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How Story Works is a podcast for everyone who loves stories. If youāre a writer, understanding how story works will help you craft better stories. If youāre a lover of stories, the podcast will give you added insight into your favorite tales, and extend the toolset you use to better understand the stories you love. Join NYT bestselling author and story expert Lani Diane Rich as she demystifies stories and storytelling, allowing you to better write and appreciate the stories you love.
āI'm Lani Diane Rich, and this is How Story Works.
Hey, everybody, how's it going? Happy end of March As we are moving into spring, and depending on where you are in the world, that may mean different things for you, but for us here in the United States it means that we're, we're getting some sunshine. We're getting some flowers up out here in Colorado.
And I am very much enjoying. We've had a few sunny days of like 60 degrees so far, and I've really, really been enjoying that new weather. I hope that whatever you know, the the weather is bringing for you, wherever you are, you are excited about it. I always find that at the turn of the seasons, I get very excited and inspired.
There's always that day for every season when you walk outside and you first smell. The new season on the air. I don't know if that makes sense to to all of you, but I hope some of you know what I'm talking about. The first time that you smell snow, the first time that you smell like spring and the flowers, the first time you smell that like fresh cut, green grass, smell of summer.
And, and the woodsy smell of, of autumn. I know throughout human history people have celebrated like the, the solstice and the, and the equinox and all of that. And there's definitely something to the change of the seasons that just speaks to human experience. And and I don't know if you can hear me kinda.
Moving into this sort of magical space, like the year of Writing Magically workshop go to year of writing magically.com if you want to see if you can apply for it when it opens up. Next year I'll put you on a mailing list and I'll, I'll let you know when the application's open. It's amazing.
It's wonderful. I am both workshop leader and participant which is really interesting kind of balance because as the workshop leader. I know that everything I'm saying works. I know all of the ways to whistle for your creativity to come to you. We're in the magical discovery phase, which is so much fun.
I know how all of that works. I know the strategies. I know it's showing up at the same time every day, if you possibly can. I know that it is. Thinking about your muses making space for them, building a shrine for them, if you can, creating whatever you can, either mental and emotional space or like a physical space in your home.
There are so many different things like watching movies and reading books and, and gathering a reading list of, of stories that you want to engage with to kind of help you get in that creative space. All of these things like collages, soundtracks, all of these things are magical. I know how they work.
I've used them a million times. Every single time I've done them before I've done them, I have doubted their power. I've doubted their power. I, I hate collaging. I always hate collaging. I resist collaging. But when I do it super freaking powerful. So as the workshop leader, I know exactly how all this works and basically just shut up and do what I say as a workshop participant, I have my doubts, like, is it going to work this time?
It's worked before. Does that mean it's gonna work again? Because I'm in this magical space now. I've spent the last 20 years developing the craft, right? The science of storytelling. I have put it all into this thin little volume where I elegantly explain the basics of how story works I have, that it's something I can put my backup against.
And I've been doing that, teaching that effectively for the last like 20 years. And now I'm back into the writing side of things, into the magic side of things and trusting the magic. Like I can trust the craft. All like it's, that's so evidence-based. I, I have done so much work with it, but I don't trust the magic.
I don't trust my muse to show up. I don't trust that if I do these things that I've done before that have always worked without fail, that this time they won't fail me. I have such a paucity of faith I cannot even explain. So I feel like this time period right now where I'm teaching this to my students and doing this myself as a workshop participant, that this is finally where the rubber meets the road and I just have to do the leap of faith.
I just have to allow the creativity to come. So I'm doing all the things. I am listening to my workshop leader. I'm doing everything she's telling me to do. I have a candle. It's a lilac candle that has the scent that my creative muse is like. I had this idea for a while that I have like one muse, like, you know, Stephen King has the, the boys in the basement.
Jennifer Cruzi amended that to the girls in the basement. I've always kind of nodded to that and been like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, without the actual. Belief in the, in the anthropomorphization of this idea, of the, the creative inspiration, right? But again, I'm reading Big Magic as part of this discovery process.
I think that everybody who is doing any discovery process, like the beginning of their, of their creative process should have, you should have big magic at the beginning. You should have how story works at the end. These are the two things that you need, the two books that you need to write Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, how Story Works by Lonnie Diane Rich.
But Big Magic is the Bible for discovery. And one of the things that Elizabeth does, which of course people have been doing forever, is the anthropomorphization of the muse, the creativity that comes to you, right? And again, Elizabeth Gilbert is so comfortable with the magic. And I am so uncomfortable with the magic.
I'm comfortable with the craft, the stuff I could put my backup against, but I'm not comfortable with the magic. And and I love how comfortable she is with this space. You know, where she, all of the stuff she talks about. I absolutely know. I have experience on different levels. Like I know this and yet, like, because I can't mark it down to a science, I feel like I can't really trust it.
But anyway, because I trust my workshop leader. I have been thinking about that today and I've been thinking about all of the different kinds of muses that I have. Like like there's a border col named Max who just goes and grabs things and brings it to me, like little shiny things. There is a, a very light, kind of pixie ish sort of entity.
She's, I think her name is S Daphne. Not really sure why she has a Greek name, if I'm really getting into like the classic idea of the muses. But anyway and she is very light and floaty and really likes to bring the the fun light stuff. There's also like a, a a, an older woman, I can't say that much as probably that much older than me as far as like her energy.
They're all way older than me, but like, you know I, I call her Raj. She like sits around. She smokes a lot of cigarettes. She's really angry. She drinks a lot of whiskey. She brings me kind of the darker stuff and some, those are the three kind of entities that I've sort of figured out. Like I've never actually named and identified the different energies creatively that come to me with different things.
But the thing is that I think that like all of these muses have brought me a different idea and my workshop leader has told me that in two weeks, I need to be able to say which one of these ideas I'm gonna do. I am not suffering from a lack of ideas. I am, I am suffering from a lot of different ideas, but none of which I'm really all that like attached to.
Like they're all sort of floating around. I'm like, yeah, that could be good and that could be good and I could do that and I know how to do that. But I haven't really chosen one yet. So I feel like all of these muses are sort of fighting for my attention. They are fighting for me to choose one that I'm gonna dance with for this book predominantly.
You know, each one will bring a little bit for each book, but there's a predominant energy I'm feel, I'm not gonna lie. I'm feeling that RAs energy deeply feeling that RAs energy. But Daphne is, is trying to get my attention right now. She is the one who's coming through the loudest. And right as I'm about to make the decision to go and dance with Raz, Daphne coming in with this bullshit, it's not helping me.
It's not helping me, so I'm trying to figure all that stuff out. That's kind of what I'm doing now, but I have to tell you about the interview that we have today. The interview that we have today is with Kim Sherwood. Kim Sherwood is an author and creative writing lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.
Her first novel Testament, which came out in 2018, won the Bath Novel Award. And Harper's Bizarre Big Book Award. It was long listed for the Desmond Elliot Prize and shortlisted for the Author's Club. Best first novel pick. In 2019, Sherwood was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award.
Her second book, double or Nothing came out in 2022. In the uk it'll be out April 11th. In the us it is the first in a trilogy commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to expand the world of James Bond and her latest novel, A Wild and True Relation, came out last month and was described by Hillary Mantel as a rarity, a novel as remarkable for the vigor of the storytelling as for its literary ambition.
So as. Blurbs go, that doesn't suck. You can find out more about her@kimsherwoodauthor.com. But I really am so excited about this conversation. I think that y'all are really going to enjoy her. Oh, she also has a sub called The Girl With a Golden Pen. Should check that out too. Really, really great.
