Episode 206

full
Published on:

8th May 2022

The Real Writing Process of Tim Sullivan

Hollywood screenwriter, director, and best-selling crime novelist, Tim Sullivan, discusses how he managed to get over 200,000 book sales via self publishing, the importance of knowing the locations in his novels, and what is key to a good crime novel.

You can find all of Tim's info here: https://timsullivan.co.uk/

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Transcript
Tom:

Hello, and welcome to the real writing process.

Tom:

I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.

Tom:

And this episode, my guest is the Hollywood screenwriter, director and now

Tom:

bestselling crime author, Tim Sullivan.

Tom:

Now Tim has the kind of illustrious career that you can spend a lot of

Tom:

time going over his back catalog.

Tom:

It's definitely worth checking out a lot of the films and TV that he's worked on.

Tom:

But quite honestly, He's now writing books set in Bristol.

Tom:

I live in Bristol.

Tom:

I was born in Bristol.

Tom:

Bristol is in my blood.

Tom:

I have questions.

Tom:

Especially because he doesn't live in Bristol.

Tom:

And the books are really good.

Tom:

But, yeah, so that's what we focus on.

Tom:

That's what he's writing at the moment.

Tom:

The DS Cross crime thrillers.

Tom:

So you've got The Dentist, The Cyclist, The Patient.

Tom:

And coming out in November 2022 has just been announced, The Politician.

Tom:

If you'd like crime books, give them a read.

Tom:

They're really, really good.

Tom:

And he self-published the first two.

Tom:

And sold over 200,000 copies.

Tom:

Before getting a traditional publisher to pick him up and he's now doing two

Tom:

with them and seeing how that goes.

Tom:

When you self publish to that level of success, I have questions.

Tom:

And we get into it.

Tom:

And for the writers amongst you, have a notepad and pen to hand,

Tom:

you will want to take notes.

Tom:

This is a guy who has great pedigree with his writing.

Tom:

We really go into that with this episode, I think it's really good.

Tom:

If you want to understand a successful writer's process.

Tom:

The granular detail in this and the advice that has given, he's

Tom:

just really generous with this.

Tom:

So thank you, Tim.

Tom:

He's also the chair of the Writers Guild of America.

Tom:

In brackets, west.

Tom:

Cause it's so fucking big it's got two.

Tom:

Um, and yeah, so he's just, he's very generous with his time.

Tom:

Really pleased to have him on the show.

Tom:

Really good guest.

Tom:

And I think my questions were all right.

Tom:

Anyway.

Tom:

Let's not hang about.

Tom:

Jingle interview outro.

Tom:

Let's go.

Tom:

Hello and welcome.

Tom:

This week, I'm very pleased to say my guest is Tim Sullivan, Tim.

Tom:

Hello?

Tim:

Hi.

Tim:

How are you?

Tom:

I'm very well, thank you.

Tom:

My first question as always is what are we drinking?

Tim:

Because it's four o'clock in the afternoon, we're drinking Diet

Tim:

Coke, but it would normally be tea.

Tim:

I'm a bit of a tea, I'm a tea obsessive.

Tom:

Okay.

Tim:

I have to have loose leaf tea.

Tim:

In fact my characters are the same, probably for me.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

But I've had enough tea by now that I have to stop.

Tom:

Something a bit sweeter, but still getting that caffeine.

Tim:

Something that kind of says, oh, it's almost the end of the day.

Tom:

Little treat a little treat at the end of the day.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tom:

Okay, great.

Tom:

And where I'm speaking to you now, is this your office, is

Tom:

this where you do your writing?

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

So this is my office, the top of my house.

Tim:

It's been my children's room for years as a nursery.

Tim:

And then well, I had it as a study first.

Tim:

And then they came along.

Tim:

So I was booted out and then they wanted their own rooms, so I couldn't

Tim:

get back in, but now they've left home.

Tim:

So I've now got my own little writing heaven, garrett.

Tom:

Excellent.

Tom:

So how long has since they've left?

Tom:

How long have you had this as your writing space?

Tim:

Couple of years.

Tim:

Never really had a proper writing space before.

Tim:

Always dreamt of having a shed in the back of the garden.

Tim:

But frankly, the garden's not big enough.

Tim:

I live in London,

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

And do you find having a separate space, has that really helped

Tom:

you focus in on your writing?

Tom:

Do you find that your writing sessions are more productive or that

Tom:

your writing sessions are longer?

Tim:

My writing sessions became more productive when I

Tim:

made my working day shorter.

Tom:

Okay.

Tim:

I discovered this years ago, that my best writing time is in the morning.

Tim:

I have to answer your question.

Tim:

Yes, I need a separate place.

Tim:

I used to have an office in Soho, but it just got so expensive.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

I need that notion of when you write, it's all almost like you're in a

Tim:

parallel universe to other people.

Tim:

That your work isn't really serious or proper.

Tim:

And in fact, the pandemic's been, one of the benefits of it, is that

Tim:

other people now work at home.

Tim:

They understand what I do.

Tim:

But my routine is I tend to work really well in the morning.

Tim:

And ever since I, I said to myself four o'clock, I don't write anymore.

Tim:

I might, I can edit, I don't stop working at four, but I don't have

Tim:

to write beyond four o'clock.

Tim:

Because otherwise it was just an endless end of day.

Tim:

I could stop it any time.

Tim:

It's really focused it, which has been quite cool.

Tom:

That's good.

Tom:

And do you work in silence?

Tom:

Do you like having an ambient music?

Tim:

It depends.

Tim:

It depends where I'm at really.

Tom:

Okay.

Tim:

I write longhand.

Tim:

I'm a fountain pen obsessive as well.

Tim:

I keep saying obsessive.

Tim:

Yeah, my process is I write longhand.

Tim:

And then I I write in long notebooks and then I put that into the computer.

Tim:

And then I've got a wonderful iPad.

Tim:

I put it into the iPad and then I write all over the iPad.

Tom:

Okay.

Tom:

As a, as a longhand obsessive, Have you found your fountain pen?

Tom:

Do you have a collection of fountain pens that you use with different

Tom:

characters or is it just you have your very specific pen for writing?

Tim:

No, I have, I have a collection.

