Banker to Bestseller: How Pip Landers-Letts Won the £20,000 Kindle Storyteller Award and Traded the City for the Writing Life.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and thank you for joining us here on Tuesday evening.
If you are into all things writing and you've watched
the show before, then you will know that tonight's guest
is somebody that we talked about before we even knew
who they were in terms of award winning authors. But
we promote with the Kindle Storyteller Award multiple times on

(00:24):
the show, and we encourage you to enter, and we
actually have with us tonight the winner of this year's award.
So we're going to chat all about what makes an
award winning novel, which is something that we don't get
to do on a regular basis, which is fantastic. So
if you're watching in the chat or you're listening back

(00:45):
to this on the podcast, thank you. We really do
hope you're going to pick up some amazing tips to
help you all writing move on. In its course, Chris
is hidden in the bushes somewhere. I don't know where
real is hiding, but he's not with us tonight. He
will be with us on Friday. But whether you are Chris,
I hope you stay safe and you come back and

(01:07):
head the show on Friday. But tonight's guest, as I
said before, an award winning author now absolutely fantastic to
get to speak to them, and yeah, I'm going to
introduce them because that's probably the best way. So ladies
and gentlemen landers, let's and I know I was going
to butcher that, but here she is.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Hey, Chris, how are you doing.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I'm very good? Thank you? How are you?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, really excited to be here. Thank you for inviting
me along. And when you say every time anybody says
award winning your author, I'm like, where, oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
So before we get into the road to write, and obviously,
let's address the award winning authors status, how did it feel?
And can you talk us through the sort of moment
that you you know, you shortlisted and then you found
out take us through that journey if you can.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
So, I think when I got the email being shortlisted
by I was like, this is a scam. This isn't real.
I remembered entering the competition, but I hadn't kind of
then it was my second novel, so I entered with
my first never heard anything. And then yeah, so when
I got the email from the house and I was
like and then they're like, oh, I'll give you a call.

(02:19):
I'm like, yeah, sure you will. So I was like, okay, yeah,
well let's see, let's see what this is all about.
So I had the phone call and I'm like, this
is still this is still a scam. And I think
right up until the point of the awards ceremony, I
turned up to Amazon's offices thinking They're not going to
let me in. It's not it's just like, now, really
elaborate because I've signed paperwork, and then they'd let me

(02:39):
in and yeah, and then we're standing in the line
with the other finalists and and and my name was
read out and I'm like what really? Oh? And yeah,
I think I just spent like the week afterwards expecting
to wake up at any more, like genuinely couldn't. I've

(03:02):
never had like that sustained feeling for so long that
I'm dreaming this isn't real. And yeah, I think it's
like even now, I still go and occasionally just touch
the trophy to make sure that I haven't trumped that.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, absolutely, I can imagine. It's a surreal feeling. Hello
to people in the chat, Welcome to you, Thanks for
joining us tonight. Do you have the trophy to hand
by any chance?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
No, I don't. I didn't want to be that person.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
I completely understand that. So when you take us back,
then if you can, before they're standing in line and
receiving the trophy. Obviously you wrote the novel and then
you decided to enter the competition. So what was kind
of going through your mind at that point.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, I think because it's like one of the tags
on the on the metadata, I didn't really think about it.
Twice I was like, well, you know, may as well.
I don't know what else to put in all these booxes,
so I put that in there too. So it just
felt like a bit of a no brainer, like why
wouldn't I enter? Yeah, it really didn't feel like a

(04:06):
big consideration for me. And you know, I'm proud of
what I've written. I'm proud of my work, and I
wanted it to be recognized. I think, like with my
first one, I foolishly believed it was like I have written,
like Ulysses, I've written the next great British book, and
I was like, yes, it's definitely going to win. Because
I went to the London book Fair and I remember

(04:28):
like hearing talking about it and I hadn't published at
that point in time, and I was like, yeah, I'm
going to enter it and I'm going to win this competition.
And then I didn't win, and I was like, oh,
well I didn't win it, but then published my second thought, oh,
I'll put it on again, see if it happens, and
then I didn't believe it when it did happen. So yeah,
but yeah, I think my advice to anyone if they're
thinking about entering, just do it, like you've got nothing

(04:50):
to lose. I did it and I'm here.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah. Absolutely, And with that as well, obviously you said
you had obviously confidence in you're writing and you' out
of what you've written. But how difficult is it growing
from that book one where you like, I've written the
great next great British book, and then going on to
book two with a new idea and putting new confidence

(05:15):
into something else.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
I think it's yeah, it's challenging. I think it's like
it feels like they say the difficult second album, don't they.
So there is that like I've written this thing that
I think it's the best thing I've ever done, and
then like I spent nine months putting it through like
a critique group and then tearing it apart and great
things is not the best thing you've ever done, and

(05:37):
then making it the best thing I've ever done. So
then going, oh, what now what do I do? Now?
Do I write? How do I write another? How do
I better that? And and now I'm kind of writing
the third novel and I'm thinking, oh god, I've said
really high now, So yeah, I think you just got
to keep going. You just got to keep putting things

(05:59):
out there. And I know myself when what I'm pushing
out is good. I know when it feels like it's
I get excited about my own writing when it's good,
and I can tell, and when it's not good, I
can also feel that, like in the yeah, in the
weeds of it, going oh this feels tough, but you
know the only way out is through some time, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (06:21):
M m yeah, Ross says in the chat press if.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Elaborate, look, Dari, that's my that's my big question.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
So obviously, once you've won an award, and obviously we
talked about the Kindles Storyteller coming with it quite a
big prize as well actually attached to it. What what
does that do then for the pressure on the third
book in terms of how you're feeling about it.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
So I would say, certainly, like my route into publishing,
choosing to be independent, it came. It comes with a
lot of benefits, but also with this kind of crushing
self doubt, like I have chosen to do this, and
you do kind of ask yourselves those questions. Was it
because I wasn't good enough? No, I chose to do it.

