The Real Writing Process of Tiffani Angus
Tom Pepperdine interviews Tiffani Angus about her writing process. Tiffani discusses how she doesn't keep to a set writing schedule, her approach to research, and the difference between her fiction and non-fiction work.
You can find all of Tiffani's information on her website here: http://www.tiffani-angus.com/
And you can follow her on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/tiffaniangus
And you can find more information on the show and upcoming guests on the following links:
https://twitter.com/Therealwriting1
https://www.instagram.com/realwritingpro
https://www.facebook.com/therealwritingprocesspodcast
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to The Real Writing Process.
Speaker:I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.
Speaker:And this week, my guest is the author and scholar, Dr.
Speaker:Tiffany Angus.
Speaker:Now, if you think this podcast is getting high brow, don't worry, it's not.
Speaker:In between seasons of this show, I've actually met a few of you fine listeners.
Speaker:I understand that highbrow is not the way to go.
Speaker:I get it.
Speaker:I get you.
Speaker:It's chill.
Speaker:Tiffany is a lot of fun and occasionally writes porn.
Speaker:We're good.
Speaker:She's also written other stuff too.
Speaker:Her debut novel, Threading The Labyrinth is a great piece of historical fantasy.
Speaker:We discuss it a lot and it's definitely worth picking up.
Speaker:But what's even more exciting from a writing podcast perspective is
Speaker:that she has taught creative writing and has a PhD in creative writing
Speaker:and is working on a book to help you write speculative fiction.
Speaker:Useful stuff.
Speaker:Interesting person.
Speaker:Wonderful guest.
Speaker:Shall I stop with the intro and get on with the interview?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Let's go!
Speaker:And I'm here with Tiffany Angus.
Speaker:Tiffany, Hello.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:And thank you very much for being on the show.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:You're welcome.
Speaker:And my first question as always, what are we drinking?
Speaker:So I have orange gin and tonic.
Speaker:I'm a bit of a connoisseur of flavored gins and I had to pick today, because
Speaker:it was my birthday a couple days ago.
Speaker:I must have a dozen different kinds of gin in my kitchen, and the orange
Speaker:one was open, so we're having today.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Beautiful.
Speaker:And it's August, it's still the, the last few days of summer.
Speaker:It's getting cooler, but it's still not cold.
Speaker:A nice, refreshing gin is always a pleasure on the show.
Speaker:Lovely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Lovely.
Speaker:And where I'm talking to you now, is this your office?
Speaker:Is this where you do all your writing?
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:This is the tiny room in our house that sort, I guess people called
Speaker:a box room, and it's my office and it is full of, it's a mess.
Speaker:This is, it's a good thing this isn't video, cuz it is a tip right now.
Speaker:Behind me are shelves and shelves of books and toys.
Speaker:I don't have children, I just have toys on the shelves.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What those figurines called that I can see on your shelves there?
Speaker:The little pop vinyls?
Speaker:Pop vinyls.
Speaker:Fun Funko Pops.
Speaker:Yeah, Funko pops.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're all girls though.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Only the badass girls.
Speaker:I'm glad to see that they're not in their boxes and that they're actually out.
Speaker:It's not that sort of must keep them as a collectible.
Speaker:It's like no, they're toys.
Speaker:No they're toys and I already broke one and replaced it.
Speaker:I was very sad I busted one.
Speaker:Is there one that is particularly rare that you're very proud of having?
Speaker:I don't know if any of 'em were particularly rare, but I do love,
Speaker:The first one I ever got was Antiope and that was the one that
Speaker:I broke and I had to replace.
Speaker:Wonder Woman's aunt.
Speaker:And how long has this been your, the box room is the writing zone?
Speaker:So funnily enough, we moved in here eight years and two days ago.
Speaker:I, I know we moved in here on my birthday, so I know exactly how long.
Speaker:So I've had this room for that long I finished my PhD in this room.
Speaker:when I was a lecturer, I worked from here.
Speaker:During Covid, this is where I taught from and this is where I write.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And are you a morning, afternoon, or evening writer?
Speaker:Man, I'm, a when-I-can writer, I've tried really hard.
Speaker:I've really tried hard to be one of those people who gets up at 5:00
Speaker:AM and writes, and that's just, it works for a day and then I say no.
Speaker:But it depends on if I have a deadline or not.
Speaker:Like right now, we're on deadline to try to finish a book.
Speaker:My, my co-author and I on this one project.
Speaker:And so like I wrote pretty much all day yesterday.
Speaker:I tend to start, or right before lunch because I work out
Speaker:and do stuff in the morning.
Speaker:And so I'll do a little bit of writing, then I have lunch, then
Speaker:I really go to town afternoon.
Speaker:But last night I sat downstairs on the couch and worked till about midnight.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:So it depends on, yeah, it depends on what's going on.
Speaker:But I don't, I'm not really good at having a writing schedule.
Speaker:I think I have delusions that one day I will, but it's never gonna work.
Speaker:It's never gonna happen.
Speaker:So I just accept that if something's due I can get it done.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you mentioned there, you know, you're working deadline on
Speaker:a co-written book at the moment.
Speaker:Is this the first co-written project you've had?
Speaker:No, it's not.
Speaker:The first novel I ever wrote, which is on my hard drive.
Speaker:That will never see the light of day.
Speaker:The first thing I ever wrote, I wrote with one of my best friends back in the States.
Speaker:We went to university together and then funnily enough, we kept
Speaker:getting jobs in the same places.
Speaker:And in 1998, I wanna say, we we both lived on either side of a very big cemetery.
Speaker:This is in Dayton, Ohio.
Speaker:And she took me for a walk through the cemetery one day.
Speaker:I'd never been there.
Speaker:And there was one of the newer headstones was a pyramid.
Speaker:Oh!
Speaker:It had hieroglyphics on it.
Speaker:Oh, cool.
Speaker:And we were at dinner later and I went, Oh, you know what?
Speaker:I just thought, what if the hieroglyphics were a clue to something?
Speaker:And then right there we started planning out this whole novel with
Speaker:three different timelines and all these characters and all this stuff.
Speaker:And we wrote it on and off for about 10 years.
Speaker:Had an agent look at it like, we got some attention and then
Speaker:we knew we needed to fix things.
Speaker:And then she moved to LA and not very long after I moved to the UK and it,
Speaker:we look at, it's our trunk project.
Speaker:It's the thing that helped us figure out to write better.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:So is this been as fun a writing?
Speaker:I, I assume it's not taken 10 years?
Speaker:No, it's taken about a year.
Speaker:It's been different because when I wrote that book with Angel,
Speaker:we would be in the same place.
Speaker:We would be in, in my office in my extra room in my house there.
Speaker:And I would type and she would walk back and forth behind me.
Speaker:And then I would write this one timeline and she wrote the other
Speaker:timeline and then we would trade.
Speaker:So we would have a lot of in-person meetings.
Speaker:But this project I'm working on now, I'm here in, in England and Val is in Ireland.
Speaker:And so we have Zoom meetings and we talk about stuff, but a lot of it is okay,
Speaker:I've posted it on Google Docs, let me look at it, I'll give you feedback.
Speaker:So we don't, we're not in person, but we still had a lot of fun.
Speaker:It's been a lot of fun to write.
Speaker:It's not fiction.
Speaker:Yeah, it's nonfiction.
Speaker:It's about writing.
Speaker:And it's been fun to make it sound like us, cuz we tend
Speaker:to make a lot of silly jokes.
Speaker:So it's got silly jokes and it has puns and et cetera.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:That's made it fun.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:And so how did this project start off?
Speaker:Was this you guys having a conversation?
Speaker:Was there an inspiration sparker, like we should write a book about writing?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So a lockdown happened and in spring 2020 Easter Con went online.
Speaker:And right before Easter Con I had done an online festival that was
Speaker:put together, and I did a workshop about writing historical fantasy.
Speaker:And so at Easter Con I said, hey, I'll do the workshop.
Speaker:And I did the workshop.
