The Real Writing Process of James Goodhand
Tom Pepperdine interviews author, James Goodhand, about his writing process. James explains how important human psychology is to his books, why inspiration doesn't always equate to quality, and the great advice he got from his childhood drum teacher.
James's Instagram is here: https://www.instagram.com/james.goodhand/
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https://bsky.app/profile/realwritingpro.bsky.social
https://www.threads.net/@realwritingpro
https://www.instagram.com/realwritingpro
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Real Writing Process, the show that finds out
Speaker:how authors do exactly what they do.
Speaker:I am your host, Tom Pepperdine, and this month our guest is the
Speaker:simply wonderful James Goodhand.
Speaker:James started out as a very talented YA author, but came to my attention with
Speaker:his phenomenal book The Day Tripper, which is about a man who experiences
Speaker:time in a non-linear fashion but does not romanticize child grooming like
Speaker:other books with a similar plot device.
Speaker:This is more of a fuckup who is confronted with the consequences of
Speaker:his poor decisions, learn from his mistakes and realizes it's hard to
Speaker:make yourself a better person, but it is possible and it is worth it.
Speaker:And who should read a book like that?
Speaker:We all should.
Speaker:I loved it.
Speaker:It's brilliant.
Speaker:Very proud to have James on the show.
Speaker:Now, James is on the promo trail for his latest book, which is called Reports Of
Speaker:His Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated and did we discuss it in any great
Speaker:detail and did I ask him questions on it?
Speaker:No, it's not that kind of show.
Speaker:However, I will tell you about it now.
Speaker:It is about a reclusive man called Spike, who in a case of
Speaker:mistaken identity is presumed dead.
Speaker:And then it ends up in a few farcical situations, as he
Speaker:tries to clear up the mix up.
Speaker:Along the way there's a series of flashbacks as he reflects on his life
Speaker:and the people he's known to see how his life has ended up as it has, and it's
Speaker:about if it's ever too late for second chances and to have a life well lived.
Speaker:It is a very heartwarming and very funny book, so if you're interested
Speaker:in it, it comes out on the 1st of July and please pick up a copy.
Speaker:And if you're interested in the man who wrote it and how he writes his
Speaker:stuff, then listen on as the interview starts right after this jingle.
Speaker:And this month I'm here with James Goodhand.
Speaker:James.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:How you doing?
Speaker:I'm very well, thank you.
Speaker:And my first question as always, what are we drinking?
Speaker:So I'm drinking, I'm drinking a cider.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But, um, uh, you're probably imagining this is gonna be like something
Speaker:fashionable like a Magners or of sort of artisan brew, but no, this is good old
Speaker:fashioned Strongbow, the stuff as drugged by troubled nineties kids in parks.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Um, and I am a troubled nineties kids of sort, I suppose.
Speaker:Um, but I'm also, I'm drinking 1750 silver goblet, so make of
Speaker:that make of that what you will.
Speaker:I was gonna say, that's a marvelous tankard you've got.
Speaker:And also where you are sat, there's a, a lovely wooden beam over the top.
Speaker:So it's a very historic setting.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Ab absolutely.
Speaker:But yet with the Strongbow.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Um, I mean, I wonder if you, if you would sort of be introduced to a
Speaker:character in a novel and that you knew straight away that they were drinking
Speaker:cheap and nasty cider from a very valuable antique, you'd think, uh, this
Speaker:character's a wrong'un, wouldn't you,?
Speaker:I think you'd think you'd be like, you know, there there's sort of, it's all
Speaker:about a veneer of properness on the outside and full of shit, probably.
Speaker:But yeah, it is a classic drink.
Speaker:I mean, is up there with mead as like one of the oldest drinks in England.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Um, and where I'm speaking to you now, is this your writing spot in your home?
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:Well, I don't really write at home.
Speaker:So this has, I haven't lived in this house very long.
Speaker:We've moved in about three months ago and it's, it's actually a lovely place.
Speaker:It's an old farmhouse.
Speaker:It's low, it's gonna be loads and loads of work, but it is a rather wonderful place.
Speaker:So hopefully I will be starting to do some writing here.
Speaker:As well as an awful lot of work.
Speaker:There's some similarities probably between penning a novel and fixing up
Speaker:an old house in terms of them being massively overwhelming projects, you know?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But, um, most of my writing is done in my, uh, workshop.
Speaker:Okay, nice.
Speaker:So, uh, and how long have you had the workshop?
Speaker:Oh, well, I've been in the car game for 20 odd years and I've been
Speaker:in the, the, the place I'm at at the moment for about 10 of those.
Speaker:But it's rather, yeah, it's a quite unromantic setting.
Speaker:It's just a drafty corner of a workshop where if there's nothing more pressing
Speaker:to do, I'll bang a few words out.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:So it's just sort of like your downtime?
Speaker:Well, so I'm rather, I'm unsupervised.
Speaker:That's the, that's the important thing.
Speaker:You know, I work, I work for myself and like I mean, customers wander in.
Speaker:And I mean, I've reached a point now where with social media, and I don't
Speaker:really advertise the fact that I write, but it indeed word has got around.
Speaker:So I'm now at a point where customers do occasionally turn up for a
Speaker:service, but then sort of rather sheepishly produce a book for me to
Speaker:sign, which is apologetically often, which is a really lovely thing.
Speaker:But for years I was sitting there beavering away on writing
Speaker:and would have to pretend to be drawing up an invoice or something.
Speaker:Because this is not what you expect your mechanic to be doing when you, you
Speaker:know, when you turn up to pay your bill or get your oil changed or whatever.