(07:09):
I stopped querying intentionally It's not because I'm not good enough.
I chose this, So stop doing that, and then you'll
get like there's a guy I said to me recently, Oh,
when are you going to write a real book? I'm like, well,
do you mean a real book? Like I've written a
real book. I now. I wonder if I've got the
award if he still thinks that. But yeah, I think

(07:30):
for me, winning this was a huge shot of validation,
Like I now feel like I can legitimately call myself
an author even though I was an author. I feel
like it's like, and I'm not saying that people I
haven't won an award can't do that, but for me,
it just feels like it's bolstered everything inside me, Like
I felt for so long that this is exactly what

(07:52):
I'm meant to be doing. And it feels like now
the universe has went yeah, yeah, keep going. Yeah. It's
very yeah, very bolstering. And I think as well, like
I've noticed the reaction of people around me, so not
like not my readers, but like my friends and family,

(08:13):
and they're like, oh, oh, you can actually do this.
It's not just a hobby. This is a real thing
you want to do. You want to this is going
to be a genuine career. And that's how I feel now,
like I started to believe it too.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah. Absolutely. And so you've won the award, You've received
the prize as well, what are your next steps then?
From that point? How do you sort of navigate the
sort of week after winning the Kindle Storyteller Award.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
So it's for the first week after specifically, I, like
I said, I was pinching myself daily, going am I dreaming?
I was trying to get my head back because, as
I said, I'm writing my third at the moment, and
I'm quite stripcted with my word count and what I write,
and I give myself a very hard time when I
don't hit what I want to achieve. So it was

(09:01):
just trying to get my head back into that, and
I couldn't. I've been all over the place, like I've
only just started coming back down. And then I had
a release date yesterday for my audiobook and my head's
gone again. I'm like, it's just surreal. So yeah, so
I think. And then also I have a full time job,
so trying to navigate that and this other life that

(09:25):
I really want to live it's been really challenging as well.
So yeah, it's just difficult of them, and they're trying
to like compartmentalize everything, and it's it isn't like when
you're independent published, just as you know, it's not just
about writing, it's about managing everything else. I'm everything, so
you know, marketing and trying to Yeah, it's it's difficult.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Ross says a pressure. Pressure is a privilege. You've been awesome.
Now feel the pain.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
So does it bring any external pressure in terms of
like you know, you mentioned about the audiobook coming out
and things like that, did you find that loads of
avenues started to open up after you'd won this award
that you weren't necessarily expecting.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
I think, if I'm if I'm really honest, it kind
of felt like arm for the first little bit. Afterwards,
it did feel a bit like tumbleweed, like this big
thing had happened and like okay, okay, we now, and
then it went a bit quiet and I was like, oh, right,
well that's interesting, and then like it I think that
was good, And I think it was intentional because I

(10:37):
needed to come down, like I could not make any
rational decisions, like I wanted to quit my job. The
next day, I was like, not that much money, So yeah,
I think I did need that space. It's been a
month this week, and I think, yeah, I just needed
a bit of time as well. But it hasn't like
it hasn't felt like loads of stoppers opened up really quickly.

(10:59):
But now I'm starting to see it, Like in the
last few days I've had quite a few things coming
in which like, oh I didn't see that coming, And
I feel a lot calmer to be able to deal
with that. Probably not really portraying calm very well, I
don't do that, but yeah, I do feel a bit more.
I've got my head back to a degree.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, absolutely. Halo said it's always hard to switch between
full time job manners and the writing depravity yeah, it's
definitely true. And I think I'm going to play a
little video now, which are called the Road to Writing,
And when we get back from that very very short clip,
I'm just going to ask you to elaborate and talk

(11:38):
about like how writing became something in your life when
you realize you wanted to take it on as a
career and you know, take things a little bit more seriously.
So just find and play this video and then we'll
get into that. So here's the Road to writing, brilliant Pep.

(12:08):
So if you can take us back to when writing
became a first thought in your mind.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
So I would say I've always written stuff. I've never
written long form, never written a novel, although it did
start when when I was seventeen and never finished it.
And it's on a floppy disk somewhere, so it gives
you an idea of how I am. But we'll talk
about this cycle of writing. So at the start of
twenty twenty two, I went on a really really inspiring

(12:36):
trip Scandinavia. It's like post COVID trip that we booked.
You know, we can go anywhere, so we're like, let's
put this mad trip for when it all comes good
and we went to Norway and Sweden the Poll Express.
It was in winter, so northern lights, lots of snow.
It was incredible. Come back completely inspired and full of stories,
like I wanted to live that trip again and again,

(12:59):
and I wanted I thought, how do I best do that.
I'm going to send a dysfunctional family on that trip,
and I'm going to make them all hell's going to
break loose, like I wanted this to be like a
nightmare trip for them and this kind of like epic story.
And at the same point in my life, I was
a bit of a cross roads anyway, I'd already decided

(13:19):
I was going to take a career break from banking,
which is the kind of the career I fell into
and never meant to be there spent fifteen years doing it.
So yeah, I took this career break, and yeah, I
just sort of felt really disillusioned with that, like un fulfilled,
like I just wasn't in a good place with work
and a bit burned out. So yeah, so I took

(13:41):
this break, didn't know what I was going to do,
and I went as all good story start it happened
at the pub. So I went to the pub with
my neighbor, all local pub. Two pints in, He's like, so,
what are you going to do with your time? And
I'm like, I don't know, I don't know. I'm gonna
I'm going to write a book, Matt. And he's like,
you're gonna write a book? Write a book? Yeah. I
was like, yeah, yah, I'm going to write a book.
Two more pints. I completely forgot that. I told Matt
I was going to write a book. Problem is Matt

(14:03):
didn't forget. So I'm walking around here with my dog
and every time I see Matt, he's like, how's the
book going. I'm like, oh gosh, I'm gonna have to
write the book now, and I or move house and
it was easier to write the book. So that's what
I did with my time. Four months later, and every
time I saw him was like my accountability buddy. He

