

Speaker 4 0:43

The Book Deal Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters which it's recorded on, and pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.

Natasha Rai 0:56

Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the number one best-selling author of Dark Mode, which was shortlisted for the 2024 ABA General Fiction Book of the Year, the Ned Kelly Awards for the Best Crime Fiction, and the Danger Award for Debut Fiction. She teaches writing workshops across Australia. Her latest thrillers are Cold Truth, which was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Awards, and Like, Follow, Die. Hey, Ashley.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:27

Good morning, Natasha. How are you?

Natasha Rai 1:29

I'm okay. How are you?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:31

I'm good, thank you.

Natasha Rai 1:32

I was just saying before we started recording that you have an amazing bookshelf. I can see your- Oh,

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:36

thank you

Natasha Rai 1:37

your incredible books, and I can see a bunch of other books. Are they books that you like to read and have read a few times?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:43

These, these are some of my crime collections, so, uh- Ah they, and I have to admit they were selected for their rainbow capacity. Yes. I do like the visual of the rainbow, and I, and I like the contrast with crime as well, so But there are some of my very favorite authors in there as well.

Natasha Rai 1:58

I love it. Um, so as we do on this, on the Book Dep podcast, you have a book out called Like Follow Die, which is your newest novel. Um, I'm gonna throw you in the deep end and ask you for your elevator pitch.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 2:11

Elevator pitch is one of my favorite parts of the process, so I know, I know- Okay.

Natasha Rai 2:15

I'm just making a face that no one can see, but

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 2:19

okay. No, I think because it's such an important part of, you know, getting someone interested in your story, so it is something that I work on. So let's, here's my elevator pitch. We can see- Okay we can see what you think about it.

Natasha Rai 2:29

Okay.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 2:30

So Like Follow Die is a psychological thriller. It is set h- here in Sydney. It is about a, a Sydney mother, she's an older mother, and one morning she gets a knock on the door, and she looks through the peephole of her apartment, and she can, she can see, she can tell this guy's a cop. She's never met this one before, but she's been around enough cops to know. And she knows, like, in her soul that he is there to talk to her about her teenage son, and she knows that in part because she is known as the most hated woman in Australia. And this is the three narratives we get. We get the mother's narrative, we get the cop's narrative, he's a homicide detective, and then we get the son's narrative from the age of 12 to the age of 19, and those three all kind of come together. And really the crux of the story is around this meeting between the mother and the cop. Is it finally time that she shares the secrets she knows about her son?

Natasha Rai 3:20

Wow, that is such an amazing pitch.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 3:23

Thank you.

Natasha Rai 3:24

Um, having read the book, I- I found myself really drawn into the detective story. Like, I really loved how you captured that kind of energy of the newbie, like, you know, trying to do the right thing, but kind of getting caught in wanting to be respected and wanting to be kind of in the It's not even in the crowd, but just, like, part of the team almost.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 3:47

Yeah. Yeah.

Natasha Rai 3:48

I thought that was so, so well done. I really enjoyed those, those sections as, as particularly. Like, I enjoyed the whole thing, but-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 3:54

Oh, thank you

Natasha Rai 3:55

yeah, there was something about him that I really was, like, was very resonant.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 4:00

Oh, thank you. Well, yeah,'cause he's a younger cop. He's very earnest, and he- this is the thing, he's always wanted to be a homicide detective, and he's finally been given this chance, but it's this, you know, probationary, like, three months. Like, if you don't If it doesn't work out, you get kicked back to beat cop. And he's been partnered with this, like, legendary cop, but this, like, tough older guy who's happens to be going also through cancer treatments and just, like, does not have time for anyone's bullshit basically. Mm-hmm. And, and so that dynamic makes it really challenging. And this cop's got a young wife at home who's pregnant and, and you know, she's really supportive of him. I didn't wanna write that stereotypical wife that expects him to be home for dinner. Like, she's super supportive, but she's also got medical complications, and so he's really torn about this new career that he's trying to, that he's trying to establish himself in and, and his, and his relationship with his wife.

Natasha Rai 4:47

Yeah. It was Yeah, I really enjoyed that. Um, and I'll, I'll t- tell you offline how stressed I was at certain parts. Which you probably know what I'm talking about, but I don't wanna ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it yet. Yes. Yeah. So I, I, I went to your Sydney launch recently for the, for the book, and I know that just from hearing how it came about that it was originally intended as an audiobook. Is that right?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 5:11

It was originally contracted as an Audible Original. Mm-hmm. So Audible approached me about that, and I had talked to other authors who had done Audible Originals, like, for several years. And originally they were 20 to 40,000 words. Like, they weren't intended to be full novels. They were supposed to be these shorter kind of bonus things that you got with your Audible membership. And so I had saved this idea that I thought,"You know, this idea, it probably wouldn't work as a whole novel. I couldn't sustain it for that long, but I think it would be great at 20 to 40K." So I'd had held this idea for the, this opportunity if it ever came around for me. And then- Audible approached me and they said,"Okay, but we want a minimum of 50,000," because what they were finding was if, if people were going to spend a credit for a book, they want a full-length book, which makes complete sense. Yeah. So they said,"We want a minimum of 50 and you can go, you know, as far as you want above 50." I'm sure your listeners will know kind of an average novel is about 80, 85. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I I was like,"Okay, well, I can expand this idea out to 50," and I g- you know, gave it some thought, and I... So I sent them a 300-word synopsis. I was like,"All right. Here's what I'm thinking. Here's the idea." And they said,"We love it, except the main bit. Take that out." What

Natasha Rai 6:20

was the main bit?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 6:21

Well, I don't wanna say because it's some- it's a twist that I'm holding on for- Oh, okay.

Natasha Rai 6:25

Got it. Yep. Yep.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 6:26

Yep a later idea, but, uh, that's why I'm being purposefully vague. Basically, all that was left, if I took that main bit out, was a story about a cop. I was like,"So you want a police procedural?" Oh. I was like,"Okay."

Natasha Rai 6:36

Right. Okay.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 6:37

So then, but then I actually had a meeting with them and went back and forth, and I, I understood what they were saying about, like, what they didn't like about the main idea, and I think just because, you know someone, sometimes they read something and they get their own idea in their head- Mm-hmm of, like, what it could be.

Natasha Rai 6:52

Hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 6:53

And so we discussed that, and I s- got a sense of what they were thinking, and I thought,"Okay, right. I can work with that." And that was where this original idea about Ben and his mum being the center of the story was actually secondary, and then because of how we reworked things, that became the main story, and I'm so glad that happened because it, it really was what the book was meant to be.

Natasha Rai 7:17

Mm. Mm. And so o- once all of that happened, was the process of writing it different in any way for you?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 7:27

This was my easiest book. I've never had an easy book before, and in fact, my, uh, previous thriller, Cold Truth, was incredibly difficult. It was my fourth book, but it was my second thriller, and so it was second book syndrome in terms of you're trying to write for an established audience- Mm in the same genre. Mm. And it's when you find out that you don't actually know what you're doing. Like- So that was, that was incredibly difficult, and I'd really, really, really struggled with that, and I actually ended up throwing out an entire manuscript. Like, I threw out a whole manuscript.

Natasha Rai 7:56

Wow.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 7:56

I had two years.

Natasha Rai 7:58

Hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 7:59

I was at the 18-month mark when I threw the whole thing out, and then I had six months left to just, like, write a new... And I used- Oh some of the same... Like, I used the same research for the setting. The main character had the same job, but the plot was entirely different, and other than the main character and her dad, pretty much every other character was entirely new for that new plot to work. So it was, it was almost an entirely new book. But that said, all of the thinking that went into the first version and figuring- Hmm out what didn't work- Hmm allowed me to write the second version so much faster, and some readers still say it's their favorite of the three So few. But Like Follow Die was so different because I had had this idea that I was going to do it from these three perspectives Mm-hmm and that they would be equally weighted. So with my first, Stilleto Dark Mode, that was one POV. My second, Cold Truth, I- it was like 85% the main character and then some little, some short POVs from our antagonists. With this, I thought,"Okay, mom, cop, teenager. We'll do all three." And they each are siloed in their own timeline, so I could almost write each of them as a novella- Oh, yes like in and of itself. Okay. Yes, yes. And so that was the approach I took, so I thought,"Okay, like I'm gonna start with just thinking about each of these as a 20,000-word novella." Mm-hmm. And you know, the final version's 83K, but I, I thought,"If I'm thinking of this as three novellas, this will, this will make it easy." And that actually worked. Like that actually- Mm-hmm it all came together, and it was one of those stories that just, that just worked. And then I thought, Natasha, I was like,"Ah, now I know what I'm doing, and I will just do the same thing for my next book, and we'll have three POVs in their own timelines." And I was just like and that book has been incredibly difficult.