Speaker:Yeah, and so there's no set schedule for your writing then.
Speaker:I, I gather?
Speaker:Well, it's my I I think when I was in the first flush of great
Speaker:enthusiasm of previously a novel, I, I would write, I would squeeze a
Speaker:bit of writing in wherever I could.
Speaker:But as it's become ever closer to being something that one might call
Speaker:a career, it's become inevitably as things do more of a chore.
Speaker:um, now I still love it.
Speaker:But yeah, these days I sort of, I take an hour, hour and a half at lunchtime.
Speaker:That's a good time to be able to get my brain into the zone.
Speaker:And then bash out, gets sort of 500 words out.
Speaker:So, yeah, normally lunchtime.
Speaker:But if I'm right at the start of a project and therefore in love with it or right
Speaker:at the end of a project and therefore can smell being free of the bloody thing,
Speaker:that's when I'll really get, get my foot down and be putting in the hours
Speaker:whenever there isn't something immediately pressing next to me on the ramp.
Speaker:And yeah, I guess we, we we're skipping ahead into like the daily grind of the
Speaker:actual writing sessions, but going like right back to the initial conception of
Speaker:your stories, how does the idea trigger that you go, oh, this might be a novel?
Speaker:Is it that you have a character that you really want to explore?
Speaker:Is it a scenario or is it a bit of a world building element that starts you off?
Speaker:I think it's just a spark of an idea.
Speaker:But of course you have quite a lot of those, like I'm sure I'm
Speaker:not alone in having that list in the Notes bit of your phone.
Speaker:Where you've got all of these novel concepts and some of them
Speaker:are absolute nonsense, just things that are sprung to mind.
Speaker:But actually a couple of them are gems.
Speaker:And I think you have this spark of an idea and then you start to develop
Speaker:it and you realize that it works.
Speaker:You know, because you've really excited the best bit of the job
Speaker:that, when you have an idea.
Speaker:Because when you are in that zone, you're thinking, I need to write something else.
Speaker:And then you have a great idea.
Speaker:You think this could be, this could be on the best book ever written.
Speaker:You, you're genuinely that keen on the idea.
Speaker:And then you kind of, you plot it out for a few days and most of
Speaker:those ideas fall by the wayside.
Speaker:And you go, actually, this doesn't really work.
Speaker:But sometimes they do.
Speaker:They get better and better the ideas, and you could fill in the details.
Speaker:And those ones become a book.
Speaker:When you are developing the idea is that, uh, you, you mentioned
Speaker:your notes app in your phone.
Speaker:Are you just jotting things down in your phone?
Speaker:Are you someone who likes to use, uh, little post-it notes, uh, around you?
Speaker:Draw maps?
Speaker:How, how do you develop things?
Speaker:No, I'm a notebook man, so the, the, the notes in phone is literally
Speaker:if there's nothing else to hand.
Speaker:I like to get stuff down in a notebook and yeah, draw, draw some maps,
Speaker:not maps, geographical maps, but maps of where things are gonna go.
Speaker:I love a graph of a character arc as well.
Speaker:Because, it's a big unwieldy thing, a novel.
Speaker:And so it's a great idea when you think, well, hang on a minute, i've got this
Speaker:character who's going to start as being.
Speaker:I mean, traditionally written, I've written a couple of YA novels.
Speaker:There's that fairly standard trajectory where it's zero to hero, basically.
Speaker:So in whatever forms your zero and the whatever forms your hero.
Speaker:That's got to be a gradual line from zero words to 70,000.
Speaker:So you just draw your graph and then as you are drafting, it's quite easy
Speaker:to look and think, well, how bold is this protagonist by, oh, look,
Speaker:I'm at 30,000 words at the bottom.
Speaker:And well, he's nearly halfway through his travel.
Speaker:And I think if you do that, it saves you a load of grief when
Speaker:you come to edit something.
Speaker:Because you, you might have a few steps that need to smoothing out,
Speaker:but you've got that, you've got that changing character going, which is a
Speaker:key it's what novels are based around.
Speaker:Um, I think that's one of those things you learn when you, um, start writing.
Speaker:Is you don't realize what it is that makes you enjoy a story until you
Speaker:start to approach it professionally.
Speaker:And it's always that character travel.
Speaker:Um, and it's always there, but you just don't spot it as a casual
Speaker:reader 'cause you're too, too wrapped up enjoying the story.
Speaker:But when you start writing this stuff yourself, it's something that you're
Speaker:like, this is really important.
Speaker:Characters getting better, fixing problems.
Speaker:And then yeah, get 'em from zero to 70,000 words on a graph and you can't
Speaker:go too far wrong in my experience.
Speaker:And your stories tend to have like a contemporary setting.
Speaker:They're not fantastical worlds or, you know, outerspace.
Speaker:Um, so is that a way of skipping research or do you find that there are still
Speaker:elements that you do like to research and build in the worlds that you create?
Speaker:Well, I always do my research.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:But it's probably, it's not about the world really.
Speaker:It's it is the human psychology angle that I'm really interested in.
Speaker:And also, I mean, you've read The Day Tripper, I like a
Speaker:bit of metaphysics as well.
Speaker:And my last young adult novel had a lot sort metaphysical stuff, a
Speaker:bit of philosophy in there as well.
Speaker:So I, for me it's, that is world building really.
Speaker:Because you go away and you learn about those things and they're
Speaker:great voyages of discovery.
