Episode 110

full
Published on:

26th Dec 2021

The Real Writing Process of Joanne Harris

Tom Pepperdine interviews Joanne Harris about her writing process. Joanne discusses her day-to-day writing, the two items she needs create a writing space, and what she considers the author's cocaine.

You can find all of Joanne's information on her website here: www.joanne-harris.co.uk

And you can follow her on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/JoanneChocolat

And you can watch all of her YouTube videos here: https://bit.ly/3Eo3SSF

And you can find more information on our upcoming guests on the following links:

https://twitter.com/Therealwriting1

https://www.instagram.com/realwritingpro

https://www.facebook.com/therealwritingprocesspodcast

Transcript
Tom:

Hello and welcome to The Real Writing Process.

Tom:

I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.

Tom:

And this episode, my guest is Joanne Harris.

Tom:

Yes, I'm going to say that again, I've interviewed Joanne Harris.

Tom:

The multi award-winning author of Chocolat, Joanne Harris, MBE.

Tom:

That Joanne Harris.

Tom:

We talk about her writing process, her shed, her favorite brand of

Tom:

notebooks, and how her sense of smell helps to inform her writing.

Tom:

This interview was recorded in mid-September 2021.

Tom:

Just over a month after the release of her novel, A Narrow Door.

Tom:

So I'm joined today with Joanne Harris.

Tom:

Jo, hello.

Jo:

Hi, it's great to be here, Tom.

Jo:

Thank you for inviting me.

Tom:

You're very welcome and very pleased that you accepted.

Tom:

Now my very first question as always is what are we drinking?

Jo:

We're drinking tea English breakfast with milk.

Jo:

I was a teacher back in the day and it's the teachers and the author's cocaine.

Tom:

Yes.

Tom:

You always have a cup of tea or a pot of tea when you're writing?

Jo:

I got a pot of tea in my shed, normally.

Jo:

I've got a cup of tea here because I'm elsewhere, because

Jo:

the bandwidth is better.

Jo:

But yes, the tea tends to keep me going.

Jo:

It's what I'm used to.

Tom:

Okay.

Tom:

And as you said, it was something that you had as a teacher as well.

Tom:

So it's always been associated with your working drink.

Jo:

Absolutely.

Jo:

When I was a teacher, I used to carry it about with me.

Jo:

And when I was doing various bits of admin and supervision.

Jo:

I was always seen with a cup of tea in my hand, rushing around the corridors.

Jo:

Now, nowadays I'm a bit more sedentary.

Jo:

It's nice.

Tom:

Yes.

Tom:

And my second question is for the guests to describe their location.

Tom:

Now you said that you're not in the shed due to bandwidth.

Tom:

So discuss where we currently are, but then I will have

Tom:

questions about the shed as well.

Jo:

Well, I'm actually in my daughter's office, but given that she doesn't live

Jo:

here anymore, I've taken it over for the days when I'm not working in the shed.

Jo:

And it's a little office with a built-in desk and a bookcase and various papers

Jo:

and things that I'm supposed to do.

Jo:

But normally I would work in my shed, which is at the bottom of the

Jo:

garden, which has again, a desk, an armchair, various bits and pieces

Jo:

that I have picked up on my travels.

Jo:

It was going to be one of those bare monastic workspaces, but

Jo:

I don't think I can do that.

Jo:

It's now full of various kitsch items that I've picked up on my travels and things

Jo:

that I love too much not to be around.

Tom:

I've seen your YouTube channel.

Tom:

It's a beautiful space, and I love how it's developed on line, on Twitter.

Tom:

That every day there's a new description.

Tom:

Today, it's a Trullo House, in Italy's Eritrea valley, built from dry stone.

Tom:

Whitewashed with a pointed conical roof, flowers grow beside the

Tom:

door, hollyhocks and lupins.

Tom:

It's so evocative and such a fantastic example of your writing.

Tom:

But I don't know the origin.

Tom:

When did you start these Twitter descriptions?

Jo:

Oh, a very long time ago.

Jo:

Pretty much when I started.

Jo:

Which was what, something like 10 years ago?

Jo:

And I was having the shed built in the garden.

Jo:

It was on the site of another shed, made of wood.

Jo:

And my husband had this one built out of stone.

Jo:

So it's quite a posh shed, but it's still on the footprint of the wooden shed.

Jo:

And I would talk about how it was developing and the things

Jo:

that I was choosing to put in it.

Jo:

And then somehow, when it was finished, it took on a personality of its own.

Jo:

And it began to change shape and location, according to day and mood.

Jo:

And I would write this little sentence, in those days in 140 characters,

Jo:

about what exactly the shed was.

Jo:

And sometimes it was a building and sometimes it was a mode of transport.

Jo:

And sometimes it was like the Trullo house, a place I'd actually

Jo:

been, depending very much on what kind of mood I was in.

Jo:

And it became an entry into my creative process.

Jo:

I had to create this little haiku, which was always about the shed,

Jo:

before I would start working.

Jo:

And I found that my followers on Twitter, if I didn't do it,

Jo:

would say are you not in the shed?

Jo:

Or what's the shed doing?

Jo:

Why have you not said anything about the shed?

Jo:

And I realized that it actually had many more supporters than I had.

Jo:

And so it became very much a kind of daily part of my process.

Jo:

Without even realizing that was what it was going to be.

Tom:

It's a beautiful beautiful series.

Tom:

And I can see why it had its followers and its own fans.

Tom:

I'm glad it's come part of your process rather than like an albatross

Tom:

around your neck, and a chore.

Tom:

I think it's almost like it's warming the creative muscle.

Jo:

Yes, I think that's absolutely what it is.

Jo:

Because I have to get into the zone somehow.

Jo:

It's quite useful I find to, to project into something, which is not necessarily

Jo:

the work in progress just a mode.

Jo:

So it's the dressing room, if you like, before I step out onto the stage.

Jo:

And I think of it that way.

Tom:

That's a great analogy.

Tom:

I love that.

Tom:

Thank you.

Tom:

Now I want to talk broadly around the origins of any piece of work,

Tom:

not where your ideas come from, but when an idea suddenly grips in your

Tom:

mind, are there certain identifiers to you when you're speculating about

Tom:

the world and things that you think this idea would make a good story.

Tom:

And is that a character, a situation?

Tom:

What is it that grabs you about an idea where you're, I want to

Tom:

develop this a little further?

Jo:

Oh, it could be anything.

Jo:

It could be absolutely anything.

Jo:

It could be a dream that I had.

Jo:

Sometimes I have very articulate narrative dreams that become stories.

Jo:

Sometimes it's something that I've read.

Jo:

Sometimes it's something I've seen on Twitter or on social media or in the

Jo:

news or on TV or an idea when I was just out on a run that just occurred to me.

Jo:

Or something that spring-boarded from something that I saw or

Jo:

experienced physically or a feeling.

Jo:

Almost anything.

Jo:

And I tend to think that my head is a sort of rattle bag of these ideas

Jo:

and I pick them up and I don't most of the time, I don't think, ah, this is

Jo:

a story, or this is part of a story.

Jo:

Sometimes I will think that.

Jo:

And sometimes if it's something particularly striking, I'll think yes,

Jo:

that belongs in the story, but then it will rattle around sometimes for years

Jo:

before I find the place that it fits.

Jo:

And sometimes I never will find the place.

Jo:

And so I have various notebooks, which I carry around with me to write these ideas.

Jo:

Because actually you always think you're going to remember them, but you don't.

Jo:

And so I've got notebooks with all kinds of cryptic things written in them.

Jo:

That I actually don't remember anymore, except the thing that I wrote, which

Jo:

can be infuriating, but also quite useful if I'm looking for something.

Jo:

And I don't quite know what it is.

Tom:

With these notebooks, do you find that they tend to be

Tom:

filled with lines of dialogue?

Tom:

Or are they descriptive passages?

Jo:

They could be, there could be almost anything.

Jo:

I've got one here, actually.

Jo:

I wonder what's in it.

Jo:

It looks like quite an old one.

Jo:

The problem with my notebooks is that they can sometimes look very similar.

Jo:

And so very often I've got things written down and I see this is 10 years old.

Jo:

Here, I've got something about, oh, I've got something about language.

Jo:

It says, "svaha", which is a north American Indian word, the feeling

Jo:

of having set into motion a course of events, for which you can see

Jo:

the outcome, but not affected.

Jo:

For instance, letting fly an arrow and realizing that at the last

Jo:

moment, you've actually shot it at somebody who was on our side.

Jo:

I must've picked this up from somebody.

Jo:

I have no idea who it was, but it's a wonderful word.

Jo:

I've never yet found a reason to use it, but yeah it's in there.

Jo:

And the book is all full of little pictures and some, oh, here we go.

Jo:

I've got train overheard on a train to London.

Jo:

I left Jason's fleece on the settee.

Jo:

That cracked me up because Jason and his fleece obviously, and not

Jo:

the Jason's fleece we're thinking about, but it's a piece of dialogue.