Natasha Rai 9:37

Ah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 9:37

Partly, partly because I wanted to put a lot more twists in. Like my personal tagline for the next one is 500% more twists. And of course, that just makes the story so much more complex. Like if you want a twist, it pay off and not just-

Natasha Rai 9:49

Exactly,

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 9:50

yes be there for the sake of it. Just

Natasha Rai 9:51

to favor it. Yeah, yep.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 9:52

Yes. So my next one is currently sitting at 96K and it's a bit of a mess. Uh, it's gonna come together. Like I'm really excited about it. I'm not gonna have to throw it out or anything, but it's, it's n- it has not been nearly as easy. Like Follow Die, I wrote... I had a workable draft of that in 10 months, which is-

Natasha Rai 10:08

That's so fast. That's amazing. Like well done. Yeah, amazing.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 10:12

Thank you. Thank you, thank

Natasha Rai 10:13

you. And, and actually I've heard you say that, you know, you started to become interested or drawn into kind of cyber, um, thriller and also the manosphere, like through Dark Mode and now you wanted to write about it in Like Follow Die. So I just came across this article a couple of days ago about, um, Victoria has appointed their f- their minister for men and boys, and- Ooh yeah. And, um, New South Wales and the ACT have now got appointed shadow minister f- responsible for men. And I guess the f- the... what caught my attention, I mean, I knew I was gonna be talking to you and I've read your book, but also what caught my attention was this article was saying that the ministers want to do or bring about change that activist groups don't want. So activist groups are coming in with this idea of, you know, domestic violence courts are skewed against men because women make up claims, blah, blah, blah. And, um, the ministers are saying,"Well, actually, that's not what we wanna do." And I was just curious about what you think about that probab- you know, given that you've been immersed in some of that yourself in the writing of these books, about this idea of a minister coming in for men and boys and trying to do something different.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 11:29

That is so interesting, and I do think it sounds like exactly what we need because I'm assuming that what they are doing, which is what I would hope all of our ministers are doing, honestly, is drawing on the actual research and the- Mm-hmm actual facts. Because, for example, that comment about the s- courts being skewed towards men are away from men- Awa- yes,

Natasha Rai 11:53

yes, yes

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 11:53

away from men, skewed towards women. Uh, so there, there are, there are groups, men's rights groups, and they are very involved in media and politics. Uh, and they're also very involved in, uh, social media and, and, and trying to get young men and boys, uh, to be involved in their communities. Uh, but one of the things that they will do is they will just make up statistics. They will just make up information. And we're in this cycle now where if someone from, you know, someone from the media, they wanna get a balanced story, they're like,"Okay, this person represents the other side of this debate." Mm-hmm. They'll go and interview them. They don't have time to fact-check them. Mm-hmm. They don't have time to edit, so they'll just take what they say and just put it in the news as if- Yes it's reality. Facts.

Natasha Rai 12:38

Yes, yes, yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 12:40

And so when you get investigative journalists who actually go and say,"Okay, so-and-so said this, but is it actually true?" They've found that so many of these things are just made up. And, and it's unfortunate because if you're a member of that group, you're being told this by someone who's an authority figure. Mm. Mm. You believe it, right? That's right. So why wouldn't you go to your minister and say,"This needs to change"? But I, I hope all our ministers, no matter what they're doing, are going,"Okay, let's actually look at the research-

Natasha Rai 13:05

Mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 13:05

and see what's really going on."

Natasha Rai 13:07

Yeah, I felt quite very optimistic when I read that. I was like,"Oh, this is beaut- like, this is wonderful." Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 13:13

Yes.

Natasha Rai 13:13

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 13:14

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Natasha Rai 13:16

So in your research, um, for your novels, like, did you come across examples where things are trying to be implemented, or there is a glimmer of change in terms of education for men and boys?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 13:30

The UK has actually just brought in, uh, education to teach boys to respect women, and it was really interesting because, of course, you see that as a headline on social media, right?

Natasha Rai 13:40

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 13:40

And then you go and read all the comments, and there's all these comments. And whether they're, you know- Whatever, it's social media. But all the comments are,"Well, what about teaching the girls to respect the boys?" And, and the thing is, I have been going across the country on book tour over the last three months. Mm. One of the things I've been doing is talking to people who work in particularly high schools about how much things have changed, just in the past five years even, like five to 10, but especially the past five. I was talking to someone in Newcastle just recently, and she works in a high school, and she said,"Last year was so bad in terms of the, the way the boys treated the female staff especially." And she said, you know,"It was the worst of my entire career."

Natasha Rai 14:22

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 14:22

And she said,"This year is already worse than that." Oh. And she said, you know, established female teachers, like head teachers who have been doing this for decades, have never had these kind of problems before. They cannot get the boys to, to, like, calm down, to do anything, that there's just this level of complete disrespect. But then they go into a, a male teacher's class and they're perfectly well-behaved. So they know how to behave. It's, it's just, like, this outward disres- display of disrespect that I think they're, you know- Mm-hmm they feel like this is part of what it is to be masculine, because that's what they're being told online. So there's, there's this, it is kind of hitting a crisis point. Mm-hmm. So if you don't know that context and you just see that headline on social media, it looks really skewed. Yes,

Natasha Rai 15:05

it does,

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 15:05

yeah. But it's actually exactly what is needed right now to, to combat this. Gosh,

Natasha Rai 15:10

yeah. D- uh, how did you hold onto your optimism or sanity or, I don't know, something good as you were looking into this and writing?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 15:21

I mean, before this, I spent 10 years researching and writing about genocide, and it particularly the Armenian Genocide of World War I with my, which my grandparents both survived, my great-grandparents. And, you know, I, I had learned as, as a 16-year-old that my great-grandfather witnessed his, not just his entire family, but his entire village slaughtered- Mm,

Natasha Rai 15:39

mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 15:39

and, and, and then burned to the ground. And I, so, like, that's something that lives inside me- Mm is what humans are capable of doing to each other. And so I don't know if it's just that I'm a Gemini and so I kind of have the two sides. Like, I, I, you know, I used to do stand-up comedy. I've always been, like, I w- in the past when I was healthy, I was always involved in some kind of comedy. Uh, I think that, so it allows me to compartmentalize, like, the really, really dark stuff that I- Mm that I research and that I write on. Mm. And, and, and then the fact that there's also more to life. And I remember interviewing someone who works at the Genocide Memorial Museum in, in Yerevan in Armenia, and, you know, she's a, she's a, she was a PhD scholar in genocide at that time, and she worked in the museum. She gave tours. So she's just talking about, you know, the, the, the worst things people do and did, a- and to her, to her family and her people, uh, every day. And she s- I s- I exac- asked her that exact question that you just asked me, and she said,"Oh, I go to the pub and I have a drink with my friends afterwards. Like, it's not my whole life."

Natasha Rai 16:43

Mm-hmm. Exactly. And that's so important, like, because I know that when you do research or periods of research, it can just feel so immersive and just draws you in, and that's a nice reminder that it's not your whole life. Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 16:55

But I will say, actually, I mean, when I was researching genocide, obviously we were in a different political moment to where we are now, and that- Mm-hmm I think it would be harder right now. Uh, but I do find, I, I do find actually writing about the manosphere more emotionally challenging than I did researching writing about the genocide because i- i- it is integrated so fully into our society. Mm-hmm. And seeing how, even how much worse it's gotten, like I said, in the past five years that I've been doing- Mm-hmm this writing. Like, I started writing Dark Boat in 2020. Like, the fact that it's, it has gotten that much worse, and the fact that, um, we are seeing it, we are seeing the ramifications of it. So I, I do find s- that a bit, uh, harder to... Like, I've had to put more effort into managing it, kind of- Yeah the psychological impacts.

Natasha Rai 17:45

Yeah. I can imagine.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 17:46

It's, it's all around us.

Natasha Rai 17:47

Yes, exactly.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 17:49

Yeah.

Natasha Rai 17:50

Oof. Okay. So to zoom out a bit. Yes. Um, because I don't think we're gonna be able to figure out a solution between the two of us, even though we possibly could if we had a bit, enough time. Um, so just going back to what you said about researching the genocide. So you s- you started out... Well, the first book that I read of yours, um, was like- Yeah essays and then a bit of a cri- a thriller type vibe. Yeah. It was that... I guess I'm calling it diaspora. I don't know how you, um, describe it, but I'm wondering how you moved from that into writing thriller and crime.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 18:23

Ah, fantastic question. I... So I started researching and writing about, uh, the Armenian Genocide back in 2009, actually, was when I first started that, and I spent 10 years. My first book, My Name Is Revenge-

Natasha Rai 18:37

Mm-hmm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 18:37

came out in 2019.

Natasha Rai 18:39

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 18:39

And so that was 10 years where I was... I did two master's theses on diaspora, uh, and Armenian cultural identity and the genocide. I, we interviewed a, a, 140 people on three continents. Like, I, like I really did a lot of research, and I thought this book was gonna be like my Stasiland, right? Like, that was kind of the vibe I was aiming for with it, and I just, I didn't have the, the writing skills for that. And also, like, selling Armenia and selling the Armenian Genocide as a topic is, is just much, much harder because the, like... And I had a publisher say that to me. She actually read the manuscript. It had been shortlisted for an unpublished manuscript award. She requested it. She came back to me and she said,"Oh, the writing's really good."

Natasha Rai 19:25

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 19:25

Which I think the writing was perfectly functional. It's ac- I don't actually think it was that good, but, but what she said was,"I can't sell a book about Armenia in Australia." Which was really interesting to me, and that's why I actually went on to write How to Be Australian, which is a memoir about Australian identity. Mm.