Speaker:To just sort of pour through a bit of philosophy or some, you know,
Speaker:thinking about, consciousness and the multiverse and stuff like that.
Speaker:But in scientific publications, you know, so study it properly.
Speaker:And I mean also with the day tripper, I read.
Speaker:Gabor Maté's book about addiction.
Speaker:Because as you know, if you've read it, the main character, he's, and he's an
Speaker:addict and he, you know, he sort of beats that as part of his hopping through time.
Speaker:It's one of the rather less fun, but more, you know, more serious, more
Speaker:issue based things going on in the book.
Speaker:Um, so, so my research is on that stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Which is all a bit about, yeah, the fabric of people and, and not about
Speaker:setting it in some far-flung location.
Speaker:I'm really lazy there.
Speaker:The Day Tripper is set in and around London.
Speaker:Um, and I've never ventured too far from that.
Speaker:I don't think I've ever ventured more than about 60 miles.
Speaker:Somewhere that I could easily drive if I wanted to go and, uh,
Speaker:check up on a, on a particular.
Speaker:But the, the metaphysics, it's, uh, I mean, it, it is, uh, really interesting,
Speaker:how it's explored in day trip for not, you know, treading lightly for spoilers.
Speaker:But, I think when researching reading books on that subject, you can deep dive
Speaker:so much into it that it almost, okay, I've actually gotta start thinking of plot now.
Speaker:And I think, you know, it's such a great character and character
Speaker:journey that you have in that book.
Speaker:So the graph that you do, that's a really interesting thing because
Speaker:he's hopping around in time.
Speaker:Ah, that's it.
Speaker:He has to unite it, he has to knit the time.
Speaker:That kind of, that kind of came to me straight away when I plotted it,
Speaker:that if you're gonna jump around in time, the one thing that keeps the
Speaker:reader tethered is your character being as disorientated as they are.
Speaker:So he becomes this sort of guide that takes them by the hand through it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and so the actual plot itself, uh, is that something that is
Speaker:quite clear at the beginning.
Speaker:Is that coming clear through the writing itself?
Speaker:Do do you know where you are going and how you are getting there?
Speaker:Or are you discovering that as you write your first draft?
Speaker:Oh, well, by the time I sit down to write a first draft, I'll have
Speaker:a pretty good idea, but I certainly didn't have that idea when I
Speaker:started note taking and planning.
Speaker:The thing is, you know, with The Day Tripper it really was, he was getting
Speaker:that initial concept that what if you woke up and you never know which
Speaker:day of your life it was gonna be?
Speaker:That was the key concept, and then it was about building a story around that.
Speaker:And of course then it became kind of obvious like, well, you want someone
Speaker:whose life has gone really badly wrong, so you've got some room to correct.
Speaker:Then the plot starts to follow that.
Speaker:But what I do find is you've gotta have a good idea before I put pen to paper.
Speaker:Because I did find early on in my writing journey that I would tend to
Speaker:hit a b rick wall at two or 3000 words.
Speaker:And actually I think you can end up scrapping a really good project like that.
Speaker:Because what you've done is you've gone off half cocked basically, and
Speaker:you've gone, you've got an idea, hit the page, and then you've take,
Speaker:you only have to take a very small, wrong turn at that stage of the
Speaker:writing to go, oh, it doesn't work.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, you know, this doesn't, this isn't, this isn't what I envisaged.
Speaker:And you can lose something that probably could have gone on, perhaps
Speaker:could have gone to be a winner, if only it had had a little direction.
Speaker:So I think you need a 10,000 word plan in the tank before you hit the page.
Speaker:And that way you won't get demoralized by going, oh, what, what do I do now?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And when you are coming up with like a 10,000 word plan, how long would you
Speaker:say from like initial inception to that?
Speaker:Obviously it varies.
Speaker:Would you say that there's a rough, it takes a month, it takes three
Speaker:months, to get to that point of like, right, we're ready to draft.
Speaker:As I write more books, it's taking longer and longer.
Speaker:And I dunno if that's 'cause I'm getting older or I've used up, you
Speaker:know, you'll, if we get a certain amount of creative energy and I'm
Speaker:just using it, I've just used it up.
Speaker:But it used to take, I mean, Last
Speaker:Lesson, my first published book, I had that planned
Speaker:and knew exactly where it was going and had everything in, in shape and
Speaker:bang, ready to go in, in a week.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:Um, I would say in book that I've just, I've just finished a manuscript.
Speaker:It was, ah, it was two and a half months probably of plotting it up.
Speaker:I think the happy medium will be somewhere between those two extremes.
Speaker:And, you know, so you've got your notes of like all your different novel ideas.
Speaker:Do you have, uh, different ideas, kinda like percolating in the background?
Speaker:So as you're developing one, if you do get stuck or you need to pause it for
Speaker:a bit you might pick up another one.
Speaker:Or are you very linear?
Speaker:Where it's just like, I will focus on one project until it's done
Speaker:and then I'll move on to the next.
Speaker:Yeah, i'm the second, I'm the second one.
Speaker:Yeah, I become complete.
Speaker:It's, it's, it's almost bizarre how few good ideas I have.
Speaker:I think just because you, you're really ringing out that creative energy and
Speaker:like on a daily basis that when you're not doing it, it's just, it's so nice
Speaker:to have a break from it that your brain's not really doing that stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, or if it is it's unpicking a knot that's more present.
Speaker:'cause lots of people do that, don't they?
Speaker:Write like three or four books at a time.
Speaker:I think that's mad.
Speaker:I dunno how they do.
Speaker:It's very impressive.