But anyway, so I think that you're really gonna enjoy. This interview, one of the things that I wanna do when I talk to writers is not necessarily ask them the same kinds of questions that they get when they're promoting their work, when they're promoting the book. I like to talk about who they are as writers and what it, what it feels like to be a writer and how we all wrestle with these various things.
So the conversation is really about like existing in the world as a creative person, and we had such a great conversation. It was so much fun. I absolutely adore Kim. I think that you're gonna really love her. I I read the Double or Nothing book, which is a Bond book, and if you've ever heard me talk about James Bond in any of my podcasts, you know that I have been horrifically dismissive.
Of James Bond and you know, SPFI first of all, like is, is just not for me, but it's not a bad genre by any measure. James Bond, I think, has historically had some some issues with with women. That have, that have kind of pushed me away from James Bond as a genre. But after having read Kim's book, the ways in which she is updating, you know, this franchise and bringing it into a new space with new characters I actually really enjoyed it.
So we're gonna be talking about that a little bit. We're gonna be talking about how much I really won't, can't wait to read her new book. A Wild and True Relation. I'm very excited about that too. But here's the thing, just you're gonna love her. Just sit down, listen to this interview, she's fantastic.
And let me know what you think. Let me know what you think about the magical side of writing. Let me know what you think about Muses lonnie@lonnierich.com. Reach out to me at any time. I would love to hear your responses. But for now, we're just gonna go and hang out for a little while with Kim Sherwood.
Kim darling, how are you? How's everything going? You've been a little bit busy lately. Very
busy. I am promoting two books. My latest book, award and True relation has just come out here in the UK and double or nothing. The first in my series expanding the James Bond world. Came out here in the UK a few months ago, but is now coming out in the US and in Europe.
So it's very full on, very fun. And I'm so happy to get to talk to you. This is just such a highlight for me because I've been such a fan of yours for so long.
Oh, I'm so incredibly flattered by that because you're like serious business . Like your first book came out in 2018. You've been shortlisted, long listed, nominated for all of these awards.
You got the job of writing the new bond stuff from the official Ian Fleming estate, like you are serious business that you're a fan of. Mine is so incredibly, incredibly flattering. But one of the things that I like, I wanna kind of get started talking to you about is what it's like to exist in the world.
as a writer. , you teach writing. I teach writing. We always kinda have to translate these things into you know, into lessons for our students and explain to them kind of like, not just how storytelling works, but what it's like when, at any given moment and any day, you could see something and it sparks an idea, and then you have to write it down in your hand because that's all you've got, like
Absolutely.
So tell me about how that is for you.
Well, I think it is a form of compulsion. That sense of, I have to, I have to do this in order to be me. And when there are times in my life where I'm too busy to write, I do feel like I become the stranger to myself and mm-hmm. , I just stop feeling right in my skin, in my body.
And I know the answer is I've got to find time to write. And as you say, often it is just that matter of, okay, then five minutes on the bus, that's, that's gonna be the time that I have today . But that will make me feel like myself again. and it's always been that way for me. You know, ever since I was a kid, I always said, I, I want to be a writer.
And I just feel really lucky that nobody, when I was a child, said, that's a silly idea. Or, you know, you'll need a, you'll need a plan A or whatever for a really encouraging family. And I always feel so grateful for that, that when I was like a precocious four year old who said, I want to write books, my mom just said, okay, let's let's get out the card of paper and Staples , make some books.
Well, that's amazing. So, ha. Have you always been a writer? I mean, I know that your first published book was 2018, but like, have you've always been in this pursuit? Did you do like, I don't know if they have MFA programs out there or, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So I, I always wanted to write and always told anybody who would listen.
That I wanted to be a writer and I wanted to write James Bond. So, mm-hmm. doing well so far. , . So I, yeah. And then I studied literature with creative writing, my undergraduate and creative writing for my postgraduate, and then I started to teach, so, I've really never left school. I've just, I've kind of remained institutionalized within the world of creative writing.
Oh, that's wonderful. And it's so like, it, it is wonderful that you were able to write bond because you have been a Bond fan since you were little. Yeah, that's right.
And actually for me, my writing journey and my love of bond run parallel to each other because mm-hmm , as a kid I would spy on my neighbors with a notebook and a ben and they were luckily very tolerant of this
And I would, I would go, there was this sort of back wall that connected all of our gardens and I would crawl along the back wall, really sur viciously thinking. Nobody knew I was there. I'm sure they all knew I was there. They were just being really kind. Yes. And I would peek through the windows and I'd see what was going on and I'd make up these really elaborate plots and, you know, usually involving some kind of murder mystery between all of my neighbors and I would turn them into stories.
So my love of spy fiction and spy stories and James Bond really tied into my love of writing. and observing the world as a child, and I think trying to work out its mechanics and mm-hmm. , what this adult life was all about that I was observing. And I would, I would get so involved, you know, what you were saying about living in your mind as a writer.
I would spend days and days and mapping out my character's homes. It would just be drawing diagrams of their houses and then putting my little toy furniture in, you know, where their sofa was, where their bed was designing the rug. And I'd spent hours on this and at the end of the day, my mom would say, okay, you know, it's time to go to bed.
And I'd say, but I haven't even started playing . I would be like, what's this? And I'd say, this is just the map of my story. . I would be so immersed in imagining these kind of parallel lives of these fictional people who took up a lot of real estate in my.
They really do. I mean, they become real, you know, to us.
Absolutely. And they live within us. It's, it's, you know, kind of a, a multiple personality experience I think sometimes. Yes. Because you have all of these people kind of living within your brain space, you roommates in your brain, you know, which is always, yeah. Really interesting. I'm interested in writing process.
Like, I've been really thinking about that a lot. You know, when I first started writing, I was very much like, you know, it's, it's pants and plotter and that's what people told me. You are one or the other. Right, right. And for anybody listening who is unaware of what that means, pants, somebody who just kind of like, you know, starts writing.
I've always been like that. I don't know what I'm gonna write. And then I just start writing and I sort of find it as I go. Plotters are people who can lay out everything that's gonna happen, you know, in a spreadsheet before they start writing. Now of course there's a wild spectrum in between those two places.
But if you were to place yourself on that spectrum about where do you think you would be? ? Well, I I'm
almost a combination of the two, so probably in the middle. Mm-hmm. , because I, I draw these kind of elaborate diagrams of the story and how the plot's going to unfold. Mm-hmm. and every time I draw a new diagram, I say like, aha, Eureka, I got it.
Yes. But with the, with the kind of knowledge that the next day I'm gonna throw it out, because I think that the more you write a novel, the more the novel tells you what it wants to be, and you get to know your characters and they say, no, I wouldn't do that. Or I'm actually, I'm gonna make a different decision.
And so I'm constantly planning, but throwing the plan out. And , I used the orchestrated by that. Cause I think, oh, I thought I, I thought I had it. But then I realized actually that's just part of my process. It's kind of putting up scaffolding and it helps me feel safe and contained within, within the process of not knowing, because so much of writing is about being comfortable with discomfort being, you know, right.
Happy not to know what's going to happen next. And for me, the sort of natural process is just to. Keep writing, keep learning about the characters and see where it goes. And I'm a massive over writer, so I tend to have about mm-hmm. an extra 40,000 words that then need to be lopped off at the end . But I'm, in a way, I'm kind of learning a new process or I'm, I'm becoming two writers because mm-hmm.
a wild true relation, which has just come out here from start to finish. That's been 14 years. There were many wow kind of avenues that that novel grew down then didn't go anywhere. And so it, it evolved but with double or nothing. And with the Bond series, I'm writing that to a much tighter deadline.
And I'm writing it, you know, for the Fleming family. So all of my decisions are run by them. . So I can't, I can't just sort of say, oh, I think I'll write, I think I'll write Bond and I'll get back to you in 14 years as to how it all pans out. You know, that's the weird outline, . So I'm kind of learning to be a little bit more structured, a bit more planned and to kind of stick to the scaffolding a bit more.