Speaker:And Francesca from Luna Press, she said, hey, let's have lunch.
Speaker:So we had like little avatar people lunch on our computers.
Speaker:And she said, oh, we had a writing book, but it was Gareth Powell's writing
Speaker:book that's now gone to another house.
Speaker:And she says, we need a writing book.
Speaker:I saw your workshop, it was great.
Speaker:Do you wanna write a book for us?
Speaker:And I said, that would be awesome.
Speaker:Let me talk to my friend who, cuz Val writes I wanna say
Speaker:Science fictiony science fiction?
Speaker:He's more like military science fiction, space opera, robots
Speaker:and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And so I talked to him and I said, hey, here's just cool
Speaker:idea, let's do this together.
Speaker:And he said, yeah.
Speaker:And so the working title is Spec Fic for Newbies: A Guide to Writing
Speaker:Various Sub Genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.
Speaker:And I wanna add "with puns" on the end of that.
Speaker:But he doesn't like that right now.
Speaker:I'll convince him.
Speaker:And so there's three chapters and in each chapter there's eight to 10 sub genres.
Speaker:So it's everything from big dumb objects to military science fiction
Speaker:to historical fantasy, steampunk, body horror psychological horror, et cetera.
Speaker:And in each section we give a short history.
Speaker:Things that are cool about it, things to watch out for, and two activities.
Speaker:So it's for somebody who's new to writing that certain sub genre.
Speaker:And we split 'em between us and then some of them we've written together
Speaker:and it's just been so much fun.
Speaker:Except a couple ti a couple of them have been a little disturbing.
Speaker:Like, he did splatter punk last week.
Speaker:He said, I need a shower now.
Speaker:That was just, that wasn't fun to write.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And was it fun researching that as well?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause there's this thing where you think I know how to write this, but I don't
Speaker:really know where some of the stuff came from, or who coined the term steampunk?
Speaker:I had to find out where that term came from.
Speaker:And so we've, for the short history, so each of the sections is only two
Speaker:to 3000 words, so it's not huge.
Speaker:Because there are whole books out there that talk about the history of
Speaker:fantasy and science fiction, et cetera.
Speaker:And so we condense everything.
Speaker:But it's been a lot of fun to find stories and novels and movies.
Speaker:Yeah, so we mentioned a lot of movies too.
Speaker:And it's just been fun to figure out how to make the history interesting
Speaker:enough and fun enough to read.
Speaker:And give somebody a context.
Speaker:Okay, here's how this started, here's where it is now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like sword and sorcery changed a lot.
Speaker:And that's one of those things where you could write forever and ever.
Speaker:And holding back and cutting it down and slimming it.
Speaker:Editing it down has also been a bit of a challenge.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I can imagine there's definitely a lot you can go into on all of those subjects.
Speaker:Huge amounts.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But yeah, it is a great concept cuz I think people who do like genre fiction and
Speaker:just not sure where a story fits and being able to sort of find all these subsets.
Speaker:And just knowing some of the tropes and that fine line between trope and cliche,
Speaker:where you want something that the reader can go, Oh yeah this is this genre.
Speaker:This is my wheelhouse.
Speaker:This is why I like reading this thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Rather than, Oh, this is something that's done to death and I've
Speaker:seen this again and again.
Speaker:But yeah, having that sort of mapped out or even just having a touchpoint
Speaker:to say, if you like this you can now explore and you know the genre.
Speaker:Yeah, because a lot of the sections are actual sub genres.
Speaker:Yeah, but then in a couple cases, we've taken more tropes.
Speaker:So we'll have a section on vampires and one on zombies, for example.
Speaker:And inside that there's things that like, like we all know about zombies,
Speaker:but we don't all know where the actual the trop came from in the first place.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Way before, Romero and before that movie in the 1930s, like before all that,
Speaker:where it came from during colonization.
Speaker:And it's fun to, to explain it and to show where everything overlaps
Speaker:because it's so difficult to say, one story is exactly one thing.
Speaker:So we have a lot of references to other stuff.
Speaker:And things have come up that we, I like, I didn't expect to be writing about how to
Speaker:write a sex scene for Paranormal Romance.
Speaker:I get through a whole section on how to write a sex scene.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Did not plan that.
Speaker:Fun to do, or?
Speaker:Yeah well, I've written them before, so I enjoy writing them.
Speaker:But I know it's one of those things that a lot of people don't quite know
Speaker:how to approach, and so I thought, Yeah, I'll put that in there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And isn't there like the bad sex award that you know, very
Speaker:notable writers who clearly don't know how to write a sex scene.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And yeah.
Speaker:And if you go on TikTok, it seems that every uh, fantasy
Speaker:book is written by Sarah J Mass.
Speaker:Uh...
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Um, well, my wife describes it as fairy porn.
Speaker:And yeah, just that's generally this, the subset.
Speaker:It's very Mills and Boon fantasy.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Taking Twilight to the next level.
Speaker:So that's funny you mention that cuz my friend Amy, who, she works
Speaker:at Waterstones in Cambridge.
Speaker:We were talking, she said, and she was talking about book tok cuz
Speaker:they're doing a thing with book tok.
Speaker:She says, I didn't realize this was a thing right now.
Speaker:It's horny elves or horny fairies is the thing.
Speaker:And I thought, that's a new sub genre to think about.
Speaker:So yeah, for the next book.
Speaker:And uh, you know, sort of a mutual friend and a friend of the show J.
Speaker:L.
Speaker:Worrad.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Who did a very culturally interesting and thoughtful and
Speaker:intellectual horny elf book.
Speaker:It's still, can't get my head round how intellectual that book was
Speaker:considering it was a very horny elf.
Speaker:It was brilliant.
Speaker:It's sitting on my shelf.
Speaker:I haven't opened it yet, sorry James.
Speaker:It's yeah, it's definitely worth your time.
Speaker:And not for the, the things that you think, but also for the
Speaker:things that you don't expect.
Speaker:But yeah, he's just a good writer in an annoying way.
Speaker:That's just, you don't expect the guy that we know, yeah,
Speaker:writing the stuff that he writes.
Speaker:I was like, Oh yeah.
Speaker:Oh, there's a brain here.
Speaker:There's a drinker, there's a drinker we know.
Speaker:And a brain behind and a dancer.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And a bad karaoke singer, but oh, I mean, a wonderful karaoke singer.
Speaker:Anyway, we love James.
Speaker:Uh, moving on.
Speaker:Back to your writing.
Speaker:Sorry, James.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:But speaking about your fiction.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So when you have an idea, when you're developing a story, do you like to
Speaker:start with a scenario, a character or a world that you'd like to explore?
Speaker:I tend to start with scenarios.
Speaker:A lot of ideas I get, and this is gonna sound really woo woo and
Speaker:strange, but you know that time like between when you're awake and asleep?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That is when I get a lot of ideas.
Speaker:I'll suddenly get an image in my head and the next morning I still
Speaker:remember the image, I can't shake it.
Speaker:And it's just weird.
Speaker:And I think, what would that mean?
Speaker:And that's where I start going from there.
Speaker:I don't tend to start with characters unless I do this thing that I love
Speaker:to do where I take dead people from history and mess with their lives.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Then I have somebody to start with to play with.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I'm not a big secondary world builder, so I don't start with that.
Speaker:I might start with a time in history, so world building in that sense,
Speaker:but not fantasy world building.
Speaker:So yeah, I waiver between some weird scenario or somebody who's been dead for
Speaker:hundreds of years who I wanna resurrect.
Speaker:And with that, you've been working on a fiction book this summer as well?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I'm working on, in between trying to finish Spec Fic for Newbies, I've
Speaker:been working on more stories set in the Threading the Labyrinth garden.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:To be part of a collection that is all garden themed.
Speaker:And I'm also finishing a novel that I've been trying to finish for a few years now.
Speaker:But it's apocalyptic, post apocalyptic, that I started way
Speaker:before Covid, so I'm allowed.
Speaker:Cause I love apocalyptic fiction.
Speaker:I read The Stand when I was like 11.