Speaker:But, uh, no way.
Speaker:No way, no way.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:As this has become something a little closer to being a career,
Speaker:I have been forced to handle more than one project at a time.
Speaker:Whereas when you're starting out, you know, you write a book and you can
Speaker:muck a bell with it for as long as you like, and it's all on your terms.
Speaker:But as you, you know, once you've got something coming out, something that's
Speaker:needs to be edited, and you are writing the next manuscript, means that there's
Speaker:potentially three books on your desk.
Speaker:It is just one, you need to write some marketing, you know, you need to write
Speaker:something for the publicity people.
Speaker:And the other one you need to edit if you're editor and the other one you are
Speaker:writing for you because that's the next one, you know, that hopefully might result
Speaker:in you getting paid some more money.
Speaker:So, so obviously the most important of the pile.
Speaker:But I'm increasingly doing a bit of that and even I find that quite difficult.
Speaker:I have to have a bit of a break in between.
Speaker:Go away and actually show, demonstrate some commitment and focus on my day job,
Speaker:uh, is probably what I do in, in the gaps.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And um, coming now onto your, the writing sessions that, you
Speaker:know, fitting it around a day job.
Speaker:To keep the discipline of that, do you have any kind of daily or weekly
Speaker:targets of either a word count or just finish this chapter by Friday?
Speaker:What goals do you set yourself?
Speaker:Well, pretty much those.
Speaker:Yeah, you have to, otherwise it wouldn't get done.
Speaker:500 words a day I like to see.
Speaker:It doesn't always happen.
Speaker:'cause sometimes you've gotta plot something up.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So I can't be, I'm not too hard on myself because if you get, if you get too
Speaker:attached to those targets, then you'll become demoralized when you miss them.
Speaker:So I may try and get 2K done in a week, eight to 10 K in a month.
Speaker:But you won't always feel, I mean, this thing, it is a job.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:It is a job and it is no good expecting to be kind of inspired all the time.
Speaker:Like you are to start with, it'd probably be people listening who are at the sort
Speaker:of start of their life journey thing.
Speaker:I'm always inspired.
Speaker:It's so that's wonderful.
Speaker:Once, you've done quite a bit of it, but you've got to keep it coming.
Speaker:And actually how inspired you are, in my experience, is no reflection on the
Speaker:quality of what comes out the other end.
Speaker:So I have written stuff that is, that I really haven't enjoyed writing, and
Speaker:I thought, I'm just doing this because I'm supposed to be a professional.
Speaker:And actually I'll come back to it and it'll often be really, really good work
Speaker:because you've been quite meticulous and you haven't got carried away.
Speaker:You know, you haven't, uh, you haven't sort of started to believe your own hype
Speaker:and started racing like this is great!
Speaker:Um, but yeah, you gotta targets.
Speaker:I feel it's a boring truth, isn't it?
Speaker:Because I'd love to say that.
Speaker:No, you just, yeah, love every minute of it.
Speaker:But no, you've gotta, you've gotta keep, you've gotta keep
Speaker:a bit of pressure on yourself.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And do you have anything that helps create the atmosphere
Speaker:for a creative writing session?
Speaker:So do you like have soundtrack like ambient music?
Speaker:Do you need complete silence?
Speaker:Is it just the white noise of machinery?
Speaker:And do you have any totems, any, any lucky charms that you keep
Speaker:on your desk or things like that?
Speaker:I think you'd probably be horrified if you visited my writing space.
Speaker:'cause you know, most of the time I'm enjoying a sort of soundtrack.
Speaker:'cause although I work on my own, I work around other people in the same game.
Speaker:So I'm enjoying a soundtrack of sort of the jutting of impact drivers
Speaker:taking wheel nuts off and, and you know, I mean these are mechanics so
Speaker:often, quite a lot of swearing as well.
Speaker:Um, it's not just me at the laptop.
Speaker:It, and also, you know, it's, I'm sitting in a corner, which, where my view is of a
Speaker:piece of OSB is, or, you know what OSB is?
Speaker:Orientated strand board.
Speaker:The other stuff they board up windows with in houses where
Speaker:squatters uh, have taken over.
Speaker:So it's not exactly, uh, the ambience is not, it's not exactly
Speaker:a wonderful atmosphere, but yet it doesn't really matter.
Speaker:Yes, I sometimes might stick a bit of seventies folk, so seventies
Speaker:folk revisal on YouTube in the background, a bit of, a bit of Nick
Speaker:Drake maybe or something like that.
Speaker:But actually I think everything kind of becomes white noise once
Speaker:you start writing because, it is quite a meditative procedure.
Speaker:You know, like I've been talking about sometimes it not being fun, but more
Speaker:often than not, the words start to flow and it is a bit like meditating and
Speaker:you come off at two o'clock I stop.
Speaker:I think shit, I better get up back on with some work.
Speaker:And you know, I feel really relaxed and I feel like, you know, almost as
Speaker:good as if I'd had a bit of a sleep.
Speaker:And it can be funny in the winter 'cause it's an unheated space.
Speaker:And you know, when you've been having a really good write for an
Speaker:hour or an hour and a half because you stop and you go, okay, shut the
Speaker:laptop and you're absolutely frozen.
Speaker:Because it hasn't occurred you to move or anything and your fingers are blue.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, so that's, that's the joy of writing, having slated it sort of five minutes ago.
Speaker:There's, there's a little bit of you know, the, the joy of it and the
Speaker:fact that it's pretty, pretty good.