Although I, I still come up with new endings and, you know, Shock everyone at the publishers and they say, so you, you didn't tell us that this was gonna happen at the end, . Is that, is that for Real Law ? Yep. Sorry.
Yeah. I didn't know that that was gonna happen. Exactly. Mostly like you know, in, in publishing a lot of times, you know, your editor will be like, well, give me an outline, give me an idea, right.
Of what I can expect from this thing and everything. And so I've done that and every single time I've done it, I'm like, you know, this isn't how this is gonna end. Yes. Because I don't know how it's gonna end yet. And I go in with this wild, or I always have gone in with this like, wild kind of, let's just see what happens and then I'll fix it on the back end, which I think can be valuable.
But there are times where you really need to plan everything out. I mean, you having to run everything past the Ian Fleming estate to make sure that all of the story decisions that you're making kind of align with with their, with what they want out of these stories, I think is really, really interesting, is it brings me in mind of creative limitation, right?
Mm-hmm. and which is. That when you are creating something, it is sometimes easier to have really firm boundaries than to have everything out in front of you and you can make as many choices as you want. I have found myself in situations where I've had deal limitations, where I've had things that I have to live within, boundaries that I have to live within, and I often feel.
Within that space, I feel like there's so, like, you know how a baby likes to be wrapped super tight and swaddled in order to feel comfortable and be able to go to sleep in order to feel safe. I think that there's something with that, with creativity. So considering that you, on your own, writing a novel on your own is 14 years , whereas the Bond novel with all of those creative D limitations, you've got the world that you're working within that has already been established.
You've got the Ian Fleming style that I'm sure you're trying to emulate while still updating it, you know, for a new audience. There's so many things that you're working within. How did you find that experience with all those creative d limitations? Was that, was that dampening or an exciting experience for you?
A really interesting way to frame it. I hadn't thought of it that way. And, and you're completely right because it is it's a creative process within a set of boundaries. Yeah. And, and usually my creative process, is, is very internal, and I keep to myself what I'm doing. I don't really share it with people.
Mm-hmm. , but this is the opposite. I, it's, it's much more collaborative. I feel really fortunate that the Flemings are so supportive and they say, you are our writer. We chose you. We want your vision. Mm-hmm. . So they're, they're really trusting and that, you know, I really draw on that. So my motto with these books is, if, if the Flemings are happy, I'm happy because, you know, there's, there's James Bond fans all over the world and everybody feels like they own Bond.
And in a way everybody does. But, but that means everybody has an opinion. And so you, you're not gonna please everybody all the time. So my, my audience really is the Fleming family. But when they first kind of invited me to write this, they had two criteria. One was to bring it up in the 21st century, kind of modernize it on the page.
Mm-hmm. , right. And the other was to widen out the cast of characters so that we can have these other double O heroes. But it was completely up to me how I went about that. Mm-hmm. . So my idea was, that I would have James Bond missing from the beginning because I felt like, yeah, you know, I, I love Bond. I've always wanted to write Bond, but if you are, if you're bringing in these new characters, it's very difficult when James Bond takes up so much of the spotlight if he's there.
Oh yeah, you look at him. So yeah, I kind of have to say it to him. Can you step outta the spotlight a little bit? Do you mind just like stepping to the left so that these new characters could come in and have their moment? So he's missing and these new characters are trying to find him, and he's, he's both absent and present because he's there in flashbacks.
He's there in memories. Yeah. But that was a really useful boundary for me in a way, because if the floodings had, had simply said, right, we wanted to update the world of Bond up to you, how you do it I probably wouldn't have thought, well then I'll, I'll bring in these new characters. I probably would've stuck to a much more traditional bond kind of quest structure where you have him on his own, out with a.
But the fact that they said, can you bring in more characters? That led me to think, well then it's like an ensemble cast and I love ensemble tv. I love ensemble stories. And then I began to think about it as kind of cooperative, almost like a socialist spy story because you have all these double kind of working together as opposed to an individual mission.
So those boundaries completely informed how I went about it. And, and I love these new characters and, and I hope that people connect with them, but I don't think I would've kind of almost given myself permission to, to embrace them so much. I think I would've, I would've felt a little bit more beholden to.
Sticking to the kind of bond narrative that we are, that we are used to consuming. Right.
I, I love all of that. Like, one of the things that I really love too is that money Penny, who traditionally in the Bond universe was kind of like, you know, EM'S secretary, right? Had a crush on bond, would, would flirt, you know, all that kind of stuff.
And that was kind of like a, a like minor or more minor character, right? Yeah. And here, you know, money Penny is, is basically running the show money Penny. Giving the assignments money, pennies. And so that was really kind of fun to see even the character that was brought in from the Bond universe was a smaller character that was expanded and empowered in a way that maybe that character had not been previously Absolut.
Absolutely. What was your relationship with Money Penny? I know there were a few like actual money, penny novels that had come out. Were you working, like, how do you know what's Canon and what's not? Like, is it, is it all Canon? Is it like the movies and the novels are Canon? Is it just novels? How did you, how did you work with all of that?
Well, the idea of Canon and Bond is so interesting because there, there are fans who try to make it make sense that James Bond has been Connery. onwards. Mm-hmm. . So there are fans who say, oh, James Bond is just a code name. Naturally, they're all different figures, you know, they try and make it all Canon.
Mm-hmm. . To me that's just like an absolute head fuck. Excuse my Yes. French. Don't worry about it. . . So I, I, the way I think about Canon for, for, for this book anyway is that I'm writing to Ian Fleming's novels, but I'm updating them in my mind. So I have my own kind of personal head cannon. Yes.
Because I mm-hmm. , I wanted to write in dialogue with Ian Fleming, but I wanted to make it contemporary. And that's what the Flemings wanted as well. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So then I had to come up with a version of the Fleming novels that take place in the eighties, nineties, two thousands, and are continued in my stories.
Mm-hmm. . So I have my own version of say, Moonraker, where instead of bomb battling the Nazis just after World War ii, he's battling neo-Nazis now, which, you know, yes. Sadly realistic. So it doesn't take much to kind of update loving in your mind. And then, and then it's looking at, okay, if I'm, if I'm bringing his world into the now, what can I do with those elements?
And money? Penny was a big part of that because she is, I felt long overdue. A promotion. This is somebody who's been EM'S secretary for now 70 years in the literary world, 60 years in the cinematic world. Mm-hmm. . But because of that, we imbue her with a lot of authority as the audience, Lewis Maxwell, who played money Penny through through three bonds worth of films.
She's kind of the longest running, you know, bond girl, if you wanna put it that way. So as, as an audience, we imbue her, I think, with a lot of trust and authority, and it matters to us what she thinks. Mm-hmm. . So because of that, I felt like I could very naturally move her into a position of power. And she's now head of the oh oh section.
She's in charge of recruiting these agents and she's, she's come up with Bond. So she starts off as an agent runner in the field. . Mm-hmm. , he is the agent that she is running. And they're, they're kind of stars and they've risen together. So I could also lean into that friendship. Mm-hmm. , which is one of the things I find most interesting about Bond and, and it's, you know, it's emphasized in cinematic Bond, is his friendship with Money Penny, because he's not really a man.
We see having friendships with many women, but, but that friendship has lasted forever, and I, I'm really
intrigued. . I absolutely love that. And I think that it is kind of like a warm transfer, right? So instead of starting with all new characters, you do have this history. You're, you're still embedded in the universe as it existed.