Tim:

And absurdly expensive collection of Pelikans, and Montblancs,

Tim:

and Parkers, and vintage LAMYs.

Tim:

And I use them.

Tim:

They all have different inks.

Tim:

I have about 15 different inks and different shades of blues and reds.

Tim:

I start in an A3.

Tim:

Very big art sketchbook, and I sketch out in different colors, different

Tim:

sections of where I think I've got ideas and then move on from there.

Tim:

But I liked the notion also that I'll write for a day and, and

Tim:

then it just delineates the day.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

Yeah, when you look back, you can really see where your prolific bits were.

Tom:

And you were saying like with the A3 and the multicolors.

Tom:

So when you're mapping out ideas, that's all free hand, long hand as well.

Tom:

And do you assign a colour for character development, a colour for plot?

Tom:

Do you break it down that way as well?

Tim:

Exactly right.

Tim:

That's exactly what I'd do.

Tim:

And it varies from book to book, but yeah cause I can often have snatches of

Tim:

dialogue from a scene two-thirds of the way through the book at the beginning.

Tim:

And I'll write those down in green, but I like to be able to

Tim:

see it in a kind of map format.

Tom:

Okay.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

I can then refer to.

Tim:

It comes from film writing, really.

Tim:

Putting scraps of pieces that move around.

Tim:

I find that really invigorating.

Tom:

So when you've got all these scraps, does that then go into an

Tom:

outline where you start mapping out the chapters and the rhythm of the book?

Tom:

Or is it more as a reference tool as you start writing your first draft?

Tim:

It's more of a reference tool.

Tim:

I mean, I tried it in the first book and it seemed to be really

Tim:

successful for this series of books.

Tim:

I know what has happened.

Tim:

I don't necessarily know how it's happened.

Tom:

Okay.

Tim:

And I don't necessarily know who's done it, but I

Tim:

probably do know who's done it.

Tim:

Because what I like to do is I like to go along and I like

Tim:

to discover as I'm writing.

Tim:

So basically, I think the what's happened, looking at the books, is

Tim:

that the detective and the reader are discovering at the same time as me.

Tom:

Okay.

Tim:

Which gives it a kind of interesting impetus, but it

Tim:

can be a bit alarming at times.

Tom:

Well, I suppose, you know, once you've done the first draft, you can go

Tom:

back and neaten things up on a second draft, but it's funny, cause I think

Tom:

with crime thrillers, a lot of people might assume that the author starts

Tom:

with the crime and then works their way back after having discovered it.

Tom:

So it's really exciting to hear that, if you go the opposite way, I mean, you very

Tom:

much are the reader for the first draft.

Tim:

Yeah, no, I I'm very much the reader and the detective is as well.

Tim:

I don't have scenes where you see a suspect as a third

Tim:

party scene with someone else.

Tim:

I don't allow myself that.

Tim:

It's quite restricted.

Tim:

Cause I don't want the reader.

Tim:

It's the same in filmmaking.

Tim:

I don't want to reader to be ahead of the movie.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

Or the book.

Tim:

Or the character in the book.

Tim:

I don't want them to know more than the character does.

Tom:

Yeah, absolutely.

Tim:

And there are times that I'm writing where I think, oh, I

Tim:

have no idea where this is going.

Tim:

And then I think that's really terrifying, but it's probably a good thing.

Tim:

Because the readers in the same place.

Tom:

Yeah, absolutely.

Tom:

It's what I liked with The Cyclist, especially is there's those characters

Tom:

where that they act suspicious, but it's more just human reality.

Tom:

It's just like people have pride, people have fear and

Tom:

people act in irrational ways.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tom:

And I feel that the personalities are very authentic.

Tom:

I felt that was a really good.

Tom:

So when developing characters like that, do you do a personality reference

Tom:

or are they kind of bits of people that you know, are they just bits of

Tom:

you, you know, sort of characters that you've seen before, how do you flesh

Tom:

out your characters in your stories?

Tim:

I think there are bits of, there are bits of people I know,

Tim:

bits of people I've observed, bits of things I've read in the papers.

Tim:

For me, the success of any good crime novel is its central character.

Tim:

And I think that to me and many people may disagree.

Tim:

To me, the character is more important than the crime,

Tim:

without a shadow of a doubt.

Tom:

That's when people return to a series, I think.

Tim:

And for me, it's not important enough to have your central character.

Tim:

You've got to have tertiary characters.

Tim:

And I think in a sense, I got that from again, from screenwriting.

Tim:

That you always need to have a good supporting cast.

Tim:

And that's how I view my books, with a good supporting cast.

Tim:

It's the same thing with, I can't bear unwarranted red herrings in crime.

Tim:

Because you can always smell them, you can always see them.

Tim:

So my red herrings, such as they are, have got to be earned.

Tim:

And as you said, it's about people's reactions and you got to understand

Tim:

you're dealing with a Detective.

Tim:

A policeman.

Tim:

And people always respond differently to policemen than they do to other people.

Tim:

Particularly if they're talking about a murder.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

It puts them on edge and that interests me.

Tim:

You know the character I, I get carried away with character.

Tim:

I just, I'm reading Truman Capote 's In Cold Blood at the moment,

Tim:

which I've never had before.

Tim:

I thought I ought to read this.

Tim:

It's just brilliant.

Tim:

And what he does is he paints the characters from documents

Tim:

and stuff of the people involved.

Tim:

And you just realize, this is a lesson in writing crime fiction, this book.

Tim:

This is what everyone's got to do.

Tim:

Atmosphere, character, and then plot.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

Breaking my own rules here and like revisiting the start of your series,

Tom:

how did the character of Cross develop?

Tom:

Cause obviously, unique selling point is that he's a brilliant

Tom:

detective, but he's on the spectrum.

Tom:

So he has those lack of social skills.

Tom:

But that's, I think that, especially in 2022, you want to make sure

Tom:

that's an accurate portrayal.

Tom:

Because otherwise you can be demonized on social media if it's an unfair

Tom:

representation or a false representation.

Tom:

Did you feel pressure creating that, and was there sort of like a

Tom:

deep dive into autistic behaviors to make sure it was accurate?

