It has been three years since our friend and long-time community member, S.P. O’Farrell, last sat down with us at The Writing Community Chat Show. As one of the original supporters of the podcast, which is now proudly ranked as a top UK writing podcast, we always love checking in with familiar faces.We are thrilled to announce that the full conversation with Steve is now available!This episode is essential viewing (or listening!) for anyone curious about taking their series to the next level, changing genres, and navigating the exciting business of getting noticed. In this incredible discussion, we celebrated what happens when dedication meets dazzling success. We Covered:* Award-Winning Validation: Steve shared the inspiring story behind Simone LaFray and the Bishop of Mumbai being named a Distinguished Favorite Winner (Middle Grade) for the Big NYC Book Awards and receiving a stellar Starred Review from the Independent Book Review.* The Hollywood Hype: We dove into what it truly means for a series to be “shopped” for a TV/Film Production Deal—the process, the hope, and the reality for authors.* A Pivot to YA: S.P. O’Farrell revealed why he made the exciting jump to Young Adult Fiction with a new Duology and how he manages to maintain consistency while plotting the highly-anticipated Simone 5!* The Business of Writing: How he balanced his biggest year ever—including a graduation speech and a novel conversion project—with promoting his success and maintaining momentum.Watch or Listen to the Full Interview!This is your chance to hear directly from an author navigating the very top tiers of traditional publishing success.The video is available now on our YouTube channel, and you can also listen to the audio wherever you get your podcasts.▶️ Watch The Full Episode Now:🎧 Listen Here:The audio version of this episode is available on all major podcast platforms (and will appear right here on Substack)P.S. If you want to see how far Steve has come, you can view our previous interview with him from three years ago, where he discusses the start of his journey, right here:Support Our Non-Profit CIC.As many of you know, The Writing Community Chat Show is now officially a non-profit Community Interest Company (CIC). Our mission is to support authors and creatives through interviews, workshops, competitions, and community projects.Running the show takes time, effort, and resources — from live streaming and editing, to event hosting and outreach. If you enjoy what we do and want to help us continue providing a platform for authors, please consider donating directly to our PayPal. Every contribution goes right back into growing the show and supporting the writing community.Donate here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/TheWCCSEven the price of a coffee makes a difference in helping us keep the lights on, the mics live, and the conversations flowing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the Writing Community Chat Show. Hey everybody,
and welcome back to the Writing Community Chat Show. Yeah,
it's been a week since I last interview. I feel
(00:20):
like it's been longer for some of that reason, it's
kind of been a long week for us. Potentially you
as well. Let us know how your week's been. Has
it been good? Has it been productive more importantly in
the terms of writing and other things, but also I
hope it's been good and manageable. Chris, how has your
week been?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, it's been good. National Poetry Day in the UK yesterday,
so I read some poetry to sort of celebrate.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Oh yeah, yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Everyone who works with I said to what's your favorite poems?
I think if you've never done that, I worked before,
National Poetry Day is a good day to do it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I hope you didn't show him, show them the you
maybe cry in tears of laughter.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, do you know what? Nobody actually asked me in return?
Who might like what my favorite poem was? But I
think it was interesting because it revealed a little bit
about each person and then what their favorite poem was.
So yeah, fun.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Times, Yeah, definitely. Yes, it's been a bit of a
mad week. There's lots of show things. We've got opportunities
coming in. Spoke about how we've been invited to the
London Book Fair, which is amazing. We had a very
short notice invite to the Amazon Storyteller the Amazon Kindle
Storyteller Awards in London in like two weeks, which unfortunately
for us, is very it's too short notice. But what incredible,
(01:39):
an incredible experience that would have been for us. But
hopefully if that happens again next year, if they sponsor
us to do the whole thing again, we might plan
for that ahead of time. But yeah, so things are
happening in the background, but what's also happening is the
lack of writing for me. Chris, I hope you are
as productive or even more productive. An interesting day I
(02:01):
had yesterday. I decided to do a bit of extra
extra work to get some cash in. I did some
Amazon delivery driving and my god, was it a nightmare.
So that was a long day yesterday. No time for
creating staff, which I love to do. So back from
next week and this weekend on even we've got a
storm here, it's pretty rubbish. Would be a nice, wet,
(02:21):
windy weekend to sit in the house and get on
the computer, do some show production, get some writing done,
because importantly that's what we need to be doing, right.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Chris, Yeah, do you know what else we need to
be doing? And again, this is something that I've been
talking to everyone who's been in my proximity. Recently, I
bought a velvetizer, explaining, so, velvetizer is a machine that
makes very very smooth hot chocolate. It's made for hot chocolate.
(02:50):
So because it's getting colder and all these you know,
the season of like you know, staying in as you've said,
cozy mind you, I thought I'd get my self a velvetizer,
and really they really are very very nice. So I've
got a hotel chocolate velvetizer and yeah, it's been fun
(03:10):
nice to people. It's not paid advert but yeah, get
some hot chopper in your life. It definitely.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Do you get it in your beard now it's a
massive beard.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, it looks bad the cream and marshmallow ratio. But yeah,
sometimes velvetizer velvetizer.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Wow, I had no idea. Uh yeah, I was going
to say something and it's gone up my mind annoyingly.
That was a good point. Anyway, It's not a good point,
because it clearly hasn't stuck there. But yeah, so, as
people know, we've had two three hundred and sixty plus
interviews now on this show, all amazing interviews, great guests and.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
What rosters put raspute and loves his velvetiz.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, yes, sorry, you're distracting me. Yeah. So, and we've
been ranked as one of the top writing podcasts in
the UK for the past two years, which is incredible.
And what happens which we find amazing is some guests
stick with us from the start and support us, and
Tonight's is one of those. A brilliant author and a
great support of the show from the early days. And
it's been three years since he last joined us, Can
(04:20):
you believe that?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah? Three years since the last adventure into Simone La Fray. Yeah,
I'm nervous now, but yeah, it's good to have him
back on and chat to him. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah. And obviously his journey's taken off through a lot
of hard work and dedication and we're looking forward to
a massive update, so we hope you are too. So
are you ready for tonight's.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Show, Chris, Yeah, definitely, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So in the time that we last spoke. He's been
nothing short of explosive in the publishing world. His novel
Simone la Fray and which you can always see above,
Chris has said, not just that book, but every guest
we have and the Bishop of Mumbai is a runaway
to success. It's been named a Distinguished Favorite winner for
Middle Grade at the Big NYC Book Awards and secured
a phenomenal starred review from the Independent Book Review. But
(05:09):
that's not all we're talking about. More than just awards
and great reviews, the entire cemonla Pray series has been
shopped for a major production deal. It's an incredible story
of hard work and passion and well deserved success, and
we can't wait to hear every detail of what the
last three years have been like. So please everyone in
the chat give me a nice big hand in giving
(05:30):
a massive warm welcome back to the show. The brilliant
award winning spo Farrell. Hello, Steve, Hello, guys, how are
you doing well?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I'm doing fantastic. I want to hear about this velvetizer.
I've never heard of such a thing. We have certainly
hot chokod, but I am all yours.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, So I'm trying to describe this to a few
people now, and apparently I'm not selling it very well,
so I probably won't. But it's essentially a little bit
like a kettle in terms of you hot. You put
liquid in it and it will make it hot.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Then it has a little fan at the bottom that
spins round and makes the liquid really really smooth. So
if you've got the way you do it, you get
your milk. You can pick your favorite chocolate bar, chop
it all up, put it in with the milk, and
it will incorporate the chocolate into the milk and make
it really smooth and delicious. And you can even have
coffee in it. You can make milkshakes. It's definitely worth
(06:26):
the investment. If you're into your coffee and your hot chocolate,
you will definitely appreciate the difference.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I feel like you need some product placement here. You
should get an advertiser for right for that you're selling
it better with the with the the swirling in I
think that's great.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, And he said, try Mexican hot chocolate with cinnamon
and chili. It's delicious.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Consod, congratulations on the podcast. You guys, you know along
this full journey you guys have had enormous success on it. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Just can't believe we're still doing it and and that
it sounds bad, but you know, something just started off,
you know, as a as a thing to do and
to bring the community together. And it's nearly six years on.
It's it's crazy where time is gone.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It is hard to believe how the time has gone.
My publisher asked me to write a blog, you know,
sort of this reflective piece when this when the third
book was coming out and I was looking back at
the stars. But it was almost ten years ago when
I started writing, and wow, a lot has changed and
thinking of you know, the writing journey and your personal
(07:32):
journey and all this stuff. It is, it is, It
is a lot to look back on. So anyway, congratulations
on all this success and the purchase of your velvetizer.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well yeah, and I'm going to point him out because
he called you a Nemesis at the stile.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh yeah, he said that I picked up a Nemesis
everything Nemesis, right, so I can check that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Bombs And he's also said so it stirs it, which
is massive. The undersolved that thing of what I just said, No,
it doesn't. It just makes it absolutely delicious and fruffy,
and yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I can't believe we're still talking about velvetizer. Well we
need to talk about guys. Anyway. If you are here
for the first time, welcome, And if you haven't seen
these journey into writing and all that good stuff, it's
kind of what we do in our first shows with
the guests, and three years ago we did that. So
if I get it right, and you can see that
(08:30):
right up there, if you want to watch it at
the end, click back and see his journey into write in.
But obviously three years a lot has been happening. And
you talked about ten years ago starting that kind of
blog and your writing process, but three years there's a
lot happened, and in the Cemono phrase series that's now
moving on, including now looking at book five, right.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
That's right, a lot has changed. And when this all started,
it was it was written as an early chapter one,
something that was written for my niece, and then you know,
it sort of went on and on and proliferated, and
then at some point it was it was plotted into
this massive story, and then I broke that down into
(09:14):
what would be individual books and what looks like it
was going to be our six or seven book series,
and I knew how sort of all of the all
the books are started and ended, and what all the
plot points were, and all that kind of good stuff.
I just started writing it. I found I'm more of
a plotter than a pantser at this point. I know
(09:35):
how each of the books start and end. Now I
plot them out to the chapter. I'm much more meticulous
at that because I feel that I have to be
more more efficient at it. You know, the writing process
for me is one I don't have. I don't write
full time. I run a small business and do all this,
so I have to be pretty efficient in the way
that I go about it. But now the one thing
(09:58):
I have found is that original plotting is holding pretty
true to form. We've had to pivot a few times,
but it's still going to end the way I thought
it was going to end. We've probably shrunk it by
a book. It looks like it's going to land at
six books. Now we're three books published. The fourth book
is pretty much plotted at this point. We're putting some
(10:21):
final polish on the plotting of it right now. I
plan to start writing it probably in the next forty
five days or so. But I'm one of those writers
similar to a reader, that if I read the first
sentence of a chapter, I have to finish it. So
if I start writing, if I write that first sentence,
I gotta keep going. And now, knowing how much time
(10:43):
and energy it takes to write a book, ooh go.
You know you gotta do your calisonics. And you know
it's like building up to a marathon. You got to
work up to it before you get out and write it.
So hopefully that'll be a project over the summer. I'm sorry,
over the winter. And you know, I think now having
(11:03):
a few under my belt and then having written some
other stuff in the interim, you know, I feel I
can do it a little bit more efficiently, write it,
hopefully get it into my editor late spring, and move
on with that. But I think with this next one,
the other thing I'm going to try to do is
write the fourth one and the fifth one sort of simultaneously,
or at least write one into the next to sort
(11:25):
of get going towards towards funt finishing this, finishing it
out in the sixth books. So you know, it's a
lot to handle. Series I have found are you know,
they're just a lot to juggle, there's a lot to
tie up, and but I love the characters. The response
from the reading community has been outstanding. That's one of
(11:46):
the things that I've found with this now that I'm
having a few books out there, you know, talking to
people at the events, you know, they they're they're interested
in the characters. They're excited to see what happens to them.