Natasha Rai 19:40

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 19:41

Uh, so I had, I had spent 10 years on that book thinking I was gonna be this, like, you know, creative nonfiction author. Uh, I've always read both fiction and nonfiction.

Natasha Rai 19:50

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 19:50

And but I thought,"This is, this is what I'm gonna do." I trained as a journalist, like, so this was, like, what I thought of as my skill set. And I wrote That book finally came out in 2019. I wrote How to Be Australian. That came out in 2020. Two things happened. One was I started meeting a lot more authors, right? When you get a book out, you're suddenly sort of-

Natasha Rai 20:10

Yeah,

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 20:10

that's right in those spaces, right? Yes. Yes.

Natasha Rai 20:12

Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 20:13

And so you get to, you get to be privy to a lot of conversations that you, that you just weren't, uh, as, as a unpublished writer, and I sort of started to look around and be like,"Okay, who is making money here?" And it was the romance writers and the crime writers, and I was never gonna be a romance writer. Like, I just, I don't read romance. I, I very much respect romance readers. I actually think it's much more sane and healthy to read romance than crime- but that's just not for me. I've always been a huge crime fan, though, like reading John Grisham, like, back in his heyday when I was 16, and Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys before that. So I thought,"Okay, I've got these two nonfiction books, but maybe I could try writing a crime novel. I'll just give it a try for fun, and if it doesn't work out, that's, you know, I'll just go back to nonfiction,"'cause I had a whole bunch more nonfiction ideas. I was like,"Okay, let's just, let's just try this." Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right? And it's just, it was COVID. It felt like very low stakes to be like,"I'm just gonna write a crime novel," and I discovered that I absolutely loved it. Like-

Natasha Rai 21:12

Oh

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 21:13

I, and I think I'm really glad I actually didn't try it before because when you really love something, I think to go in and muck it up, like, I didn't think I had the investigative journalism skills or, like, the, you know, I didn't have an understanding of police procedural or forensics or, like, how the law works. So what happened was I had written those first two books, and you'll note there's a big gap between when, when the memoir, How to Be Australian, came out in 2020 and when the, when Dark Moon, my first thriller, came out in 2023.

Natasha Rai 21:45

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 21:45

And what happened was I, I got really sick in 2017, and I was, like, basically bedbound for most of the next few years. And what happened was when I was well enough to, you know, listen to something and actually- Yeah understand what it was saying, I was listening to true crime podcasts, and I listened to, like, hundreds and hundreds of hours of true crime podcasts, and that between 2017 and, and 2020. And so when I sat down to write this novel, I thought,"Okay, I think I actually know a little bit about-" forensics and police procedure and how the law works and- Yeah,'cause I was

Natasha Rai 22:19

wondering that it was nuts Yes. How Kai- Yeah knew that so much. Yes. Yep.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 22:23

Yeah, well, and this, and that's the thing, like, as a crime reader, I knew that I had to know those things to a certain degree, right?

Natasha Rai 22:28

Yes. Sure.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 22:29

And if you're like someone like Danika McKenzie sh- who has all kinds of police contacts, you know, lives next door to a retired cop, then ch- you've got someone you can draw on. Yes. But I didn't, I didn't have any, but I didn't know any cops that I- Yeah could be like,"Hey." Now I do, which is wonderful. But so that was really the thing, was the illness gave me the time to absorb all of this information- Mm-hmm and then start to think,"Okay, how could I turn this into a story?" And it was really drawing on a couple of podcasts that I found especially interesting. Those were two of the main threads of Dark Mode, was my own spin on these particular investigations.

Natasha Rai 23:08

Wow. So it really started off as a ve- I guess, calculated or, oh, what's the right word, strategic move into that-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 23:18

Mm

Natasha Rai 23:18

arena.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 23:19

Well, I, I Like, if you want to be a full-time writer, like, part of the question is, like, how do you make money, right? That's true. And so- That

Natasha Rai 23:26

is so true. Yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 23:27

Yeah. I mean, I Like, if you were writing memoir Like, and I'm very glad I wrote my memoir. I'm And it's amazing having it published. I have met so many friends across the country who are fellow migrants, expats- Mm who've read my memoir and really, like, connected and reached out to me, and people who've, you know, had people come from all kinds of countries all over the world- Mm-hmm and said,"Oh," like,"realizing that you as a Canadian and a native English speaker, realizing that you struggled to do this, it makes me feel like s- so much more reasonable that I'm struggling." Like, I, it made me- Yeah feel so much more reassured, but also that I could get to a place where I felt comfortable here'cause I saw your journey. Like, and- Mm-hmm and you went through this struggle, but then you, you know, got to a place where you felt comfortable. So I'm, I'm really glad for that, but I spent five years on that book and I made$7,500 from it. Like, it's not- Yeah sustainable. Yes. Totally. Yeah Like, that you wouldn't write a memoir as a non-famous person to make, to make money.

Natasha Rai 24:22

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 24:22

So I, I was like,"Okay, why don't I, why don't I give fiction- Mm a try?" And I just got really lucky that I wrote a, a particular kind of novel that does work for crime readers. Like, I identified a genre. I was like,"I'm writing for these particular readers."

Natasha Rai 24:37

Mm. And

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 24:38

I think that's, when you're an emerging writer, you might not know what you wanna write, and it's good to experiment, it's good to try things, but then you might come up with a manuscript that doesn't quite fit anywhere on the shelf. I mean, my first book, like you said, half fiction, half non-fiction.

Natasha Rai 24:50

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 24:50

It barely made it into any bookshops because booksellers were like,"Well, where do we shelve it?" Yeah. Like, what is it?

Natasha Rai 24:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 24:56

So, so I got lucky that way, and then I also got lucky that I'd written something, like the cyber crime angle of Dark Mode, the, you know, my A- both my agent and my publisher really thought, oh, like, this is a perfect moment for this. So just in terms- Mm of timing, like, there's always a luck factor, right?

Natasha Rai 25:11

Yeah, but also it really speaks to the two sides of this industry or practice where you've got your creative side, but also your business side, and you need to- Yeah if y- if you want to do certain things with your writing career, you need to make decisions that help you get there. Um- Yes yeah. And so you've mentioned a couple of things now, so investigative jour- oh, journalism and-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 25:33

Yeah

Natasha Rai 25:34

comedy. So if we kind of go back a bit more, when did you know or how did you start writing? When did you know you were a writer?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 25:43

Oh, I loved books as a little kid, and I remember very distinctly, like I must have read some picture book and been like,"Oh, this picture book's great. I'm gonna like basically like write my own version of it," right? Like just wildly pl- plagiarizing- Yeah some picture book- Yeah into like this little four-sentence story. And this was when I was in grade one back in Moose Jaw in, uh, Saskatchewan, and my school district actually put together an anthology. You know, and it was like stapled in the middle, right? Like, but it was an anthology of the best writing from the school district from kindergarten through grade 12. Uh-huh. And my stupid little story called- Oh The Wizard Who Had a Cat was in there, and it was- That's so cute because it was in this book, this like young- Yes Saskatchewan writers, and in with the grade 12, you know, writing- Mm I was like,"Oh, look at me," like,"I am a writer," which actually gave me a really bad ego. And then in high school and university, because I was like such an avid reader and because I was like such a, um, just compulsive writer, like I wrote terrible poetry collections and gave them to my relatives for Christmas. Like, I'm so embarrassed now thinking about that. I w- I started my first novel when I was 14. I worked on it for four years. Wow. I started my second one when I was 18. I worked on that for four years. I never sent those out anywhere, partly'cause I lived in Winnipeg and we didn't have the internet resources- Mm-hmm like I didn't know how to send them to a publisher. Mm. I probably would have, to be honest. Oh, I'm so glad I didn't, um,'cause I didn't know anything, but I'd won, you know, I'd won these little short story awards and competitions and whatever. It was like a very like small pond situation, right? Like, I was like just a very mediocre fish in a very small pond. But I thought that I had talent, and I thought that I had skill, and that gave me a really bad ego. Like, I, I thought that I knew what I was doing, and I felt like superior to kind of, you know, like when I went to creative writing class at university and, uh, the other students would give me feedback, I would be like,"Pfft," like,"I don't need to listen to you." But what happened was then, so I had this ego and, and- Mm so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Mm. And I think if when I started that project researching Armenia, I think if I had also started taking creative writing classes online, maybe, what year was that? 2009 probably. There weren't the resources. Like that's one of the things, like there weren't the resources now that they are. Like, you can access creative writing classes from all over the world now- Mm-hmm online, and listen to podcasts like these. Like, it's amazing.

Natasha Rai 28:07

Yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 28:09

But, I mean, there still would've been books, right? Like, there still would've been things I could have done-

Natasha Rai 28:12

Mm-hmm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 28:13

that I did not do. Uh, it was really, uh, two things. One, I, uh, had moved here to Sydney and I had a short story selected for the University of Sydney anthology, and part of it was that, you know, they were developing their editorial students' skills, so I was paired with this editor. And she went through the story, and it was the way that she gave me feedback. Mm. She really made it clear that she understood the story and that she wanted to help me make it better. And I was like,"Oh, this is what editing's supposed to do." Like, it's not like someone else putting their fingerprints all over it. Yeah, yeah. Like, my work. Or

Natasha Rai 28:48

being, or being just harsh for the h- being critical's sake, yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 28:52

Yeah. Mm. And that totally, you know I was in my late 20s, and that totally reoriented, and suddenly I was like,"People can help me make my work better." Mm. It was a whole new way of seeing things, and that So that was great, and then I, I also I'd written this This is how little I knew. My first draft of my Armenia manuscript was 196,000 words.