Tim:

Yeah, no, I didn't feel any pressure because I started formulating

Tim:

this character about six or seven years ago, which was before all the

Tim:

cultural appropriation and other appropriation came to the fore.

Tim:

But it's an area that had always interested me.

Tim:

From my experience of it with friends, other people, friend's children.

Tim:

And so I did a, I would say about two years research before I put pen to paper.

Tim:

And I met some of the world's leading authorities on, I mean, my character

Tim:

specifically got Aspergers, which now is more commonly referred to,

Tim:

or because Asperger was discovered in 2018 to have had links to the

Tim:

Nazi party in terms of children.

Tim:

He was passing off terrible.

Tim:

And people often refer to it now as autism spectrum disorder, but I don't like that

Tim:

because I don't think it is a disorder.

Tim:

I think that's perjorative.

Tim:

So it's autism.

Tim:

Autism spectrum condition.

Tim:

You know, some people with Aspergers prefer still to call it Aspergers

Tim:

because they don't like change.

Tim:

It's a spectrum.

Tim:

Everyone's different.

Tim:

Some people with Aspergers will want to call it autism spectrum condition

Tim:

because they need to be right.

Tim:

They have to be correct.

Tim:

But it's not a gimmick.

Tim:

It's the way he works and in a sense that, that was the most important thing to me.

Tim:

And so I've researched it diligently.

Tim:

It's not something you can make up.

Tim:

There's been a famous TV series and I won't mention the name of, and I

Tim:

thought she was portrayed very poorly.

Tim:

From an autistic point of view, I thought it was very, I

Tim:

thought it was very artificial.

Tim:

I suppose, where it came from uh essentially was when I look back

Tim:

on some of the great detectives, like Dupin and Sherlock.

Tim:

In modern day parlance would look at them and go, you know what?

Tim:

They've got, some of them, they feel like they've got attributes

Tim:

that can put them on the spectrum.

Tim:

And it's a real challenge to write accurately in that way.

Tim:

Because he, my character doesn't have gut instincts.

Tim:

He doesn't have theories.

Tim:

He goes with what's in front of him.

Tim:

As a novelist, that's really limiting, but that's the challenge.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

Because it's what makes him so great.

Tim:

And I had about 4,000 reviews on Amazon.

Tim:

And then there were a couple of my cousin's autistic, he's not like this.

Tim:

And another one said only autistic people should write autistic

Tim:

books, which is a point of view.

Tim:

But I had dozens and dozens saying, my son has Aspergers, how

Tim:

did you get insight in his head?

Tim:

And I had one, one chap who wrote saying, I run a small company and

Tim:

we've got someone in our company whose always been really talented but quite

Tim:

difficult to deal with and having read The Dentist I can see what it is.

Tim:

I bought five copies for other members of my staff, and that was a huge compliment.

Tim:

So I hope I've got it right.

Tim:

I hope that I continue to read, I continue to research.

Tim:

But yeah, there is pressure now, but I think that also, whilst you have to

Tim:

respect it, that this is also a fiction.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

Also I, personally, I always feel that people are multifaceted.

Tom:

And everyone's experience of the world is unique to them and their environmental,

Tom:

cultural, you know, and the events that have happened in their lives.

Tom:

Inevitably, you will get some people who go, I relate to this and I can't relate

Tom:

to this at all because that's a person.

Tom:

You have that with everyone.

Tom:

There, there are people you can relate to and there's people you can't.

Tom:

The fact that there is an audience that it is resonating for is brilliant.

Tom:

And I think that uh, like you said there, the person with the small business.

Tom:

When it's representation and when it's representation that people can understand.

Tom:

It is difficult when it's not your personal story, but people

Tom:

only have access to these stories if people research them.

Tom:

Because it's that double-edged sword, you can only write from your point of view.

Tom:

Then I can only write white middle-aged men.

Tom:

So you have to balance that.

Tom:

And I think, like you said, you spent two years researching

Tom:

before you put pen to paper.

Tom:

And I lived with a neurodiverse person, that's a term I use

Tom:

neurodiverse, for a number of years.

Tom:

And I certainly saw things that I recognize and things

Tom:

that resonated with me.

Tom:

But I don't term myself neuro diverse, so I, I can't deem myself as an

Tom:

authority, but I felt it was also sympathetic and it's front and center.

Tom:

And it's like you say, it's the reason for his success, not a

Tom:

hindrance that he has to overcome.

Tom:

And I think that portrayal is important and I think that's

Tom:

what is part of the appeal.

Tim:

Yeah, I mean, I think in this, you know, as I say in in the

Tim:

book, his condition is his gift.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

And um, I showed it to one expert in this country, really eminent man.

Tim:

And he just said, I've never read, I showed them a script form of it, and

Tim:

he said, I haven't read something like this where someone with Asperger's has

Tim:

been front and center of every scene.

Tim:

And I think it's fantastic.

Tim:

But you know, There are the characters and it is just what drives them.

Tim:

And, the, the reaction I've got from people is that I'm now being published.

Tim:

I self-published to start with.

Tim:

And the publishers have done research into, what people like about the books.

Tim:

And it's George.

Tim:

George is, is what, who everyone loves and feels for.

Tim:

And is infuriated by at times.

Tim:

Um, I worked with a an neurodivergent person on a film set once.

Tim:

And I didn't understand that at the time, but if you asked him to do something.

Tim:

Whatever it was, can you go and find out about A.

Tim:

He would go off to find that out about A.

Tim:

You'll then being a middle of an urgent meeting about something really critical.

Tim:

And he would just come and barge into that conversation and say, oh, A is this.

Tim:

Because that's the way his mind worked.

Tim:

He'd been sent off to do this and he must come back and report as soon as possible.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

And one thing I wanted to pick up that you just said earlier when

Tom:

you were showing the expert was that it was in a screenplay format.

Tom:

And obviously you have a background in film, before writing novels.

Tom:

Was it your initial thought to write this as either a TV series

Tom:

or a film in a screenplay form?

Tim:

That was, yeah, that was the initial thing, but I'd

Tim:

always wanted to write a novel.

Tim:

And um, once I'd written a script of it, I just thought there was so much more.