Speaker:And I've always wanted to destroy the world and rebuild it again.
Speaker:And so that's what that book is.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Cuz I was gonna ask about researching history when you're saying people
Speaker:from history and with Threading the Labyrinth obviously is,
Speaker:that garden throughout history.
Speaker:And do you like researching historical periods?
Speaker:And do you just go online and find resources online or do you
Speaker:actually have books and other resources that you turn to?
Speaker:So two things.
Speaker:A, Threading was a different animal, I'll get to that in a second.
Speaker:B, I'm also working on, it's basically costume porn.
Speaker:Literally porn.
Speaker:But in writing not like a drama that you filmed.
Speaker:You're not filming it?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:No, I'm not filming it.
Speaker:Set in the 18th century, so I'm doing research for that.
Speaker:So yeah, I, when I did Threading the Labyrinth, it was my PhD project.
Speaker:It was my dissertation.
Speaker:And so I spent years doing research.
Speaker:And because of what it was, because it's about 400 years in English garden, I got
Speaker:to go to gardens all over the country.
Speaker:I went to the Imperial War Museum when they had an exhibit on the
Speaker:Ministry of Food and Victory Gardens during World War ii.
Speaker:I went to William Morris's house.
Speaker:I went to the V&A, I went to, I went everywhere to do all this research.
Speaker:And I also have, behind me on the shelves of craziness, I have four big, giant
Speaker:full shelves of gardening history books.
Speaker:So when I'm sitting down to do the stories for the collection, I'll go
Speaker:through there and find something.
Speaker:Or I've done the same thing when I've been invited to anthologies
Speaker:and I suddenly think, okay, I can do something about gardens.
Speaker:Let me pick up this book and just go through it and see what ideas I get.
Speaker:So I tend to do that.
Speaker:I use Pinterest for visual stimulation, I dunno where that came from.
Speaker:For visual stuff.
Speaker:So I have a bunch of different Pinterest boards for different
Speaker:time periods for the garden.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I've started a new one for clothing for 18th century clothing.
Speaker:For this new project.
Speaker:So I like to have the physical stuff handy.
Speaker:I can't, I don't use Kindle for nonfiction research books usually.
Speaker:I remember where something is in a book physically.
Speaker:I'll remember, oh, it was about halfway through on the left side at the bottom.
Speaker:And I can find it again and I can't do that on Kindle.
Speaker:I'll use online if I can't get somewhere.
Speaker:But I like to actually go see the thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I suppose actually going to gardens as well and actually getting that sense of
Speaker:being in nature and the feel of the space.
Speaker:Cause it certainly comes across in your writing the way you describe the garden.
Speaker:It's very evocative and if you've actually walked a lot of gardens,
Speaker:that would certainly have helped.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I took photographs.
Speaker:I have, I still have, I dunno, a couple thousand photographs from
Speaker:all the different gardens I went to.
Speaker:And it would be everything from, here's the layout to here up close of flowers
Speaker:to this is what it looks like during this season, especially walled gardens.
Speaker:I'm a complete walled garden nerd, so anytime I could find a walled garden,
Speaker:I'd go straight for that and take all the pictures I could of everything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Are there places that you are looking to visit for your 18th century novel?
Speaker:No, cuz I can't get to Italy.
Speaker:Oh, but I can, weirdly, because of the 18th century being what it was,
Speaker:I can think about the research I did on 18th Century Life and Gardens here
Speaker:and take some of it and move it over.
Speaker:But I will have to do some Italian specific research.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It'll just take more books and visiting stuff online.
Speaker:But because what I'm doing isn't, how do I say this?
Speaker:Because the project I'm working on is not really focused on outside, it's more,
Speaker:I guess people could have sex outside.
Speaker:It's more of you know, interpersonal relationships of a very intimate nature.
Speaker:I don't need to know all the big stuff and what was going on politically,
Speaker:et cetera, et cetera, so much.
Speaker:People's bodies, were very similar.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And completely differently, the postapocalyptic where you don't
Speaker:really need to I suppose you can go outside at the moment,
Speaker:that's, that's enough research.
Speaker:But I guess you know, fully creating a postapocalyptic world must take
Speaker:a completely different approach.
Speaker:How have you approached that?
Speaker:That one is, it's actually set in the States.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So it's set in the kind of place that I'm familiar with, and I'm familiar
Speaker:with the strip malls and where a school would be and where a supermarket would
Speaker:be and what things would look like.
Speaker:And so I've made a bit of an amalgam in my head of different places.
Speaker:I never name the exact city where it's set cause I want it to be a bit generic.
Speaker:And it's in a quasi gated community, which is also a bit generic.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's not you know, one of the really fancy ones.
Speaker:And so luckily I can use that from having grown up in the States.
Speaker:I can use that.
Speaker:And it's because I use most everything is set in a neighborhood.
Speaker:I don't have to worry so much about other stuff.
Speaker:There are scenes early where the protagonist is out in the world
Speaker:and has to deal with things.
Speaker:And I do have a lot happen in a hospital.
Speaker:Luckily, one of my closest friends is a nurse.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And so I asked her about the drug machines in hospitals.
Speaker:I needed to know how they worked.
Speaker:So right I could find somebody who could give me the low down
Speaker:on, on that kind of stuff.
Speaker:Which is helpful.
Speaker:I had to like, I've always set it like a near future and then after the
Speaker:pandemic I realized I really do need to at least hint that this happened.
Speaker:Cuz one of the characters is like 19.
Speaker:And when she was 12, the pandemic hit.
Speaker:And so she talks to her friend about when we were 12 and all this stuff happened.
Speaker:So we know that we're a few years in the future.
Speaker:Because I think it's weird now to not reference it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That makes sense.
Speaker:And with uh, writing historical fiction and pornography and apocalyptic fiction,
Speaker:in different genres, do you find that your general approach to mapping out and
Speaker:outlining these stories are quite similar?
Speaker:You have a consistent approach to your projects?
Speaker:Or are they tailor made?
Speaker:Oh gosh.
Speaker:So with Threading, because it was several years long and because it was, because
Speaker:it was what it was as my PhD project.
Speaker:It was one of those things where I had to do like, try something
Speaker:out, see what failed, see what worked to just keep going at it.
Speaker:And I was doing research as I was writing it.
Speaker:Plus I was doing research for the nonfiction part of the dissertation.
Speaker:So I was doing a lot of other stuff.
Speaker:I wasn't just sitting in a room and writing a book over a year.
Speaker:It was like a five year process.
Speaker:But doing that and then having it done.
Speaker:And then thinking, okay, it's finished, how do I fix it?
Speaker:Quote unquote air quote, fix it to make it publishable.
Speaker:Because something that you do for a PhD and something you do for the
Speaker:market are two different things.
Speaker:And I had to start thinking about a little bit differently.
Speaker:And so because I had to reverse engineer the whole project, it has gotten me
Speaker:to think of how I do the next project more consciously from the beginning.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because the apocalyptic book, I started it before I ever started the PhD, so
Speaker:it's been hanging around for a decade.
Speaker:And again, I didn't plan it out the right way at the beginning, cause
Speaker:I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker:And now I'm going back and having to.
Speaker:I started using Scrivener in May and I'm like, let me make this make sense.
Speaker:And so it's something I wish I had done from the beginning, but now
Speaker:I've gone in and reorganized it all.
Speaker:So, I know that it is making sense, cuz there's like a parallel
Speaker:timeline, there's two characters.
Speaker:But projects from here on out, I am sitting down and saying, Okay, let me
Speaker:plan this a little bit more carefully so I don't find myself in the weeds wondering
Speaker:what I'm doing, hating myself, et cetera.
Speaker:So if we call it the Italian book.
Speaker:Yeah, let's call it the Italian book.
Speaker:So with the Italian book, have you mapped out an outline for the plot
Speaker:before you start writing chapters?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm working on an outline.
Speaker:The Italian project is gonna be, I think, a collection of novellas.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So a bit longer than a short story.