Jo:

I'm not sure I will ever be able to use it.

Jo:

Oh, and again, on the same train, a man with a Louis Vuitton laptop bag and

Jo:

horn-rimmed glasses carrying a satchel with a riding whip sticking out of it.

Jo:

And this was obviously somebody I'd seen on the train.

Jo:

And then a bit later on in the book, what have I got here?

Jo:

I've got various talks that I've and various ideas that

Jo:

I've illustrated in this.

Jo:

I'm showing you that you won't show on the postcard little picture.

Jo:

Genius idea it says, let's see if it is a genius idea.

Oh, story:

the murderer's apprentice.

Oh, story:

I don't know what that refers to because I don't know the

Oh, story:

story and I haven't written it.

Genius idea:

trust in the stars.

Genius idea:

The new astrology personality testing, according to what was in

Genius idea:

the charts the week of your birth.

Genius idea:

So Abba in the ascendant would be somebody who was born when Abba was in the charts

Genius idea:

and it was mounting, that sort of thing.

Genius idea:

So what would you do with it?

Genius idea:

I have no idea.

Genius idea:

Then I've got bits and pieces.

Genius idea:

Oh, I've just got here, I've just got automatic duck written.

Genius idea:

I have no idea what that's about.

Genius idea:

I don't know anything about why I wrote this, but I do have a

Genius idea:

picture of the Michelin man.

Genius idea:

And to comment about London and, oh, it's very hot.

Genius idea:

That's all.

Genius idea:

Oh, weird question.

Genius idea:

If you jumped off a tall building wearing your iPod, how much of your favorite song

Genius idea:

would you hear before you hit the ground?

Genius idea:

That's a rather dark thought, but yes my, my little notebooks

Genius idea:

are full of stuff like this.

Genius idea:

And various.

Genius idea:

Again, planned speeches to various groups.

Genius idea:

This one's about words for obviously something in Ireland.

Genius idea:

Something here about the Pied Piper, who is the perfect metaphor for

Genius idea:

our relationship with storytellers.

Genius idea:

I've written, we enjoy stories, but mistrust the subconscious.

Genius idea:

Artists exist outside of society wielding the voodoo of art.

Genius idea:

It's exactly the kind of thing that I probably would have written somewhere

Genius idea:

in a speech about paying the writer.

Genius idea:

And so on and so forth.

Genius idea:

So I do this all the time and I have this kind of scattered series of ideas,

Genius idea:

either written down or just rattling about in my head until they find a home.

Tom:

Are you very particular about the brand of pens and notebooks that you use,

Tom:

or is it just whatever's nearest to hand?

Jo:

Mostly they are black Moleskine notebooks, and they're all identical,

Jo:

which is why I can never tell one from the other and I'm always losing them.

Jo:

But yes, I do like them.

Jo:

I like the feel of them.

Jo:

And I like the fact that they slip into a back pocket, which

Jo:

is where I tend to carry them.

Jo:

And also the fact that, do you know what?

Jo:

I have a whole shelf of notebooks too beautiful to use, and I

Jo:

know I'm not going to use them.

Jo:

And they're presents from various people and they're just too lovely.

Jo:

So I don't actually use them for work.

Jo:

What I do is, generally if a charity approaches me and asks me for something

Jo:

special, I will write out a story in one of these notebooks and maybe

Jo:

do some little doodles around it and give them that to auction off.

Jo:

Because signed copies of books are like ten a penny.

Jo:

There's no point giving them to a charity auction.

Jo:

So I sometimes do that with them and the rest of them just sit on the shelf and

Jo:

look beautiful and slightly accusing.

Jo:

Because they know the they're never going to use them for work.

Tom:

I find that with writers that you have your particular type and it can

Tom:

be something that's functional rather than beautiful, like a black Moleskine.

Tom:

And I hear this a lot that, yeah, the beauty of notebooks as gifts.

Tom:

And pens as well, sometimes a beautiful pen.

Tom:

It's just like, well, I can't write my shitty ideas with a pen this nice.

Tom:

Um, I'll just use a biro.

Jo:

Yeah.

Jo:

I like, I like these for signing.

Jo:

They are V7 signing pens.

Jo:

High-tech ballpoints.

Jo:

I like rollerball pens because I have a slightly funny way of writing and they are

Jo:

the things that, that write most smoothly.

Jo:

And I also quite like them because you can draw with them and I'm

Jo:

always doodling in notebooks and drawing passengers on trains.

Jo:

It seems like a long time since I was actually in a train, but I

Jo:

get a lot of good ideas on trains.

Tom:

Trains are very romantic form of travel.

Tom:

I think long distance on a train, because you can walk around, you can meet people.

Tom:

There could be a diner's car.

Tom:

It's very good for people watching.

Airplanes:

there is more noise than is ever portrayed on any form of media,

Airplanes:

like sort of cinema and things like that.

Jo:

I'm married to a man who won't fly.

Jo:

And so we know all about trends in Europe and we did a lovely, a lovely

Jo:

trip that went from London to Paris, to Rome, and then to Syracuse, in Sicily.

Jo:

And the train is a sleeper and it actually goes on the boat during the night.

Jo:

So at about three in the morning, you hear the train change and go onto

Jo:

its track on the boat and you wake up and have breakfast in Syracuse.

Jo:

It's wonderful.

Tom:

And did you sleep well?

Tom:

You know, was it very apparent that it's like, oh, we're now on water

Tom:

or was it a complete magical, we were on one form of land last night

Tom:

and now we're on a different one?

Jo:

It was lovely.

Jo:

And no, I didn't feel it at all.

Jo:

It was very nice to sleep on a train.

Jo:

I think trains are quite soporific, but also I think the thing about traveling

Jo:

by train is that you retain some of the sense of distance that you've

Jo:

traveled and you can appreciate the countryside and it takes its time.

Jo:

And so the end destination is, is, seems more worth it somehow.

Tom:

Do you travel a lot for work?

Tom:

You know, in promotion tours.

Tom:

Or is it just, you'd like to take a break away and you'd like to vacation

Tom:

and possibly research stories?

Jo:

I've never traveled to research a story, but I do

Jo:

travel quite a lot for work.

Jo:

I used to anyway, go on tour in various countries sometimes

Jo:

to America or Australia.

Jo:

Usually also around Europe.

Jo:

Italy is a particular favorite of mine, partly because Italy was the

Jo:

first country to publish Chocolat.

Jo:

Long before England or the United States.

Jo:

And I've always had a very strong, very appreciative readership there.

Jo:

So every time I have a book out, I usually tour Italy.

Jo:

And I should be doing that right now with my book Honeycomb, but sadly, I'm

Jo:

not quite able to yet, so I've been imagining the places that I might go

Jo:

based on places that I've been before.

Tom:

That's lovely.

Tom:

And I, yeah, I had no idea of the the popularity in Italy.

Tom:

Is that somewhere that you're tempted to write more about

Tom:

and feature in your books?

Jo:

Oh, I wish I could.

Jo:

I really do.

Jo:

I was once offered by a rather wonderful handsome gentlemen of a certain age.

Jo:

I was offered his castle or a wing in his castle, as long as I

Jo:

wrote something about his region.

Jo:

And he said, oh, you can come here.

Jo:

You can stay as long as you'd like, you could stay a year.

Jo:

You could bring your family.

Jo:

And I just thought about the logistics of doing that.

Jo:

And at the time I had a young daughter who needed to go to school and I had

Jo:

to refuse, but I think he understood.

Jo:

And as do other Italians who have asked me the same question.

Jo:

That actually I need to have more than just a passing knowledge of a

Jo:

country, if I'm going to write about it.

Jo:

And I just can't do it.

Jo:

I can write about a certain part of England with a sense

Jo:

of knowledge and intimacy.

Jo:

And I can do that with certain parts of France too.

Jo:

But even though I must have been to Italy, at least a dozen times, maybe more.

Jo:

I don't think that's enough.

Jo:

I would have to live there for years to really get the sense of what

Jo:

it's like and to be able to speak with it with authority about it.

Jo:

Because actually I think that when I do write about places, they are as

Jo:

important to the plot as characters.

Jo:

And so I can't just choose them for the scenery, even though I would

Jo:

quite like to, and it would give me lots of opportunities to go and

Jo:

live in Italian chateaus and things, but that's not going to happen.

Jo:

It's not me.

Tom:

With research though, are there aspects of your time in Italy

Tom:

that has informed either character or elements of other stories.

Tom:

Cause you've written fantasy and well you've written Dr.

Tom:

Who.

Tom:

You've written science fiction.

Tom:

So when you have the opportunity to write uh, in other worlds, in non earth places.

Tom:

Is there a temptation you can then use the cultural aspects of

Tom:

other places that you've visited?

Jo:

Oh yes.

Jo:

I think that's certainly a possibility and everything that I write is enriched

Jo:

by everybody I meet and the places that I go and the things that I

Jo:

experienced and it's almost inevitable that will happen at some point.

