The Real Writing Process of Josh Winning
Tom Pepperdine interviews journalist and novelist, Josh Winning, about his writing process. Josh discusses word counts, notebooks and the importance of a good cushion.
You can find all of Josh's links here: https://linktr.ee/joshuawinning
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Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the Real Writing Process.
Speaker:I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.
Speaker:And before I introduce this week's guest, I need to confront the fact I've not put
Speaker:out an episode in a couple of months.
Speaker:It's just I've been sent a ton of books.
Speaker:And I want to read an author before I interview them.
Speaker:Now I'm not a man prone to exaggeration, but I've received like a gazillion books.
Speaker:Uh, now some have been great and others are fine.
Speaker:But I realize that if I want to build a trusting and loyal audience,
Speaker:I need to make sure that everyone I interview is definitely worth your time.
Speaker:So with that in mind, I'm really pleased.
Speaker:to announce that this week's guest is Josh Winning.
Speaker:I'm also pleased to say that I actually discovered Josh's book in
Speaker:a bookshop rather than was sent it.
Speaker:Uh, it's just, it has a beautiful cover.
Speaker:Uh, it's really nice.
Speaker:It's called The Shadow Glass.
Speaker:And it's a modern fantasy adventure that acts like a love
Speaker:letter to eighties fantasy films.
Speaker:As much as Ready Player One loves 80 sci-fi, The Shadow
Speaker:Glass loves eighties fantasy.
Speaker:But it also has emotional depth and realistic characters.
Speaker:Plus it's British, so while it's not been as successful as its American
Speaker:counterpart, it's just better.
Speaker:Now, I planned to get this out before Christmas and recommend it all as your
Speaker:Christmas read, but I failed miserably.
Speaker:So sorry, Josh.
Speaker:Uh, however, it's a new year and I'm hoping that lots of you got Kindles
Speaker:and book vouchers for Christmas, and are keen for new book recommendations.
Speaker:So The Shadow Glass is definitely mine.
Speaker:Also Josh is a great guest.
Speaker:He's been a film journalist for 15 years.
Speaker:So he understands what a good interview needs, far better than I do.
Speaker:My broadcast education has been Spotify and watching YouTube.
Speaker:But anyway, here we are.
Speaker:Now I'm releasing this in a cold and miserable January, but it
Speaker:was actually recorded in August.
Speaker:So apologies again for all the references to the heat wave.
Speaker:Uh, unless you're listening to this in the Southern hemisphere.
Speaker:Or sometime in the future, when it's hot.
Speaker:Then you're fine.
Speaker:Anyway, here is the real writing process of Josh Winning.
Speaker:And I'm here with Josh Winning.
Speaker:Josh.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Thank you very much for being here, first of all.
Speaker:And my first question as always, what are we drinking?
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:It's great to be here.
Speaker:I'm a really big fan of the podcast, so it's brilliant.
Speaker:Always good.
Speaker:And, we are drinking a cup of English breakfast tea.
Speaker:Lovely.
Speaker:With a splash of milk, no sugar.
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm not usually a tea drinker.
Speaker:This podcast is definitely getting me more into tea, as more authors request tea.
Speaker:And I've got Taylors of Harrogate English breakfast tea,
Speaker:which I swiped from a hotel.
Speaker:Nice choice.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I sometimes I do coffee, sometimes I do tea.
Speaker:I can switch a bit between the two.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I find that coffee is like my jet fuel if I am desperate to
Speaker:just get a thousand words out.
Speaker:But pretty much an hour later I'm done.
Speaker:I can't do anything else.
Speaker:Whereas tea is like my um, endurance drink.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If I want to spend a full day writing just topping it up.
Speaker:It's a slow burn caffeine hit, caffeine released.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And your mug is very on brand there with a little "'Ello" creature.
Speaker:Yeah, completely accidental.
Speaker:No, I love it.
Speaker:It's do you know the name?
Speaker:Does that character have a name in Labyrinth?
Speaker:It's just the little worm dude.
Speaker:I think he may have been named after the fact, but for me he's just the worm.
Speaker:That's what he says in the film.
Speaker:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Don't wanna go that way.
Speaker:Never go that way.
Speaker:So, Yeah, so this is definitely gonna be an interview where I think
Speaker:cuz we're eighties children, we're gonna be doing a lot of pop culture
Speaker:knowledge, reference riffing.
Speaker:And if you're not an eighties child listener, I apologize.
Speaker:Because I'm not going to explain it.
Speaker:I'm not gonna contextualize it.
Speaker:Google exists.
Speaker:But obviously go watch the films.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And then really appreciate the magic of The Shadow Glass,
Speaker:which is just a fantastic book.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And I will talk about your process, but I did just really wanna say I really got
Speaker:the Masters of the Universe reference.
Speaker:A lot of people talk about Labyrinth and very much The Dark Crystal as
Speaker:clear touchstones, but the fact that it's, coming into our world, I was
Speaker:like, oh yeah, there's definitely a lot of the Masters of the Universe.
Speaker:Cause my wife hadn't seen it.
Speaker:Oh no.
Speaker:I mean, it's really difficult to find over here.
Speaker:Yeah!
Speaker:So you've gotta really commit.
Speaker:It's occasionally on FilmFour.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But you can't buy it on officially released blueray or dvd.
Speaker:M My copy I think is from the Netherlands.
Speaker:But it's quite difficult to find.
Speaker:And yeah, I was upset that it's not that easy to get, because I've also
Speaker:run this eighties fantasy film club on Twitter, where every once in a
Speaker:while on a Friday night a bunch of us to all watch the same movie and then
Speaker:tweet about it as we're watching it.
Speaker:And I really wanted to do Masters of the Universe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But sadly, it's just not widely available enough for other
Speaker:people to be able to watch it.
Speaker:It sucks.
Speaker:No, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I was just trying to think.
Speaker:Simon Brew, who does Film Stories, he did a campaign and did a
Speaker:re-release of Sneakers because he loves that film and I love Sneakers.
Speaker:I think we need to like, reach out to Simon Brew.
Speaker:Cause like, cause clearly he, he's the man who can make these things happen.
Speaker:And I think that Masters of the Universe really deserves like a lavish, gorgeous
Speaker:art box kind of blueray release.
Speaker:It really does.
Speaker:I know that it's not the best film ever made, frankly, but
Speaker:it's just such a cult favorite.
Speaker:It's so colorful and different and weird.
Speaker:You can see the references it's drawn from quite plainly.
Speaker:What a fantastic villain.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Oh gosh, yes.
Speaker:Oh, it's just such a great feel good film I think.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But anyway, we're here to talk about your writing process.
Speaker:So where I'm speaking to you now in your flat, is this your writing spot?
Speaker:So normally I write in the office, which is the backroom of the flat.
Speaker:And I've got it all set up to hopefully in invite lots of nice words.
Speaker:I'm actually in my bedroom at the moment.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Because it hits the magic triangle of quiet and away from
Speaker:the cat and cooler than anywhere else in our flat at the moment.
Speaker:We are currently in a heatwave, so yes, that's why I'm in this room.
Speaker:No, that's absolutely fine.
Speaker:Also soft furnishings are great for audio, so all good.
Speaker:And are you someone who writes the same time every day, do you try and
Speaker:keep it as a job in nine to five or is it just when the whim takes you?
Speaker:When do you write best or when do you try to write?