(14:23):
was like, how's it going, And yeah, he's a he's
like beata reader, art reader. He's all over it now.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
That was that was how it got started. And I
think in that process I found that thing that was missing.
I found that spark. It brought me back like from
the from the song from from the soul Crushing a
few years that I'd had in my career, not that
you know, I had a good time as well, but
you know, from the from the bad days. It brought

(14:52):
me back and I realized who I was again without that.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, I love that, And I loved the fact that
Matt obviously helped you along and gave you that sort
of accountability buddy element. Everyone needs to Matt in their
life in that respect. So how did you manage that?
And obviously this leaving the pub deciding you're going to
write a novel, but managing that working full time, getting
the word count in. What was that like? Because a

(15:18):
lot of people that we have on the show, they
do struggle with that in terms of managing the balance
between the two. And you know a lot of people
say writing a book it's a bit like running a marathon,
and you know, very difficult to do in terms of
sustaining that element. And obviously you've said about how important
Matt was in terms of that accountability element. What things

(15:39):
did you sort of learn along the way in that process?

Speaker 2 (15:42):
So I was very fortunate with my fast because I
was on a career break. You said the whole thing
whilst I wasn't working so I managed it in four months.
Then I actually went back to banking and then got
made redundant, which was one of the happiest days of
my life. Yes, the universe wants to me to be

(16:02):
a full time writer. But then kind of realized that no,
not quite yet. Still hadn't published that first book. But
I took that. I had a bit of gardening leave.
I took that time to publish. Then I started a
new job, and it was at that point that I
hit the wall. I was like, Okay, now I've got
to work full time, get my head around a new
job in a completely different industry, and somehow write my

(16:27):
next novel, which was the difficult second album. Right, So
I'm in that weird space then. So writing Pig was
actually the award winning novel I did working full time,
not the other one. And I was just very disciplined.
So first one written in four months and then took
two years to get it good. The second one written

(16:48):
in nine months and then took a lot less time
to get it good because I was better at writing.
But yeah, it's for me, it's discipline. I don't write
every day. I do at the moment because I'm heading
towards the deadline. But I try to make sure I've
got deadline set for myself. I will book things in.

(17:11):
So I booked the cover designer in and I knew
that was a deadline. So I was like, okay, I've
got to work towards that. I booked my editor. I've
got to work towards that. And I have I call
it my spreadsheet of doom literally as my daily word account,
and I will green flag myself and red like myself.
And now I also have a column for like lame excuses,
So if I don't hit my hit my target, I

(17:32):
have to give myself a reason why, and then I'll
look back and go, no, that's not good enough.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, that's a good definitely a good way of doing it.
You mentioned briefly before about you know, leaving the query trenches,
and I think I worked approbate a little bit on
that in terms of like why you decided to do that,
because it's a choice that a lot of our views
sort of have because they, you know, they try and
they write the book that they're proud of, and they

(18:00):
try and get it published and then at some point
it doesn't quite take off, and then they have a
decision to make in terms of do you back your
writing obviously like you have done and know that it's
good and know that at some point you're going to
find your readership, or do you go back to a
drawing board and write a different book and try that.
So I'm just interested about your sort of thought process

(18:21):
during the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
So when I finished my first novel, and you know, naturally,
you're like, this is the best thing I've ever done,
and I was convinced, and this was I think I
still did that thing that everyone told you not to do.
I queried too early. It wasn't polished. It was pretty crap,
to be honest, And I realized quite quickly into that process,

(18:44):
I think three or four query letters, and I was like,
I need to revisit this. It's not working. Then I
went through that long process of critiquing, going through basically
a chapter a month in a critique group and tearing apart,
putting it back together again. And then I had a
product that I was I was like, no, this is ready.
I critique my query letter. I went on a queery

(19:06):
podcast show and it was ready, and I was again
like really pushing it forward. I found all the right agents.
I have the big red book, you know, I'm looking
at all of the right things. And I targeted myself
and I'm going to send one hundred query letters and
if I haven't got success, then then I'm going to

(19:27):
self publish and listen to those words I said to myself.
If I haven't got success, then So it felt to
me at that point in time like it was a
plan be but something switched in my head. And what
switched in my head was when I got a rejection letter.
And the reason they rejected my story was because they said,

(19:48):
we have enough. We have I'm sorry, get the words right,
we have we have enough queer authors. And I was like,
what what do you mean? You have enough? We have
enough people like you? Okay, well that's that. That doesn't
feel right. I'm not waiting for permission, but I don't
want to be part of your quota. I just want

(20:09):
to tell my story. And my story is like, yeah, okay,
it's got a main character that's queer, but that's not
what the story's about. It's not that. So I'm not
trying to take any boxes. So I just thought, no,
that's it. I'm going to do this myself, and I've
also spoken to you know, I tried to weigh things up.
I've spoken to independently published authors, I've spoken to traditional authors,

(20:32):
and actually a better option for me is to do
this dependently. And it's a hard slog. Anybody that's done
it knows this. It's a really hard slog. But I'm
sure being traditionally published is hard too in different ways.
So yeah, that's that's basically my journey to doing it.
I just thought, No, I'm not waiting anymore. I'm not

(20:53):
waiting for anybody to open the door.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
I can open the door myself absolutely. And does it
add a certain layer of, like more authenticity to your writing, because,
like you said, you get your own editor, you get
your own cover design and everything like that, so you've
got a certain amount of autonomy. Whereas if a publisher
was maybe dipping their hands in and they had, you know,

(21:17):
a different agenda, maybe if they're talking about ticking boxes,
and I know they would never say that, but you know,
at times you do get the impression that they are,
so they could potentially edit your work in ways that
you wouldn't want them to. But obviously, in that moment,
a lot of authors take the advice of the editor
and go, oh yeah, take that out and I'll put

(21:37):
this in and I'll change that, So they'd lose that
sort of creativity, sort of autonomy over their story. So
did you find that that was almost free and in
a way once you decided to do that.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Absolutely, Yeah, I think that was It's probably one of
the biggest arm I guess selling points for me becoming
an indie author, because I wanted to choose my own team.
I wanted that creative control, and the traditional author i'd
spoken with it said that they were really disappointed with
how it panned out for them because they changed. They changed.