And then we've got these three new characters, A oh oh 3, 0 0 4, 0 0 9, right? And I love the opening sequence where oh oh nine, who is Sid Beier is going in to save oh oh three. And then of course, now that's Joanna Harwood named for a screenwriter of some bond films. And the first woman, I believe, to ever write Bond.
That's right. Yeah. , which is awesome. I love that. And so now we've got Joanna Harwood and he's saving her and they have a relationship. And there's all of this like emotional storytelling going on, that there are these relationships that it's not just about the spy craft of it all, which is always very cool.
Mm-hmm. , but that these deep relationships between people, the relationship between money, penny and Bond, the fact that bond is missing. Then we've got Joanna and Sid, and then we've got the other Double O who is Joseph Dryden, who is a black man who is also deaf and how they deal with his hearing loss and all of that kind of stuff while working as a double O agent.
Really great diversity of perspective and cast in here. Which for a bond, you know, kind of space is, is a neat transition. . So how was like creating all of these new characters for this universe that you loved so much? Was that daunting or was that just like so exciting? It
was so exciting. It felt like such an, an honor really to kind of, yeah.
Get to play in this sandbox in the first place, but then get to contribute these new heroes to it. Yeah. And I, I really wanted to move into that new space. And so the first thing I did was I actually went on I six s website where you can see their recruitment pages, like their job adverts. Yeah. And they're really funny because they're things like do you speak multiple languages?
Do you like to travel? Do you have loose ethics? , maybe you'd be a good spy . But you can see kind of between the lines. They're really looking to attract people from multiple backgrounds with multiple perspectives, because of course, you know, it only makes sense. Yeah. If, if all of your spies look like James Bond, there's going to be a real limit to the number of undercover missions they can carry up.
Certainly, but also a limit for you as a writer, you know, because you, you're only getting to write from one, one perspective, from one kind of worldview and experience. And I also wanted to broaden it out a little bit, you know, talking about playing spies as a, as a kid. Mm-hmm. , I would always play as James Bond.
I wanted to be the hero. I, I didn't wanna be a bond girl, and that's, that's no insult to bond girls. There are some amazing female characters in the legacy of Bond, but I didn't want to be rescued. I wanted to do the rescuing. Yeah. And so this seemed like an opportunity to kind of have this inclusive ensemble cast and hopefully invite more people in and invite more people to see themselves as the hero.
And then there's also that joy of ensemble casts of, of the relationships between the characters. And for me, writing is so much about relationship. It's about the relationship between me and the reader. It's about the relationship between characters. And that's what ultimately all of my novels focus on is these central relationships and the conflicts between them.
So I could have Sid Bashier and Johanna Harwood who have this romantic relationship. They're engaged. Previously Harwood was with Bond that doesn't end well, which isn't really a spoiler because it's Bond, mm-hmm. , and he's Bashir's mentor. He, then you've got a l awkward love triangle in the workplace.
Then you've got Joseph Dryden. He was a soldier who's kind of love interest is Luke La his second in command in the Army. He comes back in this story. See, you've got all this history to work with. Yeah. And, and that gives you conflict and that's engine for story. So for me, that was just so kind of crunchy and delicious to get into.
Oh, there's so much going on. And I mean, that's one of the things, especially when you're updating, you know, this, this classic, you know, 1950s, 1960s sort of spy fi view of the world which was, I think predominantly like a, kind of like an external action based sort of thing. And then to move us into these internal places where we, these characters are very personally invested in each.
you know, in what they're doing in the job that they have. Right. You know, I love, I love the scene where Joanna is is, is talking, is being interviewed or interrogated by somebody. I can't remember what it was, but I remember her being like, no, I'm really good at my job, . I didn't, I didn't allow myself to die.
I didn't eat the cyanide pill. Yeah. Because I'm super good at my job and I want to keep doing it. Right. And I was like, yes. I mean, you know me, I love a love story between a person and their work. Right. And it's one of the things that I think comes through so well in this novel is the love story, not just between these people, but with the work themselves.
Mm. You know? Mm-hmm. . And so like, I just, I, one of the things I just absolutely loved about it was that relationship to the work, you know, oh, the interpersonal relationships and how personally invested everybody was. Mm-hmm. . And that's what brought me in. Like, honestly, like I've never been. I've never been pulled into Bond before, but I lo But the thing I think that is really great about the work that you're doing with it is that it does open up a space for someone like me who's not a spy person, like has never been that kind of person to come in and be like, oh, I can identify with a woman in love with their work.
You know, like, I can identify with these different people who have these different experiences. We have l LGBTQ character in Dryden. Mm-hmm. , which I absolutely love because that opens up a space for other people to see themselves within this world and see the great things about it and the fun things about it that may have alluded them before.
So that's a big job to do. You know, like when you first got this, you must have been excited, but was it also like really
intimidating? It was. I mean, it was, I was helped by the fact that it was a secret and I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody about it. for, for the longest time, it was really funny.
I would tell my students, you know, it was during the pandemics, I, we weren't meeting face-to-face. It was over Zoom. Right. And students would say, what are you, what are you writing? And I'd say, oh, I'm mm-hmm. , I'm doing this commercial project that was my code name for it. Yeah. As if I had like a side hustle, selling socks.
I, I dunno what this commercial project was. In my mind, and I had a lot of American students who couldn't come to Edinburgh where I teach because of the pandemic. So they were all still in America. And we were zooming, you know, all odd hours for our classes. Mm-hmm. , they got it in their heads. So the only commercial project I could be working on as a British author was that I was ghosting Prince Harry's book.
So they were just convinced and every single session they'd be like, how's Meghan Markle? I don't know. I dunno, I don't care. . So what I could finally say to them, I'm fighting James Martin. It was, it was a nice moment.
But well, what a wonderful way to have a personal experience that's aligned with the spy thing where you have Exactly.
To keep everything a secret. Yes,
exactly. So that, but that really helped me because it took the pressure off. Mm-hmm. . And I could just imagine that I was just doing this for fun and it wasn't real when it became public. That was such a surreal weekend because I, for some reason, I, I didn't really think anyone would notice or pay attention, mm-hmm.
and then suddenly it was in global news, in, you know, in newspapers around the world, these languages I couldn't even identify. And my face was really big in the paper and it was very surreal. I'd never had an experience like that. And then that weekend, one of the national newspapers here, they ran a double page spread, interviewing other writers on what they would do if they had the gig.
Ah, so looking this newspaper with all of my peers and these people, I really look up to, you know, what they would do and thinking, oh, these, you know, these are good ideas, . So then I had to kind of, I could take a step back from it or yeah, and just, you have to keep coming back to what's my intention.
And so I think that was lucky that I was doing it in secret. So it was only my intention. And, and always coming back to kind of who are, who are the characters and what do they want. Mm-hmm. . And it's interesting what you were saying about their competencies and their love of the role. Mm-hmm. , I thought a lot about why does somebody become a double O?
Why does somebody become a spy? Today and, and even actually going back to casino Royalle, the first bond novel. At the end of the novel Bond says patriotism is starting to seem a little old-fashioned. So that's the first bond novel. Ian Fleming's already saying patriotism as a motive for being a spy is a little bit outta date.
Yeah. And now we are 70 years on. And I'm sure that many spies are motivated by patriotism, but for, for these characters, you know, why are they doing what they're doing? And I, and I thought a lot about the Sort of mentality that somebody has to be in to commit themselves to this life. You know, they have a life expectancy of 45.
And, but they're expect to be dead by that point and then retire if they're not. So who commits themselves to that? Mm-hmm. . And, and for Harwood's character, I, I thought a lot about this idea of a license to kill, which sounds kind of like fun and sexy on the surface, but, but really is an enormous kind of ethical burden and responsibility.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I wanted to get into that. So I thought, what's the opposite of a license to kill? It's the doctor's vow to heal anybody. It's the hypocrite to go. Mm-hmm. . So her background is that she starts life as a trauma surgeon. Then something happens that brings her to money, Penny's attention as she becomes a double O.