Speaker:You know, it's pretty good for you, probably.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think, um, a lot of people get immersed in the story and I think that's always
Speaker:a good sign of a good writing session is where time literally flies away from you.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:You stand up and you're freezing and.
Speaker:God, I really need the toilet as well.
Speaker:But on the flip side of that, when the words don't come and you know, the
Speaker:cursor is blinking away at you and you just can't work how do you keep calm and
Speaker:just allow yourself the breathing space?
Speaker:Uh, will, you know, you know, instinctively today's not a writing
Speaker:day or like you said earlier, you know, you, you will force yourself to just
Speaker:meticulously, write some bare bones words.
Speaker:But do you ever doubt yourself?
Speaker:Is there imposter syndrome in that?
Speaker:We all have imposter syndrome, don't we?
Speaker:I mean, we're all, we, you know, we're all people who are sitting on our own tapping
Speaker:words that we've made up onto a computer.
Speaker:It's a bit of a strange pastime in itself.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, and yes, sometimes you look at your work and this is great.
Speaker:Sometimes this is rubbish.
Speaker:I can't believe people would want, wanna read it and pay for it.
Speaker:But no, you've just got to see writer's block is, is kind of nonsensical really.
Speaker:You've just got to keep doing it.
Speaker:When I was kid, I used to play a bit of drums.
Speaker:I had this great drum teacher, right?
Speaker:He was this sort of very, sort of eccentric Yorkshireman.
Speaker:Um, and he'd be played a bit of jazz.
Speaker:And if you couldn't get it and you couldn't do it naturally, he'd
Speaker:go, he'd go, you can't feel it.
Speaker:Count it.
Speaker:And the point was, if you can't feel how to get that drum Phil, when
Speaker:you've gotta just count it out, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he'd get very animated and he'd be like,
Speaker:feel it.
Speaker:Count it.
Speaker:I can almost hear that in my head when you have a day when
Speaker:you think, I've got no good idea.
Speaker:And it's like, well, you can't feel it.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So what you're gonna have to do it, you're gonna have to sit down
Speaker:with a notebook, work out what it is that you want to happen in this
Speaker:chapter, and knit it together.
Speaker:And ultimately, if you take something apart enough.
Speaker:You'll find it and you'll start writing.
Speaker:Because otherwise there is that panic.
Speaker:'cause if you think I haven't got a good idea to get round, unpick
Speaker:this thing, you might never have it.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And then you're screwed.
Speaker:The project's had it.
Speaker:So if you can't feel, you can't feel it, count it, take it to take it to bits.
Speaker:And you'll work out how to keep the forward momentum.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, at the end of a session, are you someone who leaves a couple of
Speaker:notes for you to pick up the next day?
Speaker:Or are you someone who just rereads what they wrote the previous day?
Speaker:Uh, before you start?
Speaker:Well, I like if you can, it's great to do that.
Speaker:Leave a pickup, where you can carry on.
Speaker:Not always.
Speaker:But I always reread.
Speaker:I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker:You just start your writing with a bit of an edit of what you left behind.
Speaker:Because particularly if you are excited when you're writing, it's gonna be
Speaker:so full of errors that you, you know, you're gonna have to have a, have
Speaker:a pick through before you continue.
Speaker:Usually you can pick up from there, 'cause I like to edit it as I go.
Speaker:I'm not someone who can just throw together a, a first draft.
Speaker:Gotta feel that I could share the work whenever I feel like it.
Speaker:Whereas I know some people can just, you know, throw the words onto the
Speaker:page and, you know, and just then go, I'll come back to that in a few months
Speaker:and make it into something decent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, that's not for me.
Speaker:Mm. No, no, that's, that's fine.
Speaker:And actually, once you've finished a draft, as, as you say, you edit as you go.
Speaker:So it's fairly presentable.
Speaker:Who is the first person who reads it?
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:Well that, my wife usually reads it first.
Speaker:I'm usually in a bit of trouble if she doesn't.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:My brother's very good to me as well, so I've got two brothers
Speaker:and they're both very supportive.
Speaker:They're big readers and they bring different perspectives, so they're useful.
Speaker:But then, you know, once they've had a, once they've had a squeeze and I've got
Speaker:three sets of conflicting comments from them, uh, most of which I've decided
Speaker:to ignore whilst being very grateful for their attention, I'll then, it then
Speaker:goes off to my agent, they'll read it.
Speaker:So I used to, when I first started.
Speaker:Because I had no idea if I was any good at this or not.
Speaker:Every time I finished a chapter, I would print it off and mail
Speaker:it out to four or five people.
Speaker:Um, at that point, you know, I had that many people who
Speaker:were interested in what I do.
Speaker:They've all got bored of it now, obviously.
Speaker:They're like, you know, like, come on, right.
Speaker:You had a book published, shut up.
Speaker:But there was a time when, you know, people were sufficiently enthusiastic to
Speaker:have that many people who look at my work.
Speaker:Uh, but I don't actually recommend that.
Speaker:I think, you know, you end up right, you run the risk of writing by committee.
Speaker:Because people start delivering feedback on the plot.
Speaker:And so you end up with 15 sets of notes or however many chapters you might have.
Speaker:And I don't think that's helpful.
Speaker:You gotta have a bit of confidence, you know, know when it's All right.
Speaker:We'll see this through to the end.
Speaker:If, if the first chapter was good and people like that,
Speaker:you're not have forgotten how to write by the end of that book.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So just, get it out.
Speaker:You can, you know, you can do it and that first book didn't make it to publication.