(22:11):
They think they published with covers they didn't want. They
published in a genre they didn't want it to be
published in. She was like, it was contemporary fiction, it
wasn't chick lit. I didn't want it to be called that,
And I thought, I don't want what happened to my story.
I wanted. I want that. I want to make those
choices for it, and I've I've had the privilege I've choose.
I've been very lucky as well, but I've chosen everybody

(22:33):
I've worked with. You know, I found my editor incredible editor.
I found my social a cover signer on social media,
and I met the narrator from my audiobook at conference
in New York. And I wouldn't have had those choices.
I wouldn't have built my own team if it wasn't
for being independent. And I think that, Yeah, if you say,

(22:54):
it's really freeing and I get to choose, then what
I listened to and what I don't listen to. I
listened to everything, by the way, what they tell me.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Still, yeah, brilliant. I love that. Yeah, lots of people
saying that in the chat. That's awesome, and yeah, I
love that. So I'm going to play another little video now,
which is called What's the Story? And when we get back,
we do ask if you could give us the elevator
pitch for Pig. I don't know if you've got it

(23:25):
to hand or if you remember it. I'll stop your head,
but if you could do that when we get from
this short video, that would be fantastic. So this is
What's the Story. I'll take it away Pip if you can.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Okay, sorry, Brighton. So I'll give you the one second
elevator pitch, which is it is a a chance encounter
that sparks a live transformation is a like my tagline,
but basically Pig is a loose sapphic retelling of pig
Malion by George Bernard Shaw. It's a story about hope

(24:11):
with a side of romance. So my main character, Alice
is forty two and she is a hot mess. So
she's just basically walked away from her toxic lover. She's
about to lose her job, ruin her really really expensive heels,
and then this chance encounter changes the course of everything.
And I would say that it's not based on me.

(24:32):
I am not Alice, although my mother in law would
say I am a little bit like Alice because she's
a bit of a disaster magnet. But I know what
it feels like to be a bit lost in life
at the point where everyone thinks, like you're forty two,
star is shit figured out? Oh sorry, but you know,
like you know, that was a little bit like that

(24:52):
struggle was a little bit the inspiration for and for
that main character's journey. So you know, I hit that
mu Stone birthday and you know, minus the toxic X
and the heels. Yeah, it's really just a story about
getting a grip of your life and letting go of
the bad stuff and making space for the good. That's

(25:12):
my pitch for Pick.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
This sounds fantastic. I completely agree. So romance, then, that's
something that we always like to discuss on this show
because I'm a hopeless romantic. I love lots of romance films.
I often talk about them, but I've never tackled right
in a romance because I don't know if I could
do it. So how do you tackle a romance novel?

(25:37):
So I just said, how do you tackle a romance novel?

Speaker 2 (25:42):
So for me, like, I didn't mean to write romance
with so my first book very much was romance. I
didn't really mean to write romance lyric Pig. It's basically
it was a subplot that sort of took over again,
so I think I can't help it. So I'm not
I set out to write it, but I think I like,

(26:04):
I had this thing in my head, like my character
falls in love in Pig, Alice falls in love in Pig.
She wasn't meant to. My characters take over when I'm writing,
and they just do what they want. I don't know
if that's the same for others, but for mine, they're
very much like very living real people in my head,
and they I try to make them do things. I've
got a plot, I try to make them stick to it.

(26:25):
They just go, of course all the time, like you're
not meant to be doing that. So I remember having
this conversation with my wife saying, Alice isn't going to
sleep with Ash. That's the love interest. She's not going
to sleep with Ash. Weren't meant to do that. So, yeah,
it's I think for me, the romance just takes over.
It's I think it's just in me. I could not

(26:47):
write fantasy or sci fi, but romance just feels like
it's what comes out when I sit down to write.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah. Absolutely, people are saying not to get me started
on romance because at that, But I suppose in terms
of like one of my things with romance is capturing
those sort of small intimate moments and that you know,
even make you laugh or build the character sort of
relationship in a natural way that doesn't feel too like forced.

(27:18):
So have you got any tips for anyone that's out
there maybe look into to write a more authentic scene.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
I think for me like the best the best scenes,
and it's like in life they're not like these big
romantic scenes. They're actually just everyday life scenes. That's what
for me, where the romance comes out. It's the small gestures.
So in Pig there was this whole thing around Alice
just wanting somebody to know how she took her tea
and no one had ever bothered to find out before,

(27:47):
and that the romantic gesture was that the love interests
made her a cup of tea and she'd noticed, she'd
noticed how she takes it. And it's that it's those
little everyday romantic gestures. And I think that's where that's
where the biggest plot comes out. I think those these
little things and that's I think that's the same in
life for sure, like it's all up. But yeah, definitely,

(28:11):
Like for me, dialogue is the easiest part of writing
for me, Like I just could write pages and pages.
Then I realized that my characters are floating nowhere and
they're just talking. Oh yeah, okay, I need to write
bits around that. So yeah, it's usually in how they
bounce off each other and finish each other's sentences, and yeah,
argue as well, you've got to have the conflict, don't you.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, absolutely, so when you thought of the idea then
did Alice come first or did the idea for the
novel come first? And can you talk us through that
sort of process of piecing it together? Did you pants
the whole novel? Did you sit down and plot it out?
Like how did it.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
So? To be honest, So there's a B story as well,
So it was the Bee characters. So the chance encounter
is is where the B plot starts. And it was
that story that came first, which is a character called
I don't want to give spoilers, but there was a
character called George and a character called Bernard, and their

