February 4, 2024 • 49 mins
Step into the world of literature with Sarah Sheridan, a brilliant author and a veteran photographer, as she takes an in-depth look into her latest book, 'The Secrets of Blythswood Square'. Set against the backdrop of 1846 Glasgow, Sarah offers a fresh perspective on Victorian era in this episode of the Book and Life podcast.
Dive deep into the heart of Glasgow, a historic city known for its culture and resilience, and learn how it inspired Sarah's storytelling. In an exploration of themes such as religion and women roles, Sarah recounts the impacts of historical campaigns like Frederick Douglass' ‘Give Back the Money’ on her work.
Engage in a riveting discussion on the challenges and joys of the writing process, from understanding and maintaining a natural writing pace to the varied experiences of drafting and revising a creative piece. Navigate the complexities of character development with insights into how backstories and significant historical contexts play vital roles in crafting believable narratives.
Understand the demands of the competitive writing world as Sara shares her tactics to maintain focus on her projects while constantly producing fresh content. The episode touches on her remarkable journey as a dyslexic author, discussing her unique editing methods and her resolute spirit. It's an enriching conversation that reveals Sara's upcoming projects and her thoughts on the legacy writers leave behind.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
And welcome back to the Book and Life podcast. Today we're going to have a brand new book guest on.
Whether they're an author, an editor, a producer, you'll never quite know,
so you're in for one hell of a ride.
But today I just have to do the adverts and then I'll get us straight into that
(00:21):
most important conversation.
And as as we do every week i'm
going to read the shadow which is
part of the time guardian series and this is book four from
marianne curly the battle is
over the war is won the prophecy complete but life can't just pick up where
(00:42):
it left off for ethan struggling to cope with tragic loss at odds with friends
in the guard he finds himself adrift jumping in shadows and sensing someone
who who can't possibly be there.
Blaming herself for the goddess Athena's death, Giselle swears revenge to fullify
the immortals' plan for world domination.
(01:02):
But Giselle hadn't planned on love, and that leaves her with an unbearable choice.
Should she follow her heart, or the strings of a goddess short on praise but
high on expectation, who continues to pull her from the grave?
As the guard in the Order battles through the past.
(01:31):
And just a reminder that The Price of Freedom by Rosemary Rowan is being donated
to the Ukraine refugee crisis.
And here's the blurb for her book. book.
It's one of her Roman British crime series, which was written under her maiden name.
(01:57):
All editions can be found online where all books are sold, even her agents donating her commission.
Sorry, I don't have the blurb for that, but that's what she's doing.
And now without further ado, let's get you to the guests.
And everybody, please welcome back Sarah Chardon to the show.
(02:19):
She is absolutely an amazing writer. I have not seen imagery or flow the way she puts it together.
I am super excited to have her here for you guys to experience her,
to share her, to get to know her.
She is going to change your world in regards to what you're reading and what you're writing.
And hopefully all your reading habits. Because I'm hoping she's going to be
(02:42):
your number one pick by the end of the show.
So without further ado, please welcome Sarah. Thank you.
So tell us about your new book. What was it about and what made you excited to write it?
So the new book is called The Secrets of Blithewood Square and it is set in Glasgow in 1846.
(03:04):
And one of the main characters is a young woman who has trained with a very famous photographer.
Photography in 1846 is a new science stroke art and not very many people know
how to take photographs or how to process them.
And Ellery has trained with David Octavius Hill, who is a painter and also one
(03:25):
of Scotland's earliest and most acclaimed photographers, Victorian photographers.
And she comes into Somalia and
she decides she's going to set up her own studio and he is in Edinburgh.
So she decides she has to come to Scotland's other big city, Glasgow.
Which is where her mother is from. And she sets up a studio in St.
Enoch Square in Glasgow.
(03:45):
And she's one of the very earliest female photographers.
And so it's an exploration, really, of the female gaze and women's lives in
this sort of early Victorian period and also of the city of Glasgow,
which is almost a character in the book, I think.
Oh, definitely. I mean, I've lived in Glasgow in the last 15 years.
Definitely a character. where you get to meet so many different people,
(04:10):
so many different walks of life, you know, all doing different things.
It's just really the best melting pot you could ever have.
I think Glasgow as well. Glasgow has this reputation as well as being a gritty city and a hard city.
In the Victorian era, there was a lot of poverty here and still is.
But I think one of the things I wanted to particularly explore in the book is
(04:33):
successful Glasgow. You know, Glasgow was this engine room.
Glasgow was an Enlightenment city of a different nature to Edinburgh,
but very much sort of a thriving, bustling, exciting city, a bit of a melting pot.
And I think, you know, people very often think of Glasgow's history in terms
of, you know, poverty and deprivation and crime and all of these things.
(04:58):
And we forget that there was this other side to the story as well.
And I think what people forget is Glasgow is extremely cultured.
It's so driven to gallery, so driven to art, it's so driven to architecture.
It's driven to constant change.
Like, you know, you can't go to Glasgow one year, come back the next and something not have changed.
(05:21):
Like whether it's like the main street or a
building or something like yeah it's constantly
changing and I would say that Glasgow is like
the sleeping giant it's always breathing it's
always testing you it's always pushing you to dream better
and it's an amazing place if
(05:41):
you want to feel inspiration every footstep
every you know corner of every part of
the city that's the place to go for sure i
think so too i mean i now live in glasgow i didn't actually when
i started to write this book so it was a move we made
part of the way along that journey and i had always visited glasgow and had
(06:02):
always always loved it and that of course is glasgow today and i think today
the city center of glasgow is one of the most exciting cities in europe but
it's not as residential as it was in the victorian era and so this is a little
look at you know the new town of Glasgow.
Glasgow was completely residential and streets that today are almost entirely
(06:22):
offices and businesses and bars and restaurants and things. People actually
lived in the centre of town.
Well, I would argue that the rats were technically living there because there's
some there that are household cats.
I've had a number of occasions where I've walked through the city and I've met
one and I went oh fuck, what the hell is that?
(06:43):
And I've just stood there waiting for it to cross the road because I'm like.
That thing could take me. I think I'll just stand here and let it do its thing
and I'll cross to the other side and we'll just be good.
You know, I think that's the only thing that's really living in the cities on
Earth is some wildlife, you know, because I actually saw otters in the class
(07:05):
of Leith that are not too long ago.
Wow, I've never seen otters in town. And there isn't as much bird life actually.
You still live by the water of Leith and there was a lot of bird life,
but there isn't quite so much bird life in the cities.
Center but it's one of the most exciting non-conformist
creative environments i think i've ever walked right into so very happy to be
(07:26):
staying here now it is beautiful and i think that the disguise that you get
in glasgow too like the color is not like anywhere else almost like the.
Vibrancy that you get is is incredible and there's so many elements like we
could probably spend an entire hour talking about all the different elements
(07:48):
of Glasgow that makes it amazing.
I was a tiny little sheltered girl from the Shetland Islands who came to Glasgow
and I just, my whole mind was blown. My eyes were huge.
I didn't know about, you know, Catholic areas and Protestant areas.
And I learned so much, so politically, living in the East End,
(08:09):
which is not a very wealthy area, but it's where the working class usually lives.
And I'm just experiencing all these hardworking people and how they do these
things and how they create all this stuff.
And I still to this day will get people that will stop me and go,
I can't place your accent, but you're not a Glaswegian.
(08:32):
And I'm like, well, I've kind of been here 15 years. I feel like I'm a Glaswegian at heart.
You know, like no matter where I've lived, I've always come back to Glasgow.
Glasgow has always been great.
As soon as I see that Welcome to Glasgow sign, I get so happy and content inside.
It's just in my blood. I'm like, I'm home.
(08:56):
And I don't get that feeling anywhere else in the world. I've never had that
feeling anywhere else. So I'm super excited by that.
So tell us, what sparked the idea for this novel? What was your aha moment?
I have to write this moment.
I think I wander around with history in my head a lot. And I have been looking
into Glasgow, the pictures of David Octavius Hill and his photography studio
(09:19):
were kind of interesting to me.
There have been a couple of major exhibitions featuring some of his painting
and some also of his photographs.
So I just felt there was a real story there.
I just felt that Glasgow hadn't had a book that is set in this period that isn't miserable.
Trouble it's actually the book I wanted to write was joyful and fun
(09:40):
and it was going to be a romp and there was going to be an ensemble cast of
characters and I just thought nobody's done that in Glasgow
I think I'll give it a lash and you put your
finger there on one of the interesting things or one of the interesting contrasts
between say Glasgow and Edinburgh Glasgow was founded on
the church like it's one of the first things you talked about there was
sectarianism and you didn't know it was protestant who was catholic because you
(10:01):
hadn't come from that and Glasgow in the east end where
you're talking about you know that was all church land and so
Glasgow was a very very religious city it
was founded on the cathedral you know that
fascinated me as well because it that was those were the people that were in
charge it was a huge influence on the way that people lived in Glasgow including
lots of working-class women and women who would be locked up say in the lock
(10:24):
hospital because the Glasgow City Council had the right to to to put women in
the lock hospital if they were considered immoral.
And so it was just something very interesting about that environment for me.
And I thought, I'm going to try and write a story around that.
And what are the things that would allow me to discuss all of that stuff?
And so Ellery, when she sets up her studio.
(10:46):
Takes photographs that people aren't really expecting. She takes a photograph
of a kind of working class totem tree that people have a kind of folk belief in, for example.
And nobody's valued that because that hasn't, you know, that hasn't been valued.
And she befriends an heiress in the city. Glasgow's famous for its Victorian heiresses.
(11:07):
It was a city where women inherited money. In Scots law, this was something
that was possible, much more possible than perhaps other places in Europe.
And so this girl has been brought up in the Free Kirk and is recently in charge
of this, what seems to be quite a large fortune, and discovers that her father
has a secret collection of erotic art that she feels she has to dispose of.
