Tag: writing podcasts

Can an Author Query Too Much?

My special guest on the Creative Differences podcast, Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals that her biggest mistake may have been querying too much…

TRANSCRIPT

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

NICOLA: Probably querying too much… like, querying a book too much. When I knew the market wasn’t ready. But I kept querying because I was so sure that somebody would see the potential. And then, of course, what happens is the market shifts and everybody’s already seen it, and you can’t send it out again. So I think that definitely that happened to me with a cosy crime novel I wrote in 2019, and everybody was going ‘Cosy? No, we don’t… nobody publishes this. It’s got to be really dark. That’s what we like dark, dark, dark, dark. And I’d sent it to everybody and got the same (response): I really enjoyed this. I love the pitch. I love the title. But, no, we don’t publish this at all. Ooh, Richard Osman? Hello! And I had literally sent it to everyone, so it’s currently in a drawer awaiting its time. 

MARK: Maybe it will have its time at some point. I still think your biggest mistake was not finishing the robot silent witness book, you know?

NICOLA: Oh, you’re gonna love it, Mark.

MARK: I am first in line. First in line for that one.

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Or watch the whole interview on Youtube…

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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Or watch it on Youtube…

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.

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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Or watch the whole episode on Youtube:

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.

Gareth L Powell on Creative Differences

Episode 7 with Gareth L Powell: “Future’s Edge”

Zoë Richards: An Easy Tip for Writers

Zoë Richards reveals the small thing that makes a big difference to her writing…

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Or watch the whole interview on Youtube..

TRANSCRIPT

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

Zoë: Just sitting down and writing? The only thing that ever stops me because I find I get more creative the more I write.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Zoë: It’s a bizarre thing, isn’t it? So if I sit there and don’t write, the writing doesn’t get done. And the creativity doesn’t happen either.

Mark: You can’t just sit down, not do anything, get up and walk away. It’s just embarrassing for all concerned, even if you’re completely on your own. So yeah, turn up sharp, tap some keys, see what comes out.

Zoë: I couldn’t think of anything to start today, and I actually wrote Need Something about Hunter and his gang days, and perhaps something about when his dad used to beat him up. And that’s all I’ve written into one of the chapters, but it immediately made me go, oh, in that chapter there, I need to do… And I just went off then and couldn’t stop writing.