(29:11):
story really is what Alice's story is built around, so
they're like George Bernard. They framed the whole like Pygmalion thing,
and the mystery of discovering who George is is part
of like Alice's quest and when she falls in love.
But in terms of like what came first, really they did,

(29:33):
and the name came first, and then this had this
idea around this crazy woman that was going to come
into their life and it was all going to be messy,
but she then sort of took over as like the
A plot, and in terms of plotting it, this has
got this is chaos. This book, it has got three timelines.
I don't mean to do this to myself, but it
has three timelines that are interwoven. And I think I

(29:59):
think I was just vessel for this. I really do,
because this story wrote itself. The characters wrote it for me.
I got to know them really well, and then it
kind of just evolved from there. I had minimal tiding
up to do at the end, but I did plot,
so I planned. I usually try and ten chapters in advance,
and then I try and stick to them and then

(30:20):
the characters have other ideas. But yeah, in terms of
like keeping track of the timelines, I do have and
I always go back as well, so if things have changed,
you'll go back and fix it on my like master
like post it noteboard that I have a digital post
it noteboard. I'll go back and fix everything so I
can make sure that's happened there, that's happened there. So yeah,
kind of reverse plot, like, oh yeah, now I've got

(30:42):
to go and fix everything that my characters undone in
terms of wherever we're going with this. But I love
that part as well. It's just it's such a wonderful,
like journey of discovery, like I'm always writing you like, oh,
what's going to happen today, and then like being really
surprised by it and then feeling a little bit like
I'm losing the plot.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Like literally, yeah, I love that. It sounds like a
very creative but productive process that you've got there as well, which.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Is there's always a book at the end of it.
I've liked that twice so far, so yeah, hopefully it
happens the third time.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah. So if somebody wants to pick this book up
then and they were thinking, oh, yeah, this sounds great,
what would you say to them? In terms of Compton
things are always a big thing in terms of if
you like this, then you might like this. You know,
what would you say to somebody who's not read one
of your books before in terms of what they're going
to get and what why do you think you they

(31:39):
you think they would enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
So it's a tough one with Pig because I don't
think it's like many I've struggled with comp titles for Pig.
It's like, when I first started writing it, I felt
like it was a little bit Maggie O'Farrell, So what's
it called, uh, is it before you Were Gone? Sorry,

(32:03):
I've got it somewhere. Sorry, I have many books on them.
I think it's before you Were Gone. It was the
ones you're like twenty five years ago. Like I think
it might have been a debut. But that's quite a
depressing story. His Pig's quite uplifting, So it's like a
but then, like comparing myself to Machio Pharrell feels a
little bit out there. Probably, Like my favorite author of

(32:24):
all time is David Nichols, So I take a lot
of inspiration from how he writes, how he puts, like
the kind of makeup of his stories, particularly with my
first novel. But yeah, with with Pig, I think that
transformation journey is quite key. So yeah, I need to

(32:45):
spend more time thinking about comp titles.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, I mean David Nichols authors to compare you're writing too,
So yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
The inspirations for sure.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
So obviously one of the things that they do really well,
and you've touched on this in terms of create chaos
for their characters. As a writer, then how do you
bring that chaos that you slowly build and create, how
do you manage to sort of bring it back in
to get to it a sort of end product.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
That is a great question, Chris, And I'm not entirely
sure I know the answer, I think because I might
be in the thick of it at the moment. I'm
in like I'm two thirds three number three and I'm
in the chaos bit. I'm kind of like going, how
am I getting a resolve all of these things and
my process at the moment, Like, because I've gone through

(33:37):
that twice now and I'm now starting to trust myself
and I'm trusting that I will find those answers as
I go through this. If I really don't know where
something is going, I'll step away from it and I
will I've tried this trick as well. I heard this
somewhere like ask your main character, So before you go
to bed, say to your main character, what do you
want to happen? Where is this going to go? And

(33:58):
I've done this and like nine times out of ten,
I wake up with the answer in my head. Like
it's like I don't know if unlocking something in there
and I don't really know how that works, but yeah,
that's I don't know. I don't know how it all
comes together. And I think last time, it is still
kind of feels a bit like that mystical process. I'm like, whoa,

(34:19):
I didn't see that coming, So that chaos sort of
resolved itself. It must be in there, right, it must
be already in there. I don't know where I find it.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
So you mentioned before obviously about dialogue in the fact
that you love writing dialogue and your character's target. So
what do you think a sort of crafted your ear
for dialogue in terms of like being able to write good,
convincing dialogue.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
I did do a drama degree when I did a
joint honors degree as my undergrad so theology and drama,
and I spent a lot of time, like I used
to love writing scripts back then, so it's kind of
like that geology of like back and forth. But I

(35:08):
think listening to conversations. So someone once said to me,
you know, you must be a good listener if you
can write good dialogue. I don't know if that's true
or not, but listen, So I think, you know, and
I like I find quite like kind of you know,
those like family meals where like everyone's bouncing off each
other and there's like just random things being said, and

(35:29):
you're like, if anybody was watching this, if my family
were on Google books, people like they are the most
ridiculous people because they're just saying the most ridiculous things,
are taking like inspirations from those And now I use
that saying all the time, Like people are like, oh,
you're going to write and see your next book, and
I do think, well, anything you say or do maybe
used in my next book, so be careful. And I'm
constantly writing down things down things people say. Now I'm like,

(35:50):
that's hilarious. That's going in. So I have like a
big list of things that I'd like to put in
the book someday. So yeah, I think just kind of
paying attention the thing's going on around you. I don't
think there's a day goes by if you're out on
public that you wouldn't find something interesting to put in
a book.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, definitely, So we picked. Then what I'm going to
ask you a twofold question, what was the most challenging
thing about writing it? And then what are you most
proud of now that it's finished.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
I think the most challenging. The most challenging thing, I'd
say is probably spending so much time with the toxic
X about Alice, So she needs a formal diagnosis, let's
put it that way, which I have in the book
I'm writing at the moment. It is kind of a