Speaker:I have set writing days because I, as my day job, I work three days
Speaker:a week at Radio Times Magazine.
Speaker:So I work there Tuesdays to Thursdays on the film unit.
Speaker:And so I have Mondays and Fridays as my so-called writing days.
Speaker:And so they're the days that I really heckle myself to write.
Speaker:Because I think you're gonna regret it on Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Speaker:Thursday when perhaps you get the writing bug on those days and you
Speaker:won't be able to, cause you've got other stuff to do during the day.
Speaker:So Mondays and Fridays are my writing days.
Speaker:I'm better in the mornings.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:If I can get up, cup of tea, maybe go out for a 20 minute walk first.
Speaker:Then come back to my desk, get my feet under the desk, and at least
Speaker:try to get out a thousand words.
Speaker:I know that Stephen King says, he likes to do 2000 no matter what.
Speaker:Come, come what may he does 2000 a day.
Speaker:And I'm happy with a thousand.
Speaker:I feel like I've done something.
Speaker:I'm not like sing go sing it on the mountains happy.
Speaker:I always feel like there's more I can do.
Speaker:And I'm quite bad at beating myself up if I haven't achieved more than that.
Speaker:I do try.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think with uh, word counts, it's an interesting beast.
Speaker:Everyone's got their own take on it.
Speaker:But I was in an audience listening to Ben Aaronovitch and he does
Speaker:notoriously low word counts.
Speaker:Like he will do like 200 words a day or like 500 words in a day.
Speaker:But if it's the quality of the words.
Speaker:If I don't have to delete those later, and it's just if I work out a plot hole
Speaker:or if I just, get that scene and that the emotion of that character spot on,
Speaker:doesn't matter how many words it is.
Speaker:Oh yeah, And I think that, I think when I'm advising other writers, when I'm not
Speaker:just beating myself up over my writing, I do advise other writers that every
Speaker:little thing that you do does count.
Speaker:So you could open up the manuscript and you could be feeling completely
Speaker:uninspired that day, and a thousand words is ridiculously ambitious.
Speaker:And so actually you could delete a word.
Speaker:You could add a word, you could move a comma around.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that there is value in just going, every little thing you
Speaker:do is pushing this project forward.
Speaker:I think, I think Jen Williams, who you've had on the podcast,
Speaker:I think she's talked previously about like spending quality time
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:With a manuscript.
Speaker:And I think that is, it's not like empirically quantifiable,
Speaker:but it's important for keeping the spirit of that project alive.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And when it comes to the initial genesis of the story and the idea,
Speaker:are you someone who likes to write an outline and map out the plot before
Speaker:writing the main bulk of the manuscript?
Speaker:Or are you more just seat of your pants, let's sit down and got a
Speaker:goal in mind for the end of the day and just see what comes up?
Speaker:I do both.
Speaker:I normally just wanna just start writing, just get the
Speaker:ball rolling, see what happens.
Speaker:But I normally reach a point where actually I do have to outline.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What I've tended to do for the past two books is I've got the title,
Speaker:I've got a one page synopsis, and that synopsis either covers the
Speaker:entire story and broad strokes.
Speaker:It's one page, it's not in any detail.
Speaker:Or it covers maybe like the first three quarters of the story.
Speaker:But I invariably reach a point where I'm like, I actually just have to plan
Speaker:now to see where this is actually going.
Speaker:And stop and take stock of what I've done.
Speaker:Because I end up, no matter what I do, I end up with huge wastage.
Speaker:I always do.
Speaker:With The Shadow Glass, I wrote and rewrote and I scrapped and moved
Speaker:things around and but that was all during like the vomit draft period.
Speaker:And so what ended up happening was I ended up actually with
Speaker:quite a solid first draft.
Speaker:Because I'd already scrapped a ton of stuff and moved things around
Speaker:and outlined numerous times trying to get that first draft out.
Speaker:So it's always a bit like flying by the seat of my pants.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I wish I had a clear route every time, but I don't.
Speaker:And I think it is cuz every book demands something different.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So even if I go, aha, now I know what I'm doing.
Speaker:Yeah, the next book comes along and it's nah, sorry, you haven't got a clue.
Speaker:And you've got two projects on at the moment, and one's
Speaker:contracted and, and one's not.
Speaker:With the contracted one, have they required more of an outline and a plan?
Speaker:They, it was really interesting.
Speaker:So I signed a two book deal with Putnam books in the US, they're an
Speaker:imprint of Penguin Random House.
Speaker:And when we were starting to think about the second book, I said to
Speaker:them, what do you actually want?
Speaker:I've got a title and I've got a synopsis, but do you want a
Speaker:full outline of the whole book?
Speaker:And they said, oh, don't spoil it for us.
Speaker:We want to go in as spoiler free as possible.
Speaker:Just give us the general gist.
Speaker:And I guess they were looking for the hook.
Speaker:They wanted to know what the, what the hook is.
Speaker:What's gonna make a reader pick it up.
Speaker:And my initial pitch for them had the title that I'm still using, but it
Speaker:had a slightly different vibe to it.
Speaker:And they were like, we're not really sure if that's quite
Speaker:current and different enough.
Speaker:And it was kind of, we were talking about what is a Josh Winning book,
Speaker:we want the same but different essentially, kind of thing.
Speaker:And I'm like, okay, I'm trying to figure out the line of same but different.
Speaker:And so I went back with a revised pitch, which they really
Speaker:liked and said, yep, go for it.
Speaker:So they have the one page synopsis, but they don't know the ending, partly cuz
Speaker:I don't know the ending either (laughs).
Speaker:And is that how you'd like to start your story ideas?
Speaker:Is actually with a, like a hook, like just a scenario sort of synopsis idea?
Speaker:When do you start developing the characters, the actual
Speaker:world with your stories?
Speaker:Yeah, it's it often is a concept or a concept and a feeling.
Speaker:With The Shadow Glass, the concept was simply movie puppets.
Speaker:And the feeling was a feeling of failure or a feeling of trying to,
Speaker:to surmount a problem, but very much still in that nostalgic arena.
Speaker:But yeah, it's often the concept and then I immediately start thinking
Speaker:about who the main character is.
Speaker:Why are they the one who is having this story happen to them
Speaker:or why they're in this story?
Speaker:With The Shadow Glass, the story didn't really come to life until
Speaker:I'd figured out the main character's relationship to the puppets in the story.
Speaker:And what they represent to him.
Speaker:And why maybe they are the only thing in the world that
Speaker:can help him grow as a person.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When it seems like he believes the opposite is true.
Speaker:And so with my next book, which is called Burn the Negative, that book is
Speaker:so much about the main character and it's entirely about her perspective.
Speaker:There's no breaks from perspective whatsoever, and to figure her out, I
Speaker:had to figure out what her deal was.
Speaker:And so that's when I did do a really deep interrogation of her as a character.
Speaker:And I found, I've talked about him before and I'm not sure I'll talk about him
Speaker:again, but Will Storr, he wrote a great book called The Science of Storytelling.
Speaker:And he talks about the sacred flaw, which is the thing that the character
Speaker:believes about themself that is essentially like holding them back.
Speaker:Or has put them a state of frozen immoveability or whatever.
Speaker:They're stuck in their situation basically.
Speaker:And the flaw tells them to stay there and the story confronts
Speaker:them with that flaw and then we see how they react to it essentially.