Natasha Rai 29:13

Whoa.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 29:15

Yeah,'cause I was just like- Yeah I'd done all this research, right? Yeah, yeah. I'd done I spent two months in Armenia talking to, like, anybody who would talk to me, and I had all these, like, amazing stories, and I was like,"Well, I don't know. I'll just put it all in." I knew, I knew I'd have to cut it back, but I was like,"I'll put it all in and I'll just see." And yeah, I just went through this process then of getting knocked back, not even from publishers, but, like, I'd send it for manuscript assessments thinking they were gonna tell me,"Oh, Ashley, this is so brilliant. I'm gonna send it to my agent." Nice.

Natasha Rai 29:41

Yeah, yeah. A-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 29:42

a- and, you know, maybe fix this or this and this, and then having people say like, like,"I can see all the work you've done, but at a fundamental level, this isn't working." And really, I think because of that great editor, I think I was willing to take that feedback and say,"Okay, like, I've gotta-" That must've still

Natasha Rai 29:56

hurt, though. Like, to- Oh pour so much time and energy and love into this work.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 30:03

And honestly, one of the things I talk about on my podcast, James and Ashley Stay At Home, which is about creativity, writing, and health, like, I co-host it with James Mackenzie Watson, who also lives with chronic illness, and I talk about how I think, you know, when you have this dream and you're holding it so tightly and you're investing- Mm everything in it, I think it, it hurt at, like, a psychological, like at a, like a f- like at a cellular level. And I think the stress of, of years of that, of like thinking this was what I was gonna do with my life, and not being able to do it, and not being able to figure out why. Like, I was desperate. Like, I was taking classes, I was getting manuscript assessments, and I was like At, at this point I was meeting I worked at Writing New South Wales. I was meeting writers. Like-

Natasha Rai 30:44

Mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 30:45

I j- and I just couldn't make it happen, and I think the stress of that is one of the many, many factors that led to me getting as sick as I did in, in 2017. But the one thing that was good about the illness was that it- I, I got so sick, I actually lost the ability to even read when I was at my sickest because I couldn't- Oh, no I could read individual words, but I- Mm-hmm my short-term memory was so affected that I couldn't hold a sentence together to make meaning, and that was terrifying. But thankfully that was only for, uh, about a month.

Natasha Rai 31:16

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 31:16

And then I sort of slowly started to regain capacity. So I was at home alone. I needed absolute quiet. I couldn't handle any noise, um, just in terms of my cognition, like, I couldn't process it. But I had these two projects. I had the Armenia memoir and I had the Australian memoir, like, two totally two completely opposite projects. And so when I had little pockets of, like, 15 or 20 minutes where I had energy, I had these worlds I could escape into.

Natasha Rai 31:45

Oh, wow.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 31:45

And I realized I really actually just, I did love the writing for its own sake. Like- Mm-hmm and, and that was at the point where I thought,"Okay, I might never get published," but I had met so many amazing people. I had this incredible writers group who were super simply... You know, like, I lost a lot of friends when I got sick just because our lifestyles became incompatible, incompatible. I don't really blame them. Um, like, it was so hard. Mm-hmm. But my, my writers group were people who were like,"Look, like, when you're ready, like, we will come to your house. Like, we will make this possible for you." And, um, yeah, we're still Like, I still- Mm uh, exchange work with those people today.

Natasha Rai 32:20

Mm. Amazing. So from there then, what happened? How did you get your first publishing contract?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 32:28

Okay. So it was really interesting because I had Those first two novels I wrote when I was young, throw them away. We never looked at them again.

Natasha Rai 32:36

Okay.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 32:36

And, and I did actually look at them again and I was like,"Oh, man, these are terrible." One is about killer bees from Mars, like, it's so bad. Okay. Anyways.

Natasha Rai 32:43

I'd read

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 32:44

that. Second- Just then It was like I was, you know, 16 and thought I had big, grandiose thoughts about the world. It was terrible. Uh, so I wrote the Armenia manuscript, which obviously I poured so much into, and then I also I, I was working on How to be Australian. Because, because that publisher had said,"I can't sell a book about Armenia in Australia," part of my mind went,"Ugh, well, can you publish a book about Australia in Australia?" Like, I was just like,"Fine then." Uh, so I had these two projects that I'd been working on. I also had another creative nonfiction manuscript that I had written in between those. Mm-hmm. Uh, full length, about my time living in Korea, Peru, and Mexico, and I had s- also thrown that out. I had, I had sent it to a few publishers, gotten some feedback, but I th- I was like,"Okay, fundamentally I don't think this works. I think the Australia one is a stronger Mm. S- like, thinking that business strategy- Oh, yes, yes this is a stronger, has stronger potential. And so I had the Armenia manuscript, which I'd gotten from 196 down to 75K over many- Oof many drafts, right?

Natasha Rai 33:52

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 33:53

But I had this comment, like,"We just can't sell this," and I So I was sort of kind of thinking, I was like- I'd been starting to take essays from it, and this is start, how I started developing my publishing portfolio was I did a lot of book reviews, first unpaid, and then I started getting paid for them. And that was really useful. I recommend that to all my writing students. And then secondly, I had this big nonfiction work, which one of the benefits of that is you can take pieces from it and carve them into essays and send those out. And so I started getting published in places like Griffith Review, so that was, that was really helpful in terms of, oh, like maybe I have some, some hope of, of succeeding- Mm-hmm in this endeavor. I decided to do this second master's degree in... My first one was in cultural studies. I decided to enroll in a, in a creative writing master's, and I did that at Macquarie. Technically it was a, a master's of English, but it was, like, I was just doing the thesis portion- Mm and the thesis portion was agreed it would be half creative writing and then half exegesis. And so I, for that, decided to write a novella, and the reason why I wanted to do this program, A, I thought,"Okay, well, I need to do more learning." Like, I just need- Yeah to do more learning.

Natasha Rai 35:04

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 35:04

And people who were getting published were a lot of people coming out of a university program. So I actually wanted to do a PhD in creative writing, and they said,"Do this master's and this is like a gateway to PhD." So that was the plan. So I thought,"Well, I'll write this novella for the exeg- or for the thesis." Mm-hmm. And I w- wanted to write it from the point of view of a, a terrorist because I had learned about all these terrorist attacks around the world committed by Armenians- Mm against Turkish diplomats for the purpose of trying to gain recognition for the Armenian Genocide- Ah which was a terrible idea, right? Yeah. These were grandchildren of survivors who were watching the sort of the way the world was embracing Holocaust recognition in the'60s and'70s and thinking like- Yes the same thing happened. Like, we were the blueprints. This was the blueprints for the Holocaust. How can we not also be recognizing our history? Have the recognition, exactly.

Natasha Rai 35:56

Exactly.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 35:57

Yes. Yeah, exactly. So, like, what was so interesting to me was these men were committing terrorism for the exact same reason that I was researching and writing. I was like- Mm"Oh, our mo- our motivations," so when you think about- Mm character motivation, right? Yeah. Our motivations are identical, but our, just our moti- like, our, um, our actions are, our choices of action are very different. Yeah. So I thought,"This is, this is inc- an incredibly challenging concept. I wanna do that with a, a, a supervisor. I wanna do that in a university setting." I never thought that that novella was gonna become my first published book. It was really just a learning exercise.

Natasha Rai 36:31

Oh, wow.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 36:33

But then of course, once I had the novella done, like once I graduated the program- Mm I was like,"Okay. Well, I've got this novella." You know, the novella's like, what? 14K. I was like,"I could enter it in some novella competitions." Again, like not thinking this is a book. And what happened was it was shortlisted for a prize through Spineless Wonders, who are a fantastic, uh, local Sydney publisher, and they came to me and they said,"We would love to publish this as a book, but um, it's not long enough to have a spine at 14K." So they actually asked if I had other short stories. Like, they were thinking,"Oh, let's do a short story collection." And short stories have never been my strong suit. I, I d- had a few, but I was like,"Look, like I've got these essays," like that- Mm and some of them really, you know, the, the novella is set in Sydney in the'80s during, like when these terrorist attacks were happening because this is, this was the other strategic business element was I'd brought in the true crime of the Turkish Consul General and his bodyguard in Sydney- Yes were assassinated December 1980. It's still an unsolved crime.