(36:39):
follow on to this. So I've now given her a
formal diagnosis that she has a narcissistic personality disorder, which
you don't know him, Pig, but you could probably guess.
So spending a lot of time with her trying to
she was great to write. She's fantastic to write, but
she was also quite difficult because like she takes it
out on Alice. So I think that you know, I'm

(37:01):
feeling all of those things too us i'm writing it.
So I think that was can be quite challenging. You're like, Okay,
these are emotions to deal with. I wasn't drawing on
personal experience, but you know, I'm obvious leave I'm an EmPATH,
so I think about how other people feel in those situations.
So some of that stuff was quite hard. But in
terms of like like I say, knitting up that chaos,

(37:25):
that was challenging because I remember the times thinking I'm
not sure where this is going. I really don't know
where this book is going, and then I remember like
getting to the end going, oh, that's what was going
to happen. So yeah, I'm kind of hoping I'm about
to hit that again. And I've forgotten the second part
of your question. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Was proud, like what you're most proud of with this book?

Speaker 2 (37:47):
I think I genuinely think it's really good. Like I listened.
I did the audio proof for the the audio a
couple of weeks ago before it got submitted for approval
with ACX, and yeah, I just listening to it, I
kept thinking I haven't wrote that, like, like my narrator

(38:11):
Marissa Callend an incredible job, like genuinely brought it to
life in a way that I could only dream of
it coming to life. But still I'm like they were
my words. And then I mean, it's literally just been released.
I don't think anybody else has listened to it before yet.
But I was laughing and crying and thinking, yeah, this
is good, this was good, and yeah I supposed to

(38:32):
feel like that, because I don't know if this happens
to everyone, But like after my first one, after a
little while, at first, I was like, this is the
best thing I've ever done. And then after a little while,
I started thinking, oh no, maybe it wasn't that good now,
and then you get the doubts are thinking, oh, don't
read that, or read the second one that's better, and
I wonder if that will happen again. But at the moment,
I'm still in kind of like that bubble of pig

(38:54):
going yeah, no, it's the best thing I've ever done.
So yeah, I don't know if that I don't know
if that changes over time.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah maybe, obviously, we hope there's a lot more to come.
So we're going to get into the third part of
the show now, which is community question. So if you're
watching now and you want to send in a question,
then please do. Now is your opportunity to do that,
and we're going to ask some of our staple questions
as well. So this is community Questions brilliant. So I'll

(39:42):
start with a few staple questions that we have from
the show. Like I've just said, if you've got a question,
please feel free to pop it into chat and yeah,
we'll do our best to answer it. So one of
the first staple questions that we have is if you
could take any character from fiction and make that character
your own, Which character whould you choose and what would
you do with them.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
That is a hard question. Okay, I'm just going to
go off the cough. I'm going to go the Mad
Hatter from Alice in Wonderland because I've got Alice in
front of me here, so Alison mad Hatter Alicon won Land,
And I would give the Mad Hatter a real like

(40:22):
backstory like how did how did the Mad hatteren mad?
That's why I want to find out, like what drove
him to be like he is? And that's a really
great idea for a book.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
A brilliant and it's also we've had over three hundred
interviews and nobody's ever said that and excited me as
much about a premise.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
There we go, then.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Lewis Carroll sort of right, that's his bright sort of
disappeared or.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah maybe yeah. I think that was one thing I
did notice with what I found out with with pig Malion.
It was the rights had gone so I could use
the quote at the beginning, which was what was he freeze?
It was great? Yeah, maybe, yeah, watch this space. Yeah,

(41:16):
I'd make the Mad Hatter a woman, though definitely I can't, can't,
I can't. Yeah, I think i'd have to do that.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
But again, if you've got free license to play around
and now then yeah, why not? And the next question
that we have is if you could take the ending
of any fiction, be a TV books, film, and change it,
what would you take the ending of and what would
you do?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Okay, I've got off the com answer for this one
one Day by David Nichols. I think everybody hates that ending.
Why did you do that? That's that's all I would say.
I met I met the man in Legend last year,
and I think I said the very same thing. I
would change the ending for that story for sure. There
was no need for that was a perfect love story.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Why I mean, I agree again, I'm going to go
down the romance through. But I know what you're saying.
But one of the best moments in that book for
me came from after that event happened, and somebody wrote
a letter about the person and that letter absolutely broke me.

(42:28):
So it was one of the moments that I sort
of remembered and I remember thinking, wow, that was really good.
So I agree, But at the same time, I don't
think I would change it because I wouldn't have that
experience of reading the letter that somebody had sent. But yeah,
definitely like to see a different version. That'd be good.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I was just gonna say I read a book recently
called pal Meridian by Grace. I'm not trying to say
her last name. I think it's blaive. Pal Meridian is
the book. It's basically set in It's in Florida in
a retirement village for lesbian women or suffic women, and

(43:10):
it is an incredible book. The ending that broke me, Like,
I don't recall sobbing at a book as much as
I just sobbed and I read. I read the ending
really really quickly because it was quite tense and ramped
up at the end, and I read it really quickly.
And then I was going to read it again because
I thought I scanned it too fast. I thought I
was over consuming. I couldn't. I couldn't even look at

(43:33):
the words again. I'm like, no, I can't. I was
just sobbing. So I've changed the end of that as well.
I even messaged her and said that was there was
no need for that.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
And you said, I loved this book.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
It was very very good.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Yeah, definitely hitting a card. And you're also as a question,
we do get some random questions, so this is a
bit of random book. Again, I like it. And if
you've got questions and so, if you could camp in
the wild where cryptic troll, Lockness Monster, Cuba Cabara, big Foot,
et cetera lurked, what cryptic would you choose and what

(44:11):
weapon would you bring?