They care about them, they want to know what happens,
and you know, hopefully I can do good by that
and you know, write this thing to a good conclusion.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I'm always really interested with a series that goes on
over an extended time because as a writer, your mindset change,
is your you know, your personality changes. So how difficult
is it or is it easy to stick to those
characters in terms of keeping them on the same sort
of page. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
It is incredibly difficult. Yeah, it's incredibly difficult because one
of the things that I never expected is they grow,
they get older. You know, a twelve year old is
different from a thirteen year old, is different from a
fourteen year old. The dynamics of their relationships change, and
one of the things that we decided to do, which
(12:50):
which was always going to happen, but it just became
more apparent was the book series was going to be
starting middle grade. It's a middle grade series right now,
but it's going to transition into young adult, that young
that earlier viewership of young adult, which is that thirteen
to sixteen range. So Mumbai, the one you have there
up on the screen, it's back here as well. Uh,
(13:11):
it's sort of it brushes into some of those things,
but it's moving into young adult, which is a whole
different set of themes, and it's it's it is difficult.
You're almost seeing you know, like your child aging. You know,
their personalities change, how they react to things change. You
(13:31):
want to keep the central conflicts consistent and how they
react to those changes, which which creates some interesting dynamics.
But it's Chris, it's hard. It's hard. It is hard
to write a series. When I finished this one out,
I don't know that I'll write another one. I have
a duology that I'm working on now. But Boys series
(13:52):
is it is really it is. Oh, it is difficult.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
What advice then, would you have for someone who's got
that crazy concept in the mind that I want to
write this series as someone who's going through that process
and has been doing it, what could you tell them
might help that journey a little bit easier.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, I would say you better have the whole thing
plotted out really well, because I would say the one
thing that has benefited from from the whole process is
I do go back to that original plotting of the story.
So I go back to that, and that's the roadmap.
If I didn't have that roadmap, I would be in
some serious trouble. And it's not it's not all spelled out.
(14:33):
I mean I have there is some discovery writing between
the points. I mean it's not all completely laid out,
but I know where all the plot points hits. It's
driving that car between the points. That's that's the hard part,
right So or that's that's actually one of the more
exciting parts because that's where you really find some cool
stuff in there. But it's if you didn't have that roadmap,
(14:55):
it would be very, very difficult to pull that off.
But I would say, you you really have to like
the characters, you really have to like the themes, and
you you really have to believe in it because it
is it is a marathon. To try to pull one
of these things off.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I think you should keep it going adulthood, get it
into a mission impossible style of the end novel.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
You know. I may have mentioned that before, but when
I was plotting the second book for a while, there
was an idea to make it not as serial, but
to put another book in there that was sort of
a one off. And I worked on it for about
six months and it was awful, and I ended up
just deleting it, pretty much, scrapping the whole thing. I
(15:40):
kept a couple of characters, but it was terrible. Uh
now it was you know, stick to the plan. You
know the plan was good, stick to it and work
it through. But it takes it takes a lot of work.
I know there's there's probably a few people there. I
can't really see everybody in the chat, but there's a
few there. I'm sure that I've written some series and
(16:00):
it's it's it is difficult. You have to have that rudder,
that north star that you're writing towards, and if you
don't have it, it is really really hard. And you
really have to like these characters too. There has to
be something that you gravitate to these characters. I know
a lot of you know, but a lot of you know,
family members and a lot there's a lot of me,
and there's a lot of my my family and some
(16:20):
you know, some some personal things in these characters. So
I care about these characters, so you know, you want
to see them through and you want to bring him
to life and make them as full as possible.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
But I would say think long and hard if you're
if you're going to do it, think really long and
are before doing it, because it is very time consuming.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Mm hmm. Yeah. Obviously the format of the show is
a little bit different. So and you's got a question,
which is is it hard to get into the head
of those characters those ages?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yes, yeah, I've I've heard recently someone said that there's
a there's like a everyone has a writer's age, Like
when they start thinking of writing, they either get in
the mind set of a sixteen year old or a
twelve year old or a twenty year old or something
like that, that there's like a go to and it
typically is the first book that impacted them in a
certain way that you know, sparked a love of writing
(17:12):
or started reading, and then you have to pivot to
certain ones. For me, it's somewhere in that thirteen year
old I remember just there were a couple of books
of that age group for me that resonated, that got
me more interested in reading. So, yes, it is difficult.
You know, it is very difficult. Our boys are older
(17:34):
than that now, so I don't have a lot of
conversations with twelve thirteen year olds, except if I do
know book signings or go to schools or something like that. So, yeah,
it is, it is difficult. It's something I definitely have
to work at, for sure. It is hard. I definitely
have an easier time with the adult characters, that is
for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
So do you know what that kind of spark was
for you then? To relate yourself to those aged characters
you mentioned how you'll go to would be this. Do
you know why you'll go to is the characters that
you just created that age?
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah? I don't. I just remember being in middle school
and reading a few books and being more interested in
story structure. Prior to that, it was more comic books
and some other things that I would read. I was
sort of a reluctant reader at that point, but I
remember being interested in you know, Lord of the Flies
and some other things of that era that were more
(18:32):
you know, they were they were plot in it as well,
but there was more emotion in it, or the storytelling
was deep, a little bit deeper, so they were a
little bit more interesting, you know. They weren't all you know,
they the protagonist didn't always spike the ball at the end. Yeah,
they were a little messy things like that. So for me,
that's somewhere in there is usually where I start, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
So I think growing up we had a kind of
our ages roughly have you had things like the Chronicles
Nannia and Seven, things like this. They were all young
ish people that led those stories, you know, and that
could sort of be an influence for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
How about you, Chris. Yeah, by the way you're facial
here is almost intimidating. It's so thick.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, I mean, it's funny you should say that about
the author age because I didn't read an awful lot
as a kid. But the first book that sort of
hit me was a neo Gaman book. It's American Gods,
And I suppose I was thinking about that after you
said it, and I was like, yeah, a lot of
the time, my characters start about the same age as
his character actually in that novel. So it's interesting that
(19:48):
you say that because it's something I've never considered before.
But the more I think about it, the more I'm like, yeah,
that's quite quite profound. Yeah, I'm going to bring Ross
back into it. And he said, yeah, this is interesting
because all my characters are dead, which is worried.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, that's an interesting but yeah, it's writing a series.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It is.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It is really tough, but this one's we're at the
midpoint now in the series, which is an exciting part.
So yeah, it's it's an exciting time to be writing
a series, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So with your book being recognized as a Distinguished Favorite
Win and received a star review after writing for for
years and years and and planning it out and everything
like that, how did those sort of recognitions did it?
How did that affect you and did it change your
writing process at all?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I don't think so. I think I mean it's nice.
I'm like, you know, it's nice to be recognized. You know,
there's things are are pretty cool. I would say that
part of the process of the of writing. You know,
when you're doing these things, you think you're getting better
at it. You always want to feel like you're you're
you're getting you know, either more clever at the plotting
(20:59):
or the way the structure is being developed and things
like that. That tends to happen. But then typically in
every book that I've written, at some point you have
sort of this you know, I'm the worst writer, and
you know it's just it's not working out for some reason.
You think, you think it's all going great, and it
sort of implodes, and then you go back to sort
of the basics of it, sort of relearn it a
(21:20):
little bit, and you know, I feel that, you know,
it has to be pretty good at the end. So
my first drafts I usually self edit at least a
couple of times, so by the time it goes to
like even anybody else reads it, it's usually the third draft,
maybe the fourth draft. So I like to have them
(21:41):
pretty well oiled by the time I let them out.
But I would say, you know, in terms of like
the working on the crafting of the books, yeah, I do.
I do try to work at that a good bit.
I don't read a lot about writing craft. There's a
few a few things that I'll read about it, I
try not to, you know, read too much about it,
(22:03):
because then I think you try to focus on one
specific thing rather than sort of following your instincts on
how how something should feel or you know, how plotting
should be or stuff like that. But you know, I
feel they should be pretty good, and if I'm satisfied
with them, you know, if I'm writing for myself and
I feel pretty good about them, and then you bring
in the editing team and that feels, you know, like
(22:23):
you're on the same path. But but you know, with
with with some of them, I'm always surprised. Usually when
I hand these in, I feel like they're almost shelf ready,
and they are far from shelf ready.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's gonna say, do you get the the you think
this is it? This is ready, it's absolutely perfect, And
then they turn around and say, Steve, there's a lot
of work to do here.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
They yes. And I have been told that I have
an unhealthy relationship with dialogue tags that I have. I
don't one of the one, one of the three lines
is timeline. When I regionally and I and I actually
plot these things, I'll put it on a calendar to
(23:06):
show you know how the how the book should be gone,
and for some reason, my editor finds, you know, gaps
or these things in the timeline that need to be corrected,
or there's a lot of action within you know, a
brief period of time, and there's sort of these lulls
or there's you know, a sag in the middle or
something like that. Because you know, you spend so much
(23:26):
time on these things and you read them over and
over and it all sounds right you read it out loud,
you know, all these things, so at some point you're
sort of exhausted with it and you want to hand
it off to better minds, you know, far more educated editors,
and they do a great job once you get to it.
But you know, there's there's first two rounds of developmental
(23:48):
are humbling. You do you do you want? Do you
know what a colon is or what is semhat coaling is?
Or you know those slaves and things with the grammar
or you know all of that type of stuff. But
it's it's a humbling experience. Yeah, but you know, and
that just you know, inspires me to want to do better.
You know, you want to you want to do better
(24:08):
draft and you want to have better ideas, better twists,
you know, better endings, higher stakes, all that kind of
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, because it's their job to get you better, right,
so they don't have to do as much work.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, I think so, Yeah, that's the way to look
at it.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Talking about inspiration, why mumbaid to this book decided to
go there with simone?
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Right, So with the third book, so the progressions. The
progression of the book one of one of the themes of
the book. In the first one, she starts to question
her world is fairly small, and she starts to question
things like who her parents are, and you know, the
things that a lot of kids at that age start
to look at, is my dad the person that I
thought he was? There's types of things. In the second book,
(24:53):
her world starts to expand a little bit. She's off
to London and she starts to question some other things,
some things in a reallyationships and things that are pretty much,
you know, in her orbit. So in the third book
we have to expand it a lot. So she has
to almost you know, globe trot or get way outside
in her perception of the world and what is going on.
(25:15):
And when we were plotting it out, she was either
going to go to one or two places. She was
going to go to Japan, or she was going to
go to Mumbai. And one of the three lines of
the book she's been a chess pit player from the front.