(11:29):
And she's out for a debt. She doesn't know what to do.
And so Ellery is her friend in this. Ellery can hook her up and help her sort
of deal with her terrible problem.
And I chose 1846 in particular because Frederick Frederick Douglass,
who was still actually an escaped slave in 1846 and got his manumission papers.
(11:49):
So this black activist came over to Scotland and toured the country and was
really well received, but started a campaign against the Free Kirk.
And the Free Kirk had just been set up and they had accepted money from plantation
owners. And so Douglass started a Give Back the money campaign.
And people were amazed to hear him speak. He was a fantastic public speaker.
(12:13):
And he went all over the country and gave public meetings about this money.
And the campaign was really quite kind of vitriolic almost, you know,
the Freekirk fought back.
And we don't think we think of the Victorians being kind of terribly sedate and all the rest of it.
But there was, you know, real bad blood between the Frederick Douglass bring
back the money campaign, which was.
(12:34):
Lots of different people got behind that particularly the Quakers in Scotland,
and the Free Kirk the ministers and the congregations of the Free Kirk who said
well now we're going to keep the money and so,
That was really exciting to me as well, because we quite often are told the
stories from our history that, you know, there was no division and nobody said
(12:55):
no and everybody got on and, you know, everybody agreed.
And of course, that's completely untrue. When does everybody agree about anything?
And so the idea of Frederick Douglass being here and this campaign sort of impinging
on the story of the novel was really appealing to me.
That's amazing. And I think we need more kind of Glaswegian stories.
(13:15):
It isn't really about struggle and it isn't really about that darker element
of Glasgow because there's so much more to be offered.
And I was lucky when I was in the Glasgow Royal Firmia, an auxiliary who was
retiring came in with all the books, historical books, faith in Glasgow and
had been written by a Glaswegian author.
(13:37):
Author i she reminds me a lot of catherine goodwin it was like a glaswegian
catherine goodwin i adore these books to death like i will never part with them
i think they're absolutely amazing.
And i think what you're offering is it's just that little the
heaven of what the magic
of what glasgow could be the magic of what glasgow is
(13:58):
to opera and i think that the magic
of what glasgow was i mean this it's absolutely i mean
the you know it's a novel but many of the the characters in it
are real so it's not some fictional thing that Glasgow could be yeah Glasgow
was like this you know Glasgow was wealthy and successful and
very integrated communities and I
think there's a sort of sense of people sort of do Glasgow's
(14:20):
history down because particularly later in the Victorian period
there was this sort of terrible terrible amounts of
poverty and you know it just went awry somewhere I'm not
going to say it didn't but but this middle class kind of
of upper class side of Glasgow was pretty extraordinary so
I think we need to you know I think most people would
think of how Glasgow went wrong is is
(14:40):
when there was just present day and I'm not that's I can't comment on that really
no it's a conversation between two friends it's not this isn't really kind of
a structured interview and I think that's what a lot of people enjoy about the
book of life podcast because it's we just talk about things like Like we'll talk about,
you know, how people came up with the ideas,
what the book means to them, what the passion is.
(15:03):
And also about their life, like what drew them to writing, what drew them into this world.
Because everybody's got a different journey and it's about sharing the journey.
Okay. So how was your journey to this point?
I always feel like I'm a bit disappointing really in that regard.
Because I started writing, I had a job at university in Edinburgh and I had
(15:29):
a very young child and my marriage ended.
My husband left country actually, he went back to Ireland, he's an Irish guy
and I was just very overwhelmed I think.
I just couldn't really cope with looking after my daughter and looking after
a flat and looking at your 95 job and all those things.
And it was the very early 90s.
And I had a little bit of money saved up. And I thought, well,
(15:51):
I think I need some time off.
And I couldn't, I didn't feel, to be honest, I didn't feel I could take time off for me.
I didn't say I could say I need some time out, but I could, I could say,
I think I'm going to write a book.
Yeah. So I, and it wasn't something that had ever been a huge ambition of mine.
You know, I'd always enjoyed reading and I'd done it in college and I decided that I was going to,
(16:15):
I was going to write a book and so I quit my job which is terrible advice
nobody should ever do this to be honest no I've
been there yep yeah yeah so people go
to book festival and say how do I become a writer and I'm like don't quit
your job it's probably a very bad idea but anyway I quit my job and
I used this money to to to give myself some time really and I started to write
(16:36):
and I just I wrote very quickly a novel which was a contemporary novel to the
time yeah it feels it's almost historical now the early 1990s doesn't it it
does a little bit yeah i sent it off to,
i sent it off to a number of publishers like i
just looked up writers and artists yearbook and i i printed
(16:57):
out a load of copies and i sent them away and before
i knew it i had an offer oh hang on the wi-fi
network does not appear to be connected to the internet keep
trying wi-fi i you're you're with me still
so don't worry about it that's good yes so
i and i just started to write i sent i i wrote a 70 000 word novel i knew novel
(17:19):
was technically 70 000 words because i'd done an english lit degree and i i
got lots of names out the writers and artists yearbook at that point there were
probably more publishers in the uk than there actually are now and i printed up loads of.
I wheeled all the copies down to the post office in my daughter's pram.
She was still very small and posted them off. And three weeks later,
(17:40):
I got my first offer, which is a horrible first story for people because quite
often people spend years wanting to be a writer.
And it really wasn't on my list. It was just I was going to do this thing while
I was kind of giving myself some free headspace.
And then I got an agent and laterally got signed up at Random House.
And I started out writing contemporary commercial fiction in the 90s,
(18:01):
which was great. Great. So I really enjoyed that.
Kept getting drawn back into the historical. I was just really fascinated with
where we come from, really.
You know, what's our background as a culture, as a society?
And so I started to write things that were stories that were historical.
So I have a nine-book series that's set in the 1950s. It's a crime series,
(18:23):
which is very much inspired by Agatha Christie.
And then also write these kind of more beefy historical novels.
In in an earlier period in this 1820s really
up till about i don't know 1850 maybe
is the the top for that top date for that
for that set of books and they're not really related other than
(18:45):
that they all come out of my head and they're all set in the same period so
they can be you know whatever subject fascinates me really is where i go yeah
that's really interesting because like for me i i started off in india so like
a totally different experience for me i was like,
Out of my depth entirely, I did the same thing.
(19:07):
I'd always wanted to be a writer. I'd met a published author of children's novels. I'd won a competition.
She's like, you've got one hell of an imagination issue writing.
I just remember looking at her and thinking, you're crazy. Like,
there's no way that I could do this.
(19:27):
You know, I've been technically writing now for 14 years, like on and off.
I've got, you know, and it's so crazy to me because people ask me all the time.
They're like, how did you do it?
And I always feel the same way as you do about, you know, not necessarily having
(19:48):
the most exciting story.
I i had an illness i i i
needed to find some way to to cope with it and and
that's what i did i just went for
it i wrote the story that was in my heart and on my mind
and and it was almost the case of i was like well i.
I don't believe that anything's gonna come
(20:08):
of this and i i just kept writing keep writing keep writing
i'm lucky that there's people out
there that love it and and that support me with it
and and do it with me i think sometimes my husband would
wish that uh i would maybe pop my head
up a little bit more phenomenal every so often but i
think that's all partners i'm pretty sure all partners are like
(20:29):
uh hi you remember me
kind of feel you know and
and i think that's just a genuine thing that
we all do like when we're really passionate about something
thing we just sort of disappear and kind of vanish and
we just we just sort of say okay it's a form
of escape really isn't it I think it's a form of like just exercising
(20:50):
your mind and the way you might go to the gym to exercise your body.
You're reading a book and it takes you yeah I
think lots of people do it for different reasons do
you know what I mean I think it's just different people are so different so I
know lots of writers now you know I've been writing for over 20 years
and I you know met people all along
the way who are doing it and everyone seems to be you know everyone has
(21:12):
a different career path everyone has different reasons everyone has
different ideas and I suppose that's just part of
the kind of joy of it that it's not as creative
careers really aren't like you know being an accountant or being a lawyer or
something where there's a career structure and you have to do it a particular way
everyone does it in their own way and that's kind of lovely and
I think that's the great thing it's like oh we all have different
(21:34):
ways that we've gone about doing this what would
be you know your best piece of
advice in regards to really nailing down
discipline and getting yourself into that writing
kind of that writing routines we all have different i think everyone has their
own pace my my pace is for fiction is 5 000 words a week i can write 5 000 words.
(21:55):
A week and they'll be pretty decent i can sometimes do a little bit more but
i can't do much more than that i might get a 6 000 words a week so once you
know what your pace is I mean,
I have a friend who writes these really amazing literary tiny novellas. That's what she does.
She writes these kind of very exacting and she writes 150 words a day and that's
what she can write. That's it.
(22:16):
And so that would be, for me, that would feel really slow because I'm kind of
caught up in narrative drive.
So I think the first thing you probably need to look at is what is the natural
pace for you? What pace can you sustain?
Because unless you're writing short stories or very short things,
this sense of sustaining your effort is important.
It's a marathon. It's not a sprint, especially writing a novel or a nonfiction book.
(22:41):
And so that's why i'm mentoring people like that one of the first things we often talk about,
is you know what actually is your pace and you
know if you have say a nine to five job can you write for one hour in the evening
and reasonably what could you expect to get out of that one hour in the evening
and then then you can make a plan for how long you know the book is going to
take you because you know what you can what it's reasonable to put yourself under so yeah my i I,
(23:06):
from the beginning, wrote a thousand words a day,
five days a week, and a novel is 70,000 words minimum.
So after 14 weeks, you're beginning to get to the point where you've a novel,
although the historical ones tend to be a bit longer than 70.
I think The Secrets of Blitheswood Square is about 110,000 words, something like that.
So, you know, it took me a little bit longer. And then once you've got your
(23:29):
first draft, you can go in and edit.