Natasha Rai 37:28

Wow.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 37:28

Like, they know, like this Armenian terrorist group took responsibility for it, but the actual individuals who did it have never been caught. I see. Um, so I thought,"Okay. Well, I'll bring a true crime, something that happened in Australia, and then I'll get people interested in this history." So that's how the novella came together was, uh, we start with the novella, and then hopefully you wanna know all this history that's- Mm. Mm been hidden from you, so there's all these essays waiting to then walk you through the history, and they combine journalism and, and, and, and interviews and memoir and research. And so that was how the, the first book came together, and so that came out in 2019, and that felt amazing with this project that I'd worked on for 10 years. It was this tiny little book, 25,000 words. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. Just long enough to have a tiny little spine. Uh, but it got me into Sydney Writers' Festival, like I was on the Sydney Writers' Festival program. It was in Glebe Books, like we had a launch. Like, I felt like a proper author, and that book still sells today, you know. And, and what I love is Australian readers will pick it up and read it, and they will say,"I am so glad I read this because I had no idea about any of this history." Yeah.

Natasha Rai 38:35

I, I had no idea when I read it. Like, I was like,"Oh, wow, this whole world just out there," and yeah, it's awful. I

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 38:42

didn't know. And just for context for listeners, it's because Turkey, you know, which came out of the Ottoman Empire, they still officially deny it. But there is more written evidence of the Armenian Genocide than there is of the Holocaust, including in archives around the world, including in Australia's own archives. Like, Australians were held prisoner of war in like Armenian churches, and they watched Armenians being marched out of, uh, their t- towns and villages and, uh, you know, wrote about it in their diaries even. Like, there's, there's just so much official correspondence. Oh, gosh. So yeah. A horrible

Natasha Rai 39:11

silencing. But that's not-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 39:13

Yeah. And so it's an example of like I wrote about what- mattered most to me- Mm-hmm I wrote about what was most passionate about. And same with the Australia book, like, I was thinking like,"Okay, c- can we sell a book about Australia?" But it wasn't just,"Oh, I'm gonna write about this just because I think I can sell it," it was because I had spent years having all these conversations with Australia about things like living in minus 40 in Canada, and, and, like, understanding what it is to be Australian and, and how that varies state to state and person to person. And so I just... I thought,"Okay, that's an idea. I'll just open a Word document and start taking notes." I had 20,000 words within, like, a few months, and I thought,"Oh, okay, like, I have opinions about this." Yeah."Like, this could be a book." Yes.

Natasha Rai 39:54

Yeah. So how did you change publishers? How... What was that process like? Because-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 39:58

Okay, so Spineless Wonders- Yeah only does short form. They don't- That's right, yes do full-length books, so that was never an option. Unless I wanted to do more short form, it was never an option to publish another book with them. And they're, and they're so wonderful, and I th- think they're... Like, if you're writing short form, check them out. I was working on How to Be Australian, and I... I'm trying to remember what year it was. It must have been 2018. So I had submitted it to a program called Open House at Writing New South Wales where they, uh, have a publisher come in, they do a bunch of panel talks, so you learn all about how a publishing house works in the morning- Ah, yes, yes and in the afternoon... You've done this?

Natasha Rai 40:39

Yeah, that's how I got my publisher, Open House.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 40:41

Oh, ama- oh, amazing. Oh, right, yes, of course, you've told me that.

Natasha Rai 40:44

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 40:44

Uh, yeah. So, and then i- in the afternoon y- you have, like, a 10-minute meeting with a publisher or editor who has read, you know, your first 10 pages and your synopsis. And so I met this wonderful publisher from Harper Collins, and she was like,"Oh, I think, you know, this memoir has so much potential. Like, I'd love you to send me the whole thing." Super exciting. Send her the whole thing. She comes back and she says,"Look, like, I think there's so much great material here. I don't think it's quite working structurally. Are you willing to make some changes?" And I was like,"Yes, of course. Like, tell me what you think will make it work." And so we, you know, talked and I went away and I spent multiple months, uh, revising, and it was so great to have that sort of sense of direction and sense of investment. Even though I didn't have a contract, I had someone in the industry who had belief in me, right?

Natasha Rai 41:30

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 41:31

And then she... You know, at this point it's been about eight months probably since this started, and she, she t- told me she was taking it to acquisitions. She said,"Tomorrow morning I'm gonna take it to acquisitions."

Natasha Rai 41:41

Whoa.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 41:42

And I knew from publ- from, from, you know, working at Writing New South Wales talking to authors, I knew there was a chance it wouldn't get through acquisitions. So it was the meeting where the publisher says to the company, like,"I think this is a book we should, we should run with," and sales and marketing and, you know, all the other departments weigh in. Like,"Can we sell this? I- is, is it right for the market right now?" And so she had told me she was taking it to acquisitions on a Tuesday morning, and by the end of day Tuesday, I had not heard back from her. Ugh. And so I knew. I was like,"Okay." I know it's a no. And she contacted me the next day to, to tell me that. But here's the thing. I had held in my head the idea that this could be a no, right? And I, and I had, I had a plan. I was like,"I'm gonna send it to a firm press," because, you know, their list is very Australiana. I think I'd, I'd always had a firm press in my mind as like this would be a good publisher for this book.

Natasha Rai 42:34

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 42:35

Which I think, again, thinking strategy, like who could this- Exactly this was. Yeah. It's important to

Natasha Rai 42:39

know that. Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 42:40

Yeah. And I mean, Harper Collins would've been great. Like, Harper Collins would've been amazing. But, uh, so I had, I had this plan. Like, I had it all planned out. What I hadn't done though, Natasha, and I think this was such an important lesson, was And you know, I was really, really sick. This was 2018. I was at my sickest. Mm-hmm. Uh, so I had envisioned, right? You can't help but envision what it's gonna feel like w- if you get a yes, right? Like,"Harper Collins is publishing your memoir." And so I'd had this like idea of, oh, like, this is gonna offset so much of the frustration and loss and grief of the illness. Like, this is- Yes gonna be the thing that makes my life worth living, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I'd also invested in, if I get a no, I will send it to a firm. But I had not invested in emotionally how I would, what that would feel like, how I'd process it. And so when I got the no, it hit me so hard that it actually took me three months to- Oh send that email to a firm. I just couldn't I felt like, like my life I And again, this was in the context of being so, so sick, but I think it's, I think it's valuable for anyone to think about, like, how something will impact you, even with the expectations that this- Exactly could very well be a no.

Natasha Rai 43:59

Exactly. Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 44:01

So, so then I Actually, what I did was I could have sent it through the firm slash pile, but they It was open, and I had, I had that prepared exactly how they had listed on their website. But by then I did know an, a firm press author, and we were friends. And I said to her,"Hey, would you be willing to send my submission to them? Like, you know me. You've read my work." Um, she hadn't read that particular extract, but she'd read my first book.

Natasha Rai 44:24

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 44:25

And she said,"You know, I'm not actually that comfortable with like my You know, I don't have that strong a relationship with them. But I'll send your synopsis. So I'll just send that." Uh, because it's, it's less of a ask, right- Yes, yes to read a one page.

Natasha Rai 44:37

Exactly. Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 44:38

And so she said that, and within a few days they had said,"Hey," like,"Send us..." I can't remember if they asked for the, just the regular submission or the full thing, but anyways.

Natasha Rai 44:48

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 44:49

Within a month we had signed a contract. Ah. And that was September. Then they That was November by the time we actually signed the contract, and they wanted it out May the following year, which is very, very fast in publishing. So I think what had happened is- They had had another book scheduled for May, and that author had said,"I'm not gonna have it in time. We need to push back." So they'd had a spot open up in their schedule. Ah. And they were like,"Let's just do it." So, uh- Beautiful

Natasha Rai 45:15

timing for you that was- Yes. Yeah,

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 45:17

really exciting. Mm. Really exciting.

Natasha Rai 45:19

Wow, what a moment. And

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 45:21

then when- And notice that Sorry. Yeah, go on. No, no I'll just, I'll just make a note that I did not have an agent for either of those, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So when I got the Affirm contract, I hired, I, I hired someone to look at the contract. But otherwise, I didn't have any sort of, uh, agent or support, um, that way. Uh- Mm which was another thing that was really, really different from the next time I needed a publishing contract.

Natasha Rai 45:40

So do you have an agent now? Is So you got one after that. I do have an agent now. Okay. All right.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 45:44

Yeah.

Natasha Rai 45:45

So tell me- Yeah tell, so tell me about that. What did you, how did you get your agent, and how has that changed the journey or, yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 45:52

Yeah. So with memoir, again, if you've, if you've written a memoir and you're not, you don't have a platform, you're not famous, it's There's only so much potential that memoir has, uh, particularly in Australia. So 40% of debut books in Australia come out unagented. It's very common. You can, you can approach publishers. There's certain things, though. If, if you're writing in a genre that actually has the potential to make any kind of significant money, you know, five figures plus-

Natasha Rai 46:20

Mm, mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 46:22

it is worth then attempting to get an agent. You have to remember that agents make 15% of what you make on average. And so, like, you have to be making enough that 15% of that is worth the effort and time that they're gonna put in.

Natasha Rai 46:34

Exactly. S-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 46:35

so when I started writing this crime novel, Affirm had said They'd asked me what I was working on. I to- I pitched them the novel. They were like,"Great. Like, just send it to us when it's ready. Like, we're happy to look at it," and they publish crime. But I kinda had this feeling that if I just sent it to them and they offered me whatever-

Natasha Rai 46:52

Mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 46:52

I would have no idea if that was what the book was really worth because- Yeah.