And by the way, I had to learn to play
chess to write a lot of this, which is a
whole completely different story. But and chess is very prevalent
(25:38):
in India, so it seemed natural to fall there.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And then when I was researching it online, you know,
fantastic place culturally, visually, you know, what an outstanding place
for the backdrop of a book. I mean, just the setting,
everything about it was just fantastic. And it just fell
into place, you know, beautifully once you know, we started
to plot that in and then the writing of it
(26:03):
came really really easy, and it was just it was
the perfect perfect fit for that. So yeah, happy to
happy to put it there. And yeah, so now her
world is is quite large. She's going to be globe
trotting from here on now.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Apart from say, chess moves. Then, what was one thing
that really surprised you about India? India that you might
have learned through your kind of research the bo.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
So a couple of things. Won the weather, Okay, the
weather was one. How how populated it was, And then
when I was researching culturally the confluence of cultures there,
how many people live there. How you know across the
street you can have you know, there's slums there, and
(26:52):
then you can have you know, where they're building new
high rises can be right across the street. And I
mean it's the diversity is is quite outstanding. From what
I was able to to find from all of this stuff,
it was it was really outstanding, you know. And then
you know, I think I watched a Bollywood movie or
(27:13):
two and you know, try to try to grab some
of that as well.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
So they're amazing, are they.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah? I mean yeah, they have their own they have
their own thing going. So yeah, it was it was
a perfect perfect spot. And and the other thing was
what I found, Chris, was there there aren't a lot
of books set in India, and there are very few
children's books. There's not a lot of kid lit that
seems to okay, I don't know why, but they're just
(27:41):
aren't mane. So it seemed like it seemed like a
good opportunity.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, So was that almost then a conscious decision based
on the fact you mentioned how amazing all the aesthetics
were as well, but also the fact that market maybe
was a little untapped in that area.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Oh yeah, yeah, I think I think there were some
of that. It's it seemed like it just all came together.
It was. It just seemed to all come together at
that point. So maybe Japan in the future, I don't know.
We know where she's coming in the fourth book, but
it just it just it came together so well. And
she's in south of France for a little bit in
(28:16):
the third book as well, and then a shortstop in Italy,
but it was it was the pror fixed spot. So
it all came together, right, Just So.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
At what point are you going to start using your
books or research purposes to go on these amazing trips.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
I would love to, i't that would be the dream.
I've listened to a few podcasts where I can't remember
the guy's name, but who goes around the world to
scowl his spots out for his kid books, And I thought, boy,
that would be amazing. But I would not have the time,
nor nor the budget to go to all of these places,
but it would be nice. It would be nice. But
(28:51):
luckily there's Google Maps and I have some friends in
these places and they give me a lot of good intel.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So for you too, obviously you mentioned how Simone goes
to France and then Italy.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I would have.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Loved just a little snippet of a grumpy old man
called Ross in France and then Italy Mario making his Polonaisy,
just a little snapshot as you through something that that
would just be brilliant.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Well, perhaps perhaps there's three books to go, so you
never know where somebody might make an appearance.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah. Well, one thing I want to talk about then
is obviously getting readers in a series to go back
to book one when you're advertising, seeing the new books
and things like that. Have you ever had a sort
of mission or a way that you do focus on
that when you're trying to attract new readers whilst advertising
a book that's later on in the series.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Yes, So when we were in the pre release, pre
release phase of all this, when you talk to your publisher,
you talk to marketing people. The great thing about a
series is the third book sells the first book, right,
So whenever a new book releases, what you're really trying
to do there's the buzz of the new book, right,
(30:10):
but what you're really trying to do is sell the
first book as well. So there's a lot of attentions
given to the first book because my books build you know,
you could read them, but really there's information in the
first book and the second book to build on the
third book. So you do need there's bits of information
to fully digest the third one. But the push is
(30:32):
to get the third book out there. So when I'm sorry,
the first book out there, so the third When the
third book was released, we saw enormous or a big
spike in sales of first book to get that out there,
and then you see the second book and then the
third books also trail up as well, which is good
because you really want to get that first one out there,
(30:55):
no question about it. I mean, I remember when I
was going through this whole process. I forget who told
me that. They said, no one sells your your first
book like your third book. That's a great comment, yes,
and that has held so yeah, I mean, and you
don't have a series with one book, and that was
that was one of the tricky things. When the first
(31:15):
book came out, it was it was well re stived
and it was well reviewed, and it did well, but
you know, it's it's not a series of it's just
one book. You can you could say it's a series.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
But you know, yes, we all kind of realized. Most
authors realize that once you release the book and you've
done all that hard work and you think that is
a lot of hard work done, there is a whole
lot more hard work coming in in the form of marketing.
So what have you possibly learned then over the series
that could help someone in the in the realm of marketing.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
In the marketing state? Wow, oh, where do you start
on that one? So the marketing, I would say consistency,
and you have to be able to put yourself out there.
I mean, and there's only so much that you can control.
We do a pretty good job in a geographic area.
So like in our we have we have some relationships
(32:08):
with bookstores that have been very good to us. We
do book signing events. There's some great opportunities there that
really build your viewership in kid lit. This this opens
the opportunity to go into schools do those sort of
things to build your readership up as well. Yeah, those
(32:29):
are really good. You know. When you're online, of course,
there's all the social media stuff that you can you
can do. Middle grade is a weird one. And when
you talk to a lot of people in pr and marketing,
you're really marketing the book to adults who buy the
book for the child to read. There are adults that
(32:50):
read middle grade, but for the most part, you're buying
the book to give to somebody, which is a little
bit different dynamic than say young adult or middle fiction
which you're picking up. So it's it's very tricky, and
there's there's a shortage of people, you know, that are
willing to sell you stuff online. All those things. I
would say if you're in if you're in the middle
(33:11):
grade space, be very wary of all of those things. Uh,
you know, just try to control what you can control.
You know, look at your branding. You know it's it's tricky.
Start small, uh, and you know, hustle, you know, get
good at the small stuff. You know, build your small
(33:31):
game up and just continue to grind on it and
do the best you can. Scale it out.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Mm hmm. It's interesting you say that because actually rob
parents and children on a little post it then and
I was going to say, what would your sales pitch
be to parents? And then how would that differ if
you were selling this series to a child.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Right, So with parents, you know, when you're at a
book signing or something like that, usually you engage in,
you know, a little bit of conversation. They're asked you
a couple of questions, and I would find for the
most part, parents they want to know a little bit
about the a little bit about the story, and they
want to know, you know, is it is it? You
(34:13):
know there are cuss words in it? Is you know?
Is it? You know all that kind of stuff. So
you sort of, you know, alleviate them of those concerns
that there's you know, there's nothing of that, and then
you you know, it's adventure story, coming of age, you know, uh, spy,
paris Usually those types of buzzwords, you know, they become
(34:35):
they have some interest in that as well. So there's
things when you talk about the cover and things like
that with the kids. Used I try to use comps.
You know, do you like Harriet Spy? Do you like
Western Game? Do you like Western Game? Might not be
one that was when I was reading No long ago,
but that was I think from the seventies, Harry Potter.
You know, stuff like that, you know, do you like
(34:57):
these types of books, But I tell you it's harder
because now and when you you talk to people about
middle grade in particular, with you know, there's there's the
there the outlook for middle grade, or at least the
last couple of years has been really rocky for middle
grade because sales have gone down every year year over year.
(35:18):
They said that that just the readership is shrinking, that
the books are too long. The kids don't want to
read sixty thousand words anymore. They want, you know, forty
thousand and thirty five thousand word books. You know, they
don't want these necessarily high concept books anymore because they're
competing with you know, TikTok, and they're competing with all
these other things that are much more easily digestible. They
(35:40):
want these you know, tighter packaged, you know, more dirt
direct offerings, which is which is tricky, and they want
you know, spooky books are very popular right now. I mean,
there's a couple of things out there that are you know,
more enticing to publishers. H And it's it's it's hard
to write for trends. So I'm in a series. I'm
(36:03):
not going to change it. It's not going to suddenly
become spooky or anything like that. So I hope that
it has sort of that evergreen quality to it that
it's going to write out. It's going to be when
or when it's written out, it's going to feel like
a nice coming of age adventure, you know, exciting type
of stories. So hopefully it holds through and kids will
(36:24):
want to gravitate to it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
You could always do a side story Halloween version will
be quite cool, maybe online or something like that. But yeah,
I think I think you're right there. Sticking true to
what it is is the only way to do it.
And yeah, trends will change all the time, so you
stick to it. Yeah, definitely. Ross has got a question,
how have you found the experience of visiting schools as
an author?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
I enjoy it. One of the terrifying things about it, though,
is a lot of a lot of them have read
my books now and they will ask me questions about
it that I do not know the answers. It's, you know,
they kids readers. If if you you know, there's kids
that are readers, like real readers that just consume these books.
(37:11):
We'll read them in detail, and they want to ask
you questions you know, why did why did this person?
Why did V do this? Or why did she say
this at this point or you know, do you remember
that character right here? And I'm like, I kind of
remember that. Yeah, they're really interested in that. And I
don't know how all the other writers on the on
the chat are, but I tend to be super into
(37:34):
the weeds while I'm writing these, and then I have
this period after where it just I just kind of
let go of them. I mean, the simone characters stick,
but in terms of some of you know, some of
the intricacies of the plot may fade a little bit.
I don't know if it's just because I'm you know,
in my advanced age now, but you know, they sort
(37:55):
of go a little bit. But I would say in
most part, the school visits are are a really cool
part of it, talking talking about books and getting kids
excited about writing and you know, inspiring them to write,
you know, write short short stories, write comics, you know,
anything that gets you excited. You don't have to write novels,
(38:15):
you know, don't don't think you have to. You know,
start by writing, you know, a four hundred thousand world
word fantas. You know, you know, you know, write a
twenty page short story, write something that's you know, inspiring
to you, and you know, do the best you can.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I've got a question about the schools because I think
it's always a platform for something really funny to happen. Yeah,
always is with kids. So two questions. One, what is
the possibly the best question you've had from a kid
in school? And secondly, if you can remember any of these?
And secondly, what is perhaps the funniest question you've been asked?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
What is the best question I've ever been at? Well,
the us M, I would say the best question I
get asked where I came up with the name a lot?
Where to come up with the name Simone La Fray?
And I told that story a bunch of times. It
was a dinner on vacation. It just popped out of
my head. I got, I get that one a lot.
(39:18):
The funniest question, uh, I get. Oh, I get the
question who's the V? Or why is? Why do you
call her the V? And instead of her name spelled out? Uh,
let's see, I don't know. I'm trying to think. I
mean usually the questions are pretty thoughtful. To be quite
honest with you, about the books, or we're asked. You know.
(39:41):
The other where a lot of the conversation goes is
the kids will ask me about, you know, things that
they're writing. You know, is this a good idea? This
is the story makes sense? You know that kind of stuff.
You know, they're usual, They're usually pretty thoughtful, I would
say about their writing.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I think you need to do it to some more
public schools that I've been to get some more random
random questions after that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Oh well, the question you always get is how much
money here do you make? Yeah, of course, you know,
you get that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But you know, on Chris, No, it's gone. Now, my
question's gone. You ask a question, Chris and come back
to me.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Oh okay, Marius says. Students are so into how author
is right if you kept it their imagination and you
have yeah. So question being You've had so many awesome
events and signings lately. What are some favorite memories from each?
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Oh one of my favorites? Uh, well, two things recently.
Just this summer was the first time I've had events
where people are actually waiting where you show up and
there's there's people that you know they're waiting around, and
you know what you know, they're you know, waiting around
to see you and talk to you and talk about
the new book and you know all that kind of stuff,
(40:57):
which is, oh my gosh, that is like the cool
thing ever. And then the other which happened recently too,
are people that follow you to events. You know, they
bought your one book at one event and then they
see you what they drive to see you at another
event and buy the next one and want to talk
about it, and oh my gosh, that is the coolest thing. Yeah.
(41:21):
Or when you know, when when a kid comes up
and tells you they read their book and they want
to you know, they want to buy the next one,
and you know what's gonna when you have those conversations.