So she has a personality that's capable of many dimensions. Mm-hmm. . And that's really important for her in her, you know, her arc through the. . So it was, it was, it was those things that were the kind of keys for me. And that also made me forget the pressure, because then like, as, as you know, you just get into the character and you just love writing
the characters.
Yes. Yeah. Once you slide into that space, it's a much safer, kind of very private, it's just you and the work, you know? And that becomes, sometimes getting to that space as a writer can be really difficult because there Absolutely, there are so many considerations. There are so many things. I'm, I'm teaching a workshop now where where I have a bunch of people in the first class that we did, I was like, we're gonna talk about fear.
Mm-hmm. , we're gonna talk about all of our fears. We're gonna talk about all of the things that you go into and you're worried about. And then we, we looked at them and we were like, all right, what are the ones that are built on outcome? Like, how are people gonna respond to this? Are people gonna like it?
Am I gonna be able to sell it? Is an agent gonna take it? Am I gonna be able to do this? You know, depending on where you are in your career, you have so many. Like thoughts about outcome. And the thing is, the outcome is none of your business. Like that is not your job. The outcome is gonna be what it's gonna be.
You know? And I know that sometimes I, I've had friends who have had certain books that have been like, really hugely successful. Yeah. Are other books less so? And the book that's hugely successful, they're like, eh, you know, whatever. I didn't really care about that one. And then they'll have ones that are so deep and attached to their soul, and then that one doesn't necessarily do as well.
And the thing is, the, the wilds of the capitalist marketplace are not a thing that A, you have any control over or b say anything about you or your work. You know? It is, it's just, that is a completely different space where you make the money that you need to make so that you can write another book.
Mm-hmm. You know, so that you can feed your habit. Right. But it's so hard sometimes to get past. , all of those fears. And I thought the one thing I wanna do is sit down first day and be like, let's have it, let's have all of them. And so I listened out my fears too, and I went through my list and then everybody came back with their fears.
And once we got rid of the outcome oriented ones, you know, there were all the ones like, am I gonna be able to write this? Am I gonna be able to finish this? Is this something that I'm even capable of doing? You know? Yeah. And one of the big things is like, is it gonna be any. , you know, is it going to be good?
Which again, is something that I, as a writer, very strongly feel. None of your business like you can. Good is not the goal. Done is the goals that you can move on and create the next thing. But it is so hard to let go of that very, because putting your work out there into the world is so incredibly vulnerable.
You know, like you create something, you put it out there in the world, and then you know, a bunch of people on good reads are like, you know, and. Which is why I recommend not reading reviews too, to like everybody I knew publishes. Don't read them, don't look at them. Just make the next thing. Yep. So as we're talking about creative processes, as we're talking about, I kind of wanna get back to to your process.
I'm very interested, you write such different, you're writing these bond novels. Yeah. You're writing literary novels, you know and the process that you have, not just the pants or plotter thing, but like the little rituals that you do. Like for me, like I had one book, I woke up at four in the morning every day, wrote until seven.
Every single day. And I got it done in 28 days. That was the shortest I've ever written a novel. It just moved, like, yeah, it was amazing. Not the case. Typically with most of the stuff that I've written where I, you know, and it's funny because every book I find my process will change. Like some of them I need to write early in the morning.
Some of them I need to write late at night. And some of them I need to wear a particular pair of fluffy socks. Others, I need this very particular kind of tea that I have to order on the internet in order to have, like, so I'm curious about, like, I always love asking writers about their little rituals and do they change from book to book?
It's a really interesting question. I think I've never been a person who had to write at a particular time because I've always taught, and as you know, your teaching schedule changes term to term. So you, it's, it's almost impossible to say, these are my hours and carved them out. So I've much more been about in whatever time and space is available to me, I will fill that with writing.
but I f there are little things that I guess, that are almost like superstitions or they, they create the head space for you. Yes. So cup of tea, absolutely essential. If there's no tea, there's no writing. And then it does vary book to book actually, because for bond music has been really important.
I listened to the, the bond themes on repeat ah, which is super fun for Nick and everyone, house . But it's about getting into the right atmosphere because as soon as I hear the bond music, I start to laugh and it becomes fun. And all of the pressure, and as you were saying, all of the kind of outcome related fears, it just goes away.
And I am writing Jim's bond and how fun is that? So it, it creates that atmosphere. And then for kind of late night deadline is upon me. Things are getting desperate. but late. It's been the Hamilton soundtrack, which I find incredibly motivating. There's, there's just something about the kind of, we're going to war mentality about , but will get me through a four, a writing extent.
Mm-hmm. . And then also it's about the space. So I found it increasingly hard to, cause I get, I said before I write in any time, is space available to me? I think that used to be true and that used to work well. But as I get busier and there's less time and space available to me I'm finding it harder and harder to just squeeze it into an hour or just to think, well, I've got 20 minutes on the bus.
Why not just do a bit now? Because my, my mind is, is fuller and fuller. So I'm, I'm learning in a way, a new process or I'm trying to embrace a new process of carving out time and space where I'm unreachable. So for a while, true relation. I, I went on a residency at Agathe Christi's house in Devon, and they let writers go and stay in the attic there.
It's a national trust property. And it's just amazing because there's no phone signal there, there's no wifi. It's very remote In Devon, you can't get off the site on foot. Really? You have to drive. And I don't drive. So when I'm there, I'm just there and nobody can reach me and nobody can need anything from me.
And that's where I finished the book. And I, you know, as I said, I've been writing it for a long time. But it was going to that space where it was just me and I, and I came up with this routine. So I would, it's funny, I'm feeling more relaxed even as I think about it, , it was, it was so peaceful and tranquil.
Mm-hmm. . I would, I wouldn't ever set an alarm, so I would just wake up naturally with the light. And I would go downstairs and have breakfast on the porta cup looking over the river and just read. And then second cup of tea, begin to jot down some ideas and then just move around the garden. It's this beautiful big estate through the day as I, as I wanted.
And that, that was a big part of it. I think big part of why it worked so well was in any moment I can choose what works for me and, and I think for creativity, if you, I mean, sometimes you just have to, but if you say, right here's my hour to be creative, there's, there's a kind of pressure to that and there's a sense of it's going to end.
But if you say, well, today I might you know, go and sit in the binary for an hour or I might go and walk down by the river, and then you're doing that and then you think, oh my God, that's the answer to chapter 10. And then you race back to your desk to write it down. You've created the freedom to do that.
And I found that incredibly. , powerful and effective. And that's how I finished a warden termination. And it's how I wrote 40,000 words of book two in the double oh series. And I wrote those 40,000 words in two weeks, which is the most I've ever written in that, in that space of time. And I'd been so stuck with that book, and then I got there and sat down in the sun and breathed out and thought, I've got it.
So that's, that. That's wonderful. That's, I just need someone to give me a stately. Yes. And I need, you know, a huge amount of funding basically, so I'd have to work again. Mm-hmm. And, and that that will be my new creative process.
I think. That sounds brilliant. Let's, let's do a writer's retreat together, cuz I definitely wanna get in on that action.
I have had the experience, you know, where like I've been able to write in little, like bits and stuff through the day. Just whatever's available to you. Especially, you know, when I was younger I was raising two young kids, like, you took what you got, you know? Right. But I have found through the years that I, it's almost like descending a very, very long.
Staircase and you need the time to descend into that space. And then you need time to be there because that's when you write like you're on fire. Yeah. And then you can come back up. And it allows you to be much deeper within the world of that it ceases to be fiction. It is. It is. Your transitioning into another world.