Natasha Rai 46:57

Mm-hmm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 46:58

they, like, they could, you know, they could say to me,"Oh," like,"Here's, here's whatever amount." Mm. Mm."Here's 10 grand." And I would be like,"Well, that's more than I got last time." So I didn't, I didn't know. And I, and I was talking to people, and they were saying,"You should try to approach agents. Like, it's worth taking the time to try to approach agents first with this crime novel." And I thought,"Okay, okay, okay. I'm gonna do that." So I kind of made my short list of agents, right? And you make your short list of, like, who-

Natasha Rai 47:20

Yes

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 47:21

would be good. And I was, I was friends with a, uh, a crime writer, and... Well, no, that's not true. I was friends with some crime writers, and one of our kind of mutual friends who was sort of an, an acquaintance of mine, to the point where I ha- I did have his phone number, uh, they were like,"Oh, you want his agent. You want Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown. Like, she is, she is the agent for this book." And I was like,"There's no way she's gonna say yes." Like, she's one of Australia's top agents. Like, she's gonna reject me. It's gonna be such a waste of my time. And I was gonna send, you know, I was gonna send it to agents one at a time, so I was like,"I don't... I..." Like, it just doesn't want to take three months to- Yeah for a no. Exactly, yes. For a guaranteed no. And over many months while I was working on the book, th- these friends very kindly, very kindly, worked away at me and were like,"Look, just ask, just ask him to approach his agent for you." And so I was so stressed, and I called him and I was like,"Look, like, you know, would you..." And he was like,"Yeah, of course." He's like,"I'm texting her right now." So, so she had... I had... And again, I had prepared exactly what was on the Curtis Brown website. Uh-huh. I had that ready to go.

Natasha Rai 48:23

Uh-huh.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 48:23

So I emailed that to her. That was, like, the first three chapters or whatever, and synopsis. And she, she emailed me, like, it was three weeks, it was three weeks, and I thought,"Oh, you know, it's like 10 pages. Like, if you're gonna say no, just say no." Like,'cause she told me, she's like,"I'll g- I'll be able to get back to you fairly quickly." And I was like,"Come on, just give me a no so I can move on to the next person on my list." She emailed me sh- like, and sh- she's got a wonderful style of, like, lots of capital letters and lots of exclamation marks. She's like,"Oh my gosh, send me the rest of this book. I need to know what happens."

Natasha Rai 48:55

Wow.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 48:56

And I was like,"Oh, oh." And then, and then from there it was o- I think less than 10 days. Less than 10 days she had finished and said,"Ashley, we need to meet." And I was just over the moon. I was so excited, because I, I, I knew that meant that the crime novel worked. Yes. Like-

Natasha Rai 49:13

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 49:14

And, and that's... So we s- we s- we had signed, uh, she got me a sub-agent in the UK and in the US. It was really interesting, because getting the sub-agent in the US, he then sent a whole bunch of feedback, like 11, 11 kind of big points of feedback. Oh. So the biggest edit I did- After having submitted it somewhere Yeah, yeah I'd obviously had big edits prior. The biggest edit I did after I submitted it somewhere was actually with a US agent. He had sent these, this 11-point list, and I went through it and I was like, 10 of these, I was like, I can see exactly what you're saying. I can see how this will make it better. I'm very happy to do this. The 11th point, I just thought, I don't know how to do that without writing a completely different book. Like, I just don't know how that would- Mm,

Natasha Rai 49:52

mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 49:53

work. Mm. And it wasn't like I could just email him and have a chat about it. So I thought, okay, I'm just gonna ignore that one and just do the, the other 10.

Natasha Rai 50:01

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 50:01

And, and hope that that's sufficient. And- Mm and he, so he sent it out. Now here I'll be really, really honest with your, with your listeners and yourself. It was really exciting because at the same time as Pippa was sending the manuscript out to every major publisher in Australia- Mm my US agent had sent a list of 55 American publishers that he was sending it to. And like- Whoa like handpicked like this person- Yes this person. Like, he wanted it to be like a big, a big thing in the US. And, uh, at the same time as I was having all this en- excitement and enthusiasm in Australia and having all these like sit-down meetings with publishers, which was amazing, right? Like, after all those rejections I'd had. Like, I have a list- Mm with my Armenian manuscript, I have a spreadsheet of like I was rejected by every single publisher in Australia.

Natasha Rai 50:53

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 50:55

And Curtis Brown as well. So it was, this was really exciting, but also I was just hearing nothing from the US, like absolutely nothing. And then when I was hearing anything, it was like, oh, it went to acquisitions and they passed. It went to acquisitions and they passed.

Natasha Rai 51:09

Ah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 51:10

And what was really, really interesting was Dark Mode opens with a, a young woman who's been murdered. Like a, the main character finds the body of a young woman who's clearly been murdered, and she's un- like she's naked. And it's, it's a very feminist book. Like, the, the characters are not sexualized. Like, uh, but I'm like drawing on the details of a historical murder- Mm, mm and that's why it shows... Like, it's very specific and strategic to violence against women.

Natasha Rai 51:35

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 51:36

But the US market was worried that BookTok did not want a serial killer killing young female-

Natasha Rai 51:43

Ah

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 51:44

uh, victims.

Natasha Rai 51:45

Yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 51:46

And so, like basically there were lots of publishers who took it to acquisitions'cause they thought, oh, this is a really, you know, good read. Mm, mm. Like, Israeli readers will enjoy this. And marketing came back and said,"Oh, I don't know. BookTok's not gonna like it." Oof. And so killed it in the US.

Natasha Rai 51:59

Ugh. God, marketing.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 52:03

Ugh. Right? So, so this was... It was, it was this, this thing where like publicly I was like so excited about- Yes all the stuff in Australia, but privately I was like, oh, no, like what if the US is right? Like, what if it's gonna tank-

Natasha Rai 52:16

Oh

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 52:16

in Australia because- Yeah because readers are gonna have that reaction. So it made it really kind of emotionally, uh, uh... There was a lot of turmoil behind the scenes.

Natasha Rai 52:26

Gosh. Oh, I don't... Yeah. Wow, you got through all of that. So just, uh, just on that, like, in terms of sub agents, just for listeners- Yeah who don't know how that goes- Mm and if they're considering, or they want overseas representation, does each agent take 15%?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 52:42

No. With sub agents it is, uh, the local agent takes 10% and the sub agent takes 10%, so it's 20, so it is a little bit more.

Natasha Rai 52:51

Ah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 52:51

But you're getting the extra market, so that's how that- Okay that's, that's, that's kind of the standard. There's always outliers, but, you know, there was a s- an agent in Australia who was taking 40%, like just locally taking 40%. Ah. But outlier. Like, pretty much e- every agent that I know it's the standard 15.

Natasha Rai 53:07

Okay. As a, yeah. So for example, so for example with your, with your books, so if you've got- Yeah a UK agent, a US agent, an Australian agent, each of them takes 10; is that right?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 53:16

Yes. Like, so- Yeah so I- Like,

Natasha Rai 53:18

as an example, yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 53:19

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't interface... One of the things about a sub agent is I don't generally interface with them at all. Mm. Like, my agent here handles all of that. So then when... So for example, Dark Mode did come out in the UK. The... They take... Off the payment they take 20% and then that's then divided between the two agents.

Natasha Rai 53:38

Ah, got it. Got it. Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 53:40

Yeah.

Natasha Rai 53:41

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 53:41

Yeah.

Natasha Rai 53:41

So then D- so then the Ultimo obviously, um, published that, um, Dark Mode, right?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 53:49

Yes. Yes, they did.

Natasha Rai 53:50

Yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 53:50

Yes.

Natasha Rai 53:51

And now your, the next two are also Ultimo Press.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 53:54

Yes. Yeah. So I stuck with Ultimo. So I, uh, like one of the great things about an agent is she sold a two-book deal, so... And I knew when I first met, the very first meeting with her I was like,"I gotta come with my next idea ready to pitch." And so I worked, I had this idea, I like worked a- God, you're so good worked

Natasha Rai 54:08

on the pitch. Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 54:10

Sat down with her, I was like,"Here's the pitch for the next book," and she's like,"Okay, great. Send me a synopsis." And a synopsis is very different from a pitch, right? Like

Natasha Rai 54:17

Yes. Totally

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 54:18

different,

Natasha Rai 54:18

yes

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 54:19

I was like,"Oh, okay." But, you know, it wasn't like she needed it tomorrow. So I took a month and I sat down and I was like,"Okay." And this was one of the things I thought I knew. Because I'd worked so hard on Dark Mode, I thought I knew how to write a crime novel, and I had this idea, and on paper the idea looked great.

Natasha Rai 54:33

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 54:34

The only thing the final version of Cold Truth has in common with that, uh, original synopsis is, well, two things: One, it's set in Winnipeg winter, and two, it's a woman looking for her father. But even that, like in the original pitch she believed he was dead, and in the, in the final version she has no reason to believe he's dead.

Natasha Rai 54:55

Ah, okay. Quite a big change.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 54:58

Oh, yeah. The whole-

Natasha Rai 54:58

Cause that totally affects your intention and how you write scenes and yes, of course.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 55:03

Yes. Mm. Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, I still love the original idea that I had, and a much more skilled writer could, could have pulled it off. I don't think the problem was with the idea. I think the problem was with the gap between the idea and my skillset. But anyways, Pippa You know, it was, it was really exciting. And then here in Australia it was that thing where, like, there was a bidding war. Like, it went to auction. Like, it was like the- Amazing like kind of the dream, right? The dream.