And they're all different. But, you know, know people say how do you edit and
it's like every book again is completely different you know it's it's different
yeah because some books come out of imagination fully formed don't they they're
just like perfect little babies you know.
Yeah. And some of them you have to work at because they're not,
(23:50):
you know, all there all the time. Yeah.
I think people find it really frustrating sometimes because they will say,
well, you know, how do you do it?
And then they want to do it that one way and they want to be able to do it over and over and over.
And I mean, what in life works like that? That is a creative thing. Really nothing.
You know, writing is always if you can keep your heartbeat going in the sense that if you just,
(24:12):
you know, do an X amount of words a day, then you're
going to be getting somewhere and then every time it's just slightly different
for the editing process or very different sometimes it can you know can be something
it takes two weeks it could be something that takes six months actually you
just don't know when when you're
finished you have to look at it and say a little bit of surgery required.
(24:35):
Yeah exactly and i think that's exactly what it
was like for me some of my theories is they just just fly out
and and the editor is like no don't don't
rewrite anything don't add anything it's perfect the
way it is stop it live it alone and then there's
the ones where they'll be like you have waffled here
and there can you go back and maybe like streamline it a
(24:56):
little bit because you're a waffle i do waffle i don't
know if you have totally i think um i think that's being published isn't
it your your natural and landscape is that
larger landscape so you're liable to sort have quite a
lot to say yeah and then
i think that for me i had to kind of learn the balancing
act of that where i sent info dump
(25:17):
a lot too and and sometimes they have to go in and remind me don't info dump
and info dumping for those of you that maybe aren't used to the short term is
essentially when you put in a lot of history or backstory in through your character's
thinking And you tend to do it over two,
three pages or, you know, two, three pages here, two,
(25:39):
three pages there, but you're still doing a lot of info dumping.
So what I've started doing is sharing through diary entries or doing it as flashbacks
or memories or even just starting further back and then working to the present day.
And I think that's a trick I think everyone should look out for because it's really easy to do that.
(26:00):
Do you find that as well, that you kind of maybe struggle to put the backstory
in? To know your characters, you need to know where they come from.
So there's a little bit of that required, isn't there? I have a particular,
for, you know, The Secrets of the Rising Square and the book previous to it,
The Fair Botanist, they have a really wide character range.
Lots and lots of characters in them and quite an ensemble cast.
(26:23):
And so you can't go all that deeply into everybody's backstory because just,
you know, there's just a lot of people stuff happening.
You know, everyone's got their stuff happening. You've only got so much space.
So, you know, I had to be very careful about what I wanted, what I felt a reader
would want to know. For me, a really good historical novel is quite often just
sort of controlled gossip.
(26:44):
It's just, what do you want to know next? What is the thing here that's going
to make you the most satisfied with this story?
And it doesn't matter if I know that, you know, there was an election that year
or, you know, you might know lots of things that were happening in history that year.
That doesn't matter. what matches is you know is somebody going to buy that
dress and why do they want to buy that dress and where are they going to wear
(27:06):
the dress you know it's like the things in your day-to-day.
Yeah, exactly. What did they have for breakfast and how did they feel like that
and what made them change their mind about something that's important for them
to change their mind about.
And so for me, it's kind of like a time machine almost.
You go in and you just are experiencing it rather than explaining it.
And if I ever feel I'm explaining it, then, you know, that's not something I'm there to do, really.
(27:32):
I'm there to create a world that someone else can walk into and experience. Yeah.
So what are you excited about sharing with the readers moving forward?
What's your most exciting project? Well, of course, Secret Supplies with Square is out next week.
So that's really good. And I'm
excited for people in Glasgow to experience Glasgow in a different way.
And to see these characters that, you know, when you're writing a book like
(27:56):
that, it engages your imagination a lot.
And so I've created these characters. I'm dying to see how people react to them.
And, you know, if they think they're fun and if they have questions about them
and all that sort of thing. And that's something that's happened with me before.
You know, the book before Secrets of Lies to a Square was called The Fair Botanist.
And I still, it's like two and a half years ago, actually.
And I still get emails and messages from people saying, oh, this character really
(28:19):
chimed with me. And so I think it's giving people, other people,
that sort of imaginative engagement and satisfaction and, you know,
sharing a story with them, I suppose.
That's fun for me. And then quite shortly, I'm about to start writing another
historical novel and potentially, I think, also a radio play.
(28:39):
So I wrote a radio play last year, which is called On Portobello Prom.
And it's set in Edinburgh. It's on BBC Radio 4 Sounds.
And if you go to any of my social media, you'll find a link to it on my link tree in there.
And it's a five-part drama set in 60s Edinburgh. And the BBC came back last
(29:01):
week and said we'd really like something else.
And I don't know whether I'm going to write something set in 1960 or whether
I'll do something different. I've got a few ideas.
So I'm going in to talk to them about that next week and maybe get that done.
And then after that, I'll be starting another historical novel,
which I think will be set in 1830s Scotland and is about a lost diadem. A lost diadem.
(29:24):
So like a tiara crown that has been lost and has been kept in this family and
is sort of out of the public eye.
And then I can't say what happens, but something happens.
And people discover that this crown has been kept.
This crown has a lot of historic significance for people. So, you know, I'm curious.
(29:44):
Well, I will have to say this because I'm doing creative writing as a college course right now.
And one of the things that I've just learned about is writing for radio.
And the fact that you've been able to do that and it's a five episode thing
and I know what goes into it.
I have to say I'm completely blown away by that because that is not easy.
(30:08):
I mean, I've done a film script, which luckily Touchwood was adored by the director,
and it's moving very, very slowly forward, thanks to Strikes and everything else.
But to change mediums for novelists is so hard.
And I always like to take time out and say, really honestly,
(30:31):
that is absolutely amazing that you did that. And I think that's an incredible
sign that you're a very gifted writer.
Because I know from going from that medium myself, if you do want to sit there
and pull your hair out and you do scream at the computer and you go,
ah, this is so much harder than it should be.
(30:52):
So, yes, I absolutely think that's amazing.
And I just wanted to take the time to say thank you for doing it.
Because I know that there's so many people out there
that will adore you for doing that and and
also it's in a way we're showing
that novelists aren't just novelists we can do far more than just write a novel
(31:12):
thank you well I've never written a film script so I'm very impressed that you
managed to do that because it's not something that's on my register at all and
I have to say this radio drama happened kind of almost by mistake and I took
the story from a short story I had written that was part of a charity compilation.
And so adapting it, it was already a story that was in my head,
(31:33):
but there's no story in my head now.
So it's going to be kind of interesting to see what happens next,
what the next one is going to be. But I think that's probably my favorite.
I always say this. This is my best recommendation to people when they're looking for inspiration.
I always say, take a walk either through Helmsford, if you're here in Scotland,
(31:55):
or through Glasgow City Centre and find the tiniest little cafe.
Don't go into the franchise cafes, but just a tiny little cafe and listen to people around you.
And you'd be surprised how often you will walk out.
I think walking is really important actually
i like to go for a walk every day because when you're a writer you're
(32:16):
so sedentary and it's really good to get
out and just get some light and get some inspiration and i
too am a big fan of coffee and you know
in glasgow we're very well served with lots and lots of lovely independent coffee
shops and they got the patter here oh yeah there's plenty of coffee shops in
glasgow that's for sure yeah you know everybody here is addicted I swear we're
(32:39):
all addicted to coffee in Glasgow because we're all walking around with different
cups from different places.
Sometimes I'll look at people to see what coffee cups they've got as an inspiration
to where I'm going to go get my lady's cup.
The other thing that I...
The other thing that I do is I will walk into the bookshop and I'll just try
(33:03):
and wander around without being recognized.
And I'll just take a nosy look at what's everybody excited about.
Because in Glasgow, people read. It is a thing. Lots of people read in Glasgow.
And I always find it interesting to go into the different
bookstores in Glasgow and just listen to what the books
(33:25):
are that they're talking about and that can
sometimes inspire something in me where i'm like oh yeah i
you know it might just be that i have an idea
in my head but i don't have a genre for it or whatever it
can just sort of be the guidance and i think where you're
where you are as a writer can
sometimes impact you and and sort of
(33:47):
drive you to where it's quite sometimes you need
to go it's quite interesting isn't it because anything we write like whatever
book i write this year and I will write a book this year
it's not going to be out till like 2020 what are
we 2024 25 maybe 26 in hardback so
it's quite far away so it's
quite difficult that you cannot write to somebody else's
(34:08):
schedule or because someone else has brought out a book you like and you'd
like to do that as well you know that's it's
it's so far away in people's minds from when that came
yeah out so I think you just have to write what you
what appeals to you you know for whatever reason
it appeals to you and the stories that
divert you hopefully are going to divert other people and I
(34:29):
find that like the writing experience for me is very like the
reading experience but kind of more intense oh you
know that thing where people just you have to keep going and you want to
know what happens and you're really excited about it and people might
be reading a book over you know a couple of days or a week but you're
in that state for months when you're writing that book because I.
Don't plan I never really plan and so
(34:49):
I I don't know yeah I mean people's brains just work in different ways don't.
They but for me it's quite I can't plan and one point an editor said to me can
you write a synopsis and I wrote the synopsis and honestly it killed the book
I never ended up writing that book because I never I would I wouldn't have been
interested and you know I knew what was going to happen so.
(35:10):
I struggle with that too yeah and I struggle I'm the same as you I struggle
with that I have to like have the chapters broke down,
and then I have to walk away yeah and I have to walk away from it I have to
put that to one side for like six months so that I completely forget what it is,
(35:30):
and then what I do is I go back and as I write each
chapter it's like I get to really experience it and
then it flows really really good for me that's the
only way i can do it because when i agreed i was
ty ham hill press which is a very small publishing company
and england and they said we want you to release a book to two books a month
(35:51):
for the next three years which is a lot it's a lot to take on like god i have
a stack it's like this this big like just massive and i i was explaining to her I'm like,
I plan every book and then I walk away for a bit.