Speaker:And I really that I found that really useful for Burn The Negative, and
Speaker:finding out who that character was.
Speaker:And then the story doesn't write itself, cuz nothing is ever that simple.
Speaker:But it definitely gives you a little bit of a, an idea of what to throw at them.
Speaker:What obstacles would be interesting to read about for that particular character.
Speaker:Yeah it's interesting.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like you say, it's like the uh, flaw that they have to overcome and deal with that.
Speaker:It's not a common thing that I think writers have consciously
Speaker:for a central character.
Speaker:And is it your desire to always have that character growth as a central part of
Speaker:your stories and what sort of inspires that, is it things from life just
Speaker:sort of like your own personal growth?
Speaker:Or is it the reading that you have of other writers and
Speaker:that you kind of aspire to?
Speaker:I just think that stories are about change.
Speaker:That seems to be the thing that keeps you interested, is the constant evolution of
Speaker:both the character and the story itself.
Speaker:And I think that the best story or the stories that I love are the ones where
Speaker:everything feels new all the time.
Speaker:So every, not, maybe not every page, but every chapter certainly
Speaker:gives you something new.
Speaker:And it's building on the foundation of what you've already got.
Speaker:So I think that by the nature of storytelling, the characters have
Speaker:to change, and if they don't change that is also quite interesting.
Speaker:I think, the Sacred Flaw thing basically says that if the character
Speaker:overcomes their flaw, that's like an uplifting story and a tragedy is that
Speaker:they completely succumb to their flaw.
Speaker:So yeah, I just I do find that's an interesting question.
Speaker:But personally I just feel like I want to see the character, their
Speaker:evolution from the beginning of the book to the end of the book.
Speaker:And my thing is always, I always want my main characters to do something
Speaker:at the end of the book that you would never imagine that they would've
Speaker:done at the start of the story.
Speaker:But I think it gives a nice arc to a story.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I think it's also, I think it's also ingrained in fantasy and horror
Speaker:storytelling, especially in movies.
Speaker:If you look at the final girl trope, which bizarrely has now become this like
Speaker:explosive pop culture movement where everyone's talking about final girls.
Speaker:Like we've been talking about these guys since the eighties.
Speaker:But it's that trope is all about change.
Speaker:It's all about the supposed wallflower innocent character.
Speaker:Discovering that inner metal and actually confronting the monster.
Speaker:So I think that it's just innate to a certain type of storytelling maybe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And talking about fantasy and horror, the things you enjoy to write as well as read,
Speaker:I loved in the Shadow Glass the world beyond and you know how you made that uh,
Speaker:familiar, but it very much its own world with its own magic system and everything.
Speaker:Is that something that you are keen to do in your future book?
Speaker:Cause I'm not sure with Burn The Negative if there's that same
Speaker:magical realism aspect to it.
Speaker:But that level of world building, is that something you enjoy and
Speaker:how did you go about doing it?
Speaker:Yeah, I find that really fun.
Speaker:I think I like it more as something that, like a pop culture relic.
Speaker:I don't really feel like I'll ever write high fantasy novels.
Speaker:I don't think I'm gonna be like the next Brandon Sanderson.
Speaker:Not that anybody can possibly touch that throne.
Speaker:So I think I'm more interested in interrogating the story within a story.
Speaker:That definitely comes from growing up in the nineties where suddenly
Speaker:we lived in this era of sort of postmodernism it was called.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I love, love, love the Scream films.
Speaker:I loved the way it played around with the Stab franchise
Speaker:within the Scream franchise.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The way that the characters were like confronted with their doppelgangers
Speaker:or like the pop culture versions of themselves, and they make jokes about it.
Speaker:Like in the first scream, Neve Campbell says, I'll probably
Speaker:be played by Tori Spelling.
Speaker:And then in Scream 2, she is played by Tori Spelling.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I just find that stuff just really fun.
Speaker:And so that's why with The Shadow Glass and Burn The Negative to a degree, I
Speaker:wanted to find a way to play around with the fictional narrative within the
Speaker:story that you are reading as a book.
Speaker:So yeah, it was, yeah, it was really fun.
Speaker:It was a big job.
Speaker:With The Shadow glass, especially.
Speaker:Because I wasn't just coming up with the story of the book.
Speaker:I had to come up with the story of the film within the book.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I also had to come up with the world within the film within the book, but also
Speaker:the world of the book and how it views the world from the film in the book.
Speaker:So it was very, it made perfect sense as I was plotting it and planning it all out.
Speaker:But when you tried to explain it, it just sounds like utter madness.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There is the world within the film, but also in your book there are excerpts
Speaker:of interviews with the director and there's internet forums and there's
Speaker:critical uh, reviews of the film.
Speaker:The DVD extras and sort of like commentary aspects.
Speaker:So there is this meta level which is really interesting.
Speaker:With that, did you have to do any research to get the tone of those aspects
Speaker:right to, to make it feel authentic?
Speaker:Or is it just as you're such a passionate fan and this is the world that you live in
Speaker:as a film critic and as a film journalist, was it quite easy and fun to do that?
Speaker:Or was it actually quite a challenge to get that authentic?
Speaker:Oh, I'm glad that you felt it was authentic . It was just really fun.
Speaker:I've been a film journalist for almost 15 years, and before that I had websites
Speaker:where I wrote film reviews and I interviewed people for those as well.
Speaker:So I've basically been doing film writing of some sort since I was 15, 16 years old.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And actually I have on my desk a couple of hard back notebooks
Speaker:from when I was a teenager.
Speaker:I think they're from the year 2000.
Speaker:And they're basically scrapbooks where I would cut out pages from magazines.
Speaker:I'd print out things from the internet, even just like film
Speaker:stills from the internet.
Speaker:I'd print out pages of the IMDB, like when the IMDB was just starting.
Speaker:And I would paste them all into these books cuz I, I just
Speaker:loved sort of possessing these things that I loved so much.
Speaker:And so when it came to doing The Shadow Glass, I did a bit of
Speaker:research into things like how are Wikipedia pages actually written.
Speaker:Cause it's quite difficult to write that robotically and that clinically.
Speaker:Cause they keep it very clean and very clear and
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You can't write about yourself.
Speaker:I've looked.
Speaker:So I did a bit there.
Speaker:I looked a bit into Reddit, cuz it's a Reddit article, but mostly
Speaker:I just did my own thing really, which was, yeah, it was fun.
Speaker:And it, I liked the fact that this whim that I had to do this, it ended
Speaker:up being a great tool for just getting a ton of exposition in there in a
Speaker:fun way that didn't feel like you were being told a load of stuff.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:And yeah, it was, you know, sort of fanboying out again,
Speaker:very unprofessionally.
Speaker:It's just, I've, I feel like I've seen a lot of that done poorly where sort
Speaker:of people try and, oh I want to do this exposition, I'm gonna do it as
Speaker:a newspaper article, but it doesn't sound like a newspaper article.
Speaker:And it's just I don't think that would actually get past a copy editor, you know?
Speaker:and it's just have you ever read a newspaper article?
Speaker:Or you know, you have this uh, forum stuff where people are trying to
Speaker:represent teenagers chatting on an internet forum and it's so cringe.
Speaker:And I just think of oh, was it Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock where
Speaker:he is like, Alright young people.
Speaker:I'm, you know, sort of like, down with the youth, carrying a skateboard.