Natasha Rai 55:25

Yes, yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 55:27

And so we got this two-book deal. Obviously I did another big edit with the publisher, but not nearly as big as I'd done with the agent. And Dark Mode came out 2023, and I had said to them, one of the things When I talk to all the publishers, one of the things that they ask is all like,"When could you get another book out?" Because, I mean, their, their hope is that you'll become a Book of the Year author like, you know- Mm Sally Hepworth.

Natasha Rai 55:52

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 55:52

Or J- JP Palmieri. Um, and I had said, you know, with the chronic illness I'm You know, I've started working on the next one, but I, I'm gonna need two years. Mm. Which was fine. That was fine with them. No one, no one pushed back against that. And, uh, then of course we've talked about how d- how difficult Cold Truth was, and actually again I'll be really, really honest with your listeners'cause this one still stings, but, um, when I sent in the version of the first version of Cold Truth, he was like,"Okay," like,"This has got all kinds of problems." And I was like,"Well, yes, I know that. I've just wrote this in six months." And then I did the revisions with feedback from the agents- Mm-hmm from the publisher, but when I sent in the revised version, uh, the US agent actually dropped me because he's just like, he's like,"I just can't sell this. It's just not, it's just not Oh. And I think also, like, Dark Mode hadn't sold, so why would You know? Mm. He's like,"It's set in Canada," like, it's just there's so many things working against it. But that was, that was, that was hard. I got a- Yeah like, I got a new US sub agent, uh, after that, but that was still Like, that was a moment of like, okay, like, my skills are not up to scratch yet. I still have a lot of learning to do, and I've still been I- I'm still taking courses. I'm still taking courses. I'm still, like, reading craft books. I'm still working really hard to- But like try to become the best writer I can be. And so it means a lot to me when people say that they think like Follow Die is my best book yet, because I f- I feel like, I'm like,"Yeah, well there- there's like new skills that I've put in play in that story- Yeah that I just didn't, didn't have in my earlier ones."

Natasha Rai 57:22

And it's wonderful when you can see your own craft progressing, and refining, and becoming, you know, something else.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 57:29

Yeah. Oh, oh my gosh. Yeah. I love working with writers, so I teach, I teach here at the Novel Writing Mm. Oh, totally. So Ashley, what does your writing practice look like now, um, given health concerns, your teaching, and also you have like quite an amazing online presence. And so h- how do you, how do you, yeah,

Natasha Rai 57:48

how do you do it? What's your practice look like- Ah routine? Yeah. I wish I could give you the like,"Oh, here's my daily routine."

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 58:05

Like I- Mm that, that would be my dream, would be to have that sort of stability in my life. But I, y- you know, in my 10th year of illness, I am, I'm so much better. I mean, if you look at my socials, you've seen how much traveling I've done for- Mm book tour events this year. A lot,

Natasha Rai 58:24

yes, yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 58:25

This is, this is my best year, but like I do that traveling and you see me do that traveling. There's, there... I'm not doing anything else around that. Like I am, I'm sleeping, you know, where c- I can, like I'm sleeping 14 hours a night to be able to just get on a plane to Melbourne and do an event.

Natasha Rai 58:40

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 58:40

So, so my writing... And even when I'm home, like let's say I'm home for a week or a month, or like January for example, you know, summer is usually a time where I will, there's no events on, I will stay home. I love to just stay inside, avoid the sun- Mm and just dig really deep into my writing practice. Like all my friends are off, you know, with their families on holiday. Yes. Yeah. And I'm just like,"Great, I've got a whole month just to be in my manuscript." Yeah. And I had a, I had a flare up in January. It just came out of nowhere, like no, like still no idea why. And, uh, I, so lost like three and a half weeks of the month. I could just barely, you know, maybe I could- Mm get an hour or two in, but it was not- Mm the like six, seven hours a day I was planning on, which of course then put a lot of stress on the next few months. Uh, so very chaotic. What I try to do is prioritize the writing. I'm always trying to prioritize the writing, except, you know, at the peak of book tour, obviously I said,"This isn't gonna happen." But, so I took a, you know, a month off because I couldn't have done it anyways. The rest of the time it's like, all right, first thing in the morning, whatever that is-

Natasha Rai 59:51

Mm-hmm I,

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 59:52

you know, some mornings that's gonna be 8:30, some mornings that's gonna be 10:30. Oh, yeah. Some days it's just not gonna happen.

Natasha Rai 59:58

Yep.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 59:59

Prioritize the writing. I'll set, you know, whatever goal. Like, I'm always working towards what, what is the deadline? When do I need to have How much What's my word count? Mm-hmm. And then anything else happens later in the day. So there's, there's some exceptions. I will There's some things that have to- Mm-hmm happen in the morning. Mm-hmm. But even, like, if I'm booking appointments or whatever, like, try to have that later in the day.

Natasha Rai 1:00:22

Nice. So for you it's very much prioritize the writing, and then everything- Yeah else can kind of come after that. I like it.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:00:29

Yeah. And it's a seven-day-a-week thing. Like, it doesn't matter And actually, I, now, now that I have a bit more stability in my wellness, I'm trying to move away from that. I'm trying to have at least one day a week where- Mm-hmm I just give myself a break and I don't have to engage in the work. But previously it was, to get the work done- Mm-hmm I just had to work when I was well. Oh. And then so it was every day that I was capable, I was, I was working. Yeah, yeah. And, and that was, that was actually becoming too much over the years.

Natasha Rai 1:01:02

Mm. And it really sounds like with the change in health and with your kind of knowing how to live with it, um, there is a difference in that. There's feels like more choice sometimes. It's not just- Mm I have You have to wait and see, and when something happens that feels better, you just do it.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:01:18

Yeah. Mm. And I talked about, um, project inertia, which is, like, when you're in the midst of a project, and for whatever reason, you know, health, life, kids- Mm,

Natasha Rai 1:01:32

mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:01:33

you, you, you can't be working on it. And I think you can miss a day, you can miss a day and it's not gonna impact things. It's when you miss that second day, I think it does something in the neural structure of your brain.

Natasha Rai 1:01:45

Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:01:45

And then every day after that that you haven't worked on it, it gets harder and harder- For sure to get back into it. So I try and, uh The wonderful Au- Australian author Pip Williams, who wrote The Bookbinder of Jericho-

Natasha Rai 1:01:56

Yes

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:01:57

The Dictionary of Lost Words, she had this thing with her, with her second novel where, you know, there's huge expectations, right? Like, her first novel's a Reese's book club pick. Like, how do you live up to that? Yeah. And she said it was so hard to work on it. So she set this thing where she said she was gonna do a minimum of one word a day. All she had to do was open the document and add one word. And it sounds ridiculous, right? But- No I think there really is something about-

Natasha Rai 1:02:24

Yeah

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:02:25

activating the project at the- Yes forefront of your mind.

Natasha Rai 1:02:28

Yes, yes.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:02:30

So even when I'm really sick, I, I do try to open the document- Put down, and you know, s- one word. It might be a sentence. One day, I literally, I was just like, I had to write a new character's name, and I was just like,"And, you know, it doesn't matter'cause you can change it." Exactly. But I could just not even come up with a name, and I literally wrote his name is Blerg, and then I walked back went back to bed. I was just like,"This is not happening."

Natasha Rai 1:02:51

But I li- I actually do really like that one word. Um- Mm which actually takes us into, like, my final question for you. What is your top tip for emerging and/or aspiring authors in everything you've learned so far and everything you've experienced?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:03:08

Oh, okay. I-

Natasha Rai 1:03:11

You can give me more than one if you want.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:03:13

Okay, okay, okay. Let me give you two. Okay,

Natasha Rai 1:03:16

excellent.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:03:16

Let me give you three.