And then I come back and I write it. And then I go away and I put it away somewhere
and then I check it, you know, with the editors or whatever.
(36:14):
And she goes, that's fine. That's absolutely fine.
But for me, I have to do that process because I have to almost live,
read, and exist entirely within that world.
It sounds like you do the same as I do. and
there's nothing worse especially when I'm on like if I get
to go on tour which is so rare that I do book tours
(36:35):
now but when I get to go on a book tour it's even
harder for me because I have to re-read that book as I'm on tour so that I remember
what I'm talking about when I'm talking to people because by this point Crystal's
three other novels has no clue where she's at in the first one she wrote and it's like.
(36:56):
The fans usually know it better than I do. And what I do is I read the entire
book to Ian, who's my husband, and drives me everywhere.
And I look at him and I go, and he'll just give me words, little words to remind me of certain things.
Otherwise, I couldn't tell you what happened in that book because it's like
my brain has this way of going, that story's told, it's deleted, let's go to the next one.
(37:21):
And it's almost like it's like a conspiracy because it has to.
You is there's not enough space in my brain for all
of them so it's kind of like a computer it's like oh that's done okay next one
oh that's done and it's the only way i can do it and my editor just thinks it's
amazing because when i'm reading it back why i've completely forgotten the entire
(37:42):
novel so she'll be asking me questions and i'll be like.
Hold on let me google searching through
the novel ah you know it's the
only way that i can do it and and people find that
that fascinating but the characters never leave
me i've seen me in conversations with my
(38:02):
best friend over coffee or my husband over coffee
and then i'll start going damn that's
the answer to that question and i'll take out my notepad and
i'll start writing down down things because you know one
of the characters sitting on my shoulder suddenly telling me.
Something that's really important and my husband and my best friend had
to get used to me doing and they would
(38:24):
just be like crystal's right in the yeah we'll just
wait 20 minutes she'll be back she'll be back and i
can go right back to the conversation with them like i
hadn't missed a beat but i have to take that 10
minutes to go right down whatever is the stupid character's
whispering for in a might year do you have a character
though that you just no matter what you write them
(38:46):
they don't know i did for a while though i had i
wrote this book set of books called the mirabelle bevan mysteries and
so there's nine of them and they run from 1951 to 1959 and
mirabelle is in these books but she also has a
sidekick called vesta and there are various other people who are she has
a squeeze called sergeant mcgregor he starts out
being sergeant mcgregor and he ends of getting promoted and so yeah
(39:07):
i i they were with me for a long time
and i would be charity shopping you know vintage shopping and
i would see a 1950s handbag and i think well mirabelle would really like
that handbag or i would you know see around the place mirabelle would really
like it if we had this yeah so yeah she was with me for a while but that i stopped
writing that series maybe three or four years ago now and and it's not that
(39:30):
she's not there if someone i mean do you think mirabelle would like this banana
i would be able to tell them what i think Mirabelle would think of the banana.
She's still like somebody that I know quite well, but she's not all the time.
But there was a point in the middle of writing that series.
It's quite intense because if you think about it, like you're writing a novel
at, you know, 70, 80, 90, that plays and wears whatever it is.
But then if you're writing a series that's like,
(39:52):
You know, it's a huge number. It's almost a million words by the time you've
written a 10-book series, nine-book series.
So you've spent a lot of time with those people and you kind of do know them inside out.
But that was the design. You know, the design of the series was that it would
just be for one book a year for the 50s and would be about Maribel cheering
up, you know, as Britain cheered up, really, because post-war Britain was miserable
(40:15):
and then by the 60s everyone was quite cheery.
So I was kind of interested in that sort of social history journey as well.
And I think for me, I love my characters, but they are also always within that
sort of historical context around, you know, yes, they're interesting,
but they're interesting because they fit into some kind of pattern.
Important to me or interesting to me that's really going on in sort of real history.
(40:40):
And that's the interest, really, I suppose. And I write, I tend,
well, I used to when I started always write in the morning.
So I would just get up and write in the morning. And that was what I did.
Then I would do other things.
You know kids and school runs and all that kind of stuff yeah
and now my daughter's of course grown up and
I don't have to do any school runs and also once you
(41:00):
have a set books as you yourself know you're right you're not
only writing a new book but you're managing the backlist and so
you've got book festivals and events these kind of things to do and also other
interesting projects that come up because I find you know writing a book is
a marathon but it is quite nice to do you know a zumba class now and then right
and that might be something you know a short story or a,
(41:25):
radio drama or something like that and just sort of stretch
your brain in a different direction so that you're not constantly pounding the
pavement on your marathon of a novel and so yeah that's that's very much how
I write sort of keeping keeping my brain fresh is is a task I suppose it's part
of that writing life of like how do you rest your brain in between how do Do you,
(41:46):
you know, manage that?
Because you can get very tired.
You know, you can get very tired.
It's funny that you were saying about when you think of the series.
I'm six years old. That's a lot of books, Crystal. I know.
(42:08):
And I'm like, I mean, we never planned for it to be 32.
We'd always planned for it to be a short series.
But the way we built it was like spider webs. Every character gets to have their
own say and gets to tell their own story.
And they're all all in the same world so they're
all interacting and we're always building this world out
(42:30):
and out and when me and
my my co-writer joey legend sat down and we we
seriously looked at how many different ideas
and different books we were going to write it came up 32 i
was six books in and i still to
the like i get bothered by them all all
the time and i have other series i write i
(42:52):
have have to go away and i have to work on another book and there's nothing
more frustrating because i have like i have
three characters that constantly annoy me and it's harold
marie and and and
generally edward and they will come and they'll be like oh
i like that song gotta put it in my playlist or oh
my god do you see those shoes you totally have to wear those
(43:14):
shoes when you write my stuff and it's so
annoying but what i i
think for me like when i come to the end of my series it's letting go of the
characters it's the hardest part for me because it's like almost like a grieving
process i have to let them completely go and i have to move on from that and
(43:34):
it's so you're much you're much softer than me i'm like get out of my way i have something new to do.
Okay I'm like okay we have to say goodbye now and I feel like I'm not,
you interesting thing I'm sorry I've got to move on yeah and I kind of have
(43:59):
that softy approach and my husband's like it's the end of the series end it
you know he's more the the dictator of,
don't you dare go writing things for that character again.
But he's also the only person that's read everything I've written.
So, oh, no, it's not.
(44:19):
Because he's my biggest critic. You know, I wrote this fantasy series and he's like, it was 400 pages.
And he went, you could have deleted the first hundred. Right.
Only got interesting on page 200 and i was like
are you kidding me so you
know he's always my best critic but i think you kind of need that you need that
(44:43):
brutal honesty from somebody out with the publishing industry because i think
a lot of the time when you're working with that earth really wants to be that
harsh with you and sometimes when i give him something he'll be like Like, why didn't you do this?
Why didn't they do that? Why, you know, and he's an East End glasso boy.
So, you know, it's very brutal, very rough and tough with the way he talks.
(45:08):
But it makes sense, you know. And he's really driven me to do more than just romance.
Like, this year, I will be doing my first crime novel. I'm doing my first thriller.
You know, I've done a screenplay. you know he's
like really it's a lot in one year yeah and
then this is this is me like i don't stop
(45:31):
i very rarely sleep because i i don't sleep
very well and and he laughs at me like i've
never met anybody else that just pushes as
hard as you do and i go because when it
all finishes when it you know when you give your kids your
legacy at the end you want to know that you've
done done absolutely everything and that they they can 100
(45:52):
know this is what they've
left of me like i've got 800 books i
swear to god my kids will hate me one day they will
they will look at mom's collection of novels and they'll be like how the do
we get rid of these i swear that there's going to be a some sort of library
it's going to get set up and all these books are going to be in there i'm not
(46:13):
going to be like thanks mom did you not read digital around our necks I read a lot of digital.
No, I can't. I'm dyslexic. I read a lot of digital. I'm dyslexic, so I can't.
Which drives my editor nuts. Yeah, it drives my editor nuts because it takes
me longer to edit than anybody else because I have to go so slow.
(46:36):
And I also have to have the computer read it to me in order for me to catch
any little things as well.
But that never stopped me. Because when I look at Catherine Cookson,
she was dyslexic. She had severe depression issues.
And look at the library she gave us. Look at the pieces of work she gave us.
(46:57):
And there's so many writers out there who maybe don't talk about their learning
difficulties, but they create these vast and large pieces of work.
And if that's the one thing I can leave everybody today, knowing that,
you know, no matter what the uphill struggle is, as long as you're happy and
you're content and you're doing what you love, that that's all that matters.
(47:18):
And and you know be happy in yourself and
proud of yourself and know that you're I think you're doing
something amazing well I don't know if my daughter will thank you my daughter is
dyslexic and so she I don't think has read
any of my books at all and I don't think she's it's
not not interested she's around and she
will help you with book launch or she'll come and you know
(47:38):
she's really supportive in that regard but she's not like oh
mom I don't know what you did on page 220 120 that's just not
her she is visually creative she
is not like it's not words for her and so
yeah I don't I don't even think of it as a legacy I wouldn't even begin to think
of it like that I just think of it as something that I love getting up in the
morning to do and this is how I want to at least part of my day I feel incredibly
(48:03):
lucky that I get to to do that basically,
and I can do that no matter what yeah yeah I mean I could do this is something I,
control of, if you like. Well, I.
I will definitely be giving you and your daughter a call when the film comes
to Glasgow and be like, hey, do you want to come watch it with me?
(48:25):
Because I can't watch my own stuff back.
So it might be the only place that I'll go and actually watch the movie back.
It's the same with podcasting. Yeah. And it's the same with the podcast.
I mean, I go in and I edit them, but I never actually listen to them when they launch.