Exactly. So having dedicated, like I would find three hours is minimum for me to like, to be able to descend that staircase, go into it, and then come back. And so I think that like every writer finds, I had a friend who just would like, you know, her kid was like on the swim team, and she would just sit there while he's swimming and just write for like, you know, 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there.
She was a plotter though, so she could like, you know, she knew exactly what she was doing and, and, and everybody I think has a different experience with that. One of the things too that I always find we need to discuss, like whenever I'm teaching. We need to discuss the role of inspiration. Mm. And, and how that works.
There's this kind of idea like that, that sometimes gets shared, like out in, in sort of the societal, you know, zeitgeist of the, the writer who will like, be so frustrated because they're not inspired and they can't, they can't write until they're inspired and yada yada. And most of the time we're not feeling inspired.
Now, my take on this is you can write when you're not inspired, but it's more fun to write when you are inspired. So instead of waiting for inspiration to come to you, go hunt that shit down, you know, and things like music soundtracks, doing collages. You know, there are a bunch of activities that you can do that kind of draw that creativity to you.
Yeah. And I'm curious, what do you do for that? Do you have like certain things that you will do? You talked about the music, but things that you will do to kind of like bring them used to you to whistle for that
creativity? Absolutely. And actually this is how I became a fan of yours because of Jish Media.
And so, mm-hmm. , I had this, the job I had before, now I had this really long commute. It was, I mean, an hour and a half to get to work and an hour and a half back again. And I would, I wasn't so loving the job. It wasn't yeah, I should say I loved my students, but there, but it was a very stressful job.
And so the hour and a half commute was quite draining, both in terms of time and morale, because it was a long, a long time to spend getting to a place I didn't really wanna go. Mm-hmm. and I was trying to write as well. And I, and I was really feeling like, for me, I think inspiration and however you wanna put it, either morale or your, your spirits mm-hmm.
or your sort of internal mental landscape are very linked. And so I, I would think about ways to use that commute to kind of mm-hmm. , pull the news to me as you, as you put it. . And so listening to still dead listening to Listen Up Be Holes how story works. I felt like I was in company and, you know, I was listening to people talk about things that I love and things that make me really happy to think about.
And things that for me are like, you know, for me thinking about story and character, it's just like breathing. So, so to listen to you chat about it was, it was, you know, getting to be in company with other people who were on the same wave of length as me. And a lot of that was so helpful for, you know, for writing double or nothing because I was trying to think of the, the, the first stage of the book was coming up with this outline and the characters to show the fl.
And it was actually listening to your episode on the Character Triangle, that, that was a big, kind of motivator for me. And I got to class feeling so inspired, and while all my students were writing, I was writing on my lesson plan, I was drawing out your Triangle , and I was mapping Bond onto it and thinking what are his weaknesses versus his vulnerabilities, you know, and all of the different characters.
And so my notebook is full of that triangle with me kind of working it all out. And, and a lot of times, you know, searching for inspirational creativity is like that. You're looking for company, mm-hmm. , em, foster called it the echo chamber. You're looking for people who are in the echo chamber with you.
Mm-hmm. , because writing is in some ways inherently a solitary pursuit. Yes. And I like that. My, but I'm, I'm kind of cuspy introvert, extrovert. Mm-hmm. . I love being by myself for, you know, like I said, I was very happy at Agatha Christie's house for two weeks talking to no one . But I also love being in a room full of students.
I love being with other writers. I love being at festivals and literary festivals and talking to people about writing. That fills me with so much joy. So, Searching for inspiration is often searching out things like your podcasts or mm-hmm. You know, books that about writing that I feel like, oh yeah, that's how it is for me.
And, and, or, I've never thought about it that way. That's a, that's a new way in. So if my current method isn't working, maybe I can try theirs. So it's always about soaking up that inspiration and, and looking for company, I think for me. Mm-hmm. . And then also the, what you're saying about collaging and things that visual sense, I'm very visual writer and that's always been part of my creativity.
I like to draw and paint my character's, rooms, locations, setting faces. And it's not that I'm necessary, especially good at it, but just being able to visualize it really helps me. Yeah. And I always realize when the, however you wanna put it, writer's block or the inspiration is gone, I've stopped.
I've stopped drawing, I've stopped sketching. I've, I've stopped doing anything. That is my natural way of being creative. And I'm expecting myself to be able to sit down at a blank page and I'm saying to myself, well, come on then. Write something . Oh God, God. .
One of the things I saw Neil Gaiman, he came to Denver last year.
And so I went and, and heard him speak and one of the things that he said that I absolutely love is he would sit down every. and Right. Like, and have the writing time and he is like, and it would be me and the blank page. And if at the end of the writing time nothing happened, then that's fine. Right.
He's like, that would be absolutely fine. I think I've heard Elizabeth Gilbert say something similar. Because you did your part, you showed up, right? Right. You told the muse where you would be, you know? Yeah. And if they don't come, they don't come. But you can't do anything else. It's you in the blank page.
You don't have to ripe, you can't do anything else. And I often find that there's this friction to especially when you're not, where you're going next with this story or you're not sure about what's happening or if it's even something that's gonna work. Because in the first 20,000 words, like I have had books, I've written as much as 40,000 words that I have just thrown away and never touched again.
Like I have half finished books out there that just were never going to work. And when you first start in a project before you get the click, before you know that this is gonna be done fair there is that sense of like, am I just wasting all of this time? You know? Yeah. And I don't think writing is ever a waste of time no matter what happens with it, because again, outcome is not our business.
. But I think it's, it's so interesting the ways in which you, you can find an in between space from that hard line of sit your ass down and Right. And that kind of like wispy, oh well when the inspiration comes you can create, then, you know, in which case with lives the way that they are, you know, you have to let the inspiration know that you are open and available to them.
Ah. Because I think inspiration has rejection sensitivity. I think that inspiration when it comes to you and you constantly flit it away because the time isn't right. Is gonna be like, all right, look, you call me when you wanna hang, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. So I feel like that is there. But I find it so interesting, like the value of ritual in in just regular human life of doing things in a particular way.
That building ritual into your writing I think is one of the best things that you can do, you know, for that cup of tea or for the music that you're gonna listen to or however you're gonna do it, you know? There are so many different things that you can do, but having a little bit of rituals. So that's one of the things I'm having my students do as well, is like, think about the rituals that you can bring into your writing so that when you do these things, you know, it's creative.
Part of your brain is like, oh, we're playing now. Yeah. You know? Exactly. It's there to like serve you.
Yeah, exactly. And I think so much of it is about that sense of being free to play and experiment and take risks and yes, part of the, there has to be a door open in your mind for that to happen. And sometimes the door can get stuck and, you know, with a, with a one true relation, part of the reason it took so long from start to finish was because it really.
EIF broke apart, so I, I began writing it the second year of my undergraduate degree. Mm-hmm. As a, as a short story written entirely in 18th century Devon Sha dialect, which you'll be shocked to hear. No one understood . So I re rewrote in modern English. And then, and then I realized that the, the short story was chapter one and it wanted to be a novel and I thought it would be my first novel.
But I took it from my undergraduate to my postgraduate degree and I was work shopping it regularly in all of my classes and with all different tutors. And I was really young. I was only 22. And I went in with the mindset that everybody there must know better than me. , they were, seemed older and wiser, and I looked up to them all.
And so every workshop someone would come out with a different idea. You'd, you know, they'd say, oh, what if instead of being set here, it was set over in this place? Or what if actually the central relationship was this thing? And each week I'd think, oh, they, they seemed really certain about that. And so I'd go back to the beginning and I got ways off court in this leap of the first three chapters endlessly rewriting.