Speaker:And he is got music band on his t-shirt and it's just tone deaf cuz it's
Speaker:just oh, you are aware of this thing.
Speaker:But you haven't like lived and breathed it.
Speaker:And when you've got a Reddit forum on there, I was just
Speaker:like, yeah, I've been on forums.
Speaker:This feels like the kind of chat I'd see.
Speaker:And it was just, you've either spent a lot of time on forums or
Speaker:you've really done the research to see how forums are handled.
Speaker:That's why I say it just felt really authentic, but I guess what
Speaker:you are saying is that, yeah, this is just your life on a page and
Speaker:it really is.
Speaker:I did, I know, that's the thing, like I went on a podcast a couple of months
Speaker:ago where they wanted me to present a weird bit of research that I'd found
Speaker:while researching The Shadow Glass.
Speaker:And I was like, Oh, I didn't actually really do any
Speaker:research for The Shadow Glass.
Speaker:Yeah, because it was completely lived experience.
Speaker:And it really is like a distillation of everything that I've either
Speaker:loved or done professionally.
Speaker:Which is, yeah, it's great.
Speaker:It was like, oh, okay.
Speaker:That's a really great use of what I've learned so far.
Speaker:And so going into your second book Burn the Negative, is there
Speaker:enormous pressure to, is it like, oh shit, now I have to research.
Speaker:So how's your approach differing with the tricky second follow up?
Speaker:So my trick for the tricky second follow up is just do a different genre.
Speaker:I've done eighties fantasy with The Shadow Glass.
Speaker:And Burn The Negative pivots more into nineties horror.
Speaker:So that was my way out of that, basically.
Speaker:But it's got the same mixed media setup as The Shadow Glass.
Speaker:There definitely is a feeling of like, people are gonna say, oh, it's not as
Speaker:good, or I prefer The Shadow Glass, and I'm just gonna have to just accept
Speaker:that probably is going to happen.
Speaker:But then you're gonna get horror fans who had not read the Shadow
Speaker:Glass, who are then gonna come to this and go, oh, this is great.
Speaker:It's gonna resonate with a different audience.
Speaker:Hopefully, yeah.
Speaker:Cause I'm equally a fan of nineties horror as I am of eighties fantasy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I would hope that is conveyed through the writing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that, the type of eighties fantasy, and it's covered in The Shadow
Speaker:Glass of how dark it was compared to Children's fantasy more recently.
Speaker:There are some little dark elements in How To Train Your Dragon, but it's nothing
Speaker:to what's going on in The Dark Crystal.
Speaker:And so yeah, I think that when you've got that sort of darkness kind of
Speaker:ingrained, but because also I feel that the people making it had a
Speaker:horror love, in some of that fantasy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That when The Princess Bride is directed by the same guy who did Misery.
Speaker:So, you know, He's perfect example.
Speaker:And so you get that.
Speaker:So when you're a little older and when you're a teenager uh, coming from that as
Speaker:a youth, you, you are of like naturally going into the more horror side of it.
Speaker:And you have got all the Nightmare on Elm Street films that you
Speaker:couldn't see but heard about as a kid, you now have access to.
Speaker:And I think I went on a similar trajectory.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So many of those kids things were terrifying and I think they were a
Speaker:gateway drug into the horror genre.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When you got older.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:The Lost Boys.
Speaker:Fright Night.
Speaker:You've got those Yeah, sort of transitional sort movies.
Speaker:Even the Goonies, I re watched The Goonies last week, and that's
Speaker:got some really dark stuff in it.
Speaker:The Fratellis are terrifying.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Also, just some of the like, Adult language that
Speaker:Mouth.
Speaker:Mouth, yeah.
Speaker:When he is speaking Spanish and he's saying where all the drugs are kept.
Speaker:And it's just like, did not pick up on that when I was young.
Speaker:Also, you can't get away with a pirate called One-Eyed Willie in the modern day.
Speaker:And like the very first scene is a guy pretending to hang himself in jail.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that was actually cut out on British TV when it was on.
Speaker:It was on tv.
Speaker:But yeah, it's there's some dark stuff in there.
Speaker:There really is.
Speaker:And yeah, even Indiana Jones.
Speaker:Temple of Doom is a pretty much a horror as, as much as you can.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No that's really cool.
Speaker:Again, is this so you've not had to do much research because
Speaker:it's more of distillation and it's more recent, I guess.
Speaker:Like going back to the nineties, back to the eighties?
Speaker:I had to do research into sort of American geography a little bit.
Speaker:Because it's all set in LA and I have been to LA a fair bit, so I
Speaker:know the lay of the land there.
Speaker:But yeah, like in terms of the surrounding areas, cause the characters
Speaker:do start to move a little bit outside of LA, I did have to research.
Speaker:So like, I've been to the Mojave Desert, but I just remember being in it.
Speaker:I don't remember how you got there or what actually happens there.
Speaker:So I did a bit of research there.
Speaker:And like weirdly um, I can't, I won't really spoil what this research
Speaker:was, but there were moments when I did some research and it fitted so
Speaker:perfectly to what I was trying to do, or it fitted like the name of
Speaker:something I'd already come up with.
Speaker:Or like just the vibe of the thing.
Speaker:Oh, I just was a bit freaked out actually by, I was like, is this book writing me?
Speaker:Like yeah, it was really bizarre.
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah, sometimes you just get these amazing historical details.
Speaker:GV Anderson is an award-winning, short story writer we've had on, and
Speaker:she found a diary of in the Second World War which listed the air raids.
Speaker:And so she could actually tie up like certain raid with
Speaker:certain events happening.
Speaker:And so I love that stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But yes, we won't spoil it, but it's nice when those things happen.
Speaker:So it's set in the nineties, I guess, if, if it's got these details.
Speaker:No, modern day.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah, so the plot, the spiel for the plot is, it's about a journalist who is sent to
Speaker:LA to report on a horror streaming series.
Speaker:And on the way there she discovers that it's actually a remake of
Speaker:the cursed nineties horror film that she star in as a child.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:So it's playing around with like maybe a bit of Poltergeist.
Speaker:It's it's very much about cursed films, like interrogating what it means to
Speaker:be a cursed film and that kind of stuff, but also like child stars.
Speaker:So yeah, hopefully it's like a fun new way of looking at quite
Speaker:a familiar thing, essentially.
Speaker:No, absolutely.
Speaker:And you said earlier, so people might not like it as much as The
Speaker:Shadow Glass and having that fear, is there any kind of imposter syndrome?
Speaker:Now that The Shadow Glass has hit and it, I feel it has
Speaker:resonated with a fair few people.
Speaker:And you are getting that sort of feedback from the audience.
Speaker:Do you ever have like periods of doubt with Burn the Negative where you're
Speaker:like, have I misfired here or, you know, how's it getting through that book?
Speaker:You know, if you get imposter syndrome?
Speaker:Yeah, the imposter is always there.
Speaker:It's the gremlin on your shoulder, whispering in your ear.
Speaker:It's just always there, no matter what.
Speaker:And you spoke to Joanne Harris and she said that she constantly has imposter
Speaker:syndrome in all areas of her life.
Speaker:And I completely relate to that because you never feel like you've made it.
Speaker:My friend was saying to me, you've made it with The Shadow Glass.
Speaker:And I was like, I haven't made it.
Speaker:I've made a book.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I haven't made it.