Speaker:Longer one handed reads, so yeah, I've actually, I'm such
Speaker:a, I'm such a stationary nerd.
Speaker:I went to the Rymans or whatever it was, to the store.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I got one of those spiral bound notebooks that has all the sections in it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So I'm like, each section is a different story, a different novella.
Speaker:So I know Oh, how to put this together, because otherwise with the nonfiction
Speaker:book going on and with the apocalyptic book going on, and with other
Speaker:projects I have, I get overwhelmed.
Speaker:So if I have everything in one notebook, I feel much more in control of it.
Speaker:So, yeah, it's, if I plan it out then I have more time to think
Speaker:about what my character's doing and what they want and what they need.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And if I can get that vocalized up front, then I can sit down
Speaker:and I can write really fast.
Speaker:If I know what's going on, what a character's gonna do.
Speaker:I can pound out words really quickly.
Speaker:It's when I'm faffing and like walking around in a dark room with a blindfold
Speaker:that it just takes me forever.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And writing short stories and novellas and novels.
Speaker:Cause where I've spoken to short story writers before, it's often just a
Speaker:little deconstruction of one concept, and it can be a couple of scenes and
Speaker:you just exploring a simple theme.
Speaker:And illustrating that, quite simply.
Speaker:With a novel, you can be doing multiple themes, real long character arcs, the
Speaker:characters at the end are very different from where they are at the start.
Speaker:There's a full story mapped out.
Speaker:And there could be multiple challenges that they're overcoming where, it could
Speaker:be just one challenge in a short story.
Speaker:With a novella, how do you approach that, in, as you say, it's slightly
Speaker:longer than a short story, so you're not just having that very simplistic
Speaker:couple of characters exploring one idea and it's not as expansive as a novel.
Speaker:So how do you map that out?
Speaker:What do you want to achieve in a novella?
Speaker:Yeah, so this particular project, because it's a series of novellas, it's
Speaker:different from a standalone novella.
Speaker:So like your standalone novella means, Okay, I have this idea and it's not gonna
Speaker:fit inside the arbitrary parameters of submission guidelines for X market where
Speaker:they say 5,000 or 7,000 words or 10,000 words, and you're like, I can't do it
Speaker:in that, but I can do it in 15 or 20.
Speaker:Because it's a series, I'm allowed to play that evil trick of stopping
Speaker:on a like a bit of a cliff hanger.
Speaker:So I'm thinking of it as a novel.
Speaker:I'm making arm gestures people at home, I'm so sorry.
Speaker:I'm doing like the big Rainbow Arms.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I'm thinking of it as a novel in that sense, but more as episodes.
Speaker:So it's much more episodic, almost like each one is a long chapter.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so there is like a through line for each one.
Speaker:There is a tiny arc for each one, but it might just be that, this person has gotten
Speaker:to this place they need to go to and dealt with this little problem, but behind
Speaker:him is this bigger thing that they want.
Speaker:Kinda like the show, Alias.
Speaker:Yeah?
Speaker:Which, yeah, that was the first time I realized that was how TV worked
Speaker:and why that was a problem sometime.
Speaker:Because that show was so great, but, this is so off topic, so I remember watching
Speaker:Alias and loving it, and every episode ended on this big cliff hanger and there
Speaker:was this big thing in the background that everybody was working toward and what they
Speaker:did after the first series, because it was popular enough and because of the people
Speaker:running the show and the network said, Hey, we want more people to watch it.
Speaker:They started making everything way more easy for people to
Speaker:come in and just watch one.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it changed the way everything happened.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Instead of it being more of a continuation, more episodic in that sense.
Speaker:And so that's made me think about this more differently.
Speaker:When you talk about episodic and multi characters you track with their own story
Speaker:arc, I instantly think Game of Thrones.
Speaker:And although it's a different genre and hopefully a less controversial ending and,
Speaker:um, unnecessary rape, just get rid of it.
Speaker:Mine will all be consensual sex.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But yeah, those books were very expansive with multiple points of view.
Speaker:And that overarching plot, but everyone having their own journeys.
Speaker:It's a lot of balls to juggle though, as you're trying to write something
Speaker:that is gonna be eight, 900 words.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Rather than thinking, Okay, here's one like, why do I keep doing hand gestures?
Speaker:Is it a little crab?
Speaker:Little, Yeah.
Speaker:And in my language, I'm like, a little poop, this little poop.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's a different animal from doing something like Game of Thrones.
Speaker:I can't keep that much in my head at a time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I completely forgive Martin for not finishing because that's
Speaker:just a lot of stuff to deal with.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, Yeah.
Speaker:That's another thing I was going to ask about actually,
Speaker:are you a prolific note taker?
Speaker:Or do you try and keep it all in your head?
Speaker:No, I take notes.
Speaker:And I take notes by hand, longhand, because I remember it better.
Speaker:Whereas, everybody else like types out their notes or they write
Speaker:all of their appointments and everything down on their phones.
Speaker:I have to have it written down in paper, so I remember it.
Speaker:And so all my notes are there.
Speaker:Which unfortunately, leads the problem of having pieces of paper all over my
Speaker:office and trying to keep track of them all and telling myself, Oh, I'll keep
Speaker:all these in the purple folder, and then suddenly they're all on the floor
Speaker:because I threw them on the floor as I finished and then I have to figure out
Speaker:which one's going in the purple folder.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I do keep some stuff in my head, but I will get to the point where I write
Speaker:it down because I know I will forget it.
Speaker:And as you get older kids, that really happens even when you don't want it to.
Speaker:Do your suduko.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Keep your brain sharp!
Speaker:And we mentioned earlier that how you write when you can.
Speaker:It can be, you know, sort of just before lunch, it can be up to midnight.
Speaker:Do you try and write a section of a story?
Speaker:So do you write to a plot beat or an end of chapter, or do you just
Speaker:leave it mid scene and just go, Okay, that's enough for today.
Speaker:I'm out, it's not really working anymore.
Speaker:Or do you have an opinion on word counts?
Speaker:When you are writing, do you have a minimum that you try to achieve?
Speaker:So, just like how I can't seem to get into the schedule of writing at
Speaker:a certain time every day, I've never been able to get into the schedule
Speaker:of, okay, I have to do this many words today, this many words tomorrow.
Speaker:Cuz something about having that pressure on me and something always happens.
Speaker:Like I either have to go to the store and get something or, something
Speaker:happens, something interrupts life.
Speaker:And so it's better for me not to have that guilt hanging over my head.
Speaker:So when I write, I tend to write in spurts, which I know sounds lovely.
Speaker:Like before, when I was, when I was still working at the university, I
Speaker:didn't get any writing done until there would be a bank holiday.
Speaker:And my partner would go out of town and I would have three days to myself
Speaker:and I would have just frozen food in the house and I wouldn't shower for
Speaker:three days and I'd write 20,000 words.
Speaker:So I'd do that kind of thing.
Speaker:So that has unfortunately ruined me for being organized in the sense of,
Speaker:okay, I write to the end of a scene or end of a beat or end of something.
Speaker:I'll just write till I get to a spot where I think, I don't know what happens next
Speaker:and I need to think about it a little bit.
Speaker:Or if I do know where I'm going, like you say I will write to the end of a
Speaker:thing cuz I've planned it that far.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But yeah, I try not to, I try not to leave in the middle of a scene, cuz
Speaker:I'm afraid I'll come back and not remember what I wanted to happen.
Speaker:I'll write myself notes.
Speaker:I'll say, write this thing tomorrow.
Speaker:This is what happens next, so I don't forget.
Speaker:That was literally just gonna be my next question.
Speaker:At the end of the day, do you have a little summary for yourself and when
Speaker:you start a writing session, do you have to reread a significant amount
Speaker:or is it just you have a summary?
Speaker:Oh, I'll have a little summary.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't tend to, I don't tend to go back and reread until I start
Speaker:editing and start messing with it.
Speaker:I try not to do that thing where I know a lot of writers will sit down
Speaker:and read everything they wrote up to that point and then go from there.