Jo:

I can't always plan it, which is why I don't go somewhere

Jo:

to research what it's like.

Jo:

I will write about it, sometimes much later, because the story demands

Jo:

something that I learned in that place.

Jo:

It's never the other way round.

Jo:

I know I'm not the kind of author who can apply for a travel grant and

Jo:

go to Hawaii or something because I'm going to write a book about it,

Jo:

much as I would love to do that.

Jo:

I have written about various places that I've visited.

Jo:

I think in my Rune books, I got a lot of the feel of what it was like to live

Jo:

in that world that I'd constructed, that was not quite like our world , but was

Jo:

close enough, through going to places like Norway and Sweden and understanding

Jo:

what it's like to have proper snow and ice and real cold and what that does.

Jo:

I wouldn't have been able to write about it quite in the same way if I

Jo:

haven't seen it and experienced it.

Jo:

And there's all kinds of things where, I mean, right now I'm writing

Jo:

one of my Loki books, which tie into the Rune books, because basically

Jo:

they're all part of the same series.

Jo:

And I'm setting some of it in South America because, because I recently

Jo:

traveled to a place where I could use the information and the feel

Jo:

that I go to write about that.

Jo:

Yeah.

Jo:

And so things do kind of enter the writing sometimes by stealth in this way.

Jo:

And, and sometimes, I mean, I will write, I mean, for instance, I have

Jo:

written about Italy in short stories.

Jo:

I can do it in a short story, which doesn't need the kind of big

Jo:

knowledge that a book would need.

Jo:

So I wrote, for instance, I wrote a story called Fish when I was in

Jo:

Naples and it was set in Naples and it was about Naples and it was about

Jo:

Neapolitan food and Neapolitan people because I was in a situation where I

Jo:

was just surrounded by those things.

Jo:

And it was easy to write a short story.

Jo:

Of course, having written one short story about Italy, my Italian

Jo:

people would quite have liked me to have written a whole book.

Jo:

And I said no, I'd have to have lived in Naples for some time for that.

Tom:

And there's no temptation that you would want to live there for a prolonged

Tom:

period of time, because you grew up in Yorkshire, you live in Yorkshire now?

Jo:

Yes, I do.

Jo:

I live about 15 miles from the place I was born.

Jo:

I haven't gone very far.

Jo:

And yes, I love it here.

Jo:

I haven't been seriously tempted to live anywhere else, you

Jo:

never know what might happen,

Tom:

And returning now to your wri ting space and your shed your husband

Tom:

got built for you and how that's developed as your writing space.

Tom:

How much of your working day is spent there?

Tom:

Maybe not just writing, maybe you just thinking and plotting in your head.

Tom:

But is it a sense of feeling of I'm in the mood to write, I should

Tom:

probably pop to the shed or do you set a time and go I need to be in

Tom:

the shed by a certain time today?

Jo:

I don't really do either of those things.

Jo:

I think that when I was a teacher, I had such a structured day and I

Jo:

knew when I was going to do certain things and when I was going to stop.

Jo:

I think when I quit teaching, I created my own rhythms of work and I realized that I

Jo:

didn't have to structure my day anymore.

Jo:

And that actually, I didn't work terribly well in a structured day.

Jo:

And so I tend to find that I use what time's available when I feel like

Jo:

writing, which is most of the time actually, because, I like what I do.

Jo:

So the shed is, if you like, it is a comfortable place

Jo:

to go when I want to work.

Jo:

And so I've made it a rule that I only go there when I'm working,

Jo:

so that I actually have a commute.

Jo:

It's not a very long one.

Jo:

It's just a walk up the garden, but there is a physical space where

Jo:

I can go right, now I'm in the zone, now it's time for me to work.

Jo:

And so I don't just sit around reading or thinking about things.

Jo:

If I am putting things together in my mind, I'm usually out doing something.

Jo:

Walking you know, in the garden, something like this.

Jo:

Because actually a lot of the writer's work gets done in other places to a desk.

Jo:

It's just the writing bit that happens at the desk, that the thinking part

Jo:

and the planning part and the getting ideas part, you can do that anywhere.

Jo:

And I usually find that it doesn't help me to my workspace when I'm

Jo:

not actually physically working.

Jo:

So there's that, but I think it's psychologically very useful for

Jo:

somebody to have a designated writing area, whatever it is.

Jo:

And when I didn't have any money and I was living in the little house and

Jo:

I was sharing my workspace with all my daughter's toys and having to sit on

Jo:

the floor because I didn't have a desk.

Jo:

I still had a designated workspace.

Jo:

It wasn't much, but it was, it was there.

Jo:

And it gave me that kind of psychological sense of ownership, even though it was

Jo:

just a place where I put my laptop and the things that made my imaginary desk appear.

Tom:

On that, I saw on your YouTube channel.

Tom:

You mentioned and you showed on camera that you have two items that you take with

Tom:

you when you're on tour, so you can write.

Tom:

Are those still the pebble and the coaster, and how did it

Tom:

develop to have those two items?

Tom:

And why do they resonate to you that this is my writing place?

Jo:

Well, I think that for a start, I'm very good at visualizing things.

Jo:

It's part of how my imagination works, but there are certain things that will

Jo:

help me establish ownership of a space.

Jo:

And I find that when I don't have a designated workspace, I

Jo:

tend to not work terribly well.

Jo:

And because certainly before lockdown, I used to spend a lot of time in

Jo:

hotel rooms and in places which were essentially very neutral alien spaces.

Jo:

It was useful to have something familiar there.

Jo:

And I had worked this out long before I'd been on tour anywhere because

Jo:

I'd worked this out in a time and a place where just being a professional

Jo:

author was a very distant dream.

Jo:

But I found that if I had a desk, which had something familiar on it.

Jo:

In this case, this pebble and this little terracotta coaster with Carpe Diem written

Jo:

on it, where I can put my tea mug, I found that all of a sudden I had a sort

Jo:

of imaginary desk and it was portable.

Jo:

Because if I had these two objects, I could make it anywhere.

Jo:

So on a table in a hotel room, on the floor, somewhere.

Jo:

On, on the kitchen table.

Jo:

And I found that it helped me focus because I had these two tangible

Jo:

objects to designate my workspace.

Jo:

And I still use that technique.

Tom:

It's a wonderful technique.

Tom:

And when you are writing, do you write until you feel that you are at a natural

Tom:

break point to walk away or do you have a time limit or a word count limit?

Tom:

How do you know when to stop for the day?

Jo:

I don't set limits and I don't count words.

Jo:

So I find that usually what I do has a relatively natural rhythm.

Jo:

Unless it's interrupted by somebody, I will usually stop at a natural break.

Jo:

Usually at the end of a chapter, I don't write very long chapters,

Jo:

so that's always achievable.

Jo:

But what I do is I will come into my shed.

Jo:

I will generally write what the shed is doing, and then I will get down to it.

Jo:

I will read aloud what I wrote the previous day or

Jo:

during the previous session.

Jo:

During that time I will edit whatever needs editing there.

Jo:

And usually it's just baby polish.

Jo:

Sometimes it's something a little more, but by the time I've done that I will

Jo:

be in the right space to start writing.

Jo:

So I will then write whatever section of whatever book I happen

Jo:

to be writing at that time.

Jo:

I will generally realize that there's a natural break there and I will stop.

Jo:

And sometimes I'll go beyond the natural break and I'll

Jo:

go to the next natural break.

Jo:

Some days I'll write all day.

Jo:

Most days I'll stop around one.

Jo:

Because after that, my attention span tends to go.

Jo:

And so I might do other things, and there's all kinds of other things

Jo:

that a writer has to do, but general housekeeping and admin and social media

Jo:

and email and editing and stuff that doesn't require a lot of creative energy.

Jo:

And that tends to be my break.

Jo:

After which I will just do whatever.

Tom:

And do you like the closure of a full stop?

Tom:

It's definitely an end natural break rather than mid-sentence.

Tom:

Because I know some writers like to leave it so there's a hook for them to get onto

Tom:

when they come back for the next day.

Jo:

I would never finish mid-sentence because I wouldn't remember what I

Jo:

was supposed to end the sentence with.

Jo:

So no, I wouldn't do that.

Jo:

Although it's not always a full stop.

Jo:

Sometimes it's a dash.

Jo:

Sometimes it's a dot, dot dot because I actually quite like those.

Tom:

Do you try and write every day, you said that you really enjoy writing.

Tom:

So you do write frequently, but how do you work through if

Tom:

there are uninspired periods?

Tom:

So if you're at a point where the words just aren't coming or you're

Tom:

suddenly realize actually I haven't been to the shed for a couple of days.

Tom:

Are there any sort of things that you do to try and motivate yourself?

Tom:

Or is it just a waiting game?

Jo:

I generally find that it helps me if I do write something every day.

Jo:

I think this is because nine tenths of what happens at the desk and

Jo:

the rest of it happens in my head.

Jo:

And if I write just a small amount every day, it keeps the

Jo:

stuff that's in my head there.