Speaker:Maybe it would've done had I not been so keen for you know, that, acknowledgement
Speaker:from people like, yeah, you can still write, this is still nice stuff.
Speaker:Oh, and here's an idea.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I should have just sort of buried myself in it, so that might
Speaker:be of some use to a writer tackling tackling their first script.
Speaker:I think you've got to, you've gotta immerse yourself into it and be, you know,
Speaker:take responsibility for your own story.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And when you're working with the publishers and like your official editor.
Speaker:And getting the feedback notes from them.
Speaker:Do you find yourself being quite defensive or are you someone like
Speaker:saying, yes, please, gimme some more constructive things to work with?
Speaker:Not, not at, no.
Speaker:So not at all.
Speaker:I'm, you know, trust thy editor, right?
Speaker:You really, you really must.
Speaker:These people know what they're doing.
Speaker:And I had that concern when I first got a book deal and it went off to the
Speaker:editor and I thought, oh shit, they gonna really, you know, they're gonna
Speaker:change this and then they're get rid of all the rude bits and all that.
Speaker:Because it was quite a rough and ready novel, The Last Lesson.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And then I got the notes back from Ben who's my editor at Penguin.
Speaker:And it wasn't, it was, it was taking all the bits that I loved
Speaker:and turning them up a notch.
Speaker:And just making it a bit ruder and a bit more savage where it needed to be.
Speaker:Um, and he, I mean, you know, Ben was a wonderful editor,
Speaker:one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, possibly.
Speaker:It's this intrinsic way of understanding a story I was trying to tell.
Speaker:But yeah, if you work with a good editor, it's a wonderful process.
Speaker:'cause these people, they just understand books and story in a way
Speaker:that us people who aren't editors don't.
Speaker:You know, they're just bloody good at it.
Speaker:Christ, they're good at what they do.
Speaker:And Meredith, my current editor, she's wonderful as well and
Speaker:really, you know, understands where the soul of the, the book is.
Speaker:And of course, she's American, and you wonder, you know, is there gonna
Speaker:be a problem with, you know, do, do we see books and story differently?
Speaker:You know, given that we see so much differently to our
Speaker:friends across the Atlantic.
Speaker:But no, not at all.
Speaker:It seems that the idea of plot and, and, and character building is a universal
Speaker:language, and she's bloody good as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I often make the comparison.
Speaker:It's like a singer songwriter.
Speaker:The, the music and the lyricist.
Speaker:Actually having those two and, uh, you can have great lyricists who
Speaker:can't play a, a musical instrument.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And you have, you know, these great multi-talented, people who can play
Speaker:any instrument under the sun , but they can't string sentences together.
Speaker:And it's just, uh, what we were saying before the interview,
Speaker:it's about having your creative discipline and having that focus.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:Um, and yeah, it's a different job.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But editors are the unsung heroes of books.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Certainly.
Speaker:Certainly.
Speaker:So, uh, I'm glad that you've had good experiences and I'm glad you,
Speaker:you enjoy that experience as well.
Speaker:I think, coming through all the conversations that I've had with so many,
Speaker:uh, writers, the common denominator is the huge respect that people have for editors.
Speaker:But sometimes when you meet people in the street who are
Speaker:aspiring to be successful authors.
Speaker:They can be very defensive when it comes to criticism and, uh, it's just
Speaker:like, if you can't take criticism, if you can't take notes, if you can't take
Speaker:rejection, it's not the job for you.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:It's not.
Speaker:But it's also, it's, um, it's like taking your car somewhere.
Speaker:And you know, and you love your car and then giving it back to you looking like
Speaker:it did when it was brand new or something.
Speaker:You know, all polished and glowing.
Speaker:And that's what they're there to do and they do it really well.
Speaker:And I also, I mean, my first book, which didn't get published, I did
Speaker:send it to an editorial consultancy.
Speaker:Now, which I think cost me about 400 quid or something like that.
Speaker:But you gotta bear in mind that when, if you, if you're starting out and writing,
Speaker:there is very little cost involved.
Speaker:So, you know, if you've got to the point where you've finished
Speaker:a novel, it's probably, you know, if you can afford to do it.
Speaker:I think I feeling it might cost a bit more than that these days.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I found that a really, and so I must just stress, by the way, I don't
Speaker:have shares in any editorial 'cause I, nor do I offer the service and
Speaker:this is not a pitch for work, right.
Speaker:Um, but actually you can for a modest, modest ish fee, work with a professional
Speaker:editor and get some notes and you'll learn a bloody lot about polishing a book.
Speaker:And if you follow those notes as I did, I went from having a manuscript that
Speaker:was, agents were saying nice things about it, but they weren't asking for fulls.
Speaker:And then I did another batch having corrected and I got like
Speaker:three full manuscript requests.
Speaker:So it was a sudden shift once you'd had a pair of eyes that understood
Speaker:the market as much as anything.
Speaker:'cause there's thing about an editor, it's not just about writing.
Speaker:It's the people who understand the market inside out.
Speaker:as an outsider, unless you're already in the industry or you're a bookseller,
Speaker:you're kind of not gonna know.
Speaker:So they're really valuable for that.
Speaker:Be it a professional or someone that you've sub, you know, subcontracted it to.
Speaker:Yeah, that's really interesting actually.
Speaker:because I guess so many people starting out, they'll invest in a laptop,
Speaker:they'll invest in a good notebook.
Speaker:They'll invest in, uh, plenty of books about writing.
Speaker:They may take courses about writing, but spending that money on a professional
Speaker:editor, they might balk at the price.