And it was almost like you know, like a sort of parachute material and people were putting objects on it all the time and weighing it down. And eventually it just buckled. And with it my confidence and my faith in myself as a writer and in the story, and it, and it just broke and I really thought I couldn't put it back together again.
And it was, it's interesting what you're saying about ritual. I remember one night sitting by a fire and just trying to write with, with a notebook and just almost kind of pleading with the fire, please do something magical, like, bring this back, let me write. And nothing happened. And I. Just ended up in such a state of distress because the door was closed, the door was stuck, closed, and I was just banging my head against it.
And the, the sort of source for the novel was so the, the, the for, just to explain to people who haven't who don't know about it the novel opens in Devin in 1703 and the night of the great storm with smuggling Captain Tom West coming ashore in a rage. He believes his lover, grace has betrayed him and following a confrontation, he leaves with her daughter Molly, who he raises as a boy called Orlando aboard his ship.
A sort of spoiler all happens in chapter one. And the, the rest of the story is her kind of search for justice and identity and her desire to find out what happened to her mother. And she believes Tom West is this real hero in her life, and he's really desperate that she won't find out the truth.
So you have these two characters kind of locked in this conflict. And then that narrative is interleaved with real life historical figures who visited or lived in Devon, who come together to kind of solve the mystery of Molly's life. So you have mm-hmm. People like Charles Dickens and George Elliot, Dr.
Johnson and Hester frail, coming together and kind of passing this story down through the centuries. So it came, it came to me, and the story kind of was born in Devon when my family moved there. And just walking along the beach, I saw this boathouse and I, and I, I thought, what if a woman lived there who was a writer?
And she wrote this diary, and one day this smuggler who she was with, thought that she'd portrayed him and he thought the diary was evidence of it. And, and the thought, the whole story kind of came from there. And it was very much about my love of story. My, my hope is through this novel to kind of illuminate the women in history and the women writers in history mm-hmm.
who've been cut out of the story. And to kind of embrace that fantastic sort of adventure yarn, you know, the, the love of a good story told around a fire. And it was actually the, the thing that kind of opened the door again was story, but it wasn't sitting down at a blank page and saying to myself now you must write and mm-hmm.
and sort of weeping. The thing, and this, like, this is kind of silly, but the thing that got it unstuck ultimately mm-hmm. was I, I couldn't write and I couldn't write, and I was, I was with my mom and she asked me, oh no, I, I mentioned to her, I just seen this film that I liked, mm-hmm. , VIN Diesels Pitch Black.
And I, and I said, oh, you know, is this really good series series of films. And my mom said, what's it about? And you know, there's not really my mom's cup of teeth and diesel's pitch black. So I was like, oh, you know, do you really wanna know? And she said, yeah, yeah. Tell me the story of all of them. And we sat in the garden with me telling my mom in great detail, including the dialogue, the pots of Vin Diesel's pitch black films.
And by the end of it, My love of storytelling had woken back up again. Yes. And the door opened. Mm-hmm. and I like always been so grateful. I mean, I'm so grateful to my mom for many things cause she's, mm-hmm. always been a champion of my writing. But just that afternoon with her saying, yeah, tell me in great detail about horse bitch.
Black just opened the door for me and it, and it got like, I love that. I guess. Yeah. It, it said to the Meese, I, I welcome you back. . I
absolutely love that. Yeah, and, and you know, I, I hadn't really thought about that, but retelling stories that you love. Hmm. You know, retelling that to somebody, or even just like writing down somewhere, that could be a huge way to like, you know, bring that back in.
Mm. Because you're telling somebody else's story so you can just sort of luxuriate in the story movements, you know? Exactly. And now I'm gonna have to write down, I've never seen those. I'm clearly gonna have to watch. But one of the things, getting back to what you were talking about, about like being in a workshop setting, right?
One of the things that I've recently discovered, I've spent most of my writing life with the idea that the more I get beat up, the better my work is going to be. Like the, the more really harsh, like take no prisoners and even your mama's ugly like kind of feedback that I get will somehow make me tough.
It'll make me a better writer. It'll toughen up my skin. The thing that I have discovered in recent years and that I've been like, like basically proselytizing everywhere. Is that you can receive feedback during your all of your process up until you know you're in your deep in revision. You've already finished your first draft, but the only feedback you should receive from anybody is what's your favorite part?
Because that leans you into your strengths that leans you. And the thing is, is that like playing whack-a-mole with your weaknesses is gonna do nothing, . It does nothing. Because you're always gonna find something that from somebody's perspective, is a quote unquote weakness. Absolutely. But your strengths are gonna be universal.
Your strengths. People are gonna be like, wow, your dialogue is amazing. Oh my God, your emotional moments hit so hard. You know how to bring out the pain. Because if you cannot be a sadist with your characters, you'll never write the best fiction you can write. You have to put them through hell and be willing to do that.
Right. So many strengths that people will have, like the, the phrasing, the way that they use some words, right? Like, all of that kinda like, there's so many different strengths. And if you don't focus on your strengths and you're just playing whack-a-mole with your weaknesses, all of your energy is draining out the bottom of this story and you're not giving it your whole self.
So with my students, I have, I have this firm. What's your favorite part? Like, you can get all the feedback you want, you can send in, you know little like parts of the story you can send in a scene or a snippet or whatever. The only feedback we are allowed to ask for or receive until revision, until first draft has been finished is what's your favorite part and what this does for people is, Open up themselves to understand their strengths, to lean into those strengths and work with the best parts of themselves.
And it builds confidence, which you have to have in order to create. Absolutely. And so I'm basically like I am telling everybody this, I am going worldwide. I am. I will. If anybody out there has a writing group, I will come to your writing group and talk about what's your favorite part. Sure. I think that it is, is such a revolutionary way of looking at writing workshops and writing feedback because we are so hard with each other out of love.
Out, out of love, out of the desire to do better, out of the desire to be better writers. But I think you get it to be a better writer by leaning into your strengths. Then you can worry, like in the second revision, after you've done your first revision and you've sent it out. Absolutely. At that point you can get you, you know, more critical feedback about maybe fix this, maybe fix that.
But by the time you've gotten there, you know what your story is. You know what belongs in your story and what does not then. And just because somebody is not you, doesn't mean that they get, it doesn't mean that they're your reader, doesn't mean that they understand you. There are people I love dearly who are not my reader, who will never understand the work that I do, and that's okay.
I'll go hang out with them and have dinner . But when it comes to my writing, I write for my reader, for the people absolutely. Who get what I'm doing and want that. So I'm bringing that into my teaching and into my classes. And I have to say it's been revolutionary. Absolutely.
And I, I couldn't agree more because when I was studying there was this ethos that, well, the phrase that was usual, we, we break you to make you.
Yeah. Which I, I think is probably also a torture method. So , yes. So not really a way to help people feel safe and mm-hmm. for me, being creative publicly, which is what a workshop setting is, is, is Oh yes. It's this ultimate vulnerability in many ways because you're trusting people with something that's very fragile and embryonic and raw.
Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And so I, I always try and say to students, you know, you've, you've brought in a draft and let's all think about it as that, that it's something that is precious and fragile, mm-hmm. and something that we want to, you know, if, if you have ideas, if there's something you wanted to see more of, you know, if there was something that possibly confused you, really helpful to share with the writer.
But always remember to say what you love, because if, if you forget to mention it, they'll leave and they'll think, oh, well, well nobody mention. The two characters. So I guess nobody likes my main characters. I suppose I'll change that. They might be that everybody loved the characters and they just thought that that was a given, so they didn't say.
