Tag: author podcasts

Nadine Matheson on Messy First Drafts

This month’s special guest Nadine Matheson reveals the benefits of a messy first draft…

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TRANSCRIPT

MARK: Are your first drafts usually quite tidy and well structured, or are you still making big changes?

NADINE: They are the opposite of tidy and well structured. I will say that structured in the sense that… I stick very closely to that three act structure. So they’re structured in that sense. But in terms of it being tidy: no, they’re so messy. But I always say there’s freedom in the mess because I know that with the second draft I’m going to be fixing things and rewriting and restructuring. So no, that first draft is not tidy. But what I will say, I said it the other day to someone was that what I’ve realized is that my… the first three chapters of my books, they are relatively unchanged from the first draft to what’s finally put on the shelf. They very rarely… I mean, I’ll say I’ve changed a little bit in the editing process, but fundamentally those chapters one, two and three, and if there’s a prologue, they’re pretty much how they are from the very first draft to the end.

This Writer’s Favourite Podcasts

Here are my favourite podcasts that inspire me as a writer…

LINKS

FILM STORIES WITH SIMON BREW: https://filmstories.co.uk/podcast-page/episodes/ 

SCRIPTNOTES – John August, Craig Mazin: https://johnaugust.com/scriptnotes 

THE CONVERSATION WITH NADINE MATHESON: https://www.nadinematheson.com/events/23/the-conversation-with-nadine-matheson-podcast/ 

YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT – Sarah Marshall https://yourewrongabout.com/ 

SMERSH POD – John Rain https://shows.acast.com/smershpod 

AUTHORIZED – Andrew Overbye and Hannah Blechman https://open.spotify.com/show/68YhhFLKW5m6ibJJDZ147M?si=4f46a841a4d74390 

COMFORT BLANKET (SEE ALSO BE FUNNY OR DIE) – Joel Morris https://shows.acast.com/comfort-blanket 

ROCKONTEURS – Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt https://www.anotherslice.com/rockonteurs

SCARRED FOR LIFE – Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence with presenter Andy Bush https://scarredforlifebooks.com/#podcast 

FIFTY YEARS OF SHIT ROBOTS: Matt brown and Stephen Murray https://shows.acast.com/fifty-years-of-shit-robots

BESTSELLER EXPERIMENT https://bestsellerexperiment.com/podcasts/podcast-episodes/ 

MARK STAY’S CREATIVE DIFFERENCES https://markstaycreativedifferences.com/ 

Join me and Nadine Matheson on tonight’s Creative Differences Livestream

Join me live with bestselling crime author Nadine Matheson! 

THURSDAY 27TH MARCH, 8PM GMT.

Nadine’s debut crime fiction novel, The Jigsaw Man, was won by HQ (HarperCollins) in a six-publisher auction. The best-selling ‘The Jigsaw Man’ was published in 2021, has been translated into fifteen languages and has been optioned for television. Nadine is also the presenter of The Conversation podcast, which for my money is one of the best British podcasts for author interviews. Nadine is a brilliant writer and really insightful on the craft and business of writing. You are not going to want to miss this one! Join us live and be part of the podcast.

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Gareth L Powell on the Biggest Mistake of his Career

This month’s special guest Gareth L Powell reveals the biggest mistake of his writing career, but how this particular disaster was a blessing in disguise…

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TRANSCRIPT

MARK: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your writing career?

GARETH: Oh, Lord. The worst thing — I don’t know if it’s a mistake, It could have been an Act of God — But was when the first half of the first draft of Descendant Machine vanished.

MARK: Oh, God, I remember this.Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GARETH: I’d been working on it for three months, I think. And then one day, it just wasn’t on my computer. It wasn’t in the recycle bin. It wasn’t, you know, anywhere. I used various kind of, programs to claw through the hard drive to try and find it. And… nothing. It just completely vanished. So if unless I just did something ridiculously stupid in my sleep or, you know… I don’t know what, I’ve no idea what happened to it. But this entire three months work just absolutely vanished. That was a big setback because, you know, that was when I, you know, you go in that feeling where you just go cold.

MARK: Yeah.

GARETH: You know in the, sort of Agatha Christie films from the 70s when there’s, like, a pistol blast or a scream, and then you’d get a shot of a load of crows flapping up from a tree. It’s kind of like that. I just uttered a curse. Venomous. It turned the air to glass and… And I lay on the sofa and thought, I’m never gonna write again. It’s all over. 

MARK: And I remember talking to this, about this at the time, and it was just one of those complete mysteries. It wasn’t like you weren’t backing stuff up. It just absolutely vanished. Is it… because this happened to a friend of mine the other day, and I said, Oh, this happens to all sorts of writers, but every one of them tells me that when they go back and rewrite it, it’s so much better. Would you say that’s true, or am I just trying to make my friend feel good?

GARETH: No, that’s true, but the book I wrote was, substantially different from the first draft I had done, and much better for. So it was a blessing in a very, very heavy disguise.

Keeping Notes of Late Night Ideas… with Gareth L Powell

This month’s special guest Gareth L Powell reveals how he keeps track of story ideas when they come late at night… and then we’re interrupted by a digital overlord.

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TRANSCRIPT

MARK: How do you remember that idea that you have it, say three in the morning?

GARETH: I always have my phone next to the bed. And I can say, “Hey, Siri,” take a note, and just dictate it to the phone.

SIRI: (Interrupting) And then what do you want it to say?

(LAUGHTER)

MARK: I was waiting for that!

SIRI: I created you a note. It’s called BRA.

MARK: Oh. That’s priceless. Thanks for that, Gareth.

GARETH: I thought, my phone is off. I’ll be safe saying this, and I forgot it’s on the damn computer as well… I will go through that process — that I just demonstrated — and then in the morning, because it’s synched up with my desktop, the I just open my notes file and the notes are there waiting for me.

MARK: A comment from Usman here: “22:32. Siri gained sentence.” It’s the end times, people. Oh, fantastic.

Gareth L Powell “My Coping Mechanism.”

This month’s special guest Gareth L Powell reveals the importance of tea in his creative process (this may be the most British conversation ever)…

What’s your favourite tipple while writing?

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TRANSCRIPT

MARK :What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?

GARETH: (thinks) Tea…

MARK: Do you have a particular brand? Because I’ve seen your pictures on social media. You’ve got that wonderful little cast iron kettle, haven’t you?

GARETH: It was my lockdown coping mechanism. I got really into tea. Loose leaf teas and different types of teas and, so now it’s like… no tea bags. It’s proper bags of loose leaf teas. I’ve got a… I made an app for my phone, which is a picture of a teapot it, and I press it and it ultimately times five minutes, which is just right for the tea to stew.

MARK: Properly brewed. Fantastic. And do you have a favourite brand of tea What should we be looking out for?


GARETH: I’m kind of in between favourite brands at the moment. I was very fond of Whittard’s English Breakfast Loose Leaf. I’m kind of looking around for a slightly less expensive version, but I’ve tried lots of different ones. So at the moment I’m on the, Sainsbury’s Red Label, which is quite good.

MARK: You’ve got me some Yorkshire gold for Christmas, didn’t you, Emily? That is first class stuff. That is really good.