Because I'm like, it's such a weird thing for me. Like as soon as it's launched,
(48:45):
as soon as something's happened, I kind of just put it away and think,
okay, well, I need to go on to the next thing. What is the next thing I need to do?
And I've been really lucky that way. But you survived the Book and Life podcast.
It's gone fairly well. I'm hoping you're going to come back when your new book's
out and you've got your new radio stuff coming up so we can promote the hell out of it for you.
(49:08):
It's been amazing having you on. I hope you've enjoyed your time with us.
Yeah. So everybody, check out Sarah's new work. It's out next week.
And yeah, I mean, as I always say, find a book, find life, find happiness, and be who you are.
Until next time, I shall see you all again.
And welcome back to the Book and Life podcast. Today we're going to have a brand new book guest on.
Whether they're an author, an editor, a producer, you'll never quite know,
so you're in for one hell of a ride.
But today I just have to do the adverts and then I'll get us straight into that
(00:21):
most important conversation.
And as as we do every week i'm
going to read the shadow which is
part of the time guardian series and this is book four from
marianne curly the battle is
over the war is won the prophecy complete but life can't just pick up where
(00:42):
it left off for ethan struggling to cope with tragic loss at odds with friends
in the guard he finds himself adrift jumping in shadows and sensing someone
who who can't possibly be there.
Blaming herself for the goddess Athena's death, Giselle swears revenge to fullify
the immortals' plan for world domination.
(01:02):
But Giselle hadn't planned on love, and that leaves her with an unbearable choice.
Should she follow her heart, or the strings of a goddess short on praise but
high on expectation, who continues to pull her from the grave?
As the guard in the Order battles through the past.
(01:31):
And just a reminder that The Price of Freedom by Rosemary Rowan is being donated
to the Ukraine refugee crisis.
And here's the blurb for her book. book.
It's one of her Roman British crime series, which was written under her maiden name.
(01:57):
All editions can be found online where all books are sold, even her agents donating her commission.
Sorry, I don't have the blurb for that, but that's what she's doing.
And now without further ado, let's get you to the guests.
And everybody, please welcome back Sarah Chardon to the show.
(02:19):
She is absolutely an amazing writer. I have not seen imagery or flow the way she puts it together.
I am super excited to have her here for you guys to experience her,
to share her, to get to know her.
She is going to change your world in regards to what you're reading and what you're writing.
And hopefully all your reading habits. Because I'm hoping she's going to be
(02:42):
your number one pick by the end of the show.
So without further ado, please welcome Sarah. Thank you.
So tell us about your new book. What was it about and what made you excited to write it?
So the new book is called The Secrets of Blithewood Square and it is set in Glasgow in 1846.
(03:04):
And one of the main characters is a young woman who has trained with a very famous photographer.
Photography in 1846 is a new science stroke art and not very many people know
how to take photographs or how to process them.
And Ellery has trained with David Octavius Hill, who is a painter and also one
(03:25):
of Scotland's earliest and most acclaimed photographers, Victorian photographers.
And she comes into Somalia and
she decides she's going to set up her own studio and he is in Edinburgh.
So she decides she has to come to Scotland's other big city, Glasgow.
Which is where her mother is from. And she sets up a studio in St.
Enoch Square in Glasgow.
(03:45):
And she's one of the very earliest female photographers.
And so it's an exploration, really, of the female gaze and women's lives in
this sort of early Victorian period and also of the city of Glasgow,
which is almost a character in the book, I think.
Oh, definitely. I mean, I've lived in Glasgow in the last 15 years.
Definitely a character. where you get to meet so many different people,
(04:10):
so many different walks of life, you know, all doing different things.
It's just really the best melting pot you could ever have.
I think Glasgow as well. Glasgow has this reputation as well as being a gritty city and a hard city.
In the Victorian era, there was a lot of poverty here and still is.
But I think one of the things I wanted to particularly explore in the book is
(04:33):
successful Glasgow. You know, Glasgow was this engine room.
Glasgow was an Enlightenment city of a different nature to Edinburgh,
but very much sort of a thriving, bustling, exciting city, a bit of a melting pot.
And I think, you know, people very often think of Glasgow's history in terms
of, you know, poverty and deprivation and crime and all of these things.
(04:58):
And we forget that there was this other side to the story as well.
And I think what people forget is Glasgow is extremely cultured.
It's so driven to gallery, so driven to art, it's so driven to architecture.
It's driven to constant change.
Like, you know, you can't go to Glasgow one year, come back the next and something not have changed.
(05:21):
Like whether it's like the main street or a
building or something like yeah it's constantly
changing and I would say that Glasgow is like
the sleeping giant it's always breathing it's
always testing you it's always pushing you to dream better
and it's an amazing place if
(05:41):
you want to feel inspiration every footstep
every you know corner of every part of
the city that's the place to go for sure i
think so too i mean i now live in glasgow i didn't actually when
i started to write this book so it was a move we made
part of the way along that journey and i had always visited glasgow and had
(06:02):
always always loved it and that of course is glasgow today and i think today
the city center of glasgow is one of the most exciting cities in europe but
it's not as residential as it was in the victorian era and so this is a little
look at you know the new town of Glasgow.
Glasgow was completely residential and streets that today are almost entirely
(06:22):
offices and businesses and bars and restaurants and things. People actually
lived in the centre of town.
Well, I would argue that the rats were technically living there because there's
some there that are household cats.
I've had a number of occasions where I've walked through the city and I've met
one and I went oh fuck, what the hell is that?
(06:43):
And I've just stood there waiting for it to cross the road because I'm like.
That thing could take me. I think I'll just stand here and let it do its thing
and I'll cross to the other side and we'll just be good.
You know, I think that's the only thing that's really living in the cities on
Earth is some wildlife, you know, because I actually saw otters in the class
(07:05):
of Leith that are not too long ago.
Wow, I've never seen otters in town. And there isn't as much bird life actually.
You still live by the water of Leith and there was a lot of bird life,
but there isn't quite so much bird life in the cities.
Center but it's one of the most exciting non-conformist
creative environments i think i've ever walked right into so very happy to be
(07:26):
staying here now it is beautiful and i think that the disguise that you get
in glasgow too like the color is not like anywhere else almost like the.
Vibrancy that you get is is incredible and there's so many elements like we
could probably spend an entire hour talking about all the different elements
(07:48):
of Glasgow that makes it amazing.
I was a tiny little sheltered girl from the Shetland Islands who came to Glasgow
and I just, my whole mind was blown. My eyes were huge.
I didn't know about, you know, Catholic areas and Protestant areas.
And I learned so much, so politically, living in the East End,
(08:09):
which is not a very wealthy area, but it's where the working class usually lives.
And I'm just experiencing all these hardworking people and how they do these
things and how they create all this stuff.
And I still to this day will get people that will stop me and go,
I can't place your accent, but you're not a Glaswegian.
(08:32):
And I'm like, well, I've kind of been here 15 years. I feel like I'm a Glaswegian at heart.
You know, like no matter where I've lived, I've always come back to Glasgow.
Glasgow has always been great.
As soon as I see that Welcome to Glasgow sign, I get so happy and content inside.
It's just in my blood. I'm like, I'm home.
(08:56):
And I don't get that feeling anywhere else in the world. I've never had that
feeling anywhere else. So I'm super excited by that.
So tell us, what sparked the idea for this novel? What was your aha moment?
I have to write this moment.
I think I wander around with history in my head a lot. And I have been looking
into Glasgow, the pictures of David Octavius Hill and his photography studio
(09:19):
were kind of interesting to me.
There have been a couple of major exhibitions featuring some of his painting
and some also of his photographs.
So I just felt there was a real story there.
I just felt that Glasgow hadn't had a book that is set in this period that isn't miserable.
Trouble it's actually the book I wanted to write was joyful and fun
(09:40):
and it was going to be a romp and there was going to be an ensemble cast of
characters and I just thought nobody's done that in Glasgow
I think I'll give it a lash and you put your
finger there on one of the interesting things or one of the interesting contrasts
between say Glasgow and Edinburgh Glasgow was founded on
the church like it's one of the first things you talked about there was
sectarianism and you didn't know it was protestant who was catholic because you
(10:01):
hadn't come from that and Glasgow in the east end where
you're talking about you know that was all church land and so
Glasgow was a very very religious city it
was founded on the cathedral you know that
fascinated me as well because it that was those were the people that were in
charge it was a huge influence on the way that people lived in Glasgow including
lots of working-class women and women who would be locked up say in the lock
(10:24):
hospital because the Glasgow City Council had the right to to to put women in
the lock hospital if they were considered immoral.
And so it was just something very interesting about that environment for me.
And I thought, I'm going to try and write a story around that.
And what are the things that would allow me to discuss all of that stuff?
And so Ellery, when she sets up her studio.
(10:46):
Takes photographs that people aren't really expecting. She takes a photograph
of a kind of working class totem tree that people have a kind of folk belief in, for example.
And nobody's valued that because that hasn't, you know, that hasn't been valued.
And she befriends an heiress in the city. Glasgow's famous for its Victorian heiresses.
(11:07):
It was a city where women inherited money. In Scots law, this was something
that was possible, much more possible than perhaps other places in Europe.
And so this girl has been brought up in the Free Kirk and is recently in charge
of this, what seems to be quite a large fortune, and discovers that her father
has a secret collection of erotic art that she feels she has to dispose of.
(11:29):
And she's out for a debt. She doesn't know what to do.
And so Ellery is her friend in this. Ellery can hook her up and help her sort
of deal with her terrible problem.
And I chose 1846 in particular because Frederick Frederick Douglass,
who was still actually an escaped slave in 1846 and got his manumission papers.
(11:49):
So this black activist came over to Scotland and toured the country and was
really well received, but started a campaign against the Free Kirk.
And the Free Kirk had just been set up and they had accepted money from plantation
owners. And so Douglass started a Give Back the money campaign.
And people were amazed to hear him speak. He was a fantastic public speaker.