Tim:

I it's really interesting.

Tim:

I think you get more about the character from the book than you do from the script.

Tim:

And I just thought, oh forget it.

Tim:

I'm going to write this into the books.

Tim:

Oh, I'm going to see if I can.

Tim:

I didn't know if I could, so I yeah.

Tim:

I just set myself the task of seeing if I could.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

And going from the screenplay to a novel format.

Tom:

Obviously they're very different disciplines.

Tom:

What was it that made you choose to self-publish your book?

Tom:

Did you attempt to take it to traditional publishing or was it just in your

Tom:

gut that you felt that you wanted to self publish your first book?

Tim:

Not really.

Tim:

I I thought that, The thing about screenwriting is even if you're

Tim:

successful, 80% of what you write 80% of what you're paid to write,

Tim:

never sees the light of day.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

It used to always end up, on a shelf gathering dust in some executives

Tim:

office in Hollywood somewhere.

Tim:

Now it doesn't even go to script form.

Tim:

It just ends up in a file somewhere on a computer.

Tim:

And that's really frustrating.

Tim:

It's like, you know, I spent a year on Shrek 4, which is a fantastic year.

Tim:

Really enjoyed working with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Dreamworks.

Tim:

It was just brilliant.

Tim:

But at the end of it, a director came on board who just wanted to

Tim:

make a totally different movie.

Tim:

So you move on with a different writer.

Tim:

So you're left with a script in your hands, but that's it.

Tim:

Different movie.

Tim:

So with self publishing, I looked into it.

Tim:

I did a course on it.

Tim:

I invested in it financially.

Tim:

I employed Peter Mayes cover designer to do my covers and be with the

Tim:

notion that, you know, I was writing in January and I told myself I would

Tim:

publish in July and I published in July.

Tim:

And it seemed to do well.

Tim:

And then people started writing about it.

Tim:

And I thought these people have read my book.

Tim:

That's just so brilliant.

Tim:

And this was six months and then I already had the second book was already underway.

Tim:

So it was just thrilling.

Tim:

Not having to wait for publishers, not having to wait for people's opinions.

Tim:

This is me.

Tim:

Here I am.

Tim:

Unfiltered.

Tim:

Copy edited.

Tim:

And proof-read.

Tim:

Yeah, that was brilliant.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

And so now uh, the latest one, this is your first that's been written

Tom:

under a traditional publisher.

Tom:

They bought the rights to the previous ones.

Tom:

Is that right?

Tim:

Yeah.

Tom:

And so how did that develop?

Tom:

Did they approach you?

Tim:

What happened was.

Tim:

In self-publishing, the secret of self, there are several secrets of

Tim:

self publishing, but the main secret is to be able to have two books.

Tim:

And after you've sold the first book for a few months, you make it free,

Tim:

which is not as easy as it sounds.

Tim:

Because thousands of books are published free on Amazon every day.

Tim:

So the question is, how do you become visible?

Tim:

How do you get the book noticed?

Tim:

So the book had been noticed, people were reading it.

Tim:

I'd learned about Facebook advertising and Amazon advertising and then the

Tim:

second book came out in the September.

Tim:

And it's the small numbers, but on day one, I already had a one and a

Tim:

half thousand pre-orders for the book.

Tim:

That's before it's published.

Tim:

By the November, so four and a half months after the, The Dentist had been published.

Tim:

I'd had over 200,000 downloads of both books.

Tim:

And I'd been picked up by Barnes and Noble in the States when The Dentist was

Tim:

free, as their free book of the week.

Tim:

And when The Cyclist came out, they read that and they made that one of the

Tim:

top 25 must read eBooks of the fall.

Tim:

And The Dentist, when it was free, then suddenly top the charts in

Tim:

crime thrillers for like 10 weeks.

Tim:

So The Dentist wasn't being advertised anymore, but it had a life of its own.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

It was just, I was getting 150, 200 downloads a day.

Tim:

Cause it's great with Amazon cause you see it on a daily basis.

Tim:

And so my wife said to me, we both have a TV and movie background.

Tim:

She said, I don't know, but it strikes me that's quite a large number.

Tim:

And I went, well I dunno either.

Tim:

She said I think no one knows about this, cause you don't get reviewed.

Tim:

You don't get any attention as a self publisher.

Tim:

So she said, I think you need some PR.

Tim:

Because The Patient was going to come out a year ago.

Tim:

So I went, okay.

Tim:

So I I researched who are the good book PR companies.

Tim:

Came across Midas PR and said, and we did a deal that day.

Tim:

They would publicize the next book, The Patient, which was coming out,

Tim:

whatever it was, February of last year.

Tim:

And they read the book and then they went our CEO has started up a

Tim:

literary agency, can we show it to him?

Tim:

And I went, nah I'm good.

Tim:

Everything's fine.

Tim:

Self publishing lark is pretty good.

Tim:

Anyway, so he read it and went, you need to publish this, traditionally.

Tim:

This needs to be out there.

Tim:

You need more exposure.

Tim:

So Head of Zeus came on board and it's been a great experience.

Tim:

Here we are.

Tom:

That's great.

Tom:

And I want to go back a bit, but yeah, we'll have the difference

Tom:

between self-published editing and a traditional publisher editing.

Tom:

But I really just was fascinated by the fact that you said brought in

Tom:

January, I'm going to publish by July.

Tom:

And certainly with screenwriting, there is a fast turnover of draft

Tom:

and yeah, a lot of editing, which I'm sure you are confident in.

Tom:

You can get the required amount, but when the structure of a novel is so

Tom:

different from a screenplay, what was it that gave you that confidence

Tom:

that you could write that many words?

Tom:

Cause obviously there's a lot of white space on the screenplay.

Tom:

It is quite dense writing a novel.

Tom:

And so how was that mapped out?

Tom:

Was that just saying, well, I can average this many words a day.

Tom:

And so in this many months I'll have a hundred thousand words.

Tom:

How was it that calculated that you could go in January with confidence,

Tom:

it's going to be out in July?

Tim:

I don't know, just no science to it.

Tim:

It's just yeah, I should be able to do that.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

And it worked out all right.

Tim:

I did send it to, I sent the first 10,000 words to a friend of mine,

Tim:

who's a prize winning novelist.