Jo:

And it means that my head is still in the right space, even though

Jo:

I'm not necessarily writing a lot.

Jo:

And so I tend to make it a rule that I try to write 300 words a day.

Jo:

Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, because that's so small and because

Jo:

that's achievable it's something that I'm likely to keep doing.

Jo:

And it just keeps me in the zone.

Jo:

It means that the headspace doesn't get interrupted by other things.

Jo:

Generally on days when I'm really not inspired and it really doesn't work.

Jo:

I have learned not to beat myself up about it and to go off and do something else

Jo:

because sometimes it's your body's way of going, you know what you've been in the

Jo:

shed for too long, you are getting stale.

Jo:

You need to get out and do things and read more, watch movies, go

Jo:

for a walk, do this kind of thing.

Jo:

Because actually all these things, because they are good

Jo:

for our actual physical energy.

Jo:

They're also good for our creative energy.

Jo:

If I'm not sure, if it's still on the cusp and not sure where I'm going, but

Jo:

I know I want to, so I've read the bit aloud that I needed to read and I'm

Jo:

there in the zone, but there's something that's lacking, I tend to use scent.

Jo:

Because I have synesthesia and I mostly experienced the world through

Jo:

colours and scents, I have this habit and I've had it for some years now of

Jo:

attaching a scent to a specific book.

Jo:

And this is really useful when I'm moving around.

Jo:

Because even when I've not got my portable desk, scents are so

Jo:

uniquely portable, that all it really takes is a spritz of something.

Jo:

And if that's the scent that I associate with that book and with

Jo:

nothing else, then somehow emotionally it can draw me into the zone.

Jo:

I learned this trick from a musical theatre performer, and I realized that

Jo:

quite a lot of stage performance do this.

Jo:

In fact, I think, a lot of the time, I think being a writer is it's very like

Jo:

being a performer in a lot of ways.

Jo:

We have to get into these characters somehow, we have to

Jo:

understand how characters work.

Jo:

We have to understand how they inhabit their world.

Jo:

There's a book by Stanislavski, the great theatre guy, it's

Jo:

called a An Actor Prepares.

Jo:

It's an extremely useful book for writers too.

Jo:

It has a lot of tricks, including that one about getting into character.

Jo:

And with me, because scent is so important, I found it a really

Jo:

good entry point into books.

Jo:

And particularly when I'm writing more than one book at once,

Jo:

it helps to distinguish one train of thought from another.

Tom:

With your Loki book that you're writing at the moment.

Tom:

Can you tell us what scent you've attached to that book?

Jo:

I'm using a Chanel scent called Boy, which I've actually

Jo:

used for, for my other Loki books.

Jo:

It's a really good one.

Jo:

It's a kind of fresh unisex one with a lavender base and some wood in it

Jo:

and quite a good chunky aromatic base with some florals in the heart of it.

Jo:

And I, I really like that one.

Tom:

So you've, you've got a small bottle that you'll just spray

Tom:

when you're struggling, or at the start of a writing session?

Jo:

I'll wear it.

Jo:

And that will be what, that will be the character I am inhabiting that day.

Jo:

I'm not sure it's the scent that Loki would wear, but it's just the

Jo:

scent that I attached to these books.

Jo:

And the more I think about them and the more I associate them with

Jo:

the scent, the easier it is to get back into the world of those books.

Jo:

And there have been four now, and this is the fifth one.

Jo:

And so it becomes a familiar ritual and a familiar world because although

Jo:

I'm enlarging that world all the time, every time I write a new book, I'm

Jo:

also familiarizing myself with what I've already done and it does help.

Jo:

It helps me enormously.

Tom:

I like the idea of it's the scent you wear to meet Loki.

Tom:

Is this something that you've used for every single book

Tom:

that you've had published?

Tom:

Or is this something that has only developed in the last few years?

Jo:

No.

Jo:

I've been using this for a very long time.

Jo:

I don't think it was every single one.

Jo:

I don't think I did it for the first two, but I definitely

Jo:

did it for Chocolat and beyond.

Tom:

That's really cool.

Tom:

And with, it's a silly question with everything that's going on

Tom:

in the world, but having major life events impact writing.

Tom:

Certainly you've had a little more than most in 2020 and the start of this year.

Tom:

Has that had a noticeable impact on your writing and how you structure your day?

Tom:

Are you writing less or writing more?

Tom:

Is your style of writing changing in any way?

Jo:

I think my style of writing is at the same time fixed because it's

Jo:

part of my personality, but always in flux because actually, everybody is

Jo:

evolving and changing all the time.

Jo:

And so there is that, but there are elements of my writing, which are part of

Jo:

my personality, which won't change, but there are choices that I make about what

Jo:

I want to write about and how I want to do that, which obviously are in evolution.

Jo:

Lockdown was a funny time, because for the first time in 20 years, I didn't

Jo:

have to tour, I wasn't doing festivals.

Jo:

I had a lot more time to spend working, but on the other hand,

Jo:

there was this sense of enclosure.

Jo:

This sense of restriction and obviously the kind of anxiety

Jo:

of what was happening outside.

Jo:

I found that I was able to work, which was good because a lot of my friends

Jo:

and colleagues in the business found it very difficult to concentrate.

Jo:

I found actually that it was a bit of an escape for me and that going

Jo:

into the shed and working was the one predictable, reasonably predictable,

Jo:

solid thing that I could do every day.

Jo:

That would ground me and that would give me a routine.

Jo:

And I haven't had one before because I'd had so many interruptions.

Jo:

It wasn't as if I could say, right, I will have the next

Jo:

three months to write a book.

Jo:

This never happened.

Jo:

There would always be something that I would have to do.

Jo:

Someplace I would have to go.

Jo:

And so in some ways I've been more productive than ever.

Jo:

And then of course I was diagnosed with cancer and I had to go through this

Jo:

procedure of surgery and chemo and radio.

Jo:

But again, even though, actually that does eat up enormous amounts of your time.

Jo:

I found that the writing was the thing that grounded me and the thing

Jo:

that I could go back to and that the normal thing that I could do.

Jo:

And so I've been doing this all the time.

Jo:

And now I'm aware that I'm speaking from a place of immense privilege

Jo:

because I am in a job which doesn't require me to go into an office.

Jo:

I actually can self isolate because given that my immunity is still probably at

Jo:

rock bottom, I ought to be doing that, but it's also possible for me to do it.

Jo:

And I've got space, I've got this huge space to inhabit, which is marvelous.

Jo:

And and again, I'm very lucky to have this.

Jo:

And so I think, I'm not, I've not been in the worst position

Jo:

of any author in the world.

Tom:

No.

Tom:

And I'm glad that you've finished your treatment now?

Jo:

I have indeed, as you can see, I have my eyebrows back

Jo:

and I've even got some hair.

Jo:

Although I could still do a passable Charlize Theron, in, in Mad Max.

Jo:

I quite like it actually.

Tom:

Yeah, I know, it really suits you, but I guess you've always had, not this

Tom:

short hair, but you have had short hair?

Jo:

I have in the past, I've had short hair, long hair

Jo:

and hair all in the middle.

Jo:

And my hair is, I find that I tend to gravitate towards the hair style I

Jo:

imagine the characters in my book having.

Jo:

So this sometimes means that I go through odd phases of needing, I think

Jo:

I've got restless hair, actually.

Jo:

That's what it is.

Jo:

I have restless hair syndrome, so it's never completely recognizable.

Tom:

And so will, this hairstyle inform your Loki book?

Tom:

Do you feel it is, or is this one time when you're going to separate

Tom:

your hair from the character?

Jo:

Actually, it's quite useful because some of my

Jo:

characters do have shaved heads.

Jo:

Because I'm using the Norse Pantheon and the South American, the Mayan

Jo:

Pantheon, and I'm bringing them together.

Jo:

And so I've got quite a lot of people with shaved heads there.

Jo:

Because the Mayans did tend to do this.

Tom:

Well, I'm glad that it has formed a part of your research.

Tom:

Now there's the old adage, writing is rewriting.

Tom:

I'm interested in once you've done a first draft, how many times do you

Tom:

revisit it or do you feel very confident in getting your editor to read your

Tom:

first draft or do you have beta readers?

Tom:

What is your rewriting process?

Jo:

Well, it's changed over the years, but not drastically.

Jo:

Sometimes specific books require more rewriting and some of them, I tend to

Jo:

find that because of my reading aloud and editing as I go along, which is

Jo:

a rolling process, the line-by-line stuff is usually pretty clean.

Jo:

So by the time I've got a first draft, what needs to be done at that point is

Jo:

usually restructuring or just making sure that things are in the right place.

Jo:

And occasionally I treat books a bit like Rubik's cubes and move things around so

Jo:

that they follow in a more logical way or in a better way to suit the plot.

Jo:

When I have got what I think of as a dirty first draft, I will then send

Jo:

it to my agent and to my editor.

Jo:

Who will then send me their thoughts.

Jo:

My editor has beta readers, usually of several generations.