Oh my gosh, that.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Is it's amazing until you watch or read Misery and
then you get a little shut No, it's brilliant. Did
you did you kind of question it? What are they
cing for then? Because my book saying into here, But yeah,
I imagine that would have been quite a real experience
the first time.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
It's yeah, it's it's the best. Yeah. I mean, selling
a lot of books that these things are super cool too,
and you know, establishing those relationships with the book buyers
and stuff, that's great too, But when the relationship with
the with the reader, that's always that's yeah, Steve.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
My question was on moving Simon into the sort of
teenage years. Yes, and how are where you are when
you're constructing the characters of representation and reflecting the sort
of the world in which we live in.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
That is a tough one. But I will say this
when we plot, when I plotted this thing out, a
lot of it is holding up. And there's a few
things that have happened, and a lot has happened in
our world in the last ten years, and a few
of them are holding up pretty good. Uh So, I
mean we've had a I did not expect a pandemic.
(42:45):
I don't think that was on anyone's Bingo card. And
now that has impacted, you know, how how our youth
is behaving in some ways, or how general society is
acting in some ways. But yeah, I think it's gonna
hold up. Okay. The main thing with all of that,
(43:05):
Chris is the tricky. The tricky part in it is
writing it up so she feels like an authentic teenager.
That is the real part, and that all of the
other things that are happening around her feel authentic as well,
because when it's middle grade, it's usually a little more sheltered,
it's a little more cozy and all that kind of stuff.
(43:28):
So the stakes have to get bigger and her personality
has to also expand and react so that she's sort
of up to the task. Right, I mean, there definitely
has to be some slip and falls in there, right,
or the characters is not that interesting, but those things
have to be in there. The question now is how
(43:48):
old she's going to be when the story ends. I
think it's we feel like she's going to be like
right around seventeen where it ends. I mean, there's a
couple of things we have to smooth out in that.
It's not going to be a gent to like, you know,
twenty one or something like that. I mean, there's there's
the way it's going to end. She would have to
be somewhere around seventeen years old, maybe eighteen dollars, but
(44:11):
somewhere there. Okay, It's it's it's tricky that that was
one part in it I didn't really anticipate, is how
an aging character, especially in there, because there's such a
difference between a twelve year old and a fifteen year
old right now, they're going to navigate this world and
how you write them authentically and how the world, how
the world changes around them as well. So yeah, it's
(44:34):
it's keeping me on my toes.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yea, from my experience, if she's twelve thirteen, if she
doesn't use the phrase six seven orp, then she's probably
not a true twelve thirteen year old at this current
time because it's so irritating.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Marios. Having kids helps, It certainly does. So the series
being well, the term being shopped, what does that actually
mean in the practical sense, and perhaps what is your
role in that process?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Yeah, so, by a series of coincidences and some luck,
a producer likes it a lot, and she there's a
propos a very well done proposal that's being shopped around,
and we meet probably quarterly to see how that is going. Uh,
(45:29):
this is a world that I am not familiar with
at all, it is, and even that, you know, and
here's to get something real quick, you know, reflecting back
on ten years, the publishing world has changed dramatically from
where I jumped in it, and I'm just in it,
you know, just a toe deep, and it seems like
it has changed dramatically. Well, the production side of it,
(45:51):
to me has seemed like it has changed a bunch
as well. Through streaming and you know how movies are
made now and the different types of movies and things.
It seems like it's you know, moved faster than the
production than than the publication side. But anyway, it's out there,
(46:12):
it's being shopped. It seems that there's more interest in
it as an animated series than as a live production series,
which would be super cool, and we will see. The
nice thing about simone is that it does have this
evergreen type feel to it. You know, it's not about
COVID or it's not about you know, something that's necessarily
(46:34):
tied to a historic period, so it could be done
at different times. So you know, it's out there. We'll
see how it goes. My role in it is fairly modest,
where I just nod my head and say this sounds great.
You know, I do a lot of supplemental writing for it,
so they asked me to write. Of course, they want
(46:54):
to know how it ends, right, so they want to know,
you know, that it doesn't turn into something it would
have no interest in producing. So there's you know, they
want they want to know what the books four through six,
what happens, So they want the plotting for that, So
I do a lot of I've done some supplemental writing
(47:14):
for that and some other things, so and all that
goes into the proposal.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
So if it was then production deal was secured and
then they were working on the film or comic or sorry,
animation series. What kind of elements of someone's character would
be kind of a non negotiable for you? What would
you what got about her traits? Would you not want
her to want them to change?
Speaker 3 (47:37):
That is a great question, you know, I you know,
I don't think. I don't think I would want her
to be too polished. She's there divergent. I mean, that's
not a secret now in the series. A lot of
people have picked that up that weren't. What's funny now
is if you look on a lot of publishers websites,
(48:00):
they're looking for neurodiversion characters. Ten years ago you didn't
see any of that on any of them, but anyway
they're looking for them now. See you want to see that, right,
You don't want there's things polished off. You want to
see you know, you want to see that authentically represented
out there. So I think that would be a non
negotiable and that I don't know, and I would I
(48:21):
think the series is written in the stories, written with
a sort of wonder to it, and I wouldn't want
to see that. I wouldn't want to see it, you know,
sort of done in sort of a hyperactive pace. You know,
it has sort of a nice feel to it. It
has sort of a nice, warm, cozy feel to it.
I wouldn't want it to feel like frantic or you know,
(48:43):
to hyperbolic or anything like that. You're laughing. There is
someone commenting in the in the chat here.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
And then there was always comments Kevin in the Child
Marion Ross. Of course there was a question, let me
try to find it.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, I'll ask you while Chris is finding it, do
you have a regret starting a series and not just
starting one book and seeing sort of where it goes,
Because obviously you talked about the big plan that you've got,
and I suppose in the writing process you may think, oh,
I've got this really good idea, like I could venture
(49:21):
off over there. But obviously you've said about having an
experience where you did do that, and it wasn't as
as successful as you wanted it to be. So is
there any moments where you think, oh, I kind of
wish I'd just done it one at a time.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Perhaps the only thing in there is the series has
been a great learning experience. It has definitely been a
you know, building airplane while you're flying type of situation
for me because I didn't go to school to learn
how to write. You know, it's all learning experience. And
I would say for the one book that I've finished
(49:58):
that's being shot now it's a it's a duology, but
it's out there, I would say I was much better
prepared to write that book. And I wrote that one
and plotted it in two weeks, wrote it in three months,
edited in two months, and I have four authors to
publish it. So that one. So all of that work
of you know, the first couple of some OWE books. Now,
(50:20):
I feel like, you know, I have a certain level
of fitness where if there's a good idea and it's
it's plotted well and I and I have the energy
to do it, I feel that I can do it.
So I don't It's not that I necessarily regret it.
I don't regret it wouldn't be the word, but it's tough.
I would I wouldn't recommend doing it that way, but
(50:43):
having done it, I feel that I'm better prepared for
for more books now. I guess that's the best way
to describe it. There's a more there's definitely a more
thoughtful process in the series where you're always thinking ahead,
like not writing yourself into a corner. You know, all
these types of things. It's it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
So yeah, it's a great Sorry, I was just going
to say very quickly, it was a great phrase that
you used. There was about being fit for that role,
and for someone who's new in the writing world, it's
kind of like being match fit for sport. You can
be generally fit, and if you're specifically fit for that sport,
you're match fit. And it's basically the term that you've
(51:26):
written enough to know yourself and know how your process
is work enough to be able to write something new
and different in a more proficient, proficient way. Get that
way out. Yeah, and I think that was a really
cool analogy of how that works.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
It. Yeah, it's true. It's it's absolutely true. So yeah,
I feel ready to go for the next one.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Coss.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Sorry, no, it's all right. I was going to say,
we always have a morbid question on the show, but
we've asked you this before, so I'm going to ask
you another equally morbid question. And I apologize in the
feel I feel bad for even saying this. But if
for some reason you couldn't finish the series, who would
(52:09):
you want to finish the series for you?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
That would be my wife, right, Yeah, she's the closest
to it. She's my most trusted reader hard truth. You know,
they say you should never have your your your spouse edit,
but she's she's the first person to read them, most
trusted hard truth. She would she would write it out
(52:34):
for sure. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah, it's just from my own personal experience. I never
read a series, and whenever I read a book from
an author who've had a series, I'm like, if something
happens to them now and I'm invested, and it's like
a six book series and they get to five, I'm
going to be devastated. Even more so obviously the fact
that they're not no longer with us, but the fact
that I won't be able to read the end of
(52:56):
the story. And I know some authors have been in
a simil the situation why somebody has finished the book
or carried on the next book.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
So yeah, well this is why they need to take
it more authors for TV shows and films, because there's
the amount of films. If you get into series of
films that happens so often where they just cancel it
after one or two seasons and leave you completely hanging.
It's ridiculous question right there. Let's have a look at it.
Him says, what is the duology series about exclusiveties? That
(53:29):
question in terri mind.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Well, I can't say too much about it, but it's
it's so this you talk about writing fitness. So this
is an interesting thing. And when this comes out, I
think writers, I think in particular, will be interested in
what happened here. But it was a story that I've
been thinking about for some time, and I wrote it
as a middle grade because that you talk about that
(53:54):
author age, it would just seemed natural to me. And
I wrote it, plotted out, wrote it and then and
it got a really good interest. But what happened was,
through another series of coincidences, a pretty big publisher got
it and they were they liked the concept, they liked
(54:15):
the voice, they liked everything about it, but they didn't
acquire middle grade, and they asked if I would be
interested in possibly writing it up, or if I if
I could possibly you know, reinvented or resee it as
a young adult book. So I originally thought, oh, I
(54:35):
don't want to what it's but it's not hya you know,
it's it's middle grade. And then in the next thought,
I thought, well, what a what a great opportunity that
one somebody sees it as a good concept and that
and that's one of the things when I talk to
you know, kids in schools now, or you're even at
higher levels like high school especially, you know, if you
can get a publisher that's interested in the concept or
(54:57):
the idea of the book. I mean, everybody has stories,
but if the theme is good, and if somebody who's
like one of the like a gatekeeper to publication, really
likes the concept of the book, that's great. You know
that you can work on the plotting and you can
work on these other things. So I've spent a couple
(55:19):
of months redoing that, and now I'm at the edge
of resubmitting that back out, so we'll see how that goes.
But it was written as a duology. It's it's different
for me for sure, but it ties into some folklore
and magical realism and some different things that are popular
(55:40):
right now. So I feel like, you know, it's going
to be a pretty good one, and you know, we'll
see how it goes, you know, get it out there
and you know we will see. You never know in
this publishing world, You just you just never know. And
then I have another COVID project out there that's about
thirty thousand words in, and then start on the next
Simon and and hopefully take a nap at some point.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Well, Ross says, as I agree, Wow, that's amazing and
a huge compliment to be asked to do that. So yeah, congratulations,
and I'm sure you'll do a sterling job with it.
One more question, I think, and then we'll try and
wrap things up as we're hitting the time limit. Halo
says again, thank you for your questions. Will any of
the future Simone books feature at the point of views?
Speaker 3 (56:27):
You know, that is a great question. I am not
a huge fan of multiple points of view, and I
may be in the minority in that I find them
hard to write. I've tried to do it, and I
just find them really hard to write. And now with
the Simone books, now I feel like I have a
(56:49):
pretty good sense of them and I just don't want
to mess it up, because that's the best way to
describe it. I feel like I have it pretty well
oiled at this point and I just don't want to
mess the machine up. But it's a good question, but
points multiple points of view. They're tricky when they're done well,
they're they're brilliant, but they're they're they're tricky. It's just
(57:12):
a tool that's not my toolbox.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
So let me ask you this then, Yeah, I want
to christ We should ask this every every guest. But
top three tips you can give an author who may
be starting out on their journey.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Starting out on the journey. Yeah, so you hear a
lot of the same ones. You know, read your work
out loud, you know all that stuff, read read, read.