Speaker:There's always that sense of, you're gonna be found out or you
Speaker:are going to disappoint people, or you've lost the spark, the ideas.
Speaker:They're not coming as easy as they used to.
Speaker:But I'm heartened by authors like Grady Hendrix.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Who I think he, he tweeted recently saying writing books gets harder
Speaker:because the more ground you cover, the fewer tricks or little things
Speaker:that you've picked up over the years.
Speaker:The fewer of those you have left and you have to come up with new ones.
Speaker:You, I think you're constantly, I feel like you should always be on
Speaker:receive mode rather than transmit mode.
Speaker:I think that it's important to constantly be refueling your, your reservoir of
Speaker:ideas, or reservoir of creative energy.
Speaker:Looking for things that are interesting to you, learning about things.
Speaker:Cuz I think that does help to start to hush up the imposter.
Speaker:I've not published many books, but I definitely think generally as a
Speaker:writer, I've reached a point where I know I can write competently.
Speaker:And that's quite a nice feeling because it's okay, whatever I manage
Speaker:to get out today, there might be something in there that's usable.
Speaker:So that's nice.
Speaker:You're not battling with the language to the same degree that you may
Speaker:have been five or six years ago.
Speaker:But there, there is always that feeling of, oh this one
Speaker:isn't coming together properly.
Speaker:Oh, I don't know about this one.
Speaker:And it can happen a day after you've had a great writing day.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's just a constant fight with the imposter, I think.
Speaker:I don't imagine it'll ever go away.
Speaker:And do you have any sort of like writing rituals or any sort of good luck charms
Speaker:that help you through difficult bits?
Speaker:Or is it just you just need to step away from the computer and
Speaker:maybe just go and watch a film?
Speaker:Yeah, I, I often go out for a run.
Speaker:I'm not a very fast runner.
Speaker:I don't run very far, but I do it and it clears my head and sometimes
Speaker:I have a little idea on a run.
Speaker:I mean, most runs I go on, I do have a little sort of aha moment.
Speaker:And it can be as small as oh, that chapter I've just written actually
Speaker:that needs to go a bit later, I need to put something else ahead of that.
Speaker:Or it can be, oh, I've been worrying about how I'm gonna get that information across.
Speaker:What if I do it through this new character?
Speaker:And come up with a new character.
Speaker:That's a good way of getting over the stresses of trying
Speaker:to be creative sometimes.
Speaker:And actually that sort of brings a question to mind, that if you
Speaker:are working three days a week and getting ideas on runs, are you
Speaker:someone who's a prolific note taker?
Speaker:Do you have a little notebook that you take out or when you are at work, it's
Speaker:just oh, this is something when I'm back to writing on Friday, I'll put it down.
Speaker:Or do you have an app on your phone?
Speaker:How do you record these ideas?
Speaker:Or do you just try and keep them in your brain in the hope
Speaker:that if it's good it'll stick?
Speaker:I have notes everywhere.
Speaker:If I haven't got my notebook on me, then I will write into the notes app on my phone.
Speaker:And if I haven't got that with me for some reason, I'll create a new draft of an
Speaker:email in Gmail and I'll just write a few notes in there and then save it to drafts.
Speaker:But it does get a bit confusing cuz I'm like, I'm pretty sure I had a
Speaker:really amazing idea related to this one thing, but where the hell is
Speaker:it ? Nine times outta 10 I spent ages just trying to find that idea.
Speaker:And when I do find it, it's actually rubbish.
Speaker:But it's a bit of a chaotic setup, but I guess it's I know that I've
Speaker:written it down somewhere just in case.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And having notebooks.
Speaker:Do you find now that especially having your first book published and out
Speaker:in the world, are you now getting lots of friends and family buying
Speaker:you pens and notebooks as gifts?
Speaker:I've always very nicely had people buying me notebooks.
Speaker:Always.
Speaker:The notebook that I used to plan out The Shadow Glass, that was
Speaker:actually a notebook that my mum bought me when I was maybe 18, 19.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:And I hadn't touched it.
Speaker:She passed away when I was 21 and I hadn't touched it for years and years,
Speaker:cuz I just didn't feel like there was anything worthy of that notebook.
Speaker:And for some reason with The Shadow Glass, I was like, I think this is
Speaker:the time to use this one actually.
Speaker:But yeah, I can have a notebook sitting there empty for years without using it.
Speaker:And then maybe the right project comes along and I'm like okay, let's do this.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And do you have a favoured pen?
Speaker:Do you like clicky pens or just like a standard Bic pen, or fountain pens?
Speaker:Or is it just whatever's to hand?
Speaker:I like the gel roller pens.
Speaker:Just cuz it's, just the ink just comes out and it glides across the page.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Biros can be a bit sticky, a bit sort of scratchy.
Speaker:And they can come through the other side, if I'm getting like really quite angry in
Speaker:my writing, it can come through the side.
Speaker:So I tend not to use biros.
Speaker:And I haven't used a fountain pen since I was about 12 years old at school, so
Speaker:definitely not going down that road.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, that's fine.
Speaker:Some people I think can sometimes fetishize their writing implement, so
Speaker:it's always an interesting ask, I think.
Speaker:And yeah, I don't like Sharpies either.
Speaker:Yeah, like often if I go into a shop and say, would you like me to
Speaker:sign a copy of the book for you?
Speaker:They'll try to give me a Sharpie.
Speaker:And I'm just like, no, get that thing away from me.
Speaker:That will destroy books.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I use like a red gel pen to sign books.
Speaker:It seems just nicer, I think.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:Yeah, I have this theory that there's so many sort of pens and notebooks.
Speaker:It would be such a personal thing for writers that I would never
Speaker:dream of buying a notebook or pen.
Speaker:Cause I feel like that's in hand.
Speaker:They know what they, they want and it also just, like you say, having that
Speaker:this is the one for this project.
Speaker:It's a very personal choice thing.
Speaker:And you can have them that they're empty for years.
Speaker:So it's my theory and I wanna push this out into the ether
Speaker:that it's booze and loungewear.
Speaker:Ah, interesting.
Speaker:Generally, and maybe not so much booze now.
Speaker:I think after the pandemic people are more health conscious, but a favorite beverage.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so it if you like English breakfast tea, some really nice sort of tea,
Speaker:maybe a tea pot, but also comfy clothes.
Speaker:You work from home.
Speaker:I think a lot of people can now relate with working from home and a nice
Speaker:elasticated fleece brushed cotton.
Speaker:It's oh, you're a writer here, have some cotton pajamas.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:A nice cushion.
Speaker:A lovely cushion.
Speaker:Very much appreciated cushion.
Speaker:I have noticed when I speak to, cuz obviously this is just audio
Speaker:only, but I do have a visual.
Speaker:There is a camera on.
Speaker:That when it's a writer who's been doing it like maybe 10, 10, 15 years
Speaker:and they're speaking to me from their writing desk, they have the most
Speaker:epic gamers chair that they write in.
Speaker:And I was like, that's actually, it's not typewriter anymore.
Speaker:It's not even really, a nice laptop.
Speaker:It's the chair that you are sat in for hours of day, writing.
Speaker:This is the thing.
Speaker:This is, I feel like this is like the dark secret of writing that nobody ever talks
Speaker:about, is actually how damaging it can be to sit down all day for hours and hours.
Speaker:When I was sort of like, 13, 14, I was a gymnast.
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:I could hike my leg above my head.