(12:13):
And he went all over the country and gave public meetings about this money.
And the campaign was really quite kind of vitriolic almost, you know,
the Freekirk fought back.
And we don't think we think of the Victorians being kind of terribly sedate and all the rest of it.
But there was, you know, real bad blood between the Frederick Douglass bring
back the money campaign, which was.
(12:34):
Lots of different people got behind that particularly the Quakers in Scotland,
and the Free Kirk the ministers and the congregations of the Free Kirk who said
well now we're going to keep the money and so,
That was really exciting to me as well, because we quite often are told the
stories from our history that, you know, there was no division and nobody said
(12:55):
no and everybody got on and, you know, everybody agreed.
And of course, that's completely untrue. When does everybody agree about anything?
And so the idea of Frederick Douglass being here and this campaign sort of impinging
on the story of the novel was really appealing to me.
That's amazing. And I think we need more kind of Glaswegian stories.
(13:15):
It isn't really about struggle and it isn't really about that darker element
of Glasgow because there's so much more to be offered.
And I was lucky when I was in the Glasgow Royal Firmia, an auxiliary who was
retiring came in with all the books, historical books, faith in Glasgow and
had been written by a Glaswegian author.
(13:37):
Author i she reminds me a lot of catherine goodwin it was like a glaswegian
catherine goodwin i adore these books to death like i will never part with them
i think they're absolutely amazing.
And i think what you're offering is it's just that little the
heaven of what the magic
of what glasgow could be the magic of what glasgow is
(13:58):
to opera and i think that the magic
of what glasgow was i mean this it's absolutely i mean
the you know it's a novel but many of the the characters in it
are real so it's not some fictional thing that Glasgow could be yeah Glasgow
was like this you know Glasgow was wealthy and successful and
very integrated communities and I
think there's a sort of sense of people sort of do Glasgow's
(14:20):
history down because particularly later in the Victorian period
there was this sort of terrible terrible amounts of
poverty and you know it just went awry somewhere I'm not
going to say it didn't but but this middle class kind of
of upper class side of Glasgow was pretty extraordinary so
I think we need to you know I think most people would
think of how Glasgow went wrong is is
(14:40):
when there was just present day and I'm not that's I can't comment on that really
no it's a conversation between two friends it's not this isn't really kind of
a structured interview and I think that's what a lot of people enjoy about the
book of life podcast because it's we just talk about things like Like we'll talk about,
you know, how people came up with the ideas,
what the book means to them, what the passion is.
(15:03):
And also about their life, like what drew them to writing, what drew them into this world.
Because everybody's got a different journey and it's about sharing the journey.
Okay. So how was your journey to this point?
I always feel like I'm a bit disappointing really in that regard.
Because I started writing, I had a job at university in Edinburgh and I had
(15:29):
a very young child and my marriage ended.
My husband left country actually, he went back to Ireland, he's an Irish guy
and I was just very overwhelmed I think.
I just couldn't really cope with looking after my daughter and looking after
a flat and looking at your 95 job and all those things.
And it was the very early 90s.
And I had a little bit of money saved up. And I thought, well,
(15:51):
I think I need some time off.
And I couldn't, I didn't feel, to be honest, I didn't feel I could take time off for me.
I didn't say I could say I need some time out, but I could, I could say,
I think I'm going to write a book.
Yeah. So I, and it wasn't something that had ever been a huge ambition of mine.
You know, I'd always enjoyed reading and I'd done it in college and I decided that I was going to,
(16:15):
I was going to write a book and so I quit my job which is terrible advice
nobody should ever do this to be honest no I've
been there yep yeah yeah so people go
to book festival and say how do I become a writer and I'm like don't quit
your job it's probably a very bad idea but anyway I quit my job and
I used this money to to to give myself some time really and I started to write
(16:36):
and I just I wrote very quickly a novel which was a contemporary novel to the
time yeah it feels it's almost historical now the early 1990s doesn't it it
does a little bit yeah i sent it off to,
i sent it off to a number of publishers like i
just looked up writers and artists yearbook and i i printed
(16:57):
out a load of copies and i sent them away and before
i knew it i had an offer oh hang on the wi-fi
network does not appear to be connected to the internet keep
trying wi-fi i you're you're with me still
so don't worry about it that's good yes so
i and i just started to write i sent i i wrote a 70 000 word novel i knew novel
(17:19):
was technically 70 000 words because i'd done an english lit degree and i i
got lots of names out the writers and artists yearbook at that point there were
probably more publishers in the uk than there actually are now and i printed up loads of.
I wheeled all the copies down to the post office in my daughter's pram.
She was still very small and posted them off. And three weeks later,
(17:40):
I got my first offer, which is a horrible first story for people because quite
often people spend years wanting to be a writer.
And it really wasn't on my list. It was just I was going to do this thing while
I was kind of giving myself some free headspace.
And then I got an agent and laterally got signed up at Random House.
And I started out writing contemporary commercial fiction in the 90s,
(18:01):
which was great. Great. So I really enjoyed that.
Kept getting drawn back into the historical. I was just really fascinated with
where we come from, really.
You know, what's our background as a culture, as a society?
And so I started to write things that were stories that were historical.
So I have a nine-book series that's set in the 1950s. It's a crime series,
(18:23):
which is very much inspired by Agatha Christie.
And then also write these kind of more beefy historical novels.
In in an earlier period in this 1820s really
up till about i don't know 1850 maybe
is the the top for that top date for that
for that set of books and they're not really related other than
(18:45):
that they all come out of my head and they're all set in the same period so
they can be you know whatever subject fascinates me really is where i go yeah
that's really interesting because like for me i i started off in india so like
a totally different experience for me i was like,
Out of my depth entirely, I did the same thing.
(19:07):
I'd always wanted to be a writer. I'd met a published author of children's novels. I'd won a competition.
She's like, you've got one hell of an imagination issue writing.
I just remember looking at her and thinking, you're crazy. Like,
there's no way that I could do this.
(19:27):
You know, I've been technically writing now for 14 years, like on and off.
I've got, you know, and it's so crazy to me because people ask me all the time.
They're like, how did you do it?
And I always feel the same way as you do about, you know, not necessarily having
(19:48):
the most exciting story.
I i had an illness i i i
needed to find some way to to cope with it and and
that's what i did i just went for
it i wrote the story that was in my heart and on my mind
and and it was almost the case of i was like well i.
I don't believe that anything's gonna come
(20:08):
of this and i i just kept writing keep writing keep writing
i'm lucky that there's people out
there that love it and and that support me with it
and and do it with me i think sometimes my husband would
wish that uh i would maybe pop my head
up a little bit more phenomenal every so often but i
think that's all partners i'm pretty sure all partners are like
(20:29):
uh hi you remember me
kind of feel you know and
and i think that's just a genuine thing that
we all do like when we're really passionate about something
thing we just sort of disappear and kind of vanish and
we just we just sort of say okay it's a form
of escape really isn't it I think it's a form of like just exercising
(20:50):
your mind and the way you might go to the gym to exercise your body.
You're reading a book and it takes you yeah I
think lots of people do it for different reasons do
you know what I mean I think it's just different people are so different so I
know lots of writers now you know I've been writing for over 20 years
and I you know met people all along
the way who are doing it and everyone seems to be you know everyone has
(21:12):
a different career path everyone has different reasons everyone has
different ideas and I suppose that's just part of
the kind of joy of it that it's not as creative
careers really aren't like you know being an accountant or being a lawyer or
something where there's a career structure and you have to do it a particular way
everyone does it in their own way and that's kind of lovely and
I think that's the great thing it's like oh we all have different
(21:34):
ways that we've gone about doing this what would
be you know your best piece of
advice in regards to really nailing down
discipline and getting yourself into that writing
kind of that writing routines we all have different i think everyone has their
own pace my my pace is for fiction is 5 000 words a week i can write 5 000 words.
(21:55):
A week and they'll be pretty decent i can sometimes do a little bit more but
i can't do much more than that i might get a 6 000 words a week so once you
know what your pace is I mean,
I have a friend who writes these really amazing literary tiny novellas. That's what she does.
She writes these kind of very exacting and she writes 150 words a day and that's
what she can write. That's it.
(22:16):
And so that would be, for me, that would feel really slow because I'm kind of
caught up in narrative drive.
So I think the first thing you probably need to look at is what is the natural
pace for you? What pace can you sustain?
Because unless you're writing short stories or very short things,
this sense of sustaining your effort is important.
It's a marathon. It's not a sprint, especially writing a novel or a nonfiction book.
(22:41):
And so that's why i'm mentoring people like that one of the first things we often talk about,
is you know what actually is your pace and you
know if you have say a nine to five job can you write for one hour in the evening
and reasonably what could you expect to get out of that one hour in the evening
and then then you can make a plan for how long you know the book is going to
take you because you know what you can what it's reasonable to put yourself under so yeah my i I,
(23:06):
from the beginning, wrote a thousand words a day,
five days a week, and a novel is 70,000 words minimum.
So after 14 weeks, you're beginning to get to the point where you've a novel,
although the historical ones tend to be a bit longer than 70.
I think The Secrets of Blitheswood Square is about 110,000 words, something like that.
So, you know, it took me a little bit longer. And then once you've got your
(23:29):
first draft, you can go in and edit.
And they're all different. But, you know, know people say how do you edit and
it's like every book again is completely different you know it's it's different
yeah because some books come out of imagination fully formed don't they they're
just like perfect little babies you know.
Yeah. And some of them you have to work at because they're not,
(23:50):
you know, all there all the time. Yeah.
I think people find it really frustrating sometimes because they will say,
well, you know, how do you do it?
And then they want to do it that one way and they want to be able to do it over and over and over.
And I mean, what in life works like that? That is a creative thing. Really nothing.