That's a huge one, all that stuff. The one that
I'm finding to be really helpful is work on two
projects at the same time. Okay, I'm finding that one
(57:47):
to be really good. Sort of like I can only
focus on like sort of jump energy, like you sort
of weighing on one thing. Want to you know, go
from one to the other. But I would say, if
you're starting out, I think you mentioned there. For a
starting out author, really think about the concept of the book,
not necessarily just the story, you know, think of the theme.
(58:09):
Think how this is going to impact it. You know,
if you can one of the really good things, if
you can do this at the start, if you can
write a great log line on your book. And that
was one of the things with the duology that I'm
working now. One of the first things I wrote was
what I thought was a really good log line. If
(58:30):
you can write a really good log line and use
that as your north star. That is because a lot
of authors can't do that, you know, or they sort
of stumble on what that is, right, you know, write
a really good log line, make sure it's plotted out,
you know, and it don't set a schedule, just you know,
get after it, do your best right, authentically nice.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
This is definitely comments in the chat.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
There making me laugh. I put them on greens and
some people can seem a little bit bigger. But Halo
said I should put Jim in one of my books,
and Ross said, Halo, no, And then nobody wants to
be a character in your books. We just want to
let's live. Yeah that made me laugh, But yeah she
did reference obviously said Jim is a character in your
(59:19):
books though, and an awesome character. I think she was
saying that during the conversation when you were talking about
maybe doing that transition into young adult and I think
that's why she mentioned Jim in that moment, because that's
what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
But yeah, before we do wrap this up, can are
you any good at editing? Because I want you to
try and edit this comment from Ross. It's fantastic advice, Steve,
you are remain my enemy.
Speaker 3 (59:46):
I don't know. That was tricky.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, tricky.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
I think it needs some work and maybe some grammarly Yeah,
editorial intervention there. I don't know, workout.
Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
They go on Corross, you need to do some some
edit and work on there from Steve. Okay, brilliant, we've
hit We're over the hour. But like importantly, like I said,
if you are watching this and you haven't seen Steve's
roator writing, please go and check out the interview that
we highlighted earlier from three years ago. Kind of crazy
(01:00:22):
and Haier says you are the remains of my enemy.
That makes more sense, yes, and of course pick up
the Simon Simon La Fray series, which we will link
in the description go back to book one. But more
importantly for the people invested in the series, when would
book four and five be there?
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Roughly? Well, we're hoping, let's say book four would be
early twenty twenty seven would be the hope if everything
goes well there, and then the hope is to get
books four and five together, so they're you know, hopefully
within the same year to go out. So yeah, I
got to push hard on this, but these other ones
that I'm working on come out in the middle of
(01:01:02):
as well, So yeah, busy, busy.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Busy, Yeah, of course. And we're with the best place
be for them to go and pick up the series.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
So they're available everywhere. Amazon, Books, Barnes and Noble. Local
bookstores carry them as well. You can find me anywhere online.
I think everybody in the chat can probably know all
of my socials also sbo Farrell and working on my
first newsletter from my website as well, the much anticipated
(01:01:30):
newsletter I love it, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Anything from you, Chris before we wrap this up.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
No, obviously huge fan of for the smon On the
Fray books, and I would definitely recommend them to anyone, you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Know it could.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
I love the idea that somebody could pick up one
of these books for the very first time and just
really get into reading off the back of it. I
think that's fantastic. And yeah, absolutely a huge credit for you, Steve,
to actually create a character that you can put in
the same ballpark of you know, do you like Harry Potter?
Oh you might like this? You know, that's an incredible
(01:02:07):
achievements to be able to do that. Obviously all readers
across the world. I loving her as well. So yeah,
looking forward to seeing how the journey progresses well.
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Thank you and good luck with your velvetize.
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Brilliant Steve, absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much, and we
hope to see whether it's an animated series or a
movie or a TV show, whatever the case may be,
we hope to see that journey come to Fruition And
thank you so much for sharing another story with us.
Fantastic working effort being put in by you, and it's
showing so well done. Thanks guys, everybody, Thank you for
(01:02:43):
tuning in. Please stay safe and we will see you
all next week.
Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
By guys SID was bad in the gasl
Hello, and welcome to the Writing Community Chat Show. Hey everybody,
and welcome back to the Writing Community Chat Show. Yeah,
it's been a week since I last interview. I feel
(00:20):
like it's been longer for some of that reason, it's
kind of been a long week for us. Potentially you
as well. Let us know how your week's been. Has
it been good? Has it been productive more importantly in
the terms of writing and other things, but also I
hope it's been good and manageable. Chris, how has your
week been?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, it's been good. National Poetry Day in the UK yesterday,
so I read some poetry to sort of celebrate.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Oh yeah, yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Everyone who works with I said to what's your favorite poems?
I think if you've never done that, I worked before,
National Poetry Day is a good day to do it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I hope you didn't show him, show them the you
maybe cry in tears of laughter.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, do you know what? Nobody actually asked me in return?
Who might like what my favorite poem was? But I
think it was interesting because it revealed a little bit
about each person and then what their favorite poem was.
So yeah, fun.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Times, Yeah, definitely. Yes, it's been a bit of a
mad week. There's lots of show things. We've got opportunities
coming in. Spoke about how we've been invited to the
London Book Fair, which is amazing. We had a very
short notice invite to the Amazon Storyteller the Amazon Kindle
Storyteller Awards in London in like two weeks, which unfortunately
for us, is very it's too short notice. But what incredible,
(01:39):
an incredible experience that would have been for us. But
hopefully if that happens again next year, if they sponsor
us to do the whole thing again, we might plan
for that ahead of time. But yeah, so things are
happening in the background, but what's also happening is the
lack of writing for me. Chris, I hope you are
as productive or even more productive. An interesting day I
(02:01):
had yesterday. I decided to do a bit of extra
extra work to get some cash in. I did some
Amazon delivery driving and my god, was it a nightmare.
So that was a long day yesterday. No time for
creating staff, which I love to do. So back from
next week and this weekend on even we've got a
storm here, it's pretty rubbish. Would be a nice, wet,
(02:21):
windy weekend to sit in the house and get on
the computer, do some show production, get some writing done,
because importantly that's what we need to be doing, right.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Chris, Yeah, do you know what else we need to
be doing? And again, this is something that I've been
talking to everyone who's been in my proximity. Recently, I
bought a velvetizer, explaining, so, velvetizer is a machine that
makes very very smooth hot chocolate. It's made for hot chocolate.
(02:50):
So because it's getting colder and all these you know,
the season of like you know, staying in as you've said,
cozy mind you, I thought I'd get my self a velvetizer,
and really they really are very very nice. So I've
got a hotel chocolate velvetizer and yeah, it's been fun
(03:10):
nice to people. It's not paid advert but yeah, get
some hot chopper in your life. It definitely.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Do you get it in your beard now it's a
massive beard.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, it looks bad the cream and marshmallow ratio. But yeah,
sometimes velvetizer velvetizer.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Wow, I had no idea. Uh yeah, I was going
to say something and it's gone up my mind annoyingly.
That was a good point. Anyway, It's not a good point,
because it clearly hasn't stuck there. But yeah, so, as
people know, we've had two three hundred and sixty plus
interviews now on this show, all amazing interviews, great guests and.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
What rosters put raspute and loves his velvetiz.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, yes, sorry, you're distracting me. Yeah. So, and we've
been ranked as one of the top writing podcasts in
the UK for the past two years, which is incredible.
And what happens which we find amazing is some guests
stick with us from the start and support us, and
Tonight's is one of those. A brilliant author and a
great support of the show from the early days. And
it's been three years since he last joined us, Can
(04:20):
you believe that?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah? Three years since the last adventure into Simone La Fray. Yeah,
I'm nervous now, but yeah, it's good to have him
back on and chat to him. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah. And obviously his journey's taken off through a lot
of hard work and dedication and we're looking forward to
a massive update, so we hope you are too. So
are you ready for tonight's.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Show, Chris, Yeah, definitely, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So in the time that we last spoke. He's been
nothing short of explosive in the publishing world. His novel
Simone la Fray and which you can always see above,
Chris has said, not just that book, but every guest
we have and the Bishop of Mumbai is a runaway
to success. It's been named a Distinguished Favorite winner for
Middle Grade at the Big NYC Book Awards and secured
a phenomenal starred review from the Independent Book Review. But
(05:09):
that's not all we're talking about. More than just awards
and great reviews, the entire cemonla Pray series has been
shopped for a major production deal. It's an incredible story
of hard work and passion and well deserved success, and
we can't wait to hear every detail of what the
last three years have been like. So please everyone in
the chat give me a nice big hand in giving
(05:30):
a massive warm welcome back to the show. The brilliant
award winning spo Farrell. Hello, Steve, Hello, guys, how are
you doing well?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I'm doing fantastic. I want to hear about this velvetizer.
I've never heard of such a thing. We have certainly
hot chokod, but I am all yours.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, So I'm trying to describe this to a few
people now, and apparently I'm not selling it very well,
so I probably won't. But it's essentially a little bit
like a kettle in terms of you hot. You put
liquid in it and it will make it hot.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Then it has a little fan at the bottom that
spins round and makes the liquid really really smooth. So
if you've got the way you do it, you get
your milk. You can pick your favorite chocolate bar, chop
it all up, put it in with the milk, and
it will incorporate the chocolate into the milk and make
it really smooth and delicious. And you can even have
coffee in it. You can make milkshakes. It's definitely worth
(06:26):
the investment. If you're into your coffee and your hot chocolate,
you will definitely appreciate the difference.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I feel like you need some product placement here. You
should get an advertiser for right for that you're selling
it better with the with the the swirling in I
think that's great.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, And he said, try Mexican hot chocolate with cinnamon
and chili. It's delicious.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Consod, congratulations on the podcast. You guys, you know along
this full journey you guys have had enormous success on it. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Just can't believe we're still doing it and and that
it sounds bad, but you know, something just started off,
you know, as a as a thing to do and
to bring the community together. And it's nearly six years on.
It's it's crazy where time is gone.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It is hard to believe how the time has gone.
My publisher asked me to write a blog, you know,
sort of this reflective piece when this when the third
book was coming out and I was looking back at
the stars. But it was almost ten years ago when
I started writing, and wow, a lot has changed and
thinking of you know, the writing journey and your personal
(07:32):
journey and all this stuff. It is, it is, It
is a lot to look back on. So anyway, congratulations
on all this success and the purchase of your velvetizer.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well yeah, and I'm going to point him out because
he called you a Nemesis at the stile.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh yeah, he said that I picked up a Nemesis
everything Nemesis, right, so I can check that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Bombs And he's also said so it stirs it, which
is massive. The undersolved that thing of what I just said, No,
it doesn't. It just makes it absolutely delicious and fruffy,
and yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I can't believe we're still talking about velvetizer. Well we
need to talk about guys. Anyway. If you are here
for the first time, welcome, And if you haven't seen
these journey into writing and all that good stuff, it's
kind of what we do in our first shows with
the guests, and three years ago we did that. So
if I get it right, and you can see that
(08:30):
right up there, if you want to watch it at
the end, click back and see his journey into write in.
But obviously three years a lot has been happening. And
you talked about ten years ago starting that kind of
blog and your writing process, but three years there's a
lot happened, and in the Cemono phrase series that's now
moving on, including now looking at book five, right.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
That's right, a lot has changed. And when this all started,
it was it was written as an early chapter one,
something that was written for my niece, and then you know,
it sort of went on and on and proliferated, and
then at some point it was it was plotted into
this massive story, and then I broke that down into
(09:14):
what would be individual books and what looks like it
was going to be our six or seven book series,
and I knew how sort of all of the all
the books are started and ended, and what all the
plot points were, and all that kind of good stuff.