Jo:

What I like best is to know that the book has been read by somebody, perhaps

Jo:

over 50, and then somebody else between 30 and 50 and then somebody else may

Jo:

be in their twenties so that I can see how the responses are working.

Jo:

For instance, the Loki books are a case in point.

Jo:

Testament of Loki went down terribly well with the 20, 30 somethings,

Jo:

but the people older than that didn't really understand it.

Jo:

Because it was not within their experience of fantasy.

Jo:

And it was an interesting thing for me, to think of my reader

Jo:

demographic and how that would work.

Jo:

It doesn't actually affect what I write, but it does sometimes affect

Jo:

who I talk to and how I present it and who I tour to and what events I go to.

Jo:

I'm much more likely to go, let's say to Fantasycon with a Loki

Jo:

book than with a Chocolat book.

Jo:

Even though those books are also to a certain extent fantasy.

Jo:

So that's useful.

Jo:

And nowadays I always run my book past my daughter, who I

Jo:

think of as my secondary editor.

Jo:

And I pay her for this, she's done freelance editing in the past, and

Jo:

she's got a very keen eye and she's also a very good sensitivity reader.

Jo:

She will point out if she thinks that something I've said is

Jo:

problematic or needs clarifying or is in some way inappropriate.

Jo:

And because she's extremely good at this.

Jo:

And she's from a generation that questions a lot of things about race and gender and

Jo:

acquired prejudice and subconscious bias.

Jo:

Because she's thought about this a lot more than I would have done at her age.

Jo:

I trust her judgment more than I do my own in this.

Jo:

And so I will let her have a go at it as well.

Jo:

And then I will rewrite the book and insert what's needed.

Jo:

And then usually that's it.

Jo:

So it's these two, two or three goes is usually enough.

Jo:

Occasionally in the past, I've had to reedit for my American

Jo:

public and my publishers.

Jo:

I don't like having to do this, but sometimes I've had to.

Jo:

It's never comfortable.

Tom:

One of my favorite books of yours is Blackberry Wine and of course, yes for our

Tom:

audience who may not be privy, cause that was quite a while ago, do you want to tell

Tom:

us about that and what happened there?

Jo:

That was over 20 years ago, and I was very inexperienced and very anxious.

Jo:

And Blackberry Wine had already come out in England and in several European

Jo:

countries and my American editor said, oh we don't want to publish it this way.

Jo:

We want you to put some changes in.

Jo:

And I said why?

Jo:

Because, it's been fine elsewhere.

Jo:

And there was a main concept, a singular concept inside this book

Jo:

that they wanted me to remove.

Jo:

And I did, I wrote a different version of the book effectively.

Jo:

I changed the first chapter.

Jo:

I messed around with the narrative.

Jo:

I introduced all sorts of things to make it make sense.

Jo:

So I effectively had two versions of the same book and

Jo:

one was the American version.

Jo:

One was the English version.

Jo:

And I always felt uncomfortable about doing this.

Jo:

And I swore that I would never do it again.

Jo:

And much later when my book Blue Eyed Boy came out over here and I

Jo:

ran it past my American publishers and they lifted their hands with

Jo:

horror and said, oh we can't publish it like this because it's too dark.

Jo:

It's too difficult.

Jo:

It's too challenging.

Jo:

I just said, don't then.

Jo:

And they didn't, which was fine.

Jo:

But no, it wasn't something that I would ever want to do now.

Jo:

And I wouldn't give that advice to anybody just starting off in the business.

Jo:

You just not to rewrite the book you feel happy with and you have already sent

Jo:

out into the world just because somebody wants to exercise power of you, which

Jo:

I think is probably what was happening.

Tom:

So what for you makes a good editor?

Tom:

Cause obviously if there's going to be some people like your daughter and your

Tom:

current editor, who will give you notes and you will rewrite based on theirs,

Tom:

but there's also people where you can push back and actually say, I disagree.

Tom:

I, I, I'm happy with this.

Tom:

So where's the balance in that relationship?

Tom:

When you think it's good, when you're willing to take on that criticism?

Jo:

I think it has to be a relationship based on trust and

Jo:

knowledge of the other person.

Jo:

I think you have to know each other, you have to understand each other,

Jo:

you have to speak the same language.

Jo:

What I find particularly bothersome and particularly now, because now I've

Jo:

got a certain profile and editors have slightly changed their tactic with me.

Jo:

And I don't like it, which is one of the reasons that I use my daughter,

Jo:

because she isn't like this and they tend to be quite flattering.

Jo:

And they tend to send you three pages of how much they loved your

Jo:

book before actually getting down to the bit they want you to edit.

Jo:

I find this profoundly annoying and I would much rather, they

Jo:

just told me what they wanted.

Jo:

And that they weren't afraid to speak their minds about things because

Jo:

actually an editor is there to see the things that you haven't seen.

Jo:

To look at something in a critical way.

Jo:

Obviously it's good when they get you and they like your work.

Jo:

But sometimes work needs to have work done on it.

Jo:

And so it, it's a fine line.

Jo:

I welcome honesty and transparency and bluntness from an editor, but I

Jo:

also liked the editor to like what I'm doing, to understand what I'm

Jo:

doing, and not just to be thinking about what it means in terms of sales.

Jo:

But yes it's important that the editors should be able to say, that's not working.

Jo:

You need to fix this.

Jo:

Sometimes they will tell you how to fix it.

Jo:

But I find that very rare.

Jo:

Most of the time they go, I don't know how you're going to fix this

Jo:

problem, but I know you will.

Jo:

And then usually yes, I do find a way and I usually see.

Jo:

Now, the thing about editing is that nobody likes to be told

Jo:

that there's something wrong with the thing they just finished.

Jo:

It's never great.

Jo:

And reading a set of editorial notes, invariably puts your backup.

Jo:

It doesn't matter who you are.

Jo:

I always go through a phase of looking at the editorial notes

Jo:

and going, what did you know?

Jo:

Nothing you fool!

Jo:

How dare you, how dare you criticise my, my, my marvelous prose.

Jo:

You have to go through that.

Jo:

You have to thank the editor.

Jo:

Say thank you for your notes, I will take them on board.

Jo:

I will get back to you in due course.

Jo:

And then you have to sit and wait for them to filter through.

Jo:

And sometimes that takes time.

Jo:

I know that with me, I really like to have three months to properly think

Jo:

about what's been said, and to do the rewriting that needs to be done.

Jo:

Not everybody has the luxury of that time, but to me, it's really useful.

Jo:

Because actually, to do any kind of rewriting you need to have an objective

Jo:

view, which means hearing criticism, understanding it, letting it filter

Jo:

through all the layers of your ego.

Jo:

And we all have them and we'll need an ego to write books, but we also

Jo:

need to put the ego on the leash from time to time and make sure that

Jo:

legitimate criticism gets through.

Jo:

And then when that time has passed, I usually look at the notes and I think,

Jo:

yeah, maybe you got a point there.

Jo:

Yeah, you probably got a point there.

Jo:

Not sure about that point there.

Jo:

And actually there are moments at which when I'm still not

Jo:

sure whether they have a point.

Jo:

Usually this is the point at which other voices become really handy.

Jo:

I mean for instance, again, in the Testament of Loki, I had something

Jo:

that I knew was going to be divisive.

Jo:

And it was entirely a generational problem.

Jo:

A generation that had not been brought up on immersive computer games just didn't

Jo:

get the opening of that book at all.

Jo:

They just didn't get it.

Jo:

The ones that did, got it, liked it.

Jo:

And so I just had to look at the different voices and some of them

Jo:

were going, this isn't going to work.

Jo:

I don't get this.

Jo:

I wouldn't buy this.

Jo:

And others were going, this is great.

Jo:

This is really new.

Jo:

This is amazing.

Jo:

And I took a view and I thought, okay, these criticisms, they

Jo:

are based on who the person is.

Jo:

They're not based on what the book is.

Jo:

Therefore, I am going to ignore those criticisms because I don't think it's

Jo:

my target audience for this book.

Jo:

And it didn't feel right for me anyway, but I did think about it

Jo:

and I did take it on board and it was useful to have that feedback.

Jo:

In the end, I decided not to do anything about it because it would have so

Jo:

destroyed the heart of the book that I would have had to have just put it back

Jo:

together in a completely different way.

Jo:

It wouldn't have been the same thing.

Jo:

So I thought I'm going to send it out into the world as it is for

Jo:

whoever will love it to love it.

Jo:

And the rest may be well, maybe they'll like the next one.

Tom:

And when you have finished a book is there a moment of reflection?

Tom:

How long do you take from finishing a book and stepping away from it

Tom:

to moving onto the next project?

Tom:

Do you like a break in between or is it literally the following day?

Jo:

Well, usually it's not even that because I'm usually working

Jo:

on more than one project at once.

Jo:

I generally do this because I'm not one of those authors who plans

Jo:

very intricately ahead in a book.

Jo:

Because I have to feel my way into the world of a book.