Natasha Rai 1:03:17

Okay, excellent.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:03:17

That, like, one word a day, the, the- Yes Pip Williams one word a day strategy- Mm-hmm uh, to, like, you can either have project momentum or project inertia. You always wanna be aiming for project momentum, even if it's one, uh, one word at a time. Second tip, a, a good writer's group. A writer's group where you are- Mm actively working together to uplift each other's work, and I've talked about this a lot in a lot of other places. I even have, like, an on-demand, like, it's, you know, a little short workshop about how to run a great writer's group and get the most out of it. So, uh, but I really think that's one of the things. I got into a writer's group in 2015, and we still, we still meet monthly, and I- Amazing

Natasha Rai 1:03:55

acc-

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:03:56

credit them with so much of my, of my learning. But I'll give you a different tip, uh, which is, I think, uh,'cause you and I talked about this. You were kindly a guest in my Year of the Novel course- Mm-hmm as a Year of the Novel alumna, and we t- we talked, and you had said something, and I laughed inappropriately loudly, which is that you had said, you know, when you were drafting your first novel, you were like,"Oh, I don't, you know, I don't need to put structure in. Like, the reader can figure

Natasha Rai 1:04:23

that

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:04:24

out." Exactly. And I laughed really loud'cause I thought that was hilarious. The, it's just that, like, the reader can figure it out bit. Uh, like, my, my big tip is not to overlook the importance of structure in long form, and this is one of the things, this is one of the things, like, why my early novels did not work. Mm-hmm. I took a one-day, uh, structure course with fabulous author Toni Jordan, and sh- and, and she kind of revealed to me all this stuff that's going on within a book that you as a reader, like, if you're not trained to look for it, you do not see it, right? And so she just kind of, oh, like, it was like pulling back a curtain, and I suddenly realized I had all this work to do and, and th- and skills to learn. And luckily, that was the year I had joined this writer's group, and one of the, the person running the writer's group at that time- She was like,"Oh, yeah, yeah, and here's all these resources," and yeah, it's like,"We can work on this together." And that really set me on a journey. And so for the next seven years, like even once my books, my first couple books had come out- Mm-hmm I considered myself a student of structure, and I did not start teaching it until kind of I passed that seven-year mark because I, I really felt like I'm developing this, this skill set. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And now it is my favorite thing to teach because it is, it is implementing it. And I'm not just talking the macro level, like I'm talking at the scene level, I'm talking about the page level. Implementing it is one of the things that will take your writing and make it, and change it from here's a series of things that happened and how some people- Mm felt about those things- Yeah to a cohesive, coherent story.

Natasha Rai 1:06:05

That is amazing advice because hearing you just say that last bit, I was like,"Hmm, I think I need to do some more learning- and training on that too," because it does, it, for me anyway, like it does very much feel like it's later drafts that things start to come together. But at the I, I was just thinking, imagine if I brought that knowing or learning into an earlier draft, it would be so much more cohesive earlier. Well,

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:06:31

and I, I think that now I'm more structured when I sit, when I sit down to write something. Mm. Like, like I'm working on my 12th manuscript right now, my 11th and 12th manuscript right now. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So like it's much more inherent to me. But e- when I started learning, even with Dark Mode, like I use this structure in My Name Is Revenge, I use this structure, uh, uh, this structure, structure just period- Yeah. Yep, yep uh, in How to Be Australian, and that was the key difference. It was taking that, that Tony Jordan course and, and tragically she no longer teaches, um,'cause she's on Book a Year. But it was taking that course. Everything I wrote before that did not get published. Everything I wrote after that, aside from that one version of Cold Truth, has been published and to increasing degrees of success.

Natasha Rai 1:07:12

Yes. That is very telling.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:07:15

Well, y- and that's I always show, like I have a, a really simple slide that just kind of shows that to, to students when I start, when I start workshops. And, and understanding that it's not just something you, you're gonna pick up from like a three-hour workshop or a six-hour workshop, but it's a starting place.

Natasha Rai 1:07:29

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:07:29

But even after that, I still, like with Dark Mode, I If I tried to work the structural stuff in in my first draft- Mm I, I got overwhelmed. Like I was like,"Oh, but it's like this and that." Ah. So I, I think just allowing yourself to just write a really messy- Yeah. Yep, yeah first draft or, like if you're, if you're more of a planner, to plan something but then allow the plan to change as you realize the flaws in the plan. Mm-hmm. But I also do think learning it, knowing it, one of the first things you need to do is you need to go and look at how it works in all these other- Books Yes, exactly And so you can be investing time in that

Natasha Rai 1:08:04

Mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:08:04

And I think it is going to help you create a stronger first draft- Mm even if you're not intentionally using it

Natasha Rai 1:08:08

Exactly. So actually, just, sorry, I'm just gonna ask another question even though I said it was the last question. Yeah, please. Um, so g- given that Tony Jordan isn't teaching it like that anymore, have you come across other teachers or other places or, uh, institutions that offer something like that without doing like a If people don't have the time or m- um, they can't invest in, like, the whole year novel, for example, course that you teach, is Are there other places that you can suggest writers might look for for something like that on structure?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:08:40

Well, here is the thing, and I think it's such a disservice to writers-

Natasha Rai 1:08:44

Mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:08:45

is that it is not widely taught in, like, it's just not widely taught. Mm. I think because people think,"I wanna write a novel," so And, and, and here's the thing, is that I think, um, r- like, readers are like drivers, you know? You've been reading your whole life, you've been driving a car since you were whatever age.

Natasha Rai 1:09:04

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:09:04

And, and then, and then when you decide to write a book- Mm-hmm you're like,"Oh, I'm just gonna build my own car. I know cars." Like-"I can take my car across the country." Yes,

Natasha Rai 1:09:13

yes

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:09:13

And so, and so you're, you are wanting to, you know, if, if you recognize, you're like,"Oh, I need to take some classes," y- the parts of the car that you are familiar with are, like, character- Mm. Mm voice, setting, dialogue, even plot. I would say even plot is the visible parts of the car. And so you make this beautiful car, and you're aware that there's an engine in there, but I think the, I think the thinking is,"If I get the characters working, and I get the plot working, and I get the voice, then, then the engine will just magically"-

Natasha Rai 1:09:44

Yes, run.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:09:46

Yes come together, right? Mm.

Natasha Rai 1:09:47

Mm. Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:09:48

And the way I teach is forget all of that. Like, character, setting, plot, they're all important. I obviously teach those things. But, like, inherently in all of those things, you need the engine to be part You need to be thinking about the engine- Yeah you need the engine to be part of it.

Natasha Rai 1:10:03

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:10:03

And, and a lot of that comes from screenwriting. So, like, you can go and learn this stuff. The difference is that if something is on screen, like TV or film, it has to be structurally sound, like, immediately, or it is so boring that no one would watch it. Sure. And so first, if you learn screenwriting, you learn this from day one. Mm-hmm. With, with novel writing, I think there are writers who are incredibly skilled novelists and who have never had to actually learn this because they are intuitive storytellers, and I think that's what we're all hoping, right? I think, I think there's this myth that to be a truly great novelist is to not have to be told Oh, like your inciting incident should interlock with your climax because that, that somehow, like, makes you inauthentic? I don't know.

Natasha Rai 1:10:52

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:10:52

So then a lot of institutions, they're offering amazing courses on character, plot, setting, voice, dialogue, which you should totally take. Like, you need to learn- Yeah, yeah those things too.

Natasha Rai 1:11:02

Yeah.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:11:02

But, uh, I, I'm trying to think if I know of anyone else currently really teaching structural stuff. So I do teach it all over. Like, in any course you teach with me, like, unless the course is specifically, like, if I was teaching an editing-

Natasha Rai 1:11:14

Sure

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:11:15

th- course, that might not have a lot of structural stuff, it's still I still would touch on it. Um, I think I touch on it in everything. B- but, uh, I'm trying to think if there's anywhere else in Australia that I could recommend. But watch out, like, there will be other people. So watch out for, um- Mm if someone says they're teaching not just plot, but particularly structure- Mm-hmm whether that's macro structure, whether that's scene structure, whether that's story structure, that is Like, you're not, you're not cheating or you're not less authentic if you don't if you have to learn this stuff. There's so many manuscripts I see, I, I do manuscript assessments, where I'm like,"Oh, this is a great idea. These are engaging characters." Like, you've got some really f- like, interesting plot mechanics, but you don't have any structure. Yeah. And so it's, it's Like, and that's all you need. Yeah. And like, it's a big ask. It's a huge thing. But, like, y- you're being held back.

Natasha Rai 1:12:05

Yeah. But surely, you know, just on that point about feeling bad or feeling like there's something missing if you take one of a, a class or a course, i- it's coming back to that point that you realized when you had your work edited by that thoughtful editor about actually you're doing this to make your work the best it can be, not because there's- Yes, yes a sh- something missing, right? You're honing- Yeah and improving and polishing, which was nice

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:12:28

when- And one Oh, my gosh. One really interesting thing, the very first big manuscript assessment that I paid for on that, on that big version of, uh, the Armenia manuscript, which was called Full of Donkey, one of the things that the editor, the manuscript assessor said in her comments was, um,"It's not You don't have scenes, you have vignettes. This is a series of vignettes that aren't coming together as a, as a cohesive work." And I read that comment at the time, and this was long before t- I'd encountered Toni Jordan's course, and I thought I knew what those words meant. Like, in a dictionary sense, I'm like,"Oh, okay." Like-

Natasha Rai 1:13:09

Mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:13:09

I, I, I can, um, write better scenes." I had no idea what that actually meant. Mm. And then when I actually got deep into structural stuff and learned what that meant, now I go back and look at that, I was like,"That was a great piece of advice," except that I couldn't do anything with it. Because she thought I knew what she meant, and I didn't know to ask,

Natasha Rai 1:13:30

and- Mm. Mm

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:13:31

you know? You don't know what you don't know.

Natasha Rai 1:13:33

Exactly. Exactly. Um, Ashley, thank you so much for so, such generous and thoughtful advice today, and just, it I just, I could talk to you for another hour, but I'm not sure other people would be interested. Um, but honestly, thank you for coming on The Book Deal. And for listeners out there, Ashley Kalagian Blunt, her latest book, Like Follow Die, is out now through Ultimo Press.

Ashley Kalagian Blunt 1:13:57

Oh, thank you so much for having me. This has been a joy.

Speaker 5 1:14:04

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