Speaker:But it really is investing in yourself and investing in your career to be
Speaker:like, like you say, know the market.
Speaker:See, I believed, I believed on the strength of that manuscript,
Speaker:and the feedback I was getting from a, agents at the first try, I
Speaker:believe I thought, I can do this.
Speaker:I can break into this industry.
Speaker:And then if you, with that attitude, I mean, you know, I think it might
Speaker:be more like you'd probably have to pay more like 800 quid these days.
Speaker:I appreciate the Cost of living crisis is a lot of money, but, you know,
Speaker:if you can invest it, do invest it.
Speaker:Stick it on the credit card and pay it off when you get a 50 grand advance
Speaker:for your bloody great novel, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I think like you say cost of living crisis is a lot of money, but it's an investment.
Speaker:It's an investment in, in your future, and it's something worth saving up for.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Now you mentioned right at the start, so I think I, I know the answer to
Speaker:this, but when a project finishes, whether it's a sense of grief of no
Speaker:longer being with those characters, or a sense of relief that it is done,
Speaker:I feel it's more of a relief for you.
Speaker:but do, do you ever like, sort of like miss the characters?
Speaker:Are there ever sort of like, oh, actually I might do a sequel to one of these books?
Speaker:Um, no.
Speaker:Succinct.
Speaker:That's nice.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:The reason for that is, is because everything I've
Speaker:written is really standalone.
Speaker:If I was to, to do a sequel to The Day Tripper, but it would have
Speaker:to involve a different character.
Speaker:You'd have to borrow the conceit, but you wouldn't, but you couldn't, you
Speaker:know, Alex's character arc is done.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so it is with everything else I've written.
Speaker:Um, and it's not that I, it's not as, I hate the characters that
Speaker:I'm glad to be away from them.
Speaker:But it's merely that I've been with them long.
Speaker:And even however much you like someone when you spend, I mean, I've
Speaker:just, I finished a manuscript last week to the end of the first draft.
Speaker:And because of having like, you know, other books to edit and stuff, plus moving
Speaker:house and like, the various stresses, it's taken me 15 months to get end to end.
Speaker:Now that is long enough to spend with anybody.
Speaker:So I'm quite, um, and don't get me wrong, I'm keen to get back and edit it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I get to the end.
Speaker:It's, um, grief would definitely not be the right word.
Speaker:No, no, no.
Speaker:That's, that's right.
Speaker:I thought, I thought that was the case.
Speaker:But like you say, they're complete stories, their arc and because as part of
Speaker:your planning, you're planning out a, you know, complete journey for your character.
Speaker:That journey is complete.
Speaker:You don't need to revisit them.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:And, and again, what I've just written, uh, what I've just finished.
Speaker:This one, again, like The Day Tripper, it's underpinned by a big concept
Speaker:and I probably could do a sequel, but I'd have to, it would be the concept
Speaker:that I would use for the sequel with a different cast of characters.
Speaker:Because yes, the characters have gone, the characters have done their
Speaker:journey and they are complete and they are off to live happily ever after.
Speaker:Spoiler alert.
Speaker:No, that's, that's fine.
Speaker:Well, you know, it's always nice to have a book with a bit of hope,
Speaker:a bit of optimism, especially in, in the current climate.
Speaker:Yes, certainly, certainly.
Speaker:Now my final two questions, but you know, James, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker:It's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their writing
Speaker:with each story that they write.
Speaker:Now that you've just finished a project or you know, it's going out to tender,
Speaker:was there anything particular that you'd learned from either this story
Speaker:that you are now going to apply to the next one, or something that from
Speaker:a previous book, that you applied to this one that you've just done?
Speaker:I mean, we unquestionably get, you unquestionably become a better writer all
Speaker:the while that you are writing and even if you don't feel like it, because of course
Speaker:you you know, like being in love is never quite as wonderful as falling in love.
Speaker:And so, so it is with the game of writing.
Speaker:So very exciting at the start.
Speaker:Whereas it's just, you know, um, a daily sort of pleasantness once you
Speaker:get underway, but you do get better.
Speaker:You know, when I look back you get your unquestioned, you getting better.
Speaker:I think weird is anything, um, I. It was about being a bit less bleak.
Speaker:I think The Day Tripper, I started writing when bleak stories and
Speaker:being dark was kind of de rigueur.
Speaker:And it isn't now because the world's fucking bleak, right?
Speaker:I mean, I know it's always been bleak, but I don't think it's,
Speaker:it's not necessarily been quite that obvious to us in comfortable
Speaker:western nations as it's right now.
Speaker:And so there's is more desire for upbeat, cheery stories.
Speaker:And certainly, whereas the where The Day Tripper the first third, you do have
Speaker:to wade through quite bit of bleakness, which I think is essential to the story.
Speaker:And the, the, the spring does come after that, particularly vicious winter.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:But now, I go in a little bit lighter from the start.
Speaker:And the game's changed and, you know, if it looks too bleak,
Speaker:people just put stuff down.
Speaker:Dunno if that's learning or if that's just adapting to a changing tastes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, I mean with, you know, you've got the Reports Of His Death Have Been
Speaker:Greatly Exaggerated just coming out.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So that's something that you finished a while ago.
Speaker:Sure, sure.
Speaker:And also, I, well, I started that whilst we were trying to sell and actually
Speaker:struggling to sell The Day Tripper.
Speaker:So it was almost the, it is almost the inverse of The Day Tripper, in terms of,
Speaker:you know, it's a very, it's an upbeat and quiet, you know, not entirely whimsical
Speaker:because it has got some dark bits in it, but it's a very, it's a straight story.