Tim:

And teaches writing and is very honest and said look you know,

Tim:

let me know what you think.

Tim:

If it's rubbish, I'll stop.

Tim:

And then about three weeks later, I can't really say what he said,

Tim:

but it was very short and to the point that he thought it was good.

Tim:

And uh, so I had the confidence there then yeah, I believe in deadlines.

Tim:

I think deadlines are good things.

Tim:

And I believe in testing yourself and I believe in feeling nervous about stuff.

Tim:

You're better when you're, you're on edge.

Tom:

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Tom:

And I think for our listeners, it's a very different way of working from a very

Tom:

different background, but I do hope that it will resonate with some people that

Tom:

they do get energized with deadlines.

Tom:

Some people panic, but you work at best with that pressure is great.

Tom:

Um, with the drafting process.

Tom:

Cause obviously you said earlier that you're in line with the

Tom:

reader and uh George Cross in finding out what's going to happen.

Tom:

What's your rewriting process?

Tom:

So once it's got to the end, and you go, oh, they did it.

Tom:

And that's how they did it.

Tom:

Um, Is it much longer editing than the first draft?

Tom:

Did you like whip through a first draft and then spend months editing?

Tom:

Or is it kind of 50:50 of your writing time?

Tim:

It's 50:50.

Tim:

I mean, what I did when, what I learned from the online course I did was I

Tim:

managed to recruit about 30 readers, with The Cyclist about a hundred.

Tom:

Wow.

Tim:

And so I would send them a free copy.

Tim:

And asked them what they thought and then get people I didn't know,

Tim:

some people that did know and, you would find your way there.

Tim:

But I always think it's good to have a distance from something because, you know,

Tim:

you mentioned rhythm earlier and rhythm is a fundamental skill in screenwriting.

Tim:

If you, if you've got good rhythm, when you write your screenplay, that rhythm

Tim:

will translate itself into the cut.

Tim:

Despite the fact that it's gone through the filter of an actor,

Tim:

a director, and an editor.

Tim:

It will find its way.

Tim:

So when I read something, I get a sense of, ah, this is too long.

Tim:

Or in The Cyclist, I chopped away at The Cyclist.

Tim:

It's shorter than The Dentist because I'd written stuff that I

Tim:

didn't feel was moving us in the right direction when I re-read it.

Tim:

So it was quite savage in cutting it back, maybe a bit too much.

Tim:

But yeah, it's the rhythm of where you, and the thing about, discovering stuff

Tim:

along with Cross, I didn't set out knowing that would be what happened.

Tim:

I set out knowing that it's the way I wanted to write.

Tim:

I didn't know what the benefits were.

Tim:

For me, and again, it's a personal opinion.

Tim:

I don't like to have it all mapped out from A to B to C to Z Zed, because

Tim:

for me it's then painting by numbers.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

You know what's happening, you've got to fill in the scene.

Tim:

I don't want to do that.

Tim:

I want to be in that position where I don't know where to go next.

Tim:

And you know what I have done what I've been developing and what I like

Tim:

about this writing process is that I feel I have an awful lot to learn

Tim:

and I'm really willing to do it.

Tim:

So I hope I'm going to get better.

Tim:

And, I hope people will see that it gets better.

Tim:

So now I start with a crime.

Tim:

And I start in the background with an an idea of an ancillary cast.

Tim:

People with jobs.

Tim:

I dunno how they're related.

Tim:

I don't know how they come into the mix.

Tim:

And then I figure it out.

Tim:

You know, I haven't been this happy writing for years.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

You know?

Tom:

Well, I guess, you know, from what I know of screenwriting, which is next to

Tom:

nothing, but it's it's very collaborative, whether you want it to be or not,

Tom:

there's a lot of voices influencing the final product of what goes on screen.

Tom:

Like you said with Shrek 4, if a director came in, had a

Tom:

completely different vision, took on a completely different writer.

Tom:

Whenever something goes on the screen, the director has the story they want

Tom:

to tell as much as the blueprint that was given in the original screenplay.

Tom:

Dialogue might be tweaked.

Tom:

Sometimes if you have a big Hollywood megastar, they have

Tom:

their own screenwriter that writes just the way they like to speak.

Tom:

And so when you move away from that and you're just writing and it's just you.

Tom:

It's a much purer story.

Tom:

It's very much from your brain onto the page and it's not diluted or distracted

Tom:

through too many cooks, I guess.

Tom:

So I can fully understand why this makes you happier because

Tom:

they're purely your stories.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

I mean, I love writing.

Tim:

I still write film scripts.

Tim:

I'm writing two at the moment.

Tim:

It's just different.

Tim:

Dave Mamet said that filmmaking is a collaborative process.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

But in the case of the screenwriter that collaboration forms, you know,

Tim:

obeying the instruction bend over.

Tim:

But no, I, I've worked in America a lot and there's some really smart people

Tim:

working in the film industry, obviously.

Tim:

And you're lucky when you work with them, you know?

Tim:

But the thing is there's no formula, no one knows how to

Tim:

make a great film, essentially.

Tim:

It just happens.

Tim:

And it's a change.

Tim:

Change is always often welcome.

Tim:

You know, it's different having a book.

Tim:

I couldn't believe it when the hardback edition came through last week, it's

Tim:

like, oh my God, it's an actual book.

Tim:

And there's something very different watching your work.

Tim:

Watching your work as a writer on a screen is a bit more

Tim:

squirmy than reading your book.

Tom:

I know some writers feel to get the characters to have different

Tom:

voices kind of cast a rough, if it was to be a movie, actors in

Tom:

their heads for certain characters.

Tom:

Um, Is that something that you've ever done, either with

Tom:

your screenplays or with Cross?

Tom:

Is there any voice that you hear when you write Cross?

Tim:

No.

Tim:

With Cross deliberately it's an open thing.

Tim:

And then thing with movies, it's really dangerous to write for someone because

Tim:

then you can only see that someone in the part and then they don't want to do it.

Tim:

And that's devastating.

Tim:

As soon as you say, oh, X is this and the producer goes, that's great.

Tim:

And then they can't get X, it's a disaster.