Jo:

Understand the characters and their voices.

Jo:

Give time for developments and surprises and twists and reversals to happen.

Jo:

And of course, if I am wanting to surprise the reader, then I have to

Jo:

surprise myself at least on some level.

Jo:

And so I don't, I deliberately don't think too far ahead about

Jo:

where things are going to go.

Jo:

I tend to follow the characters and how they determined the course of the plot.

Jo:

And sometimes that takes time and sometimes it means that I have to give

Jo:

a break to a book because I literally don't know what happens next or

Jo:

because I have to do a bit of research.

Jo:

Just because the rhythms with which I write have reached a point

Jo:

at which I can give something a break and move to something else.

Jo:

Because I don't like to be left with nothing to do.

Jo:

And because I know that sometimes these breaks can be quite extended.

Jo:

It can take me a while.

Jo:

I can write the first half of a book and not pick it up again for a year.

Jo:

So, What am I going to do during that time?

Jo:

I have to do something else.

Jo:

So I usually have a secondary and sometimes a tertiary project.

Jo:

And very often I will do a little rolling kind of movement whereby

Jo:

I'll do six weeks on one thing, then maybe six weeks on the other.

Jo:

Then go back to the other thing with a bit of objectivity,

Jo:

look at it, make sure it works.

Jo:

It's balanced and then off again for awhile.

Jo:

And that's how I do it.

Jo:

And so I never really have that break.

Jo:

Yeah.

Jo:

I heave a deep breath when something's finished and maybe open a bottle of

Jo:

champagne, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I can stop thinking about

Jo:

whatever is my work in progress because there always will be a work in progress.

Tom:

So you said earlier that when you've finished your dirty first

Tom:

draft, it goes off to your agent.

Tom:

I guess if you've got a few projects on the go, it's almost, until they get that

Tom:

email or that manuscript through to them.

Tom:

They don't know what you're about to finish?

Tom:

It's like, which book are we getting?

Jo:

Usually I try to make it clear which one I'm finishing and

Jo:

which is my main work in progress.

Jo:

And I usually try to give them some idea of when they can get it.

Jo:

I can't always be absolutely positive about that because

Jo:

that isn't the way I work.

Jo:

And I've tried to explain to them that, you know, giving me deadlines

Jo:

is not going to make it better.

Jo:

It's just going to make me more anxious and that's not necessarily going to help.

Jo:

But yeah, usually I can say I think I'll probably have finished this

Jo:

book by the end of next year or I'll probably be able to give you this then.

Tom:

And I guess, as you said, deadlines aren't helpful.

Tom:

Are you working almost a spec rather than with a publisher on an agreed delivery?

Tom:

Is it that you're giving it to the agent to then sell onto a publisher?

Tom:

Or do you have an extremely understanding publishers?

Jo:

It's an understanding publisher.

Jo:

They usually know one of the things that I'm working on and not the other.

Jo:

So usually if I sign, let's say a two book deal.

Jo:

And a two book deal tends to be as much as I'm likely to give to a publisher,

Jo:

because that's the longest I want to stay attached to a publisher before,

Jo:

before kind of reassessing where I am and making sure that I'm in the right place.

Jo:

So I will go, okay, I'm thinking of writing, shall we say another St

Jo:

Oswald's story or another Chocolat story.

Jo:

I have some of that.

Jo:

This is the plot that I know of so far.

Jo:

This is how it starts.

Jo:

So that will be my book one.

Jo:

And then there will be another untitled book two, which could be anything.

Jo:

And that tends to be what they sign a book deal on nowadays.

Jo:

I usually, I try to make the first one sound attractive.

Jo:

I usually have something fleshed out in something, but that is

Jo:

a bit of a teaser for them.

Jo:

And we'll give them a good idea of where to place the book and what genre it's

Jo:

going to be in because I don't always.

Jo:

My books don't always sit comfortably within the predictable genre

Jo:

area that many writers do have.

Jo:

And this is entirely my fault because I don't think any

Jo:

publisher really enjoys this.

Jo:

And it tends to be a bit of an insecure thing for a publisher to not know whether

Jo:

their author going to write a thriller.

Jo:

Or a fantasy book or a magic realist book or a historical or whatever.

Jo:

It's, it must be awkward.

Jo:

And I'm aware that I am awkward and that, it's not necessarily the way

Jo:

to make a bag full of money to keep writing different things all the time.

Jo:

The real clever thing to do is to try and become a brand.

Jo:

And it's never something that this appealed to me.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

I think part of your appeal is the fact that you are so broadly talented in many

Tom:

genres and that you can't be pinned down.

Tom:

But are you comfortable in promoting your own work then?

Tom:

Or have you had to get people, like you say, making the first

Tom:

story appeal to the publishers?

Tom:

How's your skills at promotion developed?

Jo:

They've got better over 20 years, but I'm still a bit

Jo:

gauche about promoting myself.

Jo:

I find it quite difficult to go, I did this and I think it's fantastic.

Jo:

And you should read it.

Jo:

It's really hard.

Jo:

When I was a teacher, I was really good at talking about other people's

Jo:

work and enthusing about their work.

Jo:

But when I started off, I was extremely shy and reluctant to talk

Jo:

about my work and it, yeah, I get it.

Jo:

It's hard.

Jo:

It's hard.

Jo:

It gets easier the more you do it.

Jo:

But I still have to remind myself that there are things that I do or things

Jo:

that I tend to do that I shouldn't.

Jo:

I did some uh, very early on, I did some media training thanks to my agent who

Jo:

was a rather redoubtable old lady called Sarah Faena, who just looked at me and

Jo:

said you're impossible, of course, but we might be able to do something with you.

Jo:

I think she never did do anything with me.

Jo:

And she always thought I was impossible, but but she introduced me to a friend of

Jo:

hers who filmed me, and who also showed me footage of myself on various media and

Jo:

said, okay, you do this, don't do that.

Jo:

Don't do this.

Jo:

Don't God, you're sitting next to this interviewer and you can tell that you

Jo:

hate him because you're doing this.

Jo:

You mustn't do those things.

Jo:

And also you must keep putting yourself down the way you do.

Jo:

You know, you keep saying things like I've written this book, but it's not very good.

Jo:

No, don't do that.

Jo:

Don't do that.

Jo:

Look, people in the eye, sit up straight.

Jo:

And it was actually quite useful.

Jo:

I needed somebody to shake me up a bit because actually nobody

Jo:

teaches you this in the book world.

Jo:

Everybody warns you about failure.

Jo:

Everybody wants you that it's very hard to get published.

Jo:

It's very hard to get an agent.

Jo:

That even if you do, your book may not take.

Jo:

But nobody actually says, oh, one day you may be wildly successful

Jo:

and you won't know what to do.

Jo:

So here's how you approach it.

Jo:

Yeah, I learned to all that the hard way and did some very bad interviews

Jo:

and some very bad TV and some very bad press and then have learned to

Jo:

have the gears to be a little better.

Tom:

And how has your view of the literary marketplace evolved over time?

Tom:

I mean, you know, the marketplace has evolved, but what's your perception of it?

Tom:

How it's changed since you started.

Tom:

How much more is online and uh, you know, how books are promoted today.

Tom:

How do you feel it's changed?

Jo:

Oh, it's changed enormously, of course, because the whole, my first

Jo:

book which was long before Chocolat was published before the digital revolution,

Jo:

before eBooks, before the internet.

Jo:

And, And actually, I mean, there are huge numbers of possibilities for young

Jo:

writers and for writers who don't want to go down the traditional route or who

Jo:

can't go down the traditional route.

Jo:

There are lots of ways to publish, to be seen, to acquire a readership.

Jo:

In some ways it's much more inclusive than it was.

Jo:

On the other hand, when we look at conventional publishing, it's

Jo:

much less inclusive than it was.

Jo:

It's much more driven by anxiety and the desire for more sales, which means

Jo:

that it's become very risk averse.

Jo:

Which means that there is a reduction in the number of

Jo:

mid-list writers that they'll take.

Jo:

In fact, I'm mean, as far as I can see, the mid-list has almost disappeared.

Jo:

There is a tendency to go for people who are celebrities.

Jo:

And who are not really writers in their primary role.

Jo:

Because there's a feeling within traditional publishing that these

Jo:

people will already have an audience.

Jo:

And that those people will be buyers of books.

Jo:

That's not always true at all, but it's led by fear.

Jo:

I think big publishing needs to understand that if you refuse to take risk, then

Jo:

you will never get the big gains.

Jo:

Because if yeah, you can gamble, you can take a punt on an unknown writer and

Jo:

yes, maybe the writer will tank, but also maybe they will be the next big thing.

Jo:

You don't actually know.

Jo:

You have to take the risk so that you can then reap the benefit.

Jo:

And I don't think they're doing this and big publishing is going very stale.

Jo:

And I think that this is going to mean that they will either have to

Jo:

rethink their approach or within five, ten years, they will effectively

Jo:

be replaced by something else.