Speaker:And I just feel like every day it would just get longer and longer to read that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I'll write myself notes.
Speaker:I will say, this is what happens next, I don't know where this person is.
Speaker:Double check your notes to find out where that person is,
Speaker:because they should be here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And yeah, especially when you're dealing with something
Speaker:that has so many characters.
Speaker:It was like the apocalyptic book is in a neighborhood and so I've
Speaker:named a lot of the neighbors and I keep giving them different names.
Speaker:So finally I made myself a list of characters and their addresses
Speaker:so I knew where they were.
Speaker:And what their kids' names were, and so I could find people again.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I'll write myself those notes.
Speaker:Remember who lives across the street and you have to have that person come over.
Speaker:And then I'll go look it up.
Speaker:That's cool.
Speaker:Yeah, I was gonna say that when you've got that sort of enclosed
Speaker:or a finite space, a neighborhood.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you ever draw maps, so you actually have that physical
Speaker:and visual representation?
Speaker:I have done that before.
Speaker:This map I mostly have in my head cuz it's based on a neighborhood that I knew.
Speaker:But yeah, I have done that before, I've done it for this one once because there's
Speaker:a fire in one of the houses and I had to figure out which house was near and
Speaker:who lived there, as I couldn't remember.
Speaker:So I had like little boxes on a page with the addresses and the people's names
Speaker:to figure out whose house burned down, which seems so mean to my characters.
Speaker:You're just a drawing on the page, sorry about your house.
Speaker:And you mentioned earlier how you can write until you're not
Speaker:quite sure what happens next.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You need a bit of a thinking time.
Speaker:If you get really stuck, if you really can't think, those uninspired periods,
Speaker:is it a waiting game of just, okay I'll just wait for the creative part of my
Speaker:brain to work through that problem.
Speaker:Or do you have any processes that like help move it along?
Speaker:Do you do writing exercises?
Speaker:Do you go for walks?
Speaker:To just start day drinking and hope for the best?
Speaker:How do you get through the uninspired periods?
Speaker:Two things.
Speaker:One thing, when I was teaching writing, one thing I would tell
Speaker:my students, waiting for the muse, you're gonna be waiting all day.
Speaker:It's not gonna happen.
Speaker:If you do the thing, it like changes your brain chemistry and
Speaker:then you can do more of the thing.
Speaker:So sit down and even if you write, this is garbage, this sucks, I can't believe
Speaker:I'm doing this, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:I went to the store.
Speaker:And it'll start to help your brain.
Speaker:And that creativity is problem solving.
Speaker:So when you sit down with nothing, if I said to a student, write me a story.
Speaker:They're gonna go, meugh.
Speaker:I dunno what to write about.
Speaker:But if I say, write me a story about a dog that can talk that's on another
Speaker:planet that's waiting on a train.
Speaker:They'll go, ooh.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And their brain tries to figure out how to fix it.
Speaker:And so when I'm stuck, I will either start asking myself questions, and I
Speaker:try to stick with the yes and no's.
Speaker:Because if I ask myself open-ended questions sometimes I get stuck.
Speaker:But I will also do things to let my, I call it my back brain.
Speaker:If, and I've had this before, especially like on that first novel I worked
Speaker:on with Angel, there was this one thing I knew something was missing.
Speaker:And it was driving me crazy and I said to her, something's missing.
Speaker:I don't know what it is, something's missing.
Speaker:And so I would go driving.
Speaker:I can't drive here in the UK yet.
Speaker:I know that's sad, I still have to get my license.
Speaker:I have my learners permit, but I haven't got my license.
Speaker:But I lived near the country and so I would just go out driving.
Speaker:Or here, I'll go for a walk or I'll go do dishes.
Speaker:I'll do something mindless and my back brain will figure it out because it was
Speaker:always there, it was just hiding from me.
Speaker:And I remember that day I called her, I said, Are you home?
Speaker:I'm coming over.
Speaker:And I walked into her kitchen and I said, I figured it out.
Speaker:We did the jumping up and down and yaying.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I said, Okay, now I have to go home and write.
Speaker:But yeah, so it's either start asking questions and kind of
Speaker:interrogate my way out of the hole.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or go do something else and distract myself and let my brain take a break.
Speaker:Yeah, and it will come up with the solution if there's a particular
Speaker:gnarly thing I can't figure out.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And question I like to delve in with all guests on the show is imposter syndrome.
Speaker:And I used to have like, have you ever had it to realizing that
Speaker:actually all writers have it.
Speaker:It's, and it's always there.
Speaker:Is there a particular point that you, it really hits in a writing project?
Speaker:Because I know sometimes, when you first start, you all excited
Speaker:and it's like getting the words down, like all nice and creative.
Speaker:Do you get to a certain, like word count or second act, third act,
Speaker:where the doubt creeps in and you begin to lose faith in a project.
Speaker:And how do you push past that to complete?
Speaker:It's hard.
Speaker:Threadings been on the shelf for two, two years and I still have been
Speaker:imposter syndrome about that book, and it's been published for two years.
Speaker:It's a weird thing to ask because I spent so many years teaching newer writers at
Speaker:university, and so I would have to talk to them about this exact thing and be really
Speaker:honest about them and say, I do this too.
Speaker:I need you guys to not do this because you have a deadline.
Speaker:But I know where you're coming from because I do it all the time myself.
Speaker:And so one of my mantras I came up with, which is, it's obnoxious
Speaker:as hell, but it's, why not me?
Speaker:You know, you see other people with success or they publish something
Speaker:or they do whatever, and you start to think that they have this golden
Speaker:shine, but then you know them and you know they're just a schmo like you.
Speaker:You go to a pub, you know their secrets, you know they're like just a nerd.
Speaker:And so I think, then why not me?
Speaker:I've worked hard.
Speaker:I've done this thing.
Speaker:And that's not even just writing.
Speaker:I think everybody does that in life and yeah and there's that funny little thing
Speaker:that goes around that's like everybody, everybody feels like this all the time.
Speaker:Like we all think we're still 12.
Speaker:We're all faking it till we make it.
Speaker:And so I try to get outta my own head and think about that stuff.
Speaker:And I do look at my little shelf of books and anthologies
Speaker:and I think I've done this.
Speaker:People wouldn't buy it if they thought it was shit.
Speaker:So that's a good thing.
Speaker:That, that kind of proves to me that I'm not a loser.
Speaker:It's so hard.
Speaker:Man, writers, we are sad and pathetic, messy things.
Speaker:We seriously are, we are a mess.
Speaker:And it feels like so much of our life is chasing that, gold star sticker.
Speaker:And for somebody to say, Oh, you did a good job and you're like, thank you.
Speaker:Because you don't hear it often enough.
Speaker:And that's why it's so great.
Speaker:I have so many writer friends and I read their books.
Speaker:I say, Oh, this was great.
Speaker:I love this.
Speaker:This was awesome.
Speaker:Cause I know what it feels like when somebody reminds you
Speaker:that you can actually do this.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And it's one of the gifts of this show, I think, is being able to talk to
Speaker:writers about it and seeing that shared experience that you all have and yeah,
Speaker:being able to publish this out in the world so other writers can listen to
Speaker:it and go, Oh, okay, it's not just me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because it is such a isolating experience, it's so insular.
Speaker:But then I guess like working with Val on the Hot To write Spec Fic book is
Speaker:quite a liberating experience because you are riffing off each other and
Speaker:having someone that spur each other on.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:And we're using our experience and there's that thing where you start to think,
Speaker:who am I to write a book about writing?
Speaker:And I'm like, I'm somebody who has a PhD in writing and spent 10 years as
Speaker:a university lecturer, and yeah, I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Speaker:And he's the same.
Speaker:So that's who I am to do this.
Speaker:I've built my own expertise and my own experience in this.
Speaker:And I'm, right now another project I'm working on building is to
Speaker:actually build online writing courses.
Speaker:With somebody else, with somebody else who's also got a PhD and
Speaker:is also a published author.
Speaker:And so we're working on building the courses.