You know, writing is always if you can keep your heartbeat going in the sense that if you just,
(24:12):
you know, do an X amount of words a day, then you're
going to be getting somewhere and then every time it's just slightly different
for the editing process or very different sometimes it can you know can be something
it takes two weeks it could be something that takes six months actually you
just don't know when when you're
finished you have to look at it and say a little bit of surgery required.
(24:35):
Yeah exactly and i think that's exactly what it
was like for me some of my theories is they just just fly out
and and the editor is like no don't don't
rewrite anything don't add anything it's perfect the
way it is stop it live it alone and then there's
the ones where they'll be like you have waffled here
and there can you go back and maybe like streamline it a
(24:56):
little bit because you're a waffle i do waffle i don't
know if you have totally i think um i think that's being published isn't
it your your natural and landscape is that
larger landscape so you're liable to sort have quite a
lot to say yeah and then
i think that for me i had to kind of learn the balancing
act of that where i sent info dump
(25:17):
a lot too and and sometimes they have to go in and remind me don't info dump
and info dumping for those of you that maybe aren't used to the short term is
essentially when you put in a lot of history or backstory in through your character's
thinking And you tend to do it over two,
three pages or, you know, two, three pages here, two,
(25:39):
three pages there, but you're still doing a lot of info dumping.
So what I've started doing is sharing through diary entries or doing it as flashbacks
or memories or even just starting further back and then working to the present day.
And I think that's a trick I think everyone should look out for because it's really easy to do that.
(26:00):
Do you find that as well, that you kind of maybe struggle to put the backstory
in? To know your characters, you need to know where they come from.
So there's a little bit of that required, isn't there? I have a particular,
for, you know, The Secrets of the Rising Square and the book previous to it,
The Fair Botanist, they have a really wide character range.
Lots and lots of characters in them and quite an ensemble cast.
(26:23):
And so you can't go all that deeply into everybody's backstory because just,
you know, there's just a lot of people stuff happening.
You know, everyone's got their stuff happening. You've only got so much space.
So, you know, I had to be very careful about what I wanted, what I felt a reader
would want to know. For me, a really good historical novel is quite often just
sort of controlled gossip.
(26:44):
It's just, what do you want to know next? What is the thing here that's going
to make you the most satisfied with this story?
And it doesn't matter if I know that, you know, there was an election that year
or, you know, you might know lots of things that were happening in history that year.
That doesn't matter. what matches is you know is somebody going to buy that
dress and why do they want to buy that dress and where are they going to wear
(27:06):
the dress you know it's like the things in your day-to-day.
Yeah, exactly. What did they have for breakfast and how did they feel like that
and what made them change their mind about something that's important for them
to change their mind about.
And so for me, it's kind of like a time machine almost.
You go in and you just are experiencing it rather than explaining it.
And if I ever feel I'm explaining it, then, you know, that's not something I'm there to do, really.
(27:32):
I'm there to create a world that someone else can walk into and experience. Yeah.
So what are you excited about sharing with the readers moving forward?
What's your most exciting project? Well, of course, Secret Supplies with Square is out next week.
So that's really good. And I'm
excited for people in Glasgow to experience Glasgow in a different way.
And to see these characters that, you know, when you're writing a book like
(27:56):
that, it engages your imagination a lot.
And so I've created these characters. I'm dying to see how people react to them.
And, you know, if they think they're fun and if they have questions about them
and all that sort of thing. And that's something that's happened with me before.
You know, the book before Secrets of Lies to a Square was called The Fair Botanist.
And I still, it's like two and a half years ago, actually.
And I still get emails and messages from people saying, oh, this character really
(28:19):
chimed with me. And so I think it's giving people, other people,
that sort of imaginative engagement and satisfaction and, you know,
sharing a story with them, I suppose.
That's fun for me. And then quite shortly, I'm about to start writing another
historical novel and potentially, I think, also a radio play.
(28:39):
So I wrote a radio play last year, which is called On Portobello Prom.
And it's set in Edinburgh. It's on BBC Radio 4 Sounds.
And if you go to any of my social media, you'll find a link to it on my link tree in there.
And it's a five-part drama set in 60s Edinburgh. And the BBC came back last
(29:01):
week and said we'd really like something else.
And I don't know whether I'm going to write something set in 1960 or whether
I'll do something different. I've got a few ideas.
So I'm going in to talk to them about that next week and maybe get that done.
And then after that, I'll be starting another historical novel,
which I think will be set in 1830s Scotland and is about a lost diadem. A lost diadem.
(29:24):
So like a tiara crown that has been lost and has been kept in this family and
is sort of out of the public eye.
And then I can't say what happens, but something happens.
And people discover that this crown has been kept.
This crown has a lot of historic significance for people. So, you know, I'm curious.
(29:44):
Well, I will have to say this because I'm doing creative writing as a college course right now.
And one of the things that I've just learned about is writing for radio.
And the fact that you've been able to do that and it's a five episode thing
and I know what goes into it.
I have to say I'm completely blown away by that because that is not easy.
(30:08):
I mean, I've done a film script, which luckily Touchwood was adored by the director,
and it's moving very, very slowly forward, thanks to Strikes and everything else.
But to change mediums for novelists is so hard.
And I always like to take time out and say, really honestly,
(30:31):
that is absolutely amazing that you did that. And I think that's an incredible
sign that you're a very gifted writer.
Because I know from going from that medium myself, if you do want to sit there
and pull your hair out and you do scream at the computer and you go,
ah, this is so much harder than it should be.
(30:52):
So, yes, I absolutely think that's amazing.
And I just wanted to take the time to say thank you for doing it.
Because I know that there's so many people out there
that will adore you for doing that and and
also it's in a way we're showing
that novelists aren't just novelists we can do far more than just write a novel
(31:12):
thank you well I've never written a film script so I'm very impressed that you
managed to do that because it's not something that's on my register at all and
I have to say this radio drama happened kind of almost by mistake and I took
the story from a short story I had written that was part of a charity compilation.
And so adapting it, it was already a story that was in my head,
(31:33):
but there's no story in my head now.
So it's going to be kind of interesting to see what happens next,
what the next one is going to be. But I think that's probably my favorite.
I always say this. This is my best recommendation to people when they're looking for inspiration.
I always say, take a walk either through Helmsford, if you're here in Scotland,
(31:55):
or through Glasgow City Centre and find the tiniest little cafe.
Don't go into the franchise cafes, but just a tiny little cafe and listen to people around you.
And you'd be surprised how often you will walk out.
I think walking is really important actually
i like to go for a walk every day because when you're a writer you're
(32:16):
so sedentary and it's really good to get
out and just get some light and get some inspiration and i
too am a big fan of coffee and you know
in glasgow we're very well served with lots and lots of lovely independent coffee
shops and they got the patter here oh yeah there's plenty of coffee shops in
glasgow that's for sure yeah you know everybody here is addicted I swear we're
(32:39):
all addicted to coffee in Glasgow because we're all walking around with different
cups from different places.
Sometimes I'll look at people to see what coffee cups they've got as an inspiration
to where I'm going to go get my lady's cup.
The other thing that I...
The other thing that I do is I will walk into the bookshop and I'll just try
(33:03):
and wander around without being recognized.
And I'll just take a nosy look at what's everybody excited about.
Because in Glasgow, people read. It is a thing. Lots of people read in Glasgow.
And I always find it interesting to go into the different
bookstores in Glasgow and just listen to what the books
(33:25):
are that they're talking about and that can
sometimes inspire something in me where i'm like oh yeah i
you know it might just be that i have an idea
in my head but i don't have a genre for it or whatever it
can just sort of be the guidance and i think where you're
where you are as a writer can
sometimes impact you and and sort of
(33:47):
drive you to where it's quite sometimes you need
to go it's quite interesting isn't it because anything we write like whatever
book i write this year and I will write a book this year
it's not going to be out till like 2020 what are
we 2024 25 maybe 26 in hardback so
it's quite far away so it's
quite difficult that you cannot write to somebody else's
(34:08):
schedule or because someone else has brought out a book you like and you'd
like to do that as well you know that's it's
it's so far away in people's minds from when that came
yeah out so I think you just have to write what you
what appeals to you you know for whatever reason
it appeals to you and the stories that
divert you hopefully are going to divert other people and I
(34:29):
find that like the writing experience for me is very like the
reading experience but kind of more intense oh you
know that thing where people just you have to keep going and you want to
know what happens and you're really excited about it and people might
be reading a book over you know a couple of days or a week but you're
in that state for months when you're writing that book because I.
Don't plan I never really plan and so
(34:49):
I I don't know yeah I mean people's brains just work in different ways don't.
They but for me it's quite I can't plan and one point an editor said to me can
you write a synopsis and I wrote the synopsis and honestly it killed the book
I never ended up writing that book because I never I would I wouldn't have been
interested and you know I knew what was going to happen so.
(35:10):
I struggle with that too yeah and I struggle I'm the same as you I struggle
with that I have to like have the chapters broke down,
and then I have to walk away yeah and I have to walk away from it I have to
put that to one side for like six months so that I completely forget what it is,
(35:30):
and then what I do is I go back and as I write each
chapter it's like I get to really experience it and
then it flows really really good for me that's the
only way i can do it because when i agreed i was
ty ham hill press which is a very small publishing company
and england and they said we want you to release a book to two books a month
(35:51):
for the next three years which is a lot it's a lot to take on like god i have
a stack it's like this this big like just massive and i i was explaining to her I'm like,
I plan every book and then I walk away for a bit.
And then I come back and I write it. And then I go away and I put it away somewhere
and then I check it, you know, with the editors or whatever.
(36:14):
And she goes, that's fine. That's absolutely fine.
But for me, I have to do that process because I have to almost live,
read, and exist entirely within that world.
It sounds like you do the same as I do. and
there's nothing worse especially when I'm on like if I get
to go on tour which is so rare that I do book tours
(36:35):
now but when I get to go on a book tour it's even
harder for me because I have to re-read that book as I'm on tour so that I remember
what I'm talking about when I'm talking to people because by this point Crystal's
three other novels has no clue where she's at in the first one she wrote and it's like.