So I'm, I'm always trying to say, you know, really emphasize the successes and what's, what's just firing on all cylinders about this piece of work. And I'm often told that my kind of like my students will kind of laugh and say, oh, you are the, you know, you are, you are the sort of nicest
But, but I, yeah, I feel like there's a, there's a power to positivity. That we want to receive. And so we should make sure other people receive it as well if they've been so brave. As to be vulnerable with their creativity and open themselves up to other people. Absolutely.
Yeah. And I mean, until, and it, it is kind of like, like a story has a setting point.
Mm. Right. It has a point where it's been written. You know what that story is and it has set. Mm-hmm. Once it has set, you can get critical feedback again. always lead with, what's your favorite part? Anyway, like that is always, that is one thing I do in every single podcast I do. What's your favorite part?
Like, it is such a huge thing for me. I love that conversation. What is the best thing that this particular piece of art has to offer? Mm-hmm. And I think that those are really important conversations. And because we spend so much time being so critical just in general in society today, we are an extremely critical society.
We forget about that stuff. And I think that that can be hugely silencing in the, in the versions of your work before the setting point, before you, you get to where it's strong and you know what you're doing.
Yeah. And I think that there's I'll often with my students use the image of the port colors and say mm-hmm.
you'll work out in your, in your workshop group. And then later on down the line, you'll work out with your publisher, say whose feedback really resonates with you and is really helpful for you. Yes. And, and let them in. And there are gonna be other people mm-hmm. where you can just let, let their feedback.
ping off because it's, yes. It's, it's just not helpful to you. And, and a useful way to sort of approach it, I say to my students is just to think, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate that you put thought into my work. Your feedback doesn't resonate with me, so I'm not gonna carry it with me.
But I appreciate mm-hmm. that you are offering it so you don't have to feel hurt about it or mm-hmm. or wounded by it. If, if somebody remember in a workshop this guy told me my work was a bit SZA being , and I
remember Yes. Because God knows, if you talk about like a woman's romance or a woman's emotions, then suddenly it's in, for anybody listening to America Mills and Boone is basically British, Harlequin,
So it's, it's supposed to be an insult.
Yes. It was indeed supposed to be an insult. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But that was, are we gonna, I was like 22 or something on, yeah. Mm-hmm. At that point I was on Miami. And that was one of those moments where I thought, oh, interesting. It's. . It's just that we don't resonate with each other.
And it's, it's fine that you feel that way because Yeah. I, I don't have to sort of carry that with me or, or take it to heart or rewrite it. Mm-hmm. to try and please. You, we just don't resonate with each other. And that's, that's fine. And that's good practice for later on when your books are out in the world, because they'll also be readers that you don't resonate with, or critics that you don't resonate with.
Mm-hmm. . I mean, that's why it's helpful not to read reviews as well, but yes. You'll, you'll find your people, you'll find your audience and, and they will resonate with you and they'll go on the journey with you. And, and you know, that's been a real learning curve with Bond in this quite amplified way because, you know, everybody has an opinion on, on, on speculating, on Bond is.
Mm-hmm. is a national pastime. Oh, international Pastime and . There have been people who, you know, I felt so grateful to the fan community because there have been people who've been really excited by what I'm offering. And then there are people who say, no, I want it to stay the same. I don't like that it's changing.
And that's totally fine. Right? That's absolutely, they're right. They don't have to come along with me.
Well, yeah. And that's the thing, like when, when I talk a lot about adaptations and the things, and I'm like, you know, the, the original book, the original material has not been destroyed by this adaptation or by this new direction.
Like, you still have access to that. But people do get very invested in a lot of these, you know, fictional worlds. And I, I understand that. I have sympathy for it. At the same time, like, you're not losing the original, go back and read the original. If you're, if you're, that's where you wanna be, then go ahead and go back there.
It's all available to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've kept you a really long time because I'm fascinated and I love talking to you, but before we go, I wanna get back to a wild and true relationship. Sure. Because I have to. , it's not available in the US yet. I have not been able to read it. I have just read like the first lines of the back cover copy and my initial response was, yes, need this book.
So will you please talk a little bit? I mean, you've talked a little bit about it. When is it coming out in the us? When can I get my grumpy little hands on it? ?
Well, I will send you the copy tomorrow, but thank you. No release date in the US as yet, but people can order it from the uk. Okay. And I should say as well, there's a fantastic bookshop in here in, in Edinburgh called Lighthouse Bookshop.
It's a radical books. and I have a sort of deal with them where if, if folks from abroad order the book Uhhuh from them and leave a little note when they check out saying they want it signed, I'll, I'll go down there and sign in and write people a note. So. Oh, that's cool. If anybody does want to order it and support a good medical bookshop at the same time we'll put a link
in the show notes for anybody who wants to order.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, it sounds just wonderful and I'm so excited about it. Thank you. And I think it, it sounds like exactly the kinda thing, like the bond stuff has never been my thing. I really enjoyed double, double or nothing. That was a lot of fun to kind of get into. But this is absolutely right up my, my alley.
So double or nothing, the new bond book is gonna be out in the US I believe the date that I saw was April 11th, 2023. Is that correct? Yes. That. All right. So everybody out there in America, you'll be able to grab it then? Definitely, definitely recommend it. So I have two more questions for you, and then I can finally let you go, but it's so much fun talking to you a little bit.
Really, really enjoying it. . I know. Seriously. . All right. So one of the things I wanted to ask you, like as a fellow writing teacher, you know is what is the most important thing you want your students to take away from your classes when you
teach? Hmm, that's a really good question. Belief in themselves.
I love it. I think a lot of people come with, you know you know, they signed up to a writing course, so they obviously have a degree of belief. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . But it can be fragile sometimes, and it needs a bit of encourage. Mm-hmm. , and I actually just, I, I run this kind of book social on Zoom through my newsletter, and I had a former student coming along and, and she started off by saying, I'm, I'm sorry.
Can I ask a silly question? And I said, for three years I told you stop apologizing for yourself, . And it didn't work. But I've just, I've always trying to encourage people to have faith in themselves and their, and their capacity in the world as well as writers. So that's, that's what I hope I leave people with belief in themselves.
I love that. I think that is probably one of the most important things that a writer can absolutely have. Fair. And my other question for you, of course, coming back to what's your favorite part, what is your favorite part about being a writer? What is your favorite thing about this particular existence that we've chosen?
That's a really nice question. My favorite thing about being a writer is spending time with my characters in my mind. . So it's, yeah, it's going for those long walks and doing the dialogue out loud and having pupil pass me. I think that might be a problem. , it, it's, it's when characters become so real that it is, you know, for, for a one true relation, it's like, you know, nearly half of my life I've lived with those characters, and to me, they're as real as friends and family.
Which, you know, listeners will underst Thanks. I imagine most people listening to this are, are writers or readers or, or lovers of stories. And it's, it's such a precious and particular thing that mm-hmm. relationship you have with people you've made up.
Aw, I love that. That's perfect. That's perfect to end on.
All right. So where can people find you out in the wilds of the.
In the was of the internet. I am at Kim t Show at on Twitter and Instagram, and I have a subick newsletter go with the Golden Pen which is free, but then there's also a paid element with bonus content and Zoom book socials and lots of fun things like that, and signed merch and, you know, other good things.
And it's, it's really lovely in building a really nice community there. So if anybody wants to come along, I would love to see you there. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Kim. It was such a joy to talk to you. I've had such a good time.
You
too. Thank you. Let's do this
again.
All right. Thanks to Kim Sherwood for hanging out with me today. And thank you for listening. How Story Works is part of the Chip Ish Media Network. You can show your support at patreon.com/chip ish, how Storyworks is entirely listener supported. So thank you so much to everyone who contributes. That is it for this episode of How Story Works.
Another episode will be back in your feed on the fourth Monday of next month. Now go write.