Speaker:And that keeps coming in.
Speaker:I keep thinking, why would somebody like, buy a course that I did?
Speaker:And I'm like, because I did it for a living, because I've done this stuff.
Speaker:Yeah, why not me?
Speaker:And going more onto the editing side now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause it's,
Speaker:I love editing.
Speaker:The old adage, writing is rewriting.
Speaker:With your own work, you just said there that you love rewriting, do
Speaker:you like to write complete drafts?
Speaker:So just you go, Okay, that's draft number one, now I'm
Speaker:gonna rewrite the whole thing.
Speaker:Or do you like to rework individual scenes and go, no, I just wanna get this section
Speaker:right before I move on to the next one?
Speaker:I tend to redo individual scenes.
Speaker:When I'm working on a short story, I'll try to get through to the end of a draft.
Speaker:So one of the mantras I taught my students was, we can edit shit on
Speaker:a page, but not shit in your head.
Speaker:And so I'm a firm believer in just writing the crappiest first
Speaker:draft because get it on the page, we can do something with that.
Speaker:And I spent so many years working with writers that it's really honed my editing
Speaker:chops and I look at my own stuff much better than I did at the beginning.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so with a short story, I'll get through to the end and then I'll
Speaker:go back and start messing with it.
Speaker:But with a novel because it's just such a big monster, I'll get to the end and
Speaker:then that's when I think, okay now.
Speaker:Because as you, as you write a book, you discover things.
Speaker:And something will happen.
Speaker:I think, oh, I've gotta go back and add this thing to this earlier chapter.
Speaker:I'll write myself a note and then I'll do it after I finish the whole draft.
Speaker:I try to.
Speaker:The apocalyptic book is a bit a different animal, cuz it has been
Speaker:built in so many different pieces.
Speaker:It was originally, each chapter was a different month and then I realized
Speaker:that wasn't gonna work and I made it each one a different season.
Speaker:I'm like, no, that's not gonna work either.
Speaker:So I've restructured it.
Speaker:I don't know how many times now.
Speaker:So if I ever finish it, it'll be a miracle.
Speaker:But other stuff, Yeah, I'll work on a section or a scene at a time.
Speaker:It's just easier that way.
Speaker:Otherwise you get overwhelmed.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And when you are going through your sections, do you like
Speaker:to read it off the screen?
Speaker:I know some people like to print it off and make annotations.
Speaker:So when you're looking on what to improve, how do you mark it up?
Speaker:How do you identify that's what's not working and that the pace is off?
Speaker:Every project is a little bit different.
Speaker:So when I wrote the book, it's called The Heart Scare, by the way, that first
Speaker:novel I wrote a million years ago.
Speaker:When we wrote the Heart Scare, it had three different timelines
Speaker:and all these different places.
Speaker:And so we got to the point where we had note cards and each scene was a different
Speaker:color for a different POV character.
Speaker:And in the corner we wrote like where they were, whether there
Speaker:was peril or not, all the things.
Speaker:And used my living room and laid 'em out on the floor to figure out
Speaker:what order to put things back into.
Speaker:So we did the physical thing of that.
Speaker:When I do short stories, I tend to print them because it doesn't
Speaker:take a whole lot of anchor paper.
Speaker:And I'll tend to edit on the page I'll write.
Speaker:And that's what I used to do with students until Covid happened.
Speaker:And then, I couldn't print and I couldn't see people, so I got much
Speaker:better at doing it on the screen.
Speaker:Because I was a proofreader for a while.
Speaker:I was an editor.
Speaker:I edited and wrote textbooks for several years.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And so I got used to writing on proofs, but I've had to
Speaker:shift to doing it on a screen.
Speaker:Yeah, so for books, I'll write notes because it's too much to print it out.
Speaker:So I might draw out a structure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Was there another part of that question I lost?
Speaker:I don't think so.
Speaker:We have been drinking a fair amount of gin.
Speaker:Oh, I haven't had that much.
Speaker:Oh, I'm on my third.
Speaker:I'm just-
Speaker:Are you?
Speaker:I'm actively listening and just constantly re topping.
Speaker:Oh, I'm trying not to make noise on the microphone, so I
Speaker:haven't had that much of mine.
Speaker:I've got a directing mic, so I can just like tip my head to one side, you're not
Speaker:even hearing the glass, the ice tinkle.
Speaker:I should have got a straw.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This is why I brought the bottle to the interview.
Speaker:Yeah, I was gonna ask this with that editing, do you read
Speaker:aloud your work to yourself?
Speaker:Never.
Speaker:You just, no.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:No?
Speaker:I know a lot of people say, and they say, oh, you should read your work aloud.
Speaker:Thousands of years ago, we told stories orally.
Speaker:We didn't have written language or what have you, or a lot
Speaker:of people couldn't read.
Speaker:So we told stories and that was a natural thing.
Speaker:We don't do that now.
Speaker:I know a lot of people listen to audio books, which is cool.
Speaker:They put me to sleep, but I can't listen to them.
Speaker:For me, reading something aloud to find stuff is really artificial.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I don't tend to do it, which if other people wanna do it fine,
Speaker:it's just not my, it's not my jam.
Speaker:No, that's all right.
Speaker:At all.
Speaker:I think it, it's good to have that opposing view, because recently I have
Speaker:had a lot of people you know, I just put everyone's opinions out and then it's
Speaker:the listeners to make their own judgment.
Speaker:No, but it's good to hear a published writer who has taught creative writing,
Speaker:who's writing a book on creative writing, who has like multiple books
Speaker:out, that and multiple stories out.
Speaker:And doesn't read them aloud because yes, you do hear that as a piece of advice.
Speaker:It's just proving the point that you don't have to, and that if you don't
Speaker:read your story aloud, it doesn't mean that you're not a writer.
Speaker:It doesn't mean that it's not gonna be any good.
Speaker:No, not at all.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's just a different process.
Speaker:So yeah, I'm actually quite happy when I do hear the same piece
Speaker:of advice over and over and then someone goes, Yeah, I don't do that.
Speaker:Poetry's different.
Speaker:Poetry's more of a performance thing, it makes sense.
Speaker:But for prose it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Speaker:And as far as finding mistakes, I pride myself on, in handing in like the cleanest
Speaker:copy I can, as far as like typos and spelling and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:It's sometimes the bigger things that I can't see anymore, that's
Speaker:when I need somebody else.
Speaker:That's why I need my editor or somebody to say okay, you know.
Speaker:This transitions lovely onto the next question, which is once you've
Speaker:got the story the best it can in isolation, who reads it next?
Speaker:Does it go to an editor directly or do you have Beta readers?
Speaker:Is it your partner?
Speaker:Who's the first person to read it once you are happy with it?
Speaker:Okay my partner, he's literate, but he doesn't read fiction.
Speaker:I think he might have read like one erotica story I wrote.
Speaker:I don't know if he's ever read anything else.
Speaker:That's cool.
Speaker:He's got his own stuff.
Speaker:No, that's fine.
Speaker:Plus, I don't think, and I tell my students this all the time, unless your
Speaker:mom or your dad is actually a writer or in publishing your mom's gonna
Speaker:love everything that comes outta you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So don't don't use them for a beta reader.
Speaker:But I have a writing group that meets in London.
Speaker:And when I lived in London, I would go in person and now we've gone
Speaker:online because of the pandemic.
Speaker:And so if I have something, I'll give it to them.
Speaker:If it's the time of year that's right, I will give it to Milford.
Speaker:I go to Milford every other year.
Speaker:The Milford writers workshop up in Wales.
Speaker:And so they've seen a lot of my stuff.
Speaker:They saw a first bit of the novel of Threading when it first was being created.
Speaker:And what they saw has nothing to do with what the book ended up being at all.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They said, no, this isn't working.
Speaker:They'll see it and then like for Unsung, George, Dan saw at Unsung and
Speaker:I got, they said, you need to work on the theme here and this, you need
Speaker:to get rid of this POV character.
Speaker:And so the big stuff we worked on together.