Tom:

Yeah, I definitely see that as well.

Tom:

I fully agree.

Tom:

On a personal level, as a writer, what's your opinion of using social

Tom:

media in this new marketplace?

Tom:

We've obviously mentioned about not really having a brand, but you have got a very

Tom:

strong and engaged following on Twitter.

Tom:

Do you feel in 2021, it's an essential thing to have?

Jo:

No, it's not an essential thing to have.

Jo:

It's a good thing to have if it's good for you.

Jo:

And if you're happy doing it, and if you enjoy it.

Jo:

But I see a lot of people on Twitter particularly, who don't enjoy it.

Jo:

Who are not good at it.

Jo:

Who find it stressful and time consuming.

Jo:

And who are not getting any benefit from it because they think it's going to give

Jo:

something to them that it doesn't have.

Jo:

I mean, what Twitter doesn't do, what social media generally

Jo:

doesn't do, is drive sales.

Jo:

It's not something that happens.

Jo:

So you get people who go on social media and all they want to do is talk about

Jo:

selling their latest, whatever it is, whether it's a book or some other thing.

Jo:

And it's boring, it's advertising.

Jo:

It's the stuff, which when you record things on your TV, you scroll

Jo:

through because it's just crap.

Jo:

And if you don't actually enjoy interacting and being part of a

Jo:

social media community, because actually social is what gives it away.

Jo:

Then perhaps you shouldn't be doing it at all because there's no rule that says

Jo:

everybody needs to be on social media.

Jo:

When I joined Twitter, I asked Ian Rankin who was already on there,

Jo:

how he did it because I didn't really see how Twitter worked.

Jo:

And I thought, you know, what am I supposed to do on there?

Jo:

It's full of people who blog their food.

Jo:

And he said, don't worry about it.

Jo:

Just talk to people, talk about what you love.

Jo:

It doesn't matter what it is.

Jo:

Ian, he likes to talk about vinyl and whiskey and beer and books and,

Jo:

and he said, you'd be surprised at what happens if you just talk about

Jo:

the things you love on Twitter.

Jo:

Because the people who like the things you love will come to

Jo:

you and you will share things.

Jo:

And interesting things will come out of that.

Jo:

And he said, do you know what?

Jo:

All my stage and TV contacts have come from Twitter.

Jo:

And I said, that can't be right.

Jo:

And yet 10 years down the line, I have script doctored a movie

Jo:

for Mike Batt because of a conversation we had on Twitter.

Jo:

I have co-written an opera with Howard Goodall because of a

Jo:

conversation we had on Twitter.

Jo:

I have had so many approaches from theatre and musical and film people and TV people

Jo:

from conversations I've had on Twitter.

Jo:

But what I haven't done, or at least what I've done in a very minimal way, but not

Jo:

enough to bore people to death and to turn them off is to try to sell things.

Jo:

Yeah, sometimes a new book will come out and I'll go, Hey, I got a new book!

Jo:

But actually, that isn't really selling things.

Jo:

I think if you are on Twitter and you are yourself, as much as it's possible to be,

Jo:

then people will be interested in you.

Jo:

And then if they are interested in you, then maybe they will be interested

Jo:

in the things that you've done, but it's not the other way around.

Jo:

Nobody ever invited a salesman to a party, but sometimes you meet

Jo:

somebody at a party and you realize that you've got things in common.

Jo:

So Twitter is much more like a cocktail party to which you can

Jo:

actually invite anybody you like.

Jo:

And you can bar the people that you don't like.

Jo:

And that's exactly as it should be.

Tom:

That's great.

Tom:

Thank you.

Tom:

One thing I do want to pick up, that you said in the middle there,

Tom:

it was about your musical writing and that was something that I

Tom:

really wanted to cover, Stunners.

Tom:

And you know, how was that experience?

Tom:

Cause you have a band, Storytime, you've been in for years,

Tom:

so you've been a lyricist.

Tom:

But the discipline of writing and structuring a musical, how was that?

Tom:

That must have been a very interesting and different challenge for you?

Jo:

Oh, it's always different with everybody you work with.

Jo:

And yes, I've been a musician since I was in my teens and I've had the

Jo:

same band and I was writing song lyrics before I was writing books.

Jo:

And I've always enjoyed the idea that narratives can go into

Jo:

different directions and that story and music belongs together.

Jo:

Just as story and illustration belongs together and stories

Jo:

just they're volatile.

Jo:

They go off in different directions.

Jo:

They become dancers, they become opera.

Jo:

Chocolat became a ballet at one point and I thought, how

Jo:

fabulous, that that happened.

Jo:

And I'd already co-written a couple of short operas with

Jo:

different young composers.

Jo:

And I had usually used one of my Storytime stories, and these are things

Jo:

that started their lives on Twitter.

Jo:

I've explored them in music with my band and we've got this Storytime show that

Jo:

hopefully will start up again next year, which is basically stories and music.

Jo:

Not exactly opera, but the idea of performing a story with a

Jo:

musical enhancement, with a musical content, with visual content,

Jo:

with an element of performance.

Jo:

To me, all that's very natural.

Jo:

And so getting together with Howard seemed to really natural thing to do.

Jo:

I've loved his work for a long time.

Jo:

We followed each other on Twitter for a long time.

Jo:

And we had a little conversation about pre-Raphaelite women, which became the

Jo:

core for Stunners, which is basically a story about pre-Raphaelite models.

Jo:

And all the characters are female, and there aren't any men and the

Jo:

roles of the men are played by women.

Jo:

And it's just marvelous.

Jo:

This was Howard's idea.

Jo:

And it was great.

Jo:

But yeah, I wrote him the libretto and I rewrote it several times.

Jo:

Reshaping it according to what he was producing.

Jo:

And then it premiered in a small way.

Jo:

But I think it was very beautiful and I'd love to go back and work on it.

Jo:

And I think he's he's putting things in place for us to be able to workshop it and

Jo:

then maybe to take it to larger theaters and to make more of it, but yeah, it's

Jo:

been an interesting journey because I think that like a lot of writers who,

Jo:

who essentially create in solitude, I quite enjoy working with other people.

Jo:

I mean, Ian Rankin's the same, he's in a band.

Jo:

Pretty much every writer I know is in a band somewhere or has some other form

Jo:

of creation that involves other people.

Jo:

Because actually, creativity shouldn't just be kept to one

Jo:

person sitting in an ivory tower.

Jo:

It's so much nicer to interact with somebody else.

Jo:

Somebody that you know and trust and just create something that you would

Jo:

never have done just on your own.

Tom:

A thing I wanted to pick up on was, as you've mentioned Ian Rankin,

Tom:

do you feel that you have a friend group, a group of writing peers?

Tom:

And if so, how has that developed?

Tom:

Do you have almost like a pub group or a group that you'd like to see?

Jo:

I wish.

Jo:

Because I live in Yorkshire.

Jo:

And I don't, I don't tend to meet other writers unless they're at festivals.

Jo:

And generally at that point they're working.

Jo:

And so I found Twitter a particularly good place to, to connect with people

Jo:

that I know and that I like, but then that I don't see very often.

Jo:

You might meet somebody in the green room at the Edinburgh festival once

Jo:

a year or so, and then you don't see them again for another year.

Jo:

Although, you know, they've got a book out, but on Twitter

Jo:

you can talk to these people.

Jo:

You can do it every day.

Jo:

And to me it's become my water cooler.

Jo:

It's where I keep in touch with the people that I like, but I

Jo:

don't see very often because of various geographical limitations.

Jo:

But it's quite nice to talk to them and to bounce ideas off them.

Jo:

And sometimes when you're a writer and you have a problem And, you've

Jo:

either got writer's block or you've got terrible problems with your publisher.

Jo:

Sometimes only another writer will understand that.

Jo:

And so it's quite nice to just interact with somebody on social media and go,

Jo:

I'm having hell with this new draft or, my tendonitis is really playing up.

Jo:

And know that the person that you're talking to gets it, and

Jo:

then that's quite nice too.

Jo:

So it gives you not just the illusion of a friendship group, but an

Jo:

actual point of contact with people, which I think is really important.

Tom:

Yes.

Tom:

And also you've been so good with your YouTube channel for giving advice on

Tom:

writing and engaging with other writers.

Tom:

And you're also the Chair of the Society of Authors.

Tom:

And obviously that's a huge union on helping writers.

Tom:

How did that position come about?

Tom:

And, that just seems an amazing position to have.

Jo:

Well, the Society of Authors has permanent staff, but it also

Jo:

has an elected management committee.

Jo:

The management committee oversees a lot of the functions of the society.

Jo:

Keeps tabs, takes responsibility for the finance of it.

Jo:

Looks at its direction, looks at its strategy and works

Jo:

with the permanent staff.

Jo:

The Chair is voted from the management committee and I'd been

Jo:

on the management committee for some years and they've voted me Chair.

Jo:

Basically my responsibility is mostly to conduct meetings, to keep order

Jo:

where necessary, and sometimes be a spokesperson for the SOA when

Jo:

the president isn't able to do it.