Speaker:I could do the splits both ways.
Speaker:I could do back flips, cartwheels, all the, you know, all the good stuff.
Speaker:And now I can barely stand with my legs straight.
Speaker:Because I've spent so many hours sitting at a desk and it's a real fight.
Speaker:I do yoga pretty much every day and I do like little exercises
Speaker:or stretches that, that help.
Speaker:They're are pain and they're boring, but I do them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it really is a problem.
Speaker:It's a constant battle.
Speaker:Not only the imposter, you've got your back or your legs or
Speaker:your hips seizing up as well.
Speaker:Yeah, so get a good chair.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Good chair.
Speaker:Possibly a yoga mat.
Speaker:Possibly a voucher for five free sports massages.
Speaker:You've got my favorite author, buy them some Deep Heat.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:That, now that, that's the real writing process, that right there.
Speaker:And we've talked about the vomit draft and getting things
Speaker:out and you mapping things out.
Speaker:Once you've actually got your draft into a shape that you feel like, okay, I'm
Speaker:ready for someone else to read it now.
Speaker:Who's the first person to read your manuscript?
Speaker:Me, because what I do is I actually read it out to my partner.
Speaker:And he's a writer as well?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he's doesn't write fiction novels, he writes choice game adventure type things.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That you play on, on your phone.
Speaker:He puts me to shame because his books end up totaling about a million words each.
Speaker:Because there are so many different choices you can make.
Speaker:And I'm there going, I've just hit 40,000 words.
Speaker:Sorry, my phone's ringing.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I've just canceled that call.
Speaker:Actually, weirdly, that was my boyfriend.
Speaker:How bizarre.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:You know, summond.
Speaker:Me talking about him, yeah.
Speaker:The beast has been summoned from his lair.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I read out to him first.
Speaker:Just because he's got such a great grasp of story.
Speaker:It helps on so many levels.
Speaker:Cause it means I can hear the story out loud for the first time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And my boyfriend can give me feedback live.
Speaker:We read a chapter, then he'll give me his thoughts on that chapter.
Speaker:He's great for picking up on things that I would never have thought of.
Speaker:Like deleting things that maybe make things more mysterious
Speaker:without being elusive.
Speaker:And things like maybe slight sensitivity type stuff.
Speaker:Yeah?
Speaker:Maybe if I make a bad joke, he's like, nah, I think that actually
Speaker:probably is quite offensive.
Speaker:So I'm like, good to know now.
Speaker:So that's my first port of call basically, is reading it out to him.
Speaker:Then I'll give it another scrub.
Speaker:And either I'll send it to a friend, a writer friend who's sort of like, I call
Speaker:him my alpha beta because he's just great.
Speaker:He's the first person I trust with this sort of like wobbly newborn
Speaker:thing that I've just pushed out.
Speaker:Sorry that was really graphic and disgusting.
Speaker:That didn't go where I was expecting it to.
Speaker:But he's great.
Speaker:He's just a great editor and so he'll give me his thoughts.
Speaker:And then I'll send it to my agent or to my editor.
Speaker:Now that I'm in this two book contract thing, I'll send to my editor.
Speaker:And this, it's a funny thing because now that I have that slight safety net
Speaker:of these professional people who are far and above more intelligent than
Speaker:me and know their stuff really well.
Speaker:Knowing that they're there is great in some ways, cuz I feel like
Speaker:they will help me to make this the best thing it could possibly be.
Speaker:But there's also the twin fear of, I'm gonna send them a pile of crap
Speaker:and they're gonna realize, there's the imposter again, they're gonna realize
Speaker:I'm not what I, they thought I was.
Speaker:Or there's this thing of a slight thing of going, oh, that'll do.
Speaker:Because someone else is gonna help me fix it.
Speaker:And actually that's a weird thing that I've noticed happening recently
Speaker:where it's like, no matter what I write, it's gonna get changed anyway.
Speaker:And I have to really shut that voice up because you can't reach that point
Speaker:until you've taken the previous steps.
Speaker:Yeah, so that's a funny situation that I'm finding myself in at the moment.
Speaker:Yeah, I think it's one of those, again secret parts of the writing
Speaker:process, is the relationship with an editor and having that balance
Speaker:where, yeah, you've gotta trust them, that they're right and that their
Speaker:criticisms are going to make it better.
Speaker:But at the same time, you can't be overly reliant on, well, I've got an idea.
Speaker:I've bashed out some words.
Speaker:Can you make it into a best selling novel for me, please?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're not gonna write it for you.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:But yeah, it's...
Speaker:I think editors are the unsung heroes of anything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Books, TV, movies.
Speaker:They really are.
Speaker:Because an editor is there to support you and their job essentially is to help you
Speaker:figure out exactly what you were trying to say and maybe didn't quite manage to do.
Speaker:So my editor on the Shadow Glass was Craig Leyenaar, who's, he
Speaker:was a Titan, he's now left.
Speaker:But he was fantastic because he would just ask questions.
Speaker:And be like, I'm not really sure about this.
Speaker:And I would be like, oh, obviously this is what I meant.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:It wasn't obvious.
Speaker:Let's figure out a way to make it obvious.
Speaker:And he was great for pinpointing with surgical precision.
Speaker:Yeah, something that wasn't quite doing its job in the book and
Speaker:helping me to figure out how to make it do its job, essentially.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the book is a hundred times better for his input.
Speaker:Before that, it was a hundred times better for my agent's input.
Speaker:Yeah, all these people.
Speaker:You start to feel a bit like, don't tell me the book's good if you liked it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Tell all these other people who were integral to creating this thing that
Speaker:just happens to have my name on it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think it's where I think of musicians and producers.
Speaker:And it is just that flourish.
Speaker:It is just that polish and yeah, it is as much as people perceive
Speaker:an author as writing in isolation.
Speaker:There are these little collaborations going on.
Speaker:And yeah, an editor is there to make the book the best it can
Speaker:be, and when it really clicks that's where the magic happens.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they're the ones who bought the book in the first place.
Speaker:They're the ones who, who let you in the door.
Speaker:So the book literally would not be there if that editor hadn't taken a chance on
Speaker:you or given you a contract, you know?
Speaker:Do you feel that working as a journalist for as long as you have has made
Speaker:you more robust to being edited?
Speaker:Because I guess, a lot of people when they're writing a debut novel and they
Speaker:get that first bunch of feedback, some people might want to go have a cry or a
Speaker:stiff drink and a couple of days quiet reflection before taking it on board.
Speaker:But I guess you've had your writing analyzed and critiqued for over a decade.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Like a hundred percent, being a journalist helped with the sort of
Speaker:the nuts and bolts of being an author.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:And I think that when you're a journalist, well, with Total Film, we don't write
Speaker:in the first person, we write in the third person because we are Total Film.
Speaker:So when you're writing a review, you don't say, I love this because
Speaker:it's, Total Film loved this because of et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker:So you are always looking at this thing as a collaborative effort.
Speaker:And you are all there to create the best thing you possibly can.
Speaker:And I definitely think that's shaped the way that I view the editing
Speaker:process for writing books as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Where it is a collaboration and the end goal is to make this thing the
Speaker:absolute best thing it can possibly be.
Speaker:And it's in your interests to do that.
Speaker:Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker:And it, there, there have been journalists that I've worked with who are precious
Speaker:about their copy and that's, that's fine.
Speaker:That's just the way they are.