Speaker:So I don't have a single person I send it to.
Speaker:I have different groups of people depending on what's going on in the
Speaker:world and where I am in it and where the schedule, the year is, et cetera.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:And with your academic background, obviously your first published novel being
Speaker:your PhD project, your experience with editing must be like slightly different.
Speaker:Cause with that it's I need to do what my tutor says, because I want to get my PhD.
Speaker:So I feel there's quite a power balance there.
Speaker:Did you feel that you could argue the point with that editing process
Speaker:or, and how's your view of editing as you've also taught creative writing?
Speaker:Can it still sting?
Speaker:Can it still be, oh, damnit they're right, or they're wrong and I'm gonna write a
Speaker:strongly worded letter why they're wrong.
Speaker:Or is it just I need that input and they're there to make it
Speaker:better and I crave that feedback.
Speaker:What's your approach to an editor?
Speaker:When I wrote Threading, I had two supervisors.
Speaker:My main, my first supervisor was Farah Mendlesohn, and she
Speaker:mainly supervised me through the nonfiction, through the dissertation.
Speaker:My dissertation was space and time and gardens.
Speaker:So it was like theories of space and time in fictional gardens and
Speaker:in real gardens and time travel and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:My second supervisor was for the fiction.
Speaker:And unfortunately I got a few of 'em pregnant.
Speaker:I kept going through second supervisors.
Speaker:They just kept, they kept going on mat leave and then one quit
Speaker:the day after I first met her.
Speaker:It got to the point where Farah said, Do not breathe near any
Speaker:of my other lecturers, cuz they keep going on Mat leave.
Speaker:And I ended up with Una McCormack, amazingly.
Speaker:She ended up being my final second supervisor who got me through the
Speaker:end, the really the bulk, middle, and end of writing that book.
Speaker:Oh man, she's really good at planning everything.
Speaker:She knows when she sits down to write a book, she knows every chapter and
Speaker:every scene and exactly what happens.
Speaker:And then here I show up this complete mess going, here's all my stuff.
Speaker:So she helped me focus a lot more and that was really good.
Speaker:But as far as feedback, it was, so you do have supervisors when
Speaker:you do a PhD, but it's your PhD.
Speaker:And so you own it and you're an adult.
Speaker:And they'll say, I think you should do this.
Speaker:And you sit and you think, okay, yeah, I can totally see that.
Speaker:Or you can decide that's not what you wanna do.
Speaker:Whereas, if it's an editor at a publishing house who's actually gonna
Speaker:publish your book, you tend to listen to them because they're doing this for
Speaker:a living, for their living, et cetera.
Speaker:And over the years, from doing the PhD, from being in writing groups, from
Speaker:going to a bunch of different writing workshops, I've been to some harsher than
Speaker:others, I've grown a really thick skin.
Speaker:I don't really have any problems with people giving me feedback,
Speaker:even if it seems harsh.
Speaker:I'm okay with it.
Speaker:And that's something that was sometimes difficult to deal with when I was
Speaker:teaching, cuz I had new baby chicken writers who had never done workshopping
Speaker:before or nobody else had ever read their work before and they had to
Speaker:suddenly share it and talk about it.
Speaker:And so it, it got me to be a lot more sensitive about certain things,
Speaker:but at the same time I'm very, not mean, but is forthright the word?
Speaker:Uh, yes, it can be.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I would tell students like, this isn't working, but here's why it's not working.
Speaker:And I think that's the important thing is if you give somebody feedback,
Speaker:it's not just fix this, it's fix this because here's, x, y, z that
Speaker:isn't working that you can improve.
Speaker:And so I think it's, people say it's constructive criticism, but
Speaker:I think it needs to be really deeply thought through criticism.
Speaker:And so you show I know what I'm talking about, I'm not just pulling this outta
Speaker:my ass that I think this is garbage.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Basically.
Speaker:No, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And when a project, especially when you've worked on projects for so
Speaker:many years, is there like a grieving period once a project's actually done
Speaker:and once it's actually signed off?
Speaker:Or is it just a sense of relief of just oh, it's done.
Speaker:I can actually move on to other things.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Both actually.
Speaker:Yeah, cuz it's great to have it done.
Speaker:And like right now, Val and I are working toward this deadline
Speaker:at the end of September.
Speaker:We got delayed a bit because of life stuff.
Speaker:And so once it's done be like, whoa, that's great.
Speaker:Finished.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cuz I have other things waiting in the wings I haven't had time to do.
Speaker:But yeah, when you finish a big thing, you do have this moment of, I don't
Speaker:know what to do with myself next.
Speaker:I have all this other stuff.
Speaker:But so much time and focus was put into this one and now
Speaker:you've taken it away from me.
Speaker:I don't know how to switch gears to this other thing yet and
Speaker:you you kind of need a break.
Speaker:Even if it's just a few days, where you just go and faff and go get a
Speaker:massage and get a pedicure or do whatever you need to do, while you're
Speaker:thinking the new thing cuz it feels.
Speaker:It'll start, it feels too much like production line if I go from one
Speaker:thing to the next, within a day.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When something has finished, do you have any kind of ritual, open about
Speaker:all or bubbly, go on a holiday?
Speaker:Do you have anything that you do to celebrate or just take
Speaker:a break for a couple of days.
Speaker:How do you deal with the time between projects?
Speaker:After I finished Threading, it was a lot of, I can now go
Speaker:to the movies or read for fun.
Speaker:So it was a lot of that because it was such a different project.
Speaker:For other smaller projects and for the one, yeah, because Threading
Speaker:came out and lockdown happened.
Speaker:I didn't have all of my in-person signings and launches were all
Speaker:canceled, everything was gone.
Speaker:So it was very sad trombone.
Speaker:It was very, like, when I signed the contract, I was at Fantasy Con.
Speaker:And I signed the contract and went to go on a panel and I told everybody,
Speaker:I had just signed a contract, everybody clapped and it was awesome.
Speaker:And I had some drinks that night.
Speaker:But because with a book you have signing the contract, going through edits, handing
Speaker:in the final thing, waiting for the cover reveal, waiting for it to hit the shelves,
Speaker:there's so many different stages of stuff.
Speaker:If you drink for all those, you'll never stop drinking.
Speaker:That's a problem.
Speaker:So, so it's like you have to pick which one's gonna be your big thing.
Speaker:And so what I do when I finish stuff is I buy a piece of jewelry.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I bought, I bought myself a Alex Monroe bee from Liberty
Speaker:when I finished Threading.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was awesome cuz I'd quoted his autobiography in my dissertation.
Speaker:And it's a bee cause I love bees.
Speaker:And so I got to go to Liberty and buy something fancy and expensive
Speaker:in the purple bag and all that crap.
Speaker:And then when Threading was coming out, I bought myself a bracelet.
Speaker:So yeah, I buy myself a little thing to celebrate.
Speaker:And then, and then sit in pajamas all day in my office.
Speaker:And nobody sees my cool jewelry.
Speaker:And would you pick something out before you finish the project?
Speaker:Is it, we need to finish this project so I can get the thing, or
Speaker:is it you finished the project and then it's just okay, now I'm just
Speaker:gonna look for something that fits?
Speaker:I've done both.
Speaker:The bee I knew I wanted the bee.
Speaker:Yeah, like I knew, Oh, I knew I wanted the bee, and I wanted
Speaker:go to Liberty cuz Liberty is, I would live in liberty if I could.
Speaker:It's such a pretty store.
Speaker:I can't afford it, but it's so pretty.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But when Threading was finally coming out, I was at this one store that has
Speaker:this great jewelry and I said, Ooh, I wanna buy myself a new cute Animaly thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so I knew what I wanted, but I hadn't picked out one before.
Speaker:And so that was fun.
Speaker:But when I, when I got my first royalties from Threading, I bought
Speaker:a piece of art from an artist I always wanna buy a piece of art from.
Speaker:It's in the hallway.
Speaker:It's a Margaret Walty.
Speaker:She's always exhibits at EasterCon and she does very gardeny drawings and
Speaker:it'll be like flowers with dragon heads.