I just started writing it. I found I'm more of
a plotter than a pantser at this point. I know
(09:35):
how each of the books start and end. Now I
plot them out to the chapter. I'm much more meticulous
at that because I feel that I have to be
more more efficient at it. You know, the writing process
for me is one I don't have. I don't write
full time. I run a small business and do all this,
so I have to be pretty efficient in the way
that I go about it. But now the one thing
(09:58):
I have found is that original plotting is holding pretty
true to form. We've had to pivot a few times,
but it's still going to end the way I thought
it was going to end. We've probably shrunk it by
a book. It looks like it's going to land at
six books. Now we're three books published. The fourth book
is pretty much plotted at this point. We're putting some
(10:21):
final polish on the plotting of it right now. I
plan to start writing it probably in the next forty
five days or so. But I'm one of those writers
similar to a reader, that if I read the first
sentence of a chapter, I have to finish it. So
if I start writing, if I write that first sentence,
I gotta keep going. And now, knowing how much time
(10:43):
and energy it takes to write a book, ooh go.
You know you gotta do your calisonics. And you know
it's like building up to a marathon. You got to
work up to it before you get out and write it.
So hopefully that'll be a project over the summer. I'm sorry,
over the winter. And you know, I think now having
(11:03):
a few under my belt and then having written some
other stuff in the interim, you know, I feel I
can do it a little bit more efficiently, write it,
hopefully get it into my editor late spring, and move
on with that. But I think with this next one,
the other thing I'm going to try to do is
write the fourth one and the fifth one sort of simultaneously,
or at least write one into the next to sort
(11:25):
of get going towards towards funt finishing this, finishing it
out in the sixth books. So you know, it's a
lot to handle. Series I have found are you know,
they're just a lot to juggle, there's a lot to
tie up, and but I love the characters. The response
from the reading community has been outstanding. That's one of
(11:46):
the things that I've found with this now that I'm
having a few books out there, you know, talking to
people at the events, you know, they they're they're interested
in the characters. They're excited to see what happens to them.
They care about them, they want to know what happens,
and you know, hopefully I can do good by that
and you know, write this thing to a good conclusion.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I'm always really interested with a series that goes on
over an extended time because as a writer, your mindset change,
is your you know, your personality changes. So how difficult
is it or is it easy to stick to those
characters in terms of keeping them on the same sort
of page. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
It is incredibly difficult. Yeah, it's incredibly difficult because one
of the things that I never expected is they grow,
they get older. You know, a twelve year old is
different from a thirteen year old, is different from a
fourteen year old. The dynamics of their relationships change, and
one of the things that we decided to do, which
(12:50):
which was always going to happen, but it just became
more apparent was the book series was going to be
starting middle grade. It's a middle grade series right now,
but it's going to transition into young adult, that young
that earlier viewership of young adult, which is that thirteen
to sixteen range. So Mumbai, the one you have there
up on the screen, it's back here as well. Uh,
(13:11):
it's sort of it brushes into some of those things,
but it's moving into young adult, which is a whole
different set of themes, and it's it's it is difficult.
You're almost seeing you know, like your child aging. You know,
their personalities change, how they react to things change. You
(13:31):
want to keep the central conflicts consistent and how they
react to those changes, which which creates some interesting dynamics.
But it's Chris, it's hard. It's hard. It is hard
to write a series. When I finished this one out,
I don't know that I'll write another one. I have
a duology that I'm working on now. But Boys series
(13:52):
is it is really it is. Oh, it is difficult.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
What advice then, would you have for someone who's got
that crazy concept in the mind that I want to
write this series as someone who's going through that process
and has been doing it, what could you tell them
might help that journey a little bit easier.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, I would say you better have the whole thing
plotted out really well, because I would say the one
thing that has benefited from from the whole process is
I do go back to that original plotting of the story.
So I go back to that, and that's the roadmap.
If I didn't have that roadmap, I would be in
some serious trouble. And it's not it's not all spelled out.
(14:33):
I mean I have there is some discovery writing between
the points. I mean it's not all completely laid out,
but I know where all the plot points hits. It's
driving that car between the points. That's that's the hard part,
right So or that's that's actually one of the more
exciting parts because that's where you really find some cool
stuff in there. But it's if you didn't have that roadmap,
(14:55):
it would be very, very difficult to pull that off.
But I would say, you you really have to like
the characters, you really have to like the themes, and
you you really have to believe in it because it
is it is a marathon. To try to pull one
of these things off.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I think you should keep it going adulthood, get it
into a mission impossible style of the end novel.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
You know. I may have mentioned that before, but when
I was plotting the second book for a while, there
was an idea to make it not as serial, but
to put another book in there that was sort of
a one off. And I worked on it for about
six months and it was awful, and I ended up
just deleting it, pretty much, scrapping the whole thing. I
(15:40):
kept a couple of characters, but it was terrible. Uh
now it was you know, stick to the plan. You
know the plan was good, stick to it and work
it through. But it takes it takes a lot of work.
I know there's there's probably a few people there. I
can't really see everybody in the chat, but there's a
few there. I'm sure that I've written some series and
(16:00):
it's it's it is difficult. You have to have that rudder,
that north star that you're writing towards, and if you
don't have it, it is really really hard. And you
really have to like these characters too. There has to
be something that you gravitate to these characters. I know
a lot of you know, but a lot of you know,
family members and a lot there's a lot of me,
and there's a lot of my my family and some
(16:20):
you know, some some personal things in these characters. So
I care about these characters, so you know, you want
to see them through and you want to bring him
to life and make them as full as possible.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
But I would say think long and hard if you're
if you're going to do it, think really long and
are before doing it, because it is very time consuming.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Mm hmm. Yeah. Obviously the format of the show is
a little bit different. So and you's got a question,
which is is it hard to get into the head
of those characters those ages?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yes, yeah, I've I've heard recently someone said that there's
a there's like a everyone has a writer's age, Like
when they start thinking of writing, they either get in
the mind set of a sixteen year old or a
twelve year old or a twenty year old or something
like that, that there's like a go to and it
typically is the first book that impacted them in a
certain way that you know, sparked a love of writing
(17:12):
or started reading, and then you have to pivot to
certain ones. For me, it's somewhere in that thirteen year
old I remember just there were a couple of books
of that age group for me that resonated, that got
me more interested in reading. So, yes, it is difficult.
You know, it is very difficult. Our boys are older
(17:34):
than that now, so I don't have a lot of
conversations with twelve thirteen year olds, except if I do
know book signings or go to schools or something like that. So, yeah,
it is, it is difficult. It's something I definitely have
to work at, for sure. It is hard. I definitely
have an easier time with the adult characters, that is
for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
So do you know what that kind of spark was
for you then? To relate yourself to those aged characters
you mentioned how you'll go to would be this. Do
you know why you'll go to is the characters that
you just created that age?
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah? I don't. I just remember being in middle school
and reading a few books and being more interested in
story structure. Prior to that, it was more comic books
and some other things that I would read. I was
sort of a reluctant reader at that point, but I
remember being interested in you know, Lord of the Flies
and some other things of that era that were more
(18:32):
you know, they were they were plot in it as well,
but there was more emotion in it, or the storytelling
was deep, a little bit deeper, so they were a
little bit more interesting, you know. They weren't all you know,
they the protagonist didn't always spike the ball at the end. Yeah,
they were a little messy things like that. So for me,
that's somewhere in there is usually where I start, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
So I think growing up we had a kind of
our ages roughly have you had things like the Chronicles
Nannia and Seven, things like this. They were all young
ish people that led those stories, you know, and that
could sort of be an influence for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
How about you, Chris. Yeah, by the way you're facial
here is almost intimidating. It's so thick.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, I mean, it's funny you should say that about
the author age because I didn't read an awful lot
as a kid. But the first book that sort of
hit me was a neo Gaman book. It's American Gods,
And I suppose I was thinking about that after you
said it, and I was like, yeah, a lot of
the time, my characters start about the same age as
his character actually in that novel. So it's interesting that
(19:48):
you say that because it's something I've never considered before.
But the more I think about it, the more I'm like, yeah,
that's quite quite profound. Yeah, I'm going to bring Ross
back into it. And he said, yeah, this is interesting
because all my characters are dead, which is worried.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, that's an interesting but yeah, it's writing a series.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It is.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It is really tough, but this one's we're at the
midpoint now in the series, which is an exciting part.
So yeah, it's it's an exciting time to be writing
a series, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So with your book being recognized as a Distinguished Favorite
Win and received a star review after writing for for
years and years and and planning it out and everything
like that, how did those sort of recognitions did it?
How did that affect you and did it change your
writing process at all?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I don't think so. I think I mean it's nice.
I'm like, you know, it's nice to be recognized. You know,
there's things are are pretty cool. I would say that
part of the process of the of writing. You know,
when you're doing these things, you think you're getting better
at it. You always want to feel like you're you're
you're getting you know, either more clever at the plotting
(20:59):
or the way the structure is being developed and things
like that. That tends to happen. But then typically in
every book that I've written, at some point you have
sort of this you know, I'm the worst writer, and
you know it's just it's not working out for some reason.
You think, you think it's all going great, and it
sort of implodes, and then you go back to sort
of the basics of it, sort of relearn it a
(21:20):
little bit, and you know, I feel that, you know,
it has to be pretty good at the end. So
my first drafts I usually self edit at least a
couple of times, so by the time it goes to
like even anybody else reads it, it's usually the third draft,
maybe the fourth draft. So I like to have them
(21:41):
pretty well oiled by the time I let them out.
But I would say, you know, in terms of like
the working on the crafting of the books, yeah, I do.
I do try to work at that a good bit.
I don't read a lot about writing craft. There's a
few a few things that I'll read about it, I
try not to, you know, read too much about it,
(22:03):
because then I think you try to focus on one
specific thing rather than sort of following your instincts on
how how something should feel or you know, how plotting
should be or stuff like that. But you know, I
feel they should be pretty good, and if I'm satisfied
with them, you know, if I'm writing for myself and
I feel pretty good about them, and then you bring
in the editing team and that feels, you know, like
(22:23):
you're on the same path. But but you know, with
with with some of them, I'm always surprised. Usually when
I hand these in, I feel like they're almost shelf ready,
and they are far from shelf ready.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's gonna say, do you get the the you think
this is it? This is ready, it's absolutely perfect, And
then they turn around and say, Steve, there's a lot
of work to do here.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
They yes. And I have been told that I have
an unhealthy relationship with dialogue tags that I have. I
don't one of the one, one of the three lines
is timeline. When I regionally and I and I actually
plot these things, I'll put it on a calendar to
(23:06):
show you know how the how the book should be gone,
and for some reason, my editor finds, you know, gaps
or these things in the timeline that need to be corrected,
or there's a lot of action within you know, a
brief period of time, and there's sort of these lulls
or there's you know, a sag in the middle or
something like that. Because you know, you spend so much
(23:26):
time on these things and you read them over and
over and it all sounds right you read it out loud,
you know, all these things, so at some point you're
sort of exhausted with it and you want to hand
it off to better minds, you know, far more educated editors,
and they do a great job once you get to it.
But you know, there's there's first two rounds of developmental
(23:48):
are humbling. You do you do you want? Do you
know what a colon is or what is semhat coaling is?
Or you know those slaves and things with the grammar
or you know all of that type of stuff. But
it's it's a humbling experience. Yeah, but you know, and
that just you know, inspires me to want to do better.