Jo:

But it's all very much about delivering what the membership

Jo:

wants and trying to understand how best to serve the membership.

Jo:

So certainly during lockdown, one of the best things I think we did was

Jo:

to provide a virtual festival for members and for other people too,

Jo:

to promote a feeling of community.

Jo:

Particularly when a lot of writers were feeling really cutoff by lockdown and

Jo:

really needed that sense of belonging to something and being protected.

Jo:

And also we had the contingency fund, which became the emergency fund, which

Jo:

allowed us to give relatively small, but I think significant, amounts

Jo:

of money to people whose income had been completely cut off by lockdown

Jo:

and who were really struggling.

Jo:

And this is something important too.

Jo:

So there's that.

Jo:

And there's also things like having meetings with Amazon and trying

Jo:

to persuade them to have slightly more author friendly policies.

Jo:

And meetings with publishers about contracts.

Jo:

And trying to ensure fair treatment of people and to

Jo:

ensure that contracts are kept.

Jo:

And all of this is really important.

Jo:

I think anybody who is on the management committee and anybody can stand to be

Jo:

elected on this, gets a really thorough overview of what it is that the SOA does.

Jo:

I think before that, I had no idea of all the things that it did.

Jo:

Now, I know a little more.

Tom:

Well, I think it's amazing.

Tom:

And I think it's a Testament to you and your how highly you're respected

Tom:

that to get such an elected position.

Tom:

We want Joanne Harris to be our representative when talking to Amazon

Tom:

and, big publishers and doing all of this and the faith that they have

Tom:

in your management capabilities.

Tom:

And I just think that's amazing and should be recognized.

Tom:

So, for those who weren't aware on the audience who are listening,

Tom:

I just think it's incredible.

Tom:

All the things that you do on top of all of your writing.

Tom:

It's incredible.

Jo:

I'm really grateful for the chance to do it.

Jo:

I think it's important.

Jo:

The SOA has helped me so much during my formative years as an author.

Jo:

I just think it's a really good thing to be able to give a little bit of that back.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

I'm glad that you do.

Tom:

I have just two more questions and thank you so much for your time today.

Tom:

It seems to me that, and you've mentioned this with your answers already, but

Tom:

writing is a continual state of growth and you continue to develop your writing.

Tom:

And there are things that you learn as you write each story that you do.

Tom:

Can you think of anything particular in a previous story that you've written that

Tom:

you're now applying to your current Loki book that you're working on at the moment?

Jo:

It's a difficult question.

Jo:

I think I'm always reassessing where I stand and what I do, and

Jo:

I'm always learning new things.

Jo:

I'm not sure if it's anything very specific, but for instance, we've

Jo:

recently had a long conversation about language and the appropriateness of

Jo:

language and the appropriateness of tone.

Jo:

And there are many things being said now that I wouldn't have

Jo:

thought of necessarily 20 years ago, but which I am now applying.

Jo:

Because not only people evolve, but readers evolve too.

Jo:

Readers and writers are evolving side by side.

Jo:

And so something that you might have said in a book or expressed in a certain

Jo:

way in a book twenty odd years ago might now be considered problematic.

Jo:

And I think, it's quite useful to move with those things.

Jo:

And to keep asking yourself, okay, all the things that I did

Jo:

to then still appropriate now?

Jo:

And if not, how can I change them?

Jo:

And how can I be better?

Jo:

I think it's all about trying to be a better writer in one way or another,

Jo:

because anybody who stops and goes, okay.

Jo:

I am now, I have now reached peak fitness as a writer.

Jo:

I always mistrust that attitude because it usually means that you're

Jo:

about to make the most massive dick of yourself with the next book.

Tom:

And my final question is, with all the writing that you do and

Tom:

all the advice that you've given.

Tom:

Do you find that there's one piece of advice that resonates with you

Tom:

that helps you when you're writing?

Tom:

Is there one piece of advice that you try and keep in mind

Tom:

if you're struggling at all?

Jo:

Do you mean something that I've been told or something

Jo:

that I've worked out for myself.

Tom:

Either.

Jo:

Okay.

Jo:

I think, that the advice that I always give to people is you have to read, you

Jo:

have to give yourself permission to write.

Jo:

All the things that I've said on my YouTube channel.

Jo:

With me, the thing that I tend to repeat to myself is, it doesn't

Jo:

matter how good you are, it doesn't matter how much blood you spilt.

Jo:

Somebody is going to hate this book.

Jo:

Somebody is going to criticize this book.

Jo:

Somebody is going to call it lazy, even though it was, it

Jo:

was written in heart's blood.

Jo:

And somebody is going to say that stuff.

Jo:

You can't be thinking about that somebody.

Jo:

You have to do the best you can and admit that where you are at the moment

Jo:

means that there will always be people who might hate you irrationally for no

Jo:

reason at all that you can understand.

Jo:

And this is part of where you are.

Jo:

It took me a long time to figure this one out.

Jo:

And I think authors are always figuring it out because as soon as you reach

Jo:

a certain head above the parapet moment, it is going to happen to you.

Jo:

And it's never nice, but it's also absolutely something that everybody gets.

Jo:

And so I do remind myself of this, particularly when I've got a new

Jo:

book out and I'm eagerly looking at responses online and doing all

Jo:

the things that you shouldn't do.

Jo:

But actually in the hope of, of getting the message that

Jo:

you got it out to people right.

Jo:

And that you did it properly.

Jo:

Some people will not get it.

Jo:

Some people will not like it, whether they got it or not.

Tom:

Do you get imposter syndrome during any point with any of your books

Tom:

where you just go, what am I doing?

Tom:

I can't.

Jo:

Yes.

Jo:

I always get imposter syndrome.

Jo:

Honestly, I'm the worst person at parties because I generally just

Jo:

end up talking to the catering staff and I still often get this moment.

Jo:

It doesn't matter how prestigious the venue or how welcoming the audience.

Jo:

I very often get the conviction, that at some point during the

Jo:

questions, some kid is going to stand up in the back row and go, that's

Jo:

not a proper writer, that's Mrs.

Jo:

Harris.

Jo:

She used to teach me French.

Tom:

So I guess it's just that advice that you tell yourself to get over

Tom:

that is, you can't worry about the people that don't believe in you then?

Jo:

Yeah.

Jo:

Live with it.

Jo:

In fact, the best advice I've had on this came from my music teacher.

Jo:

Not from anything to do with writing, and yet writing is such a

Jo:

performance that it might as well be.

Jo:

And she says, the only thing you can do is create from the bottom of your

Jo:

heart, with maximum sincerity and thoroughness and attention to detail

Jo:

and put it out there into the audience.

Jo:

And to know that some people will not like it and do it anyway.

Jo:

Because if you can get that message out to even one person in there and

Jo:

it changes their life or makes their day, then you will have done it.

Jo:

So you just go, I made this for you.

Jo:

I love it.

Jo:

Will you?

Jo:

And then it's up to the audience.

Jo:

It's up to the readers then to decide how they're going to take it.

Jo:

And that was, I found that she, she said that to me sometime last

Jo:

year or just before lockdown.

Jo:

Because I still take singing lessons because actually I really need them.

Jo:

And, and I thought, you know what?

Jo:

That's pretty good.

Jo:

I haven't thought of that.

Jo:

I will apply not just to my singing, which I do reluctantly in the band as part of

Jo:

Storytime, but also to my writing too.

Jo:

And it felt very intuitively right to feel that way.

Jo:

And it helped.

Tom:

That's great.

Tom:

That's all the time we've got for today.

Tom:

Joanne, thank you so much for being a guest and I can't

Tom:

wait to read your next book.

Jo:

Thank you very much.

Tom:

And that was the real writing process of Joanne Harris.

Tom:

If you'd like to find out more about Jo, you can find all of her information

Tom:

on her website joanne-harris.co.uk.

Tom:

I do also recommend you follow her on Twitter, through

Tom:

her handle @joannechocolat.

Tom:

She's very good.

Tom:

And buy all of her books, if you haven't already, they're amazing.

Tom:

Anyway, that's almost all from me.

Tom:

If you all listening to this on or shortly after release day.

Tom:

I hope you've had a lovely Christmas.

Tom:

I hope you have a lot of new books that you're diving into.

Tom:

And that's it for 2021.

Tom:

I'm still back next week, the podcast's still going, but we survived

Tom:

this year and we found each other.

Tom:

I'm very glad we've met.

Tom:

Anyway, I hear some outro music approaching.

Tom:

Yep.

Tom:

Here it is.

Tom:

Until next time, my friends.

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

Listen for free

Show artwork for The Real Writing Process

About the Podcast

The Real Writing Process
Interviewing writers about how they work
Interviews with award winning writers as well as emerging talent on how they manage their day to day process of writing for a living. Hear how the professionals approach structure, plot and imposter syndrome, as well as what they like to drink.
Support This Show

About your host

Profile picture for Tom Pepperdine

Tom Pepperdine