Speaker:I mean, I was kind of leading up to, is there a piece of jewelry or
Speaker:art that you have your eye on for finishing as you have a project that
Speaker:you are hopefully finishing in a month?
Speaker:I don't.
Speaker:Oh gosh.
Speaker:No, you know what, isn't that funny?
Speaker:I haven't thought about it and now I'm gonna think about it cuz yeah, when I
Speaker:turn in, when we turn in Spec Fic in a month and then it comes out next Easter.
Speaker:Yeah, so depending on the next few months, I might wait for right before
Speaker:EasterCon and go find my special jewelry.
Speaker:And it'll have to be something science fiction, fantasy themed.
Speaker:Yeah definitely.
Speaker:And I have my last two questions, but I feel that we've answered them already,
Speaker:cause it's just, is anything you've learned from a previous story that
Speaker:you're now applying to your latest work?
Speaker:I think we covered that with outlining?
Speaker:I think the fact that you are now outlining, so I'm gonna
Speaker:modify a bit, because you are writing a book about writing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Is there anything that you've learned now on this project that you think
Speaker:you might apply to future writing?
Speaker:Oh my gosh, that's such a difficult thing because this project is nonfiction
Speaker:because I'm writing it with somebody else.
Speaker:And I'm taking all that stuff that is, it is internalized.
Speaker:Like, one thing as we're writing, I keep thinking, Oh, I need
Speaker:to cite a source for this.
Speaker:And I think, but I don't have one, this is me.
Speaker:This is what I used to teach.
Speaker:And so because of that, it's such a different animal from writing fiction.
Speaker:But I think maybe using Google Docs has been nice.
Speaker:Like using the tech's been nice.
Speaker:So because you're working with Val, and so you're getting his
Speaker:input on the projects as well and his opinions on writing things.
Speaker:And because it's covering so many genres and you've had to do
Speaker:some research into those genres.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:You would've definitely have had opinions about these, these
Speaker:sub genres before you started.
Speaker:But with the input of Val and the research you've done in producing this book, has
Speaker:any of those opinions changed or modified that you think, actually, what I was
Speaker:thinking before I'm slightly different, I'm a slightly different person coming
Speaker:out of this book than I was before?
Speaker:In a way, I am a slightly different person coming outta this, because
Speaker:you know, I used to write textbooks.
Speaker:I've written articles and that kind of non-fiction stuff.
Speaker:But doing something like this that, that students are gonna pick up,
Speaker:that other writers are gonna pick up.
Speaker:That's gonna last a little bit longer than like an online blog article or something.
Speaker:It has shown me that I can do this and I have stuff to say and I do know stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:As conceited and shitty as that sounds, I know stuff.
Speaker:I've spent lots of years knowing stuff.
Speaker:Yeah and so I, I've worked with other writer before, but doing this project
Speaker:has shown me how much fun it can be.
Speaker:And one thing that Val and I do, when we have something to say to the
Speaker:other person that might be a little scratchy, we're like, do you trust me?
Speaker:Yes, I trust you.
Speaker:And that's like the code of, okay, I'm gonna tell you a thing, but I'm saying
Speaker:it from my heart and from our shared friendship we've had for so long.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Safe.
Speaker:It's a safe space.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And so working on this makes me now, I'd love to write more non-fiction books.
Speaker:I'd love to do this more cuz it's so much fun to do this research.
Speaker:And as far as the content, that's changed me in a way because there's
Speaker:always sub genres I know about, right?
Speaker:Yeah and I've read my students work and I've been talking about
Speaker:in class and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:But actually having to sit down and process all of them.
Speaker:Now there's so many that I want to write in more.
Speaker:And there's certain things like theme.
Speaker:Theme is one of those elements that I've just hammer on about to
Speaker:my students, I have for years and they look at me like I'm crazy.
Speaker:And I've had to figure out new ways to explain it every time to get students
Speaker:to really get what I'm talking about.
Speaker:And I've had to do it here again.
Speaker:And so having to do this has brought home to me how to explain things better,
Speaker:easier, more clearly, with more humor.
Speaker:I'm doing the hand signals again, doing hand gestures.
Speaker:Yeah, that's really exciting.
Speaker:I think having genre or just creative writing text about theme and about
Speaker:different elements yeah, of the writing process would be really good
Speaker:and it would definitely worth reading.
Speaker:I hope so.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause some writing books out there are they're really serious.
Speaker:They feel like they take themselves a bit too seriously.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it could be quite hard, I think, with some writing books
Speaker:where they're encompassing so much of the writing process.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it might be that there's a writer who's struggling on theme, you know, on,
Speaker:on a specific part of the writing process.
Speaker:So you can get the component that you're struggling on and just read that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the one thing, because of the way this book is put together, so we do have
Speaker:a list of different writing elements and in certain places where it's
Speaker:natural, we've talked about an element.
Speaker:Some of them are science fiction, fantasy specific, like magic systems.
Speaker:Okay, this is the right place, I'm gonna talk about magic systems for a paragraph.
Speaker:Other spots it might be, Oh, let me talk about mood versus tone.
Speaker:And so we haven't covered everything, it's not that kind of book.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it's more, let's talk about this fun sub genre.
Speaker:You like this and by the way, I'm gonna teach you a little bit more
Speaker:about mood versus tone that maybe you didn't know that you didn't know.
Speaker:Instead of, let's go element by element and really bore the pants off you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And my final question is, and again, I feel that you've answered this
Speaker:before, so I might ask it in a different way cuz it's, what's the
Speaker:one piece of advice you find yourself returning to when you're writing?
Speaker:And you did mention the "why not me" earlier.
Speaker:As someone who's taught students, so many, is there.
Speaker:If any of your students said, Yeah, Dr.
Speaker:Angus had a, a catchphrase.
Speaker:One thing that you feel that you are known for as giving a piece
Speaker:of advice, what would that be?
Speaker:I know they would all come back and say, what I say is we can edit shit
Speaker:on a page, but not shit in your head.
Speaker:And I'd say it just like that, I curse in class cuz they're grownups, but yeah.
Speaker:And they would all look at me and go, Oh, she, she said shit twice.
Speaker:I'm like, yes cuz that's important.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That was the thing you know, you gotta get over yourself and you've
Speaker:gotta get over the fear and the anxiety of what you're writing is
Speaker:garbage cuz it's gonna be garbage.
Speaker:But I don't have ESP, I can't help you edit something that you're thinking about.
Speaker:And that's the same thing for me.
Speaker:I can't edit the stuff that I'm thinking about.
Speaker:I actually have to see if it's gonna work on the page and then I can edit it nice.
Speaker:For years.
Speaker:Until I'm ready to let it go.
Speaker:I think that's a, a nice place to, to end for now.
Speaker:And I feel like in a few years we'll have you back and see what's happening then.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:That would be awesome.
Speaker:But for today, Tiffany Angus, thank you very much for being a
Speaker:guest on the Real Writing process.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:This was a lot of fun.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And that was the real writing process of Tiffany Angus.
Speaker:I hope you found lots of interesting little nuggets of wisdom in there.
Speaker:Her next book, Spec Fic for Newbies (or whatever the final title will be) is
Speaker:co-written with Val Nolan and shall be released by Luna press publishing in 2023.
Speaker:And as soon as it's available for pre-order, I will be
Speaker:posting it on my socials.
Speaker:Now, I'm publishing this shortly after Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter., So
Speaker:I'll say Tiffany is currently on Twitter.
Speaker:Um, but I will link to her website in the show notes as it has her blog
Speaker:and lists all her published work, as well as her social media accounts.
Speaker:Uh, which might be subject to change.
Speaker:This is also going out midway through national novel writing month,
Speaker:often abbreviated to NaNoWriMo.
Speaker:So to all those taking part, I wish you well.
Speaker:You're a bunch of lunatics who must be overcome with self-loathing.
Speaker:You have my sympathies.
Speaker:In the meantime, to everyone listening, look after yourselves and keep writing.