(36:56):
The fans usually know it better than I do. And what I do is I read the entire
book to Ian, who's my husband, and drives me everywhere.
And I look at him and I go, and he'll just give me words, little words to remind me of certain things.
Otherwise, I couldn't tell you what happened in that book because it's like
my brain has this way of going, that story's told, it's deleted, let's go to the next one.
(37:21):
And it's almost like it's like a conspiracy because it has to.
You is there's not enough space in my brain for all
of them so it's kind of like a computer it's like oh that's done okay next one
oh that's done and it's the only way i can do it and my editor just thinks it's
amazing because when i'm reading it back why i've completely forgotten the entire
(37:42):
novel so she'll be asking me questions and i'll be like.
Hold on let me google searching through
the novel ah you know it's the
only way that i can do it and and people find that
that fascinating but the characters never leave
me i've seen me in conversations with my
(38:02):
best friend over coffee or my husband over coffee
and then i'll start going damn that's
the answer to that question and i'll take out my notepad and
i'll start writing down down things because you know one
of the characters sitting on my shoulder suddenly telling me.
Something that's really important and my husband and my best friend had
to get used to me doing and they would
(38:24):
just be like crystal's right in the yeah we'll just
wait 20 minutes she'll be back she'll be back and i
can go right back to the conversation with them like i
hadn't missed a beat but i have to take that 10
minutes to go right down whatever is the stupid character's
whispering for in a might year do you have a character
though that you just no matter what you write them
(38:46):
they don't know i did for a while though i had i
wrote this book set of books called the mirabelle bevan mysteries and
so there's nine of them and they run from 1951 to 1959 and
mirabelle is in these books but she also has a
sidekick called vesta and there are various other people who are she has
a squeeze called sergeant mcgregor he starts out
being sergeant mcgregor and he ends of getting promoted and so yeah
(39:07):
i i they were with me for a long time
and i would be charity shopping you know vintage shopping and
i would see a 1950s handbag and i think well mirabelle would really like
that handbag or i would you know see around the place mirabelle would really
like it if we had this yeah so yeah she was with me for a while but that i stopped
writing that series maybe three or four years ago now and and it's not that
(39:30):
she's not there if someone i mean do you think mirabelle would like this banana
i would be able to tell them what i think Mirabelle would think of the banana.
She's still like somebody that I know quite well, but she's not all the time.
But there was a point in the middle of writing that series.
It's quite intense because if you think about it, like you're writing a novel
at, you know, 70, 80, 90, that plays and wears whatever it is.
But then if you're writing a series that's like,
(39:52):
You know, it's a huge number. It's almost a million words by the time you've
written a 10-book series, nine-book series.
So you've spent a lot of time with those people and you kind of do know them inside out.
But that was the design. You know, the design of the series was that it would
just be for one book a year for the 50s and would be about Maribel cheering
up, you know, as Britain cheered up, really, because post-war Britain was miserable
(40:15):
and then by the 60s everyone was quite cheery.
So I was kind of interested in that sort of social history journey as well.
And I think for me, I love my characters, but they are also always within that
sort of historical context around, you know, yes, they're interesting,
but they're interesting because they fit into some kind of pattern.
Important to me or interesting to me that's really going on in sort of real history.
(40:40):
And that's the interest, really, I suppose. And I write, I tend,
well, I used to when I started always write in the morning.
So I would just get up and write in the morning. And that was what I did.
Then I would do other things.
You know kids and school runs and all that kind of stuff yeah
and now my daughter's of course grown up and
I don't have to do any school runs and also once you
(41:00):
have a set books as you yourself know you're right you're not
only writing a new book but you're managing the backlist and so
you've got book festivals and events these kind of things to do and also other
interesting projects that come up because I find you know writing a book is
a marathon but it is quite nice to do you know a zumba class now and then right
and that might be something you know a short story or a,
(41:25):
radio drama or something like that and just sort of stretch
your brain in a different direction so that you're not constantly pounding the
pavement on your marathon of a novel and so yeah that's that's very much how
I write sort of keeping keeping my brain fresh is is a task I suppose it's part
of that writing life of like how do you rest your brain in between how do Do you,
(41:46):
you know, manage that?
Because you can get very tired.
You know, you can get very tired.
It's funny that you were saying about when you think of the series.
I'm six years old. That's a lot of books, Crystal. I know.
(42:08):
And I'm like, I mean, we never planned for it to be 32.
We'd always planned for it to be a short series.
But the way we built it was like spider webs. Every character gets to have their
own say and gets to tell their own story.
And they're all all in the same world so they're
all interacting and we're always building this world out
(42:30):
and out and when me and
my my co-writer joey legend sat down and we we
seriously looked at how many different ideas
and different books we were going to write it came up 32 i
was six books in and i still to
the like i get bothered by them all all
the time and i have other series i write i
(42:52):
have have to go away and i have to work on another book and there's nothing
more frustrating because i have like i have
three characters that constantly annoy me and it's harold
marie and and and
generally edward and they will come and they'll be like oh
i like that song gotta put it in my playlist or oh
my god do you see those shoes you totally have to wear those
(43:14):
shoes when you write my stuff and it's so
annoying but what i i
think for me like when i come to the end of my series it's letting go of the
characters it's the hardest part for me because it's like almost like a grieving
process i have to let them completely go and i have to move on from that and
(43:34):
it's so you're much you're much softer than me i'm like get out of my way i have something new to do.
Okay I'm like okay we have to say goodbye now and I feel like I'm not,
you interesting thing I'm sorry I've got to move on yeah and I kind of have
(43:59):
that softy approach and my husband's like it's the end of the series end it
you know he's more the the dictator of,
don't you dare go writing things for that character again.
But he's also the only person that's read everything I've written.
So, oh, no, it's not.
(44:19):
Because he's my biggest critic. You know, I wrote this fantasy series and he's like, it was 400 pages.
And he went, you could have deleted the first hundred. Right.
Only got interesting on page 200 and i was like
are you kidding me so you
know he's always my best critic but i think you kind of need that you need that
(44:43):
brutal honesty from somebody out with the publishing industry because i think
a lot of the time when you're working with that earth really wants to be that
harsh with you and sometimes when i give him something he'll be like Like, why didn't you do this?
Why didn't they do that? Why, you know, and he's an East End glasso boy.
So, you know, it's very brutal, very rough and tough with the way he talks.
(45:08):
But it makes sense, you know. And he's really driven me to do more than just romance.
Like, this year, I will be doing my first crime novel. I'm doing my first thriller.
You know, I've done a screenplay. you know he's
like really it's a lot in one year yeah and
then this is this is me like i don't stop
(45:31):
i very rarely sleep because i i don't sleep
very well and and he laughs at me like i've
never met anybody else that just pushes as
hard as you do and i go because when it
all finishes when it you know when you give your kids your
legacy at the end you want to know that you've
done done absolutely everything and that they they can 100
(45:52):
know this is what they've
left of me like i've got 800 books i
swear to god my kids will hate me one day they will
they will look at mom's collection of novels and they'll be like how the do
we get rid of these i swear that there's going to be a some sort of library
it's going to get set up and all these books are going to be in there i'm not
(46:13):
going to be like thanks mom did you not read digital around our necks I read a lot of digital.
No, I can't. I'm dyslexic. I read a lot of digital. I'm dyslexic, so I can't.
Which drives my editor nuts. Yeah, it drives my editor nuts because it takes
me longer to edit than anybody else because I have to go so slow.
(46:36):
And I also have to have the computer read it to me in order for me to catch
any little things as well.
But that never stopped me. Because when I look at Catherine Cookson,
she was dyslexic. She had severe depression issues.
And look at the library she gave us. Look at the pieces of work she gave us.
(46:57):
And there's so many writers out there who maybe don't talk about their learning
difficulties, but they create these vast and large pieces of work.
And if that's the one thing I can leave everybody today, knowing that,
you know, no matter what the uphill struggle is, as long as you're happy and
you're content and you're doing what you love, that that's all that matters.
(47:18):
And and you know be happy in yourself and
proud of yourself and know that you're I think you're doing
something amazing well I don't know if my daughter will thank you my daughter is
dyslexic and so she I don't think has read
any of my books at all and I don't think she's it's
not not interested she's around and she
will help you with book launch or she'll come and you know
(47:38):
she's really supportive in that regard but she's not like oh
mom I don't know what you did on page 220 120 that's just not
her she is visually creative she
is not like it's not words for her and so
yeah I don't I don't even think of it as a legacy I wouldn't even begin to think
of it like that I just think of it as something that I love getting up in the
morning to do and this is how I want to at least part of my day I feel incredibly
(48:03):
lucky that I get to to do that basically,
and I can do that no matter what yeah yeah I mean I could do this is something I,
control of, if you like. Well, I.
I will definitely be giving you and your daughter a call when the film comes
to Glasgow and be like, hey, do you want to come watch it with me?
(48:25):
Because I can't watch my own stuff back.
So it might be the only place that I'll go and actually watch the movie back.
It's the same with podcasting. Yeah. And it's the same with the podcast.
I mean, I go in and I edit them, but I never actually listen to them when they launch.
Because I'm like, it's such a weird thing for me. Like as soon as it's launched,
(48:45):
as soon as something's happened, I kind of just put it away and think,
okay, well, I need to go on to the next thing. What is the next thing I need to do?
And I've been really lucky that way. But you survived the Book and Life podcast.
It's gone fairly well. I'm hoping you're going to come back when your new book's
out and you've got your new radio stuff coming up so we can promote the hell out of it for you.
(49:08):
It's been amazing having you on. I hope you've enjoyed your time with us.
Yeah. So everybody, check out Sarah's new work. It's out next week.
And yeah, I mean, as I always say, find a book, find life, find happiness, and be who you are.
Until next time, I shall see you all again.
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