Speaker:It doesn't dig into metaphysics and stuff.
Speaker:So actually that was born out of my agent going, let's try something
Speaker:different, go away and write something.
Speaker:And then we had a, we struck a great deal on, um, The Day Tripper
Speaker:and sold film rights and stuff.
Speaker:So we suddenly all, you know, all fell into place.
Speaker:So I'd started a book that was almost The Day Tripper's antithesis.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But with that sort of like book, now that that's finished and that's getting
Speaker:published, was there something in writing something a bit more whimsical that in
Speaker:your planning and your characterization in the arcs that you sort of like jot
Speaker:out as just like, this is something I'm gonna do with each story now,
Speaker:you know, or there's something about your process where it's like, oh,
Speaker:that's much easier doing it that way.
Speaker:Uh, if anything that seems to work backwards.
Speaker:Like things seem to get a bit harder with each book.
Speaker:I don't know if that's just 'cause I'm just getting older, I think.
Speaker:May, maybe that's it.
Speaker:But no, I wish I had, I wish I had sort of unlocked some sort of, some sort
Speaker:of miracle, you know, way that makes everything, just the words just pour out
Speaker:the page and it has, it hasn't happened.
Speaker:I do a lot of walking and that's something I've always done to
Speaker:kind of, to get ideas going.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Uh, and I'm probably having to do that more than ever.
Speaker:Why is that?
Speaker:Is that the, is it 'cause the well's running dry or is it just, no I
Speaker:don't think it's that, I just think that it's, you know, you work hard
Speaker:maybe 'cause your work is better.
Speaker:So you're working that much harder.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:To keep it good.
Speaker:It, it's strength training and as, as we get older, you know, it, our
Speaker:muscle recovery does slow down a bit.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:But it's something that I've talked through, uh, a lot on the show.
Speaker:And LD Smithson, AKA Leona Deacon is actually a trained psychologist.
Speaker:And, uh, we went into how alpha waves is a very real thing and it's the
Speaker:problem solving aspects of the brain.
Speaker:And so when you are walking and it's a route you know, and your feet know
Speaker:to go one foot in front of the other.
Speaker:So your mechanics of your body are just on autopilot.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And because there's, you know, those muscle memory aspects
Speaker:just working away very relaxed.
Speaker:We know exactly what we're doing.
Speaker:It allows the problem solving aspects of the brain go, right, now let's
Speaker:get back to act one, scene one.
Speaker:You know, sort of what's wrong with this chapter.
Speaker:And so it's why repetitive action often brings out great ideas.
Speaker:So people walking the dog, washing the dishes, driving to work.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, it's just something that you do with such regularity.
Speaker:You don't need to focus all your attention on it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, it's interesting to get the, you know, the actual sort of technical
Speaker:understanding of what's going on there.
Speaker:I mean, obviously I'd like to believe it was something a bit
Speaker:more sort of romantic than that.
Speaker:You know, getting these ideas from the ether.
Speaker:Finding the muse.
Speaker:Well, also, I mean, 'cause very, very near where I work, there's
Speaker:a pretty substantial cemetery and sometimes I take a walk through there.
Speaker:And that seems to be, that seems to shake out ideas quite well.
Speaker:And you know, I'd like to believe that I'm channeling the ideas
Speaker:of the dead or something, but no it's alpha waves apparently.
Speaker:But there's a lay line near you and that's what is, you've got, you've,
Speaker:you've gotta cross the lay line to refill the well, there we go.
Speaker:I much, I much prefer that.
Speaker:Um, well this is leading into a very interesting, uh,
Speaker:answer for the last question.
Speaker:Um, because I always like to ask, is there one piece of writing advice that you
Speaker:yourself have received over the years that really resonated and you find yourself
Speaker:returning to whilst you are writing?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, oh, I'll tell you what I do, I do rather like, which is, um, which is, which
Speaker:is, I mean, possibly silently in contrast to some of the things I said, but, um.
Speaker:I can't remember who said it, but write hot edit cold.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:So like, if you've got some really good ideas, get writing.
Speaker:If you've got no good ideas, just start editing what you've got.
Speaker:And actually, I suppose it probably does come back to what I was saying earlier,
Speaker:because if you're editing, then that will naturally lead you to write some more.
Speaker:So actually it's a job.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's, that's quite a useful, I think that's quite a useful bit of advice.
Speaker:I'd probably say it to myself sense these days because it's
Speaker:become kind of a natural thing.
Speaker:Okay, i've got a great idea.
Speaker:I'll start reading the page and then, you know, fiddle about with
Speaker:what you've got and then it'll feed you into some good work.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, we'll leave it there.
Speaker:But thank you, James Goodhand, for being my guest this month.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Thank you very much.
Speaker:It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker:Lovely.
Speaker:And that was the lovely James Goodhand with some lovely bits of advice there.
Speaker:I hope anyone struggling to write around a day job can take heart,
Speaker:that it can be done and your stories can find an audience.
Speaker:If you want to learn more about James and keep up to date, then
Speaker:Instagram is your best bet.
Speaker:He's not the most prolific at social media, but he did post a lovely clip
Speaker:of a badger in his garden recently, so for book news and wholesome
Speaker:content, he's my kind of guy.
Speaker:I will leave a link in the episode description and
Speaker:that's it for another month.
Speaker:Next month is something a bit special, but you'll have to wait to hear why.
Speaker:It's a fun story.
Speaker:So subscribe if you haven't already, and keep writing until the world ends.