Tim:

So just don't go there.

Tim:

And it's very limiting.

Tim:

I think, you know, your.

Tim:

limiting yourself to the way one person performs.

Tom:

No that's, that's a fair comment.

Tom:

A thing I do want to return to about, uh, the readers that you have when

Tom:

you got the story, it as far as you can take it before you get input.

Tom:

Thirty people are on The Dentist and a hundred people for The Cyclist.

Tom:

Um, a lot of the authors I speak to may have four beta readers or one or

Tom:

two, is it through the courses that you've taken, that you were able to

Tom:

access that large number of people?

Tom:

How do you get a group that size to read an unpublished book?

Tim:

Basically, once The Dentist had come out.

Tim:

The Dentist really was primarily people I knew, and some other people.

Tim:

By the time The Cyclist came out, I had an email list that was growing of people.

Tim:

That's the other great thing about self-publishing is, you create an

Tim:

email list of people engaged in your work who want to hear from you.

Tim:

Some authors, I think there's a real balance.

Tim:

I've signed up to a lot of authors newsletters, see how they do it.

Tim:

And if they email me once a month about offers on books.

Tim:

I get a bit cheesed off.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

It's not really what I want.

Tim:

I don't want to be sold something.

Tim:

So in fact, I haven't because of The Patient's being held up, I haven't

Tim:

emailed my list for maybe six months and I'll start telling them about

Tim:

The Patient and then other stuff that I'm doing, but not please go

Tim:

and buy The Dentist and The Cyclist.

Tim:

So by the time The Cyclist came out, I had a lot more.

Tim:

So I'd sent out an email saying who would like to read the next book?

Tim:

Who would like to read the next book quickly and had a really great response.

Tim:

And then I kept that, in fact, same hundred read The Patient before

Tim:

it was picked up by publisher.

Tim:

And you just get some, you know, you get really good pointers and mistakes.

Tom:

And you said you had a copy editor for your self published book?

Tim:

Yeah, that was more really a proof reader.

Tim:

She was more um, I couldn't afford, um, you know, cause, you

Tim:

know, when you start out, this is all your own capital going out.

Tim:

But fortunately as I write screenplays that was paying for it.

Tim:

So she did a great job, proofreading.

Tim:

But then The Patient had a professional copy editor, and that

Tim:

was like an eye-opening experience.

Tim:

Because there's always a sense of dread when you get studio notes.

Tim:

And so I had a sort of sense of dread with the notes for The Patient and they

Tim:

turned out to be the best set of notes that I ever received in any field.

Tim:

And she'd taken the trouble, without being asked to read the first two

Tim:

books before she read The Patient.

Tim:

So that, so it was really, and it was in terms, you know, really interesting

Tim:

in terms of pacing and what knowledge is being kept from, you know, you're

Tim:

letting stuff out that you shouldn't necessarily even if Cross knows,

Tim:

do you want the audience to know, the reader to know at this point?

Tim:

Cause you've got the rule that the reader can't be ahead of Cross,

Tim:

but Cross, it's difficult for him to be ahead of the reader because

Tim:

we're discovering along with him.

Tim:

So it's holding back bits of information that he comes

Tim:

across was really interesting.

Tom:

And you finished the manuscript for four.

Tom:

Is that going through edits at the moment?

Tim:

Yeah, that's with my editor for the first read at the moment.

Tim:

So that comes out in November.

Tom:

Okay.

Tom:

And it's the same editor now going forward?

Tim:

Yes.

Tim:

Yeah, and then they decide whether they, and that's the

Tim:

other thing about self publishing.

Tim:

You know, they, my publisher will then decide depending on how these two books

Tim:

go, whether they'll move on with me.

Tim:

You know, because it's a four book deal.

Tim:

But if they don't, then I go back to self publishing.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

You know what I mean?

Tim:

It's, it's, But I'm hoping that won't happen, you've always got

Tim:

that, not safety net, but that other way of getting your work out there.

Tom:

And I'm going to return right back to you planning.

Tom:

A question that I skipped earlier, but I should've picked up,

Tom:

it was quite important to me.

Tom:

Uh, with world building uh, you live in London, but you chose

Tom:

Bristol as a, the setting.

Tom:

Was it like an arbitrary process as well, this is a a city that I

Tom:

have experiences from my childhood.

Tom:

I might as well use it.

Tom:

Or was it something that you felt lent itself to the story?

Tom:

That actually this would be a good place for Cross to live?

Tom:

Why did you choose Bristol?

Tim:

I think Bristol was an easier place for Cross to live.

Tim:

I think that the city being smaller was an easier place than say London.

Tim:

So yeah, I don't, I don't think I actually made that decision about Cross, but now

Tim:

that you bring it up, you can see that he would function much better there than

Tim:

in say London or Manchester or Edinburgh.

Tim:

But I love Bristol.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

I love the city and I know it well.

Tim:

And I wanted to write about it.

Tim:

I wanted to, I think it's always important to write about somewhere you know.

Tim:

So yeah, so that was important to me.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

And you just mentioned uh Manchester there and before we started recording,

Tom:

you did mention that you're looking to start a, a new series set in Manchester.

Tom:

Was there something about the character that you felt and can you talk

Tom:

much about what, why you've chosen Manchester for your new series of books?

Tim:

Um, yeah it's, it's about an estranged father and his his daughter

Tim:

has become a young barrister who works in Manchester on miscarriages of justice.

Tim:

And the only way he can get back into her life, because she doesn't want anything

Tim:

to do with him for various reasons, is to kind of become her quasi private

Tim:

eye and provide her with evidence for the case that she can't do without.

Tim:

So at the center is a really complicated relationship.

Tim:

I lived in Manchester for 10 years.

Tim:

I worked for Granada TV as a researcher and director.

Tim:

I directed drama up there.

Tim:

Things like coronation street, Sherlock Holmes.

Tim:

I love Manchester.

Tim:

So again, it's somewhere I know.

Tim:

It gives me an excuse to go back up there.

Tim:

It's changed radically.

Tim:

I haven't been there for 15, 20 years since I directed the last episode

Tim:

of the first chunk of Cold Feet.