You know, you want to you want to do better
(24:08):
draft and you want to have better ideas, better twists,
you know, better endings, higher stakes, all that kind of
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, because it's their job to get you better, right,
so they don't have to do as much work.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, I think so, Yeah, that's the way to look
at it.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Talking about inspiration, why mumbaid to this book decided to
go there with simone?
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Right, So with the third book, so the progressions. The
progression of the book one of one of the themes of
the book. In the first one, she starts to question
her world is fairly small, and she starts to question
things like who her parents are, and you know, the
things that a lot of kids at that age start
to look at, is my dad the person that I
thought he was? There's types of things. In the second book,
(24:53):
her world starts to expand a little bit. She's off
to London and she starts to question some other things,
some things in a reallyationships and things that are pretty much,
you know, in her orbit. So in the third book
we have to expand it a lot. So she has
to almost you know, globe trot or get way outside
in her perception of the world and what is going on.
(25:15):
And when we were plotting it out, she was either
going to go to one or two places. She was
going to go to Japan, or she was going to
go to Mumbai. And one of the three lines of
the book she's been a chess pit player from the front.
And by the way, I had to learn to play
chess to write a lot of this, which is a
whole completely different story. But and chess is very prevalent
(25:38):
in India, so it seemed natural to fall there.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And then when I was researching it online, you know,
fantastic place culturally, visually, you know, what an outstanding place
for the backdrop of a book. I mean, just the setting,
everything about it was just fantastic. And it just fell
into place, you know, beautifully once you know, we started
to plot that in and then the writing of it
(26:03):
came really really easy, and it was just it was
the perfect perfect fit for that. So yeah, happy to
happy to put it there. And yeah, so now her
world is is quite large. She's going to be globe
trotting from here on now.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Apart from say, chess moves. Then, what was one thing
that really surprised you about India? India that you might
have learned through your kind of research the bo.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
So a couple of things. Won the weather, Okay, the
weather was one. How how populated it was, And then
when I was researching culturally the confluence of cultures there,
how many people live there. How you know across the
street you can have you know, there's slums there, and
(26:52):
then you can have you know, where they're building new
high rises can be right across the street. And I
mean it's the diversity is is quite outstanding. From what
I was able to to find from all of this stuff,
it was it was really outstanding, you know. And then
you know, I think I watched a Bollywood movie or
(27:13):
two and you know, try to try to grab some
of that as well.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
So they're amazing, are they.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah? I mean yeah, they have their own they have
their own thing going. So yeah, it was it was
a perfect perfect spot. And and the other thing was
what I found, Chris, was there there aren't a lot
of books set in India, and there are very few
children's books. There's not a lot of kid lit that
seems to okay, I don't know why, but they're just
(27:41):
aren't mane. So it seemed like it seemed like a
good opportunity.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, So was that almost then a conscious decision based
on the fact you mentioned how amazing all the aesthetics
were as well, but also the fact that market maybe
was a little untapped in that area.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Oh yeah, yeah, I think I think there were some
of that. It's it seemed like it just all came together.
It was. It just seemed to all come together at
that point. So maybe Japan in the future, I don't know.
We know where she's coming in the fourth book, but
it just it just it came together so well. And
she's in south of France for a little bit in
(28:16):
the third book as well, and then a shortstop in Italy,
but it was it was the pror fixed spot. So
it all came together, right, Just So.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
At what point are you going to start using your
books or research purposes to go on these amazing trips.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
I would love to, i't that would be the dream.
I've listened to a few podcasts where I can't remember
the guy's name, but who goes around the world to
scowl his spots out for his kid books, And I thought, boy,
that would be amazing. But I would not have the time,
nor nor the budget to go to all of these places,
but it would be nice. It would be nice. But
(28:51):
luckily there's Google Maps and I have some friends in
these places and they give me a lot of good intel.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So for you too, obviously you mentioned how Simone goes
to France and then Italy.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I would have.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Loved just a little snippet of a grumpy old man
called Ross in France and then Italy Mario making his Polonaisy,
just a little snapshot as you through something that that
would just be brilliant.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Well, perhaps perhaps there's three books to go, so you
never know where somebody might make an appearance.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah. Well, one thing I want to talk about then
is obviously getting readers in a series to go back
to book one when you're advertising, seeing the new books
and things like that. Have you ever had a sort
of mission or a way that you do focus on
that when you're trying to attract new readers whilst advertising
a book that's later on in the series.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Yes, So when we were in the pre release, pre
release phase of all this, when you talk to your publisher,
you talk to marketing people. The great thing about a
series is the third book sells the first book, right,
So whenever a new book releases, what you're really trying
to do there's the buzz of the new book, right,
(30:10):
but what you're really trying to do is sell the
first book as well. So there's a lot of attentions
given to the first book because my books build you know,
you could read them, but really there's information in the
first book and the second book to build on the
third book. So you do need there's bits of information
to fully digest the third one. But the push is
(30:32):
to get the third book out there. So when I'm sorry,
the first book out there, so the third When the
third book was released, we saw enormous or a big
spike in sales of first book to get that out there,
and then you see the second book and then the
third books also trail up as well, which is good
because you really want to get that first one out there,
(30:55):
no question about it. I mean, I remember when I
was going through this whole process. I forget who told
me that. They said, no one sells your your first
book like your third book. That's a great comment, yes,
and that has held so yeah, I mean, and you
don't have a series with one book, and that was
that was one of the tricky things. When the first
(31:15):
book came out, it was it was well re stived
and it was well reviewed, and it did well, but
you know, it's it's not a series of it's just
one book. You can you could say it's a series.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
But you know, yes, we all kind of realized. Most
authors realize that once you release the book and you've
done all that hard work and you think that is
a lot of hard work done, there is a whole
lot more hard work coming in in the form of marketing.
So what have you possibly learned then over the series
that could help someone in the in the realm of marketing.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
In the marketing state? Wow, oh, where do you start
on that one? So the marketing, I would say consistency,
and you have to be able to put yourself out there.
I mean, and there's only so much that you can control.
We do a pretty good job in a geographic area.
So like in our we have we have some relationships
(32:08):
with bookstores that have been very good to us. We
do book signing events. There's some great opportunities there that
really build your viewership in kid lit. This this opens
the opportunity to go into schools do those sort of
things to build your readership up as well. Yeah, those
(32:29):
are really good. You know. When you're online, of course,
there's all the social media stuff that you can you
can do. Middle grade is a weird one. And when
you talk to a lot of people in pr and marketing,
you're really marketing the book to adults who buy the
book for the child to read. There are adults that
(32:50):
read middle grade, but for the most part, you're buying
the book to give to somebody, which is a little
bit different dynamic than say young adult or middle fiction
which you're picking up. So it's it's very tricky, and
there's there's a shortage of people, you know, that are
willing to sell you stuff online. All those things. I
would say if you're in if you're in the middle
(33:11):
grade space, be very wary of all of those things. Uh,
you know, just try to control what you can control.
You know, look at your branding. You know it's it's tricky.
Start small, uh, and you know, hustle, you know, get
good at the small stuff. You know, build your small
(33:31):
game up and just continue to grind on it and
do the best you can. Scale it out.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Mm hmm. It's interesting you say that because actually rob
parents and children on a little post it then and
I was going to say, what would your sales pitch
be to parents? And then how would that differ if
you were selling this series to a child.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Right, So with parents, you know, when you're at a
book signing or something like that, usually you engage in,
you know, a little bit of conversation. They're asked you
a couple of questions, and I would find for the
most part, parents they want to know a little bit
about the a little bit about the story, and they
want to know, you know, is it is it? You
(34:13):
know there are cuss words in it? Is you know?
Is it? You know all that kind of stuff. So
you sort of, you know, alleviate them of those concerns
that there's you know, there's nothing of that, and then
you you know, it's adventure story, coming of age, you know, uh, spy,
paris Usually those types of buzzwords, you know, they become
(34:35):
they have some interest in that as well. So there's
things when you talk about the cover and things like
that with the kids. Used I try to use comps.
You know, do you like Harriet Spy? Do you like
Western Game? Do you like Western Game? Might not be
one that was when I was reading No long ago,
but that was I think from the seventies, Harry Potter.
You know, stuff like that, you know, do you like
(34:57):
these types of books, But I tell you it's harder
because now and when you you talk to people about
middle grade in particular, with you know, there's there's the
there the outlook for middle grade, or at least the
last couple of years has been really rocky for middle
grade because sales have gone down every year year over year.
(35:18):
They said that that just the readership is shrinking, that
the books are too long. The kids don't want to
read sixty thousand words anymore. They want, you know, forty
thousand and thirty five thousand word books. You know, they
don't want these necessarily high concept books anymore because they're
competing with you know, TikTok, and they're competing with all
these other things that are much more easily digestible. They
(35:40):
want these you know, tighter packaged, you know, more dirt
direct offerings, which is which is tricky, and they want
you know, spooky books are very popular right now. I mean,
there's a couple of things out there that are you know,
more enticing to publishers. H And it's it's it's hard
to write for trends. So I'm in a series. I'm
(36:03):
not going to change it. It's not going to suddenly
become spooky or anything like that. So I hope that
it has sort of that evergreen quality to it that
it's going to write out. It's going to be when
or when it's written out, it's going to feel like
a nice coming of age adventure, you know, exciting type
of stories. So hopefully it holds through and kids will
(36:24):
want to gravitate to it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
You could always do a side story Halloween version will
be quite cool, maybe online or something like that. But yeah,
I think I think you're right there. Sticking true to
what it is is the only way to do it.
And yeah, trends will change all the time, so you
stick to it. Yeah, definitely. Ross has got a question,
how have you found the experience of visiting schools as
an author?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
I enjoy it. One of the terrifying things about it, though,
is a lot of a lot of them have read
my books now and they will ask me questions about
it that I do not know the answers. It's, you know,
they kids readers. If if you you know, there's kids
that are readers, like real readers that just consume these books.
(37:11):
We'll read them in detail, and they want to ask
you questions you know, why did why did this person?
Why did V do this? Or why did she say
this at this point or you know, do you remember
that character right here? And I'm like, I kind of
remember that. Yeah, they're really interested in that. And I
don't know how all the other writers on the on
the chat are, but I tend to be super into
(37:34):
the weeds while I'm writing these, and then I have
this period after where it just I just kind of
let go of them. I mean, the simone characters stick,
but in terms of some of you know, some of
the intricacies of the plot may fade a little bit.
I don't know if it's just because I'm you know,
in my advanced age now, but you know, they sort
(37:55):
of go a little bit. But I would say in
most part, the school visits are are a really cool
part of it, talking talking about books and getting kids
excited about writing and you know, inspiring them to write,
you know, write short short stories, write comics, you know,
anything that gets you excited. You don't have to write novels,
(38:15):
you know, don't don't think you have to. You know,
start by writing, you know, a four hundred thousand world
word fantas. You know, you know, you know, write a
twenty page short story, write something that's you know, inspiring
to you, and you know, do the best you can.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I've got a question about the schools because I think
it's always a platform for something really funny to happen. Yeah,
always is with kids. So two questions. One, what is
the possibly the best question you've had from a kid
in school? And secondly, if you can remember any of these?
And secondly, what is perhaps the funniest question you've been asked?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
What is the best question I've ever been at? Well,
the us M, I would say the best question I
get asked where I came up with the name a lot?
Where to come up with the name Simone La Fray?
And I told that story a bunch of times. It
was a dinner on vacation. It just popped out of
my head. I got, I get that one a lot.