Speaker:But I think that it's beneficial to everyone if you are open to the idea
Speaker:that you are not perfect and maybe that isn't the best way to do something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's a personal opinion might be a bit controversial.
Speaker:I feel that there are certain authors that when you get to a certain height
Speaker:of fame and power, uh, or no not power, influence that maybe they get to a point
Speaker:where they go, I know what I'm doing.
Speaker:And so the editor then is just more of a proof reader than an
Speaker:actual collaborative partner.
Speaker:And I think you can tell when those relationships change and an author
Speaker:suddenly goes oh, they're not writing as, as well as they used to.
Speaker:Because the ego has got to a certain point and Yeah, they've parted
Speaker:ways with an editor and now they've just got a proofreader there.
Speaker:And I think that's a lesson for any author that just fight for the good editors.
Speaker:Make sure the good editors are well paid as well.
Speaker:Cause I think that's a absolutely a thing I see on Twitter at the moment.
Speaker:And as someone who has no skin in the game, I can get on a soapbox and say this.
Speaker:Is that there's a lot of editors who are overworked and underpaid
Speaker:and they're leaving in the industry.
Speaker:And the industry and books and readers and authors are suffering for it.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:God damnit pay them a decent wage.
Speaker:You've got two projects on the go.
Speaker:I think we've talked about Burn the Negative a fair bit.
Speaker:You have a personal project that I, I appreciate you may want to
Speaker:keep quite close to your chest.
Speaker:But is there anything about that, is it a different genre again?
Speaker:And what was it that sparked off, okay, I've got this under contract,
Speaker:but I need to start working on this other project just for me?
Speaker:So Burn The Negative is in, in layout.
Speaker:So the next book I'm working on is book two for Putnam, and then
Speaker:I've got another one, additional to that, which is out of contract.
Speaker:So I've got two projects that aren't Burn The Negative on the
Speaker:go right now, which is nice.
Speaker:I like being able to like, jump between projects.
Speaker:And they're at different stages of development, to use like a film analogy.
Speaker:So the one that I'm currently reading out to my partner is a YA, so it's a
Speaker:different market to Burn The Negative.
Speaker:And the characters themselves I've had for years.
Speaker:I think I, I had a first attempt at writing them for NaNoWriMo in maybe 2018.
Speaker:And I got about 50,000 words in and I didn't really know, it
Speaker:didn't feel right for some reason.
Speaker:And it's complicated cuz it's about teenagers with like
Speaker:special abilities, essentially.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And that just makes things so complicated.
Speaker:It was birthed out of my love for TV shows like Charmed and Buffy the
Speaker:Vampires Slayer, and like Roswell.
Speaker:All those great nineties SFF shows.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's only when you really start to try to do what they
Speaker:did every single goddamn week.
Speaker:That you realize how difficult it is.
Speaker:Cuz you're trying to do the interpersonal drama stuff.
Speaker:You're trying to do plotty, pushing the plot stuff along, and then you
Speaker:throw in special abilities as well.
Speaker:It's just like another added complication that you have to consider.
Speaker:And in some ways, that stuff is really fun.
Speaker:And it's almost like a way of externalizing your characters'
Speaker:internal world, because their abilities can be used in an emotional way.
Speaker:Which is what I've tried to do.
Speaker:But then it also throws up problems like, if they're being attacked and they've got,
Speaker:they're telekinetic, they can literally do anything to defend themselves.
Speaker:So I've been having fun trying to come up with the rules for these abilities
Speaker:that they have and what their limits are.
Speaker:Because without limits, it becomes like Eternals, the Marvel film,
Speaker:which I really didn't like.
Speaker:So yeah, so it's been, it's been a fun long process on that one.
Speaker:And basically I kind of shifted genre.
Speaker:I was writing it very much as a fantasy, but it's become more of
Speaker:a small town mystery, which seems to be working better somehow.
Speaker:I think yeah, sometimes when you have these big ideas, but put them
Speaker:in small town environments and just get those interpersonal stakes.
Speaker:Rather than like, the world is going to end.
Speaker:It's more yeah, those sort of like personal development things.
Speaker:Yeah, and I had to find the town.
Speaker:I can't really write until I have the setting really clear on my mind.
Speaker:And so the town, when I first started writing it, the town was just this
Speaker:sort of like bland nothing town.
Speaker:Middle America.
Speaker:You've seen thousands of those towns on movies and TV.
Speaker:And I was just a bit like, there has to be something more to this
Speaker:town, especially if there are people here with special abilities.
Speaker:And so when I came up with something I've never seen before, with this town.
Speaker:And suddenly it became somewhere I wanted to be.
Speaker:It became a town I wanted to write about and be in with these
Speaker:characters, and it really launched me into writing for that one.
Speaker:Okay so, uh, is it based on a real place or it is just like the
Speaker:concept of that Middletown, the like political, societal standpoint of it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's it's not based on a real place.
Speaker:So there's something that happened to the town on the millennium
Speaker:that has had like ripple effects throughout the rest of the story.
Speaker:And the main characters fall into uncovering what happened.
Speaker:And it's a physical thing that happened to the town, it's like a,
Speaker:it's a visible thing that's happened to this town that people are either
Speaker:ignoring or trying to bulldoze over.
Speaker:There's lots of different agendas flying around.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's like a, it's fun it's complicated.
Speaker:And that means it's both a joy and a pain to write (laughs).
Speaker:Yeah, I think clearly, it's just like pushing yourself
Speaker:into different genre as well.
Speaker:But also, like you say, it's, it is a different readership.
Speaker:And yeah, I guess when it's a standard novel where it's not
Speaker:pitched to an age group, you don't have to filter yourself in language
Speaker:or violence and things like that.
Speaker:But when writing younger, it's not just taking the swear words out, it's
Speaker:having people that they can relate to going through the challenges that
Speaker:resonates with people of that age.
Speaker:So how's that challenge?
Speaker:Has that been something that you've had to research, like reading a lot of YA?
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Like I've read a fair amount of YA anyway, and there are books
Speaker:like Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Caesar, which is brilliant.
Speaker:It's a slasher novel, very much inspired by nineties slasher movies, but it's a YA.
Speaker:And he goes to some real extremes in that book that you might not
Speaker:necessarily think you would find in YA.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's brilliant.
Speaker:It just doesn't hold back.
Speaker:And books like Harrow Lake by Cat Ellis and she did Wicked Little
Speaker:Deeds as well, where sort of small town weird Americana type stuff.
Speaker:So I've definitely got those two in mind while writing this.
Speaker:I think there is a slight feeling of worrying about writing teenagers,
Speaker:how they talk to each other.
Speaker:You know, I've watched a bit of the new Gossip Girl TV series and
Speaker:um, the way they talk to each other is just completely outta my grasp.
Speaker:I just can't write that kind of dialogue.
Speaker:But I think I've read somebody talking about writing teenage dialogue and I think
Speaker:it might have been um, Sadie Hartman, who's a big horror person on Twitter.
Speaker:And she kind of said, I hate it when writers use slang that immediately
Speaker:dates whatever you were reading.
Speaker:So I I'm steering clear of anything too slangy and just trying to have
Speaker:the characters speak in a way that's authentic to their personality
Speaker:rather than worrying too much about if I'm writing authentic teenagers.
Speaker:Yeah, also I wanted to ask, cuz obviously you have these characters
Speaker:that go through big change.