Tim:

And even then it had changed, but now it's, you know, the central

Tim:

that the city used to be dead at weekends and now it's the place to be.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

You've got media city as well with all the BBC.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

But that area, I filmed in that area, it was dead.

Tim:

We used to film bits of Sherlock around there, because we could

Tim:

easily recreate Victorian streets.

Tim:

But yeah that one, it's not a police procedural.

Tim:

But it's again, it's about relationships.

Tim:

And it's about miscarriages of justice and the development of technology,

Tim:

particularly DNA is fascinating.

Tim:

Thank goodness we don't have the death penalty.

Tim:

You know, but when you come across these cases of people who have

Tim:

served 15, 16 years in prison for something they didn't do.

Tim:

So that, that intrigued me.

Tim:

And yeah, I love the Manchester so..

Tim:

It's, you've got to spend time in a place, it's not like going and

Tim:

visiting a place and researching.

Tim:

It's getting to know how the heart of a city beats.

Tim:

Of where the different areas are, have they changed?

Tim:

So your character can look, you know, there's an area next door to Piccadilly

Tim:

station in Manchester that used to be warehouses that were abandoned and a

Tim:

couple of recording studios, but people like the Happy Mondays used to record.

Tim:

And now it's this booming area of the city.

Tim:

So your character can reflect on that.

Tim:

Reflect on that change.

Tim:

You can't write that if you don't know it.

Tom:

Yeah, absolutely.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

It's a creative quarter, I think it's called, or the arts

Tom:

quarter of Manchester now.

Tim:

Yeah, that's right.

Tim:

They they've all got different quarters.

Tim:

There used to be bits around, you know, the Palace theatre and stuff

Tim:

that people used to shoot America for, as long as you didn't go too high.

Tom:

And you mentioned that like with DNA evidence and things like that.

Tom:

Obviously, with criminal investigations now, the technology that's available.

Tom:

How do you go about researching the police procedure and making sure

Tom:

that's accurate and up-to-date?

Tom:

I guess there's techniques developing all the time.

Tim:

I think in terms of procedure, you speak to the police and I think

Tim:

that the fact of the matter is everything's got to be authentic.

Tim:

But in terms of, you know, police investigation, obviously, a

Tim:

novelist sometimes cut corners.

Tim:

Sometimes justifiably, sometimes cause they don't know, but in terms of

Tim:

techniques, what's really fascinating if you study the history of forensic science

Tim:

is how that there've been various big steps in technology that really shook the

Tim:

world of crime and then crime fiction.

Tim:

So you've got in Paris, you've got a man called Bertillon,

Tim:

who invented the mugshot.

Tim:

He invented the standardized mugshot in the 1870s.

Tim:

And up until that point said, the arrival of photography was seismic.

Tim:

You have the arrival of fingerprints, the arrival of the photography.

Tim:

Because before photography, policemen used to make notes of

Tim:

what they saw at the crime scene.

Tim:

And now suddenly you had crime scenes accurately recorded.

Tim:

And then DNA has been another um, but it's one of those things where DNA is, is seen

Tim:

to be the kind of gold standard of proof.

Tim:

You know, There's the Locard's principle of the transference of evidence,

Tim:

something having contact with something else will always leave a trace.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

So DNA can be transported or what does the DNA prove?

Tim:

Well, it proves that someone was in a crime scene, but not when they were

Tim:

in a crime scene or that they were in the crime scene at the time, or

Tim:

that they were part of the crime.

Tim:

Just that they had been.

Tim:

Now, evidence on a body or, you know, so it's, it's it poses its own challenges.

Tim:

And now, what I'm going to write about is DNA and genealogy.

Tim:

Cause lots of people are putting their DNA on to websites and

Tim:

in America you can access that.

Tim:

And In the UK, you can't.

Tim:

But it's a question of defining suspects and traces of distance of DNA markers.

Tim:

It's just brilliant.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

And you said earlier that you asked the police.

Tom:

Do you have like certain contacts now that you can sort of like ring up?

Tim:

Uh, Not as many as I should have.

Tim:

Not as many as I should have.

Tim:

And I'm going to work on that.

Tim:

Yeah, I've been down to met a few detective inspectors in Bristol.

Tim:

And they went to their custody centre, a place called Patchway, which is

Tim:

where a lot of them get diverted.

Tim:

But also what's really interested me is police cuts.

Tim:

You know how it's affecting the way they're able to work.

Tim:

10 years ago different units in the Southwest had their own

Tim:

diving teams and now Wiltshire, Somerset and somewhere else,

Tim:

Gloucestershire, share one diving team.

Tim:

How does that work?

Tim:

But yeah, the forensic stuff, I have, contacts there in forensics.

Tim:

I've got my blood splatter experts and I've got my anthropological

Tim:

expert and my, odontological expert.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

And they're they're always really, you know, in The Patient there was

Tim:

one I met, who works at the university of Birmingham whose just brilliant.

Tim:

So yeah, there's always.

Tim:

Yeah, I wish I'd discovered research years ago.

Tim:

Cause it's fantastic and it's free.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tim:

It's just such a, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Tom:

Yeah, and do you find, you know, it's research at its best is speaking

Tom:

to experts in that field rather than buying a book on it, or just Googling

Tom:

it and finding a good website online.

Tom:

Or do you still, do you have books and online resources as well?

Tim:

Yeah, if we were on picture, I could show you.

Tim:

Yes, I have several books and they grow every week as I discover new things.

Tim:

A book is very different to, yeah, the experts really is when you're trying to,

Tim:

like in book four, I spoke to a forensic examiner in Dundee about a method of

Tim:

death and he kept knocking back what I was trying to do because it wouldn't work.

Tim:

So there's no point in carrying on with that.

Tim:

But it led to a different way of saying okay that avenue is closed.

Tim:

Then another expert came out with a way of solving that.

Tim:

Not, not what I wanted to do, but in a different way.

Tim:

But I, I love reading these things because I love to go back, to

Tim:

be able to go back into books.

Tim:

And the trouble is I write in notebooks and I'll often write

Tim:

something down from a book and then I'll never know where it was.

Tim:

And it's just like endless trawling through books with not be able to find it.