Speaker 2 (44:15):
I wouldn't want to kill them, I'd befriend them. I mean,
I think that the Lockless Monster, not the the Bigfoot,
would be pretty cool to me. Yeah, definitely, Yeah, like
the one from what's the film? There was one where
is it monsters? Yeah, it's monsters inc. Then they get
banished and they they be Bigfoot and he's really cool.

(44:40):
He brings some like ice coms that'd begun.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, definitely, that'd be cool. I don't really know, to
be honest on that question. The Lockness Monster seems to
be there, seems to be more pictures crapping up recently,
so maybe.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
I wonder why, certainly, what could be generating that.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Absolutely, while we've mentioned that, what is your sort of
like obviously this is something that we talk in the
right community about in terms of AI and bringing that in.
What's your opinion in terms of like what people are
doing potentially with it and touch your thoughts. In general, I.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Would say I'm very anti AI from anything in the
creative process, Like I don't want it to touch my writing.
I don't want it to be any part of what
I'm doing, because what's the point of me in that case.

(45:47):
I use tools like pro writing Aid, and I guess
that kind of touches the edges. But I use it
to help you with commas, because otherwise I just sprinkle
them in like glitter, like I'm like, have some commas,
and then my poor editors like, well, please learn to
use commons. So I think I don't. I don't want

(46:13):
to use it. I I guess with the challenge of
people's work being stolen to feed the machine, that now,
how is it. I don't want my work to be
used in that way either, So I feel like it
kind of is taking from other people as well. But

(46:36):
then equally, I use it a little bit in my job,
so I can see it does have a place. And
so I will give an example of where I have
found it useful. So I am currently writing a one
of my characters is a psychotherapist. Now I don't know

(46:56):
what a psychotherapist does day to day, so it's not
part of my creative process. But I have asked AI
to tell me what a typical psychotherapist day to day
looks like. So for me, that's cut out the lazy
part of me going and finding a psychotherapist to do
research with. I've now asked I've asked AI to tell
me what one does every day, and then I can

(47:17):
kind of use that to help inform that I'm not
going to then go, can you write a day in
the life of and then feed that into my novel,
because that's just not what I want to do, just
takes the fun out of it for me.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
No, exactly. I think the whole sort of process, like
we said before about writing a book, it's a bit
like writing a marathon and using AI in a capacity
where you're going to use it to put bits in
the book or bits in your creative writing process. I
think it's like getting an uber to do the London Marathon.
Like you get the start, get the end, and then

(47:49):
you go, yeah, did the marathon.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
It's like, yeah, it's cheating you if you're like cheating yourself,
Like what's the point. I like this for the process,
like this for how it makes me feel. I like
it for the days when I picked my wife from
the train station, I'm laughing hilarious jokes. I'm not going
to laugh at a joke from my eye. I mean,
I probably won't like because it's come from here, it's

(48:13):
come from it's real, and it's come from the heart.
And I just don't see why you want to squeeze
that out of your process.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
No, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
But I really like that analogy that the London I
think that's perfect. That's exactly it.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah, don't cheat yourself out. People write the book, because
even if nothing came of the book, the process of
writing it is the reward in itself. So yeah, try
and remember that everyone, if you're listening. So we have
another question. So Ross says, what one piece of writing
about you heard that you think is absolutely see, I.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Feel less about the same ship now I didn't know ever,
I wasn't allowed to swear. We hadn't talked about that.
He can say bollows, I can say ship. So I
it's not for me. So again, I'm not going to
trash what someone else wants to do. But someone said
before that if you write it and then you should
just delete everything you've written and then write it back

(49:09):
from memory, like rewrite the whole thing. I can't think
of anything worse, Like why would I write spend pour
all of those hours into writing this thing just to
throw it in the bin and then rewrite the whole thing?
That I can't do that, that's I'm a meticulous first draft.
I'm very slow. Sorry, There's not a chance I would
ever throw away anything. I'm keeping it all. It's all

(49:32):
staying in all of it.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
That sounds like someone with a photographic memory just trying
to take the mack out of right.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I mean, I get like bits, like there's bits that
are really clunky and awkward, and yeah, maybe just chuck
them away after a while, but also step away from
them and come back to them, and then they've become
less clunky and awkward when you can see it with
a bit of a objectivity, when you've moved away from it,
I think you can fix it. Not not the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
No, were worst life, absolutely so. Obviously, once you've written
your book and it goes out into the world, obviously
other people then get hold of it and they read it.
What have you sort of found with the readership so
far that have picked up your novels.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
It's in like feedback that I've had.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yeah, or feedback or interactions, or like if you had
a moment that's sort of taking you back a little
bit and you've sort of wow, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
I think, particularly with my first novel, I think I
hadn't realized that I'd written a character that was very polarizing.
I just didn't see her flaws in the same way
that other people did. It wasn't the main character. It
was the love interest, and she gets a lot of sticks.
Even if people really like the book still go hard

(50:56):
on her, And I'm like, oh, really, I would defend her.
So I that and I think something, if I could
rewrite that book, I would probably do it from a
jaw perspective. I haven't written a jaw perspective yet in
quite that way. I haven't done it like character character.
I've done it in different timelines, but not in the
same timeline. So but I think if I was able

(51:16):
to give her a voice, people might understand and have
a bit more empathy because obviously I was in her head,
so I know that she wasn't a bad person, but
she did some questionable things. So but what I do
often get from that first book is that it was
quite an emotional read. So people are very invested in
another character in that book, and her journey is always
one that resonates really well. So that always takes me back.