Speaker:Do you find yourself having moments of reflection and questioning your own
Speaker:life and the way that you behave around people, that you go, oh, actually this
Speaker:is almost a form of therapy for me.
Speaker:And writing YA, have you really had to revisit your teenage years
Speaker:and, you know, have you now got a new perspective on your childhood?
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:Getting deep now.
Speaker:I know, we're really going there.
Speaker:I do remember being a very shy, quiet, nervous teenager.
Speaker:But all of the characters I loved on teen TV shows were the opposite of that.
Speaker:So that's what I write, essentially.
Speaker:Like, whenever I've written teenagers, I haven't written
Speaker:what I was like as a teenager.
Speaker:Cause frankly it's really boring, you know?
Speaker:So I don't know if it's made me reappraise my past.
Speaker:I think the Shadow Glass made me, I was conscious that I was writing
Speaker:it around the time that I was spending a lot of time with my dad.
Speaker:The book itself is about this complicated relationship between the
Speaker:main character and his deceased father.
Speaker:And I was spending a lot of time with my dad at that time because
Speaker:there was some family stuff going on.
Speaker:And I think I only really realized a couple of weeks ago that I think The
Speaker:Shadow Glass is me coming to terms with my dad's mortality, essentially.
Speaker:And thinking he is gonna be gone at some point.
Speaker:You know, it seems like he's been around forever.
Speaker:Especially after my mum passed away.
Speaker:It's like dad has been this constant presence.
Speaker:And the older I get, the older he gets.
Speaker:He's 71 now.
Speaker:And it's a bit like, yeah, he is gonna be gone one day and it's
Speaker:like a, it's such a big thing to try to understand, and I think the
Speaker:Shadow Glass played a part in that.
Speaker:What was the rest of the question?
Speaker:Sorry, I went on a tangent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, I think you answered it.
Speaker:It was just having characters that go through change, do they change you and
Speaker:have you felt that you've had change?
Speaker:I do think that my characters helped me examine a portion of myself, definitely.
Speaker:In, in The Shadow Glass, Jack his philosophy or his flaw is basically,
Speaker:if I don't commit to anything, I can never fail at anything.
Speaker:And I don't know that I go quite that far, but I do think that
Speaker:committing to something is a big deal.
Speaker:Even just committing to publishing a book is a big deal.
Speaker:It makes you visible, it makes people think they know you or you're
Speaker:approachable and people wanna talk to you.
Speaker:And I enjoy interacting with people, but at the same time, I do find it
Speaker:hugely anxiety inducing as well.
Speaker:And like when I do events and stuff the attention, the pressure of the attention.
Speaker:It takes me a long time to depressurize when I get home afterwards.
Speaker:And it's not like I'm, Stephen King or V E Schwab or anything.
Speaker:I'm not getting that much attention.
Speaker:But just the fact of it does make me anxious.
Speaker:So, yeah, I find it interesting to think about a character and then figure
Speaker:out how I relate to them and then how I would like to explore that person.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:And I've definitely changed, you know, when I think back to 10
Speaker:years ago I was going out clubbing.
Speaker:Don't do that anymore.
Speaker:Even the thought sitting in the pub sometimes is a bit overwhelming.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay, I'm gonna go onto my final two questions, cuz it's on the same sort
Speaker:of theme of learning about yourself.
Speaker:Cuz it's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their writing
Speaker:with each story that they write.
Speaker:Is there anything that has now shaped the way that you are writing and approaching
Speaker:your YA and your second contracted book?
Speaker:I'm definitely writing shorter, initially.
Speaker:The Shadow Glass, the first draft was ridiculously long.
Speaker:It was about 110, 120,000 words.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I did a second draft that cut it down to 94, 95, and that's
Speaker:what I pitched to my agent.
Speaker:And then when we pitched that to Titan, we'd cut it down to about 83,000 words.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But then through my edits for Titan, it went back up to 94,000 words.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I'm very aware of the, the length thing.
Speaker:And I'm also aware of the fact that I need to know the skeleton of the story.
Speaker:I need to like excavate that skeleton, you know, I'm like
Speaker:bloody Sam Neil in Jurassic Park.
Speaker:I need to find that, I need to find that buried skeleton
Speaker:before I can add any meat to it.
Speaker:So the first draft of this YA thing is like 44,000 words, which is very short.
Speaker:You know, that's basically just over a novella.
Speaker:But I know when it's done, it'll probably be about 75, 80 because I need to have the
Speaker:skeleton there to figure out which bits to amplify, which bits to add meat to, which
Speaker:avenues maybe I could have gone down and there's room to now and I haven't yet.
Speaker:So I think that's definitely something I've learned is beneficial..
Speaker:There is part of me that's like, it's too short, it's too short.
Speaker:It's never gonna get published, you're never gonna be able to add any words.
Speaker:But I will be able to add words, through the various stages of editing, and
Speaker:I'd rather it was lean than bloated.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think if it gives you focus on what you are trying to say, it's not okay, how
Speaker:can I make this as concise as possible.
Speaker:It's going, how can I illustrate this point to its fullest.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And what's missing, I think it's easier to see what's missing once you have
Speaker:a complete version of that thing.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And as someone who's written basically their entire adult life,
Speaker:and you've um, mentioned people who've inspired you in writing
Speaker:books and the advice they've given.
Speaker:Is there one piece of advice that really resonates with you, that you always
Speaker:keep in mind with your own writing?
Speaker:I think it goes back to the lean thing where I'm always
Speaker:thinking about condensation.
Speaker:Not the stuff on the windows.
Speaker:Um, I had a, a great tutor at university.
Speaker:I did a screenwriting module and she worked in soaps.
Speaker:She worked on EastEnders.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:And brevity was really important to her.
Speaker:And we wrote a short script as part of our module.
Speaker:And she was great at saying, could you combine two scenes?
Speaker:Could you combine two characters?
Speaker:How could you find a way to make this both move faster and feel less unwieldy?
Speaker:And so I'm always thinking about condensing things down, trying to
Speaker:make scenes really earn their keep.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:I think that's probably something I've learned from journalism, is
Speaker:basically the, the mantra of every word has to earn its place on the page.
Speaker:And that's literally because you're being paid by the word, if you are working,
Speaker:if your freelance, you know, you, you learn self-editing and self-discipline.
Speaker:And also they're paying me money for this, so do I need that word in there?
Speaker:Is that actually earning its keep or is it just sort of, I threw it in
Speaker:there and it's not doing anything?
Speaker:So yeah, condensation is a big thing.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:That's all we have time for this week, but uh, Josh Winning I have
Speaker:to thank you so much for being my guest on the Real Writing Process.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:It's been great to chat to you.
Speaker:And that was a real watching process of Josh winning.
Speaker:His debut novel the shutter glasses i don't know.
Speaker:I fully recommend you buy it read it and then buy copies for all your friends and
Speaker:family I assure you every word has entered the place on the page Also you can now
Speaker:pre-order his next book Burn the negative It's released under the 11th of july 2023.
Speaker:so audit now and that's your summer read sorted And if you'd like to hear more
Speaker:from josh then i do recommend you follow him on instagram he does instagram live
Speaker:chats with other authors and they're very good Uh, He also has a link tree page
Speaker:with all those links in so that's in the show notes and it links to everything
Speaker:he does and what's coming out It's great And uh that's it for this episode