Tom:

Do you always take a notebook out when you're out and about away from

Tom:

your house, just in case ideas come to you or when you speak to people, or

Tom:

do you have a notes app in your phone when you're away from your office and

Tom:

ideas come, how do you store them?

Tim:

Yeah, I have a tiny pocket book in my back pocket.

Tom:

Okay.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tom:

So that's good.

Tom:

And I think I'll go into my final two questions and we'll expand on those.

Tom:

You said earlier about how you're learning novel writing and you

Tom:

hope to improve as it goes forward.

Tom:

It's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their writing

Tom:

with each story that they write.

Tom:

And so was there anything you can think of from book four that you've just

Tom:

finished or maybe was there something in The Patient that you learnt about

Tom:

your writing or learned about police procedurals or a certain character

Tom:

trait that you then applied to book four, that you've just finished?

Tim:

I think the one thing I've taken away and still improving

Tim:

on is a sense of setting.

Tim:

Because then a sense when you write a screenplay, you suggest what you want.

Tim:

Suggesting in a sense, what you want the director to go and find.

Tim:

Setting something up atmosphere and a sense of place is to

Tim:

me, enormously important.

Tim:

And also smell.

Tim:

To give those senses.

Tim:

I've been reading this book by John Mullen.

Tim:

Who's a Dickens expert at University College London, and he's written a

Tim:

book on Dickens that talks about smell.

Tim:

And it's really interesting to see how Dickens uses it.

Tim:

So yeah just, just learning.

Tim:

I'm pretty confident in my plot.

Tim:

In as much as how confident can you be when you've got no plot.

Tim:

So it's the rest of the stuff, taking time to give the kind of full of

Tim:

sensory experience for the reader.

Tom:

So it's just a getting that evocative atmosphere setting.

Tom:

Working all the senses.

Tom:

Okay, that's great.

Tom:

That's something I look forward to reading and seeing how that develops.

Tom:

And my final question is, is there one piece of writing advice that at any point

Tom:

in your career that you've received, that you find yourself returning to, that you

Tom:

constantly keep in mind as you write?

Tim:

I mean, the simplest piece of advice I ever got,

Tim:

which I feel is very important.

Tim:

It sounds simplistic, but is just to write.

Tim:

And the thing is to write without having the idea of a

Tim:

completed project in your head.

Tim:

So just write bits.

Tim:

Bits of dialogue, you've heard, snatches of ideas.

Tim:

Don't sit down and go, okay, I'm going to write a short story.

Tim:

I've got to have the middle, a beginning and end.

Tim:

Oh no, a beginning, a middle and end.

Tim:

Don't sit down and try and do that because ultimately it will not work.

Tim:

But do write every day, do write bits.

Tim:

The more you write, the easier it is.

Tim:

And now being published.

Tim:

And I've been asked to write lots of things for papers and whatever.

Tim:

And it comes naturally to me now,.

Tim:

10 years ago, 20 years ago filled me with horror.

Tim:

But the more you write, the more confidence you will get.

Tim:

And then the other piece of advice is, and this is really more to do with editing

Tim:

and film, but you can apply it to books, which has always Chuck out your darlings.

Tim:

Yeah.

Tim:

I think that's a fairly common piece of advice now, but when something

Tim:

isn't working a sequence of chapters or a sequence of scenes in a film.

Tim:

And you can't work out what it is, go in and take out your favorite shot, go in and

Tim:

take out your favorite four paragraphs.

Tim:

And suddenly the whole thing will work.

Tom:

That's great.

Tom:

That's great advice.

Tom:

And I think that's a perfect place to wrap up and say, thank you so much,

Tom:

Tim, for being my guest this week.

Tim:

Oh, it's been a great pleasure.

Tim:

Thank you so much for having me.

Tom:

And that was a real writing process of Tim Sullivan.

Tom:

Wasn't he great?

Tom:

Now go buy all his books.

Tom:

I'm not saying that flippantly, they're really cheap.

Tom:

And some you can download it for free.

Tom:

So get as many of his books as you can, because genuinely I really enjoyed them.

Tom:

They're very enjoyable.

Tom:

If you'd like to learn more about Tim.

Tom:

Or if you'd like to sign up to his newsletter, go to Timsullivan.co.uk.

Tom:

Uh, it's got all information on him, everything that he's worked on.

Tom:

Access to his books and it's a really nicely laid out website,

Tom:

which genuinely, some author websites are horrifying, so it's nice to see

Tom:

one that's really actually good.

Tom:

Uh, so do check it out at timsullivan.co.uk.

Tom:

And in this little outro, I'd also like to make a few thank yous.

Tom:

Firstly, to Tej Turner for generously becoming a subscriber.

Tom:

He's the first guest on the show to do that, which isn't

Tom:

a dig at the other guests.

Tom:

But at the same time, it blatantly is.

Tom:

Also Dr.

Tom:

Ian green donated very generously above the minimum £1 required

Tom:

to be a support of the show.

Tom:

Yes, he has got his own interview behind the paywall, maybe you just

Tom:

wanted to access it, but thank you, sir.

Tom:

You did not have to spend that much, but I appreciate it.

Tom:

And I have now used that money for the running cost of the show.

Tom:

So it's already gone, you can't have it back.

Tom:

But yes, if you haven't subscribed or done a one-off payment so you

Tom:

access the minisodes, please do.

Tom:

And you can find out what Ian says or you can just bug Ian for a pirate copy.

Tom:

The choice is up to you.

Tom:

I appreciate, we all have expenses at the moment.

Tom:

Um, but that's it.

Tom:

That's where we are this week.

Tom:

Am I going to maintain this crazy high standard of guest for next week.

Tom:

I mean, It'd have to be an extraordinary talent to follow Tim.

Tom:

You know, you need to have won an international award.

Tom:

Like I don't know, a World Fantasy Award, but you can't just

Tom:

win it after years of trying.

Tom:

You'd have to be so extraordinary that you won it on the very

Tom:

first short story that you sold.

Tom:

That's the standard I require.

Tom:

Have I got a guest like that?

Tom:

Well, we'll find out next week.

Tom:

Until then, thanks for listening.

Tom:

And may you always keep writing until the world ends.

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About the Podcast

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