(51:39):
And when people say like, oh, that book made me
cry like several times, I'm like, wow, okay, like that
you can move someone to tears, isn't is an incredible thing.
I can invoke that strength of emotion. But then equally
as well, with that character they don't like. When they
don't like her, they really don't like her, and I
will get some trash reviews for that because I really

(52:00):
hate that character. I'm like, if I have given you
that much rage with my character and you're giving me
a one star for it, then that's a win because
I have provoked you to have a reaction by words
on a page, Like that's a powerful thing. So I'm
going to take that positive spy and then those little
occasional one stars or of them.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
So when you create characters, obviously that creates such an
emotional reaction, and as you said before, you know you
might go to bed talking or asking your character about
what they want the outcome to be. When you get
that close to your characters obviously again you mentioned as
well that you're revisiting some of them as well in
this next book. Do you find it that they are

(52:42):
constantly there in terms of like, oh, I wonder what
they're doing now, and you know, do you have a
sort of planned long term for these characters or a
series of books.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
So with Pig, I do have a bit of a plan.
So I hadn't realized when i'd written it, when I
finished it, until I finished it sorry that it was
going to have more parts to it. So it's kind
of like, the lead character in the book I'm writing
at the moment isn't the main character in Pick. It's
not Alice. It's a different character who's kind of more

(53:11):
of a side character, and it becomes her story and
how she relates to it, to the to the narcissist
in a different way. So so I had I hadn't
planned for that to happen. But then I got to
the end, I was like, oh, there's another story here,
and I think there's another one, so I think this
might be one of three. But yeah, that I'm enjoying

(53:34):
my time with them. I wasn't ready for it to
be over. I wasn't ready for that story to be finished,
and I think I might go back and do something
with my first But then I also recently had a
really good idea for another book. It's about this mad hatter.
I'm Jacob no I had a we were on holiday

(53:54):
and I had a really good idea. I nearly got
hit on the head by a coconut. I had this
like inspiration of like if I had been hit by
the coconut, and it then sent me into this like
parallel like life and I was living a different version
of my reality, like and I thought about what about
having a bunch of different So anyway, I'm gonna get

(54:14):
hit by the coconut in the story and that's probably
gonna be my next book when I finished this trilogy.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Nice browsing of hat in that book. Yeah, So Halo's
got a question. She says, do you like to inspire
your readers?

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Pushed the muse. I think I think possibly my first
book might have done. The Latter Pig is definitely about inspiration.
It's about hope. There's so many seeds of hoping pig,
and I think I needed that story in my life
at that time. I needed to know that I turned
forty two and Alice had turned forty two, and that

(54:55):
it's okay, it's all right not to have it altogether.
So so yeah, that one's where much about hope, But
the first one it still ends on a positive note,
but there's it will make you cry if you have
a soul, that will make you cry.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
M So how do you do that then? Obviously, if
you've got the main message sort of being that hope
that's needed. Obviously for hope to hit home, you need
to have your characters in a bad place in order
for them to sort of you drip feed this whole
pin and it slowly builds all the time. So how
do you manage to mentally go into the dark places

(55:31):
in order to explore the potential on the other side.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I think that's what I say, probably in articulately trying
to say before that with Pig the dark places were
how Alice had been treated, so she'd had she'd really
been kicked down, And I think that the story starts
where she's an utter mess, like she is a literal mess,
an emotional mess. She's literally just walked away from this

(55:58):
toxic person. And yeah, I think possibly drawing upon like
my like my drama degree, and like the method acting
and putting myself in that situation. And you know how
I've you know, I've seen other people in my life
going through difficult things and you know, just drawing upon
your own emotion. And even with my first book, because

(56:20):
I said it will make you cry, I drew upon
personal experiences. I'm not going to tell it happens, but
I drew upon personal experiences to make that. I think
it was probably a bit cathartic. Really it was therapy
writing that story down, because the really sad thing that happens,
you know, it happens to all of us at some point.
But you know, I wrote the I wrote the matriarch

(56:43):
that you know, real love, and that character is beloved
in that in that story, and she was based on reality.
So I think if you draw from bits of your life,
then you can make those characters really come alive with.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
That brilliant So before we go, where can people buy
the books? And where can people start you on all
of the socials should they wish to.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
So, I mean, my my Internet office is Instagram, So
I'm at pitp Wrights Fiction, and I've kept it really easy.
So my website is the same, it's just pit writes
fiction dot com. And then I'm on Amazon of course,
so so yeah, everything's on Amazon. And as I say,
Pig did come out in audiobooks yesterday, and genuinely, like

(57:30):
I'm saying, I'm going to say this from my from
my narrator, not from me, because it is such an
incredible performance. So even if you're not listening to it
from my story, listen to it for her performance, because
it was it's absolutely astonishing. So so yeah, so that's
available on Audible and yeah, everywhere audiobooks brilliant.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Absolutely love that. Right, So that's the end of our show.
Thank you very much for joining us. I'm going to
ask you one more question. Actually, could you recommend a
book to us that you've really enjoyed by somebody maybe
that you know as an author, that you feel like
deserves a little bit more spotlight put on them just

(58:13):
before we leave and then we'll waive our goodbyes and
we'll see everyone on Friday.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Yeah. So, actually, I've got an indie author friend who's
just about to release a book called King Love, which
comes out next month. But her I think it was
her second book is called meet me in Berlin, and
the premise is awesome. So it's basically these two people
that it's like a love story. They meet in Berlin

(58:39):
and then they say they're going to come back to
the same place every year at the same time, and
it kind of goes on. So yeah, that's a really
awesome story. That's what hooked me into her work. So
her name is Samantha Valentine. Definitely definitely check her out
indie author.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Love that. Yeah, I love a good recommendation on the show. Yeah,
so thank you again for joining us, Thank you for
watching me, watching this back or listening back. Thank you Halo.
She has an amazing interview. Congrat some award. You should definitely
have it to hand in there be that person. Yeah

(59:15):
it is glory. Yeah no, thank you very much. Been
fantastic and to be lots of really good advice. So yeah,
other than that, it's goodbye from me and yeah, we'll
give you a little wave off. Awesome.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Thank you, Thanks everyone

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Thanks everyone, to you Friday

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