(39:18):
The funniest question, uh, I get. Oh, I get the
question who's the V? Or why is? Why do you
call her the V? And instead of her name spelled out? Uh,
let's see, I don't know. I'm trying to think. I
mean usually the questions are pretty thoughtful. To be quite
honest with you, about the books, or we're asked. You know.
(39:41):
The other where a lot of the conversation goes is
the kids will ask me about, you know, things that
they're writing. You know, is this a good idea? This
is the story makes sense? You know that kind of stuff.
You know, they're usual, They're usually pretty thoughtful, I would
say about their writing.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I think you need to do it to some more
public schools that I've been to get some more random
random questions after that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Oh well, the question you always get is how much
money here do you make? Yeah, of course, you know,
you get that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But you know, on Chris, No, it's gone. Now, my
question's gone. You ask a question, Chris and come back
to me.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Oh okay, Marius says. Students are so into how author
is right if you kept it their imagination and you
have yeah. So question being You've had so many awesome
events and signings lately. What are some favorite memories from each?
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Oh one of my favorites? Uh, well, two things recently.
Just this summer was the first time I've had events
where people are actually waiting where you show up and
there's there's people that you know they're waiting around, and
you know what you know, they're you know, waiting around
to see you and talk to you and talk about
the new book and you know all that kind of stuff,
(40:57):
which is, oh my gosh, that is like the cool
thing ever. And then the other which happened recently too,
are people that follow you to events. You know, they
bought your one book at one event and then they
see you what they drive to see you at another
event and buy the next one and want to talk
about it, and oh my gosh, that is the coolest thing. Yeah.
(41:21):
Or when you know, when when a kid comes up
and tells you they read their book and they want
to you know, they want to buy the next one,
and you know what's gonna when you have those conversations.
Oh my gosh, that.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Is it's amazing until you watch or read Misery and
then you get a little shut No, it's brilliant. Did
you did you kind of question it? What are they
cing for then? Because my book saying into here, But yeah,
I imagine that would have been quite a real experience
the first time.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
It's yeah, it's it's the best. Yeah. I mean, selling
a lot of books that these things are super cool too,
and you know, establishing those relationships with the book buyers
and stuff, that's great too, But when the relationship with
the with the reader, that's always that's yeah, Steve.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
My question was on moving Simon into the sort of
teenage years. Yes, and how are where you are when
you're constructing the characters of representation and reflecting the sort
of the world in which we live in.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
That is a tough one. But I will say this
when we plot, when I plotted this thing out, a
lot of it is holding up. And there's a few
things that have happened, and a lot has happened in
our world in the last ten years, and a few
of them are holding up pretty good. Uh So, I
mean we've had a I did not expect a pandemic.
(42:45):
I don't think that was on anyone's Bingo card. And
now that has impacted, you know, how how our youth
is behaving in some ways, or how general society is
acting in some ways. But yeah, I think it's gonna
hold up. Okay. The main thing with all of that,
(43:05):
Chris is the tricky. The tricky part in it is
writing it up so she feels like an authentic teenager.
That is the real part, and that all of the
other things that are happening around her feel authentic as well,
because when it's middle grade, it's usually a little more sheltered,
it's a little more cozy and all that kind of stuff.
(43:28):
So the stakes have to get bigger and her personality
has to also expand and react so that she's sort
of up to the task. Right, I mean, there definitely
has to be some slip and falls in there, right,
or the characters is not that interesting, but those things
have to be in there. The question now is how
(43:48):
old she's going to be when the story ends. I
think it's we feel like she's going to be like
right around seventeen where it ends. I mean, there's a
couple of things we have to smooth out in that.
It's not going to be a gent to like, you know,
twenty one or something like that. I mean, there's there's
the way it's going to end. She would have to
be somewhere around seventeen years old, maybe eighteen dollars, but
(44:11):
somewhere there. Okay, It's it's it's tricky that that was
one part in it I didn't really anticipate, is how
an aging character, especially in there, because there's such a
difference between a twelve year old and a fifteen year
old right now, they're going to navigate this world and
how you write them authentically and how the world, how
the world changes around them as well. So yeah, it's
(44:34):
it's keeping me on my toes.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yea, from my experience, if she's twelve thirteen, if she
doesn't use the phrase six seven orp, then she's probably
not a true twelve thirteen year old at this current
time because it's so irritating.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Marios. Having kids helps, It certainly does. So the series
being well, the term being shopped, what does that actually
mean in the practical sense, and perhaps what is your
role in that process?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Yeah, so, by a series of coincidences and some luck,
a producer likes it a lot, and she there's a
propos a very well done proposal that's being shopped around,
and we meet probably quarterly to see how that is going. Uh,
(45:29):
this is a world that I am not familiar with
at all, it is, and even that, you know, and
here's to get something real quick, you know, reflecting back
on ten years, the publishing world has changed dramatically from
where I jumped in it, and I'm just in it,
you know, just a toe deep, and it seems like
it has changed dramatically. Well, the production side of it,
(45:51):
to me has seemed like it has changed a bunch
as well. Through streaming and you know how movies are
made now and the different types of movies and things.
It seems like it's you know, moved faster than the
production than than the publication side. But anyway, it's out there,
(46:12):
it's being shopped. It seems that there's more interest in
it as an animated series than as a live production series,
which would be super cool, and we will see. The
nice thing about simone is that it does have this
evergreen type feel to it. You know, it's not about
COVID or it's not about you know, something that's necessarily
(46:34):
tied to a historic period, so it could be done
at different times. So you know, it's out there. We'll
see how it goes. My role in it is fairly modest,
where I just nod my head and say this sounds great.
You know, I do a lot of supplemental writing for it,
so they asked me to write. Of course, they want
(46:54):
to know how it ends, right, so they want to know,
you know, that it doesn't turn into something it would
have no interest in producing. So there's you know, they
want they want to know what the books four through six,
what happens, So they want the plotting for that, So
I do a lot of I've done some supplemental writing
(47:14):
for that and some other things, so and all that
goes into the proposal.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
So if it was then production deal was secured and
then they were working on the film or comic or sorry,
animation series. What kind of elements of someone's character would
be kind of a non negotiable for you? What would
you what got about her traits? Would you not want
her to want them to change?
Speaker 3 (47:37):
That is a great question, you know, I you know,
I don't think. I don't think I would want her
to be too polished. She's there divergent. I mean, that's
not a secret now in the series. A lot of
people have picked that up that weren't. What's funny now
is if you look on a lot of publishers websites,
(48:00):
they're looking for neurodiversion characters. Ten years ago you didn't
see any of that on any of them, but anyway
they're looking for them now. See you want to see that, right,
You don't want there's things polished off. You want to
see you know, you want to see that authentically represented
out there. So I think that would be a non
negotiable and that I don't know, and I would I
(48:21):
think the series is written in the stories, written with
a sort of wonder to it, and I wouldn't want
to see that. I wouldn't want to see it, you know,
sort of done in sort of a hyperactive pace. You know,
it has sort of a nice feel to it. It
has sort of a nice, warm, cozy feel to it.
I wouldn't want it to feel like frantic or you know,
(48:43):
to hyperbolic or anything like that. You're laughing. There is
someone commenting in the in the chat here.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
And then there was always comments Kevin in the Child
Marion Ross. Of course there was a question, let me
try to find it.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, I'll ask you while Chris is finding it, do
you have a regret starting a series and not just
starting one book and seeing sort of where it goes,
Because obviously you talked about the big plan that you've got,
and I suppose in the writing process you may think, oh,
I've got this really good idea, like I could venture
(49:21):
off over there. But obviously you've said about having an
experience where you did do that, and it wasn't as
as successful as you wanted it to be. So is
there any moments where you think, oh, I kind of
wish I'd just done it one at a time.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Perhaps the only thing in there is the series has
been a great learning experience. It has definitely been a
you know, building airplane while you're flying type of situation
for me because I didn't go to school to learn
how to write. You know, it's all learning experience. And
I would say for the one book that I've finished
(49:58):
that's being shot now it's a it's a duology, but
it's out there, I would say I was much better
prepared to write that book. And I wrote that one
and plotted it in two weeks, wrote it in three months,
edited in two months, and I have four authors to
publish it. So that one. So all of that work
of you know, the first couple of some OWE books. Now,
(50:20):
I feel like, you know, I have a certain level
of fitness where if there's a good idea and it's
it's plotted well and I and I have the energy
to do it, I feel that I can do it.
So I don't It's not that I necessarily regret it.
I don't regret it wouldn't be the word, but it's tough.
I would I wouldn't recommend doing it that way, but
(50:43):
having done it, I feel that I'm better prepared for
for more books now. I guess that's the best way
to describe it. There's a more there's definitely a more
thoughtful process in the series where you're always thinking ahead,
like not writing yourself into a corner. You know, all
these types of things. It's it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
So yeah, it's a great Sorry, I was just going
to say very quickly, it was a great phrase that
you used. There was about being fit for that role,
and for someone who's new in the writing world, it's
kind of like being match fit for sport. You can
be generally fit, and if you're specifically fit for that sport,
you're match fit. And it's basically the term that you've
(51:26):
written enough to know yourself and know how your process
is work enough to be able to write something new
and different in a more proficient, proficient way. Get that
way out. Yeah, and I think that was a really
cool analogy of how that works.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
It. Yeah, it's true. It's it's absolutely true. So yeah,
I feel ready to go for the next one.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Coss.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Sorry, no, it's all right. I was going to say,
we always have a morbid question on the show, but
we've asked you this before, so I'm going to ask
you another equally morbid question. And I apologize in the
feel I feel bad for even saying this. But if
for some reason you couldn't finish the series, who would
(52:09):
you want to finish the series for you?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
That would be my wife, right, Yeah, she's the closest
to it. She's my most trusted reader hard truth. You know,
they say you should never have your your your spouse edit,
but she's she's the first person to read them, most
trusted hard truth. She would she would write it out
(52:34):
for sure. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah, it's just from my own personal experience. I never
read a series, and whenever I read a book from
an author who've had a series, I'm like, if something
happens to them now and I'm invested, and it's like
a six book series and they get to five, I'm
going to be devastated. Even more so obviously the fact
that they're not no longer with us, but the fact
that I won't be able to read the end of
(52:56):
the story. And I know some authors have been in
a simil the situation why somebody has finished the book
or carried on the next book.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
So yeah, well this is why they need to take
it more authors for TV shows and films, because there's
the amount of films. If you get into series of
films that happens so often where they just cancel it
after one or two seasons and leave you completely hanging.
It's ridiculous question right there. Let's have a look at it.
Him says, what is the duology series about exclusiveties? That
(53:29):
question in terri mind.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Well, I can't say too much about it, but it's
it's so this you talk about writing fitness. So this
is an interesting thing. And when this comes out, I
think writers, I think in particular, will be interested in
what happened here. But it was a story that I've
been thinking about for some time, and I wrote it
as a middle grade because that you talk about that
(53:54):
author age, it would just seemed natural to me. And
I wrote it, plotted out, wrote it and then and
it got a really good interest. But what happened was,
through another series of coincidences, a pretty big publisher got
it and they were they liked the concept, they liked
(54:15):
the voice, they liked everything about it, but they didn't
acquire middle grade, and they asked if I would be
interested in possibly writing it up, or if I if
I could possibly you know, reinvented or resee it as
a young adult book. So I originally thought, oh, I
(54:35):
don't want to what it's but it's not hya you know,
it's it's middle grade. And then in the next thought,
I thought, well, what a what a great opportunity that
one somebody sees it as a good concept and that
and that's one of the things when I talk to
you know, kids in schools now, or you're even at
higher levels like high school especially, you know, if you
can get a publisher that's interested in the concept or
(54:57):
the idea of the book. I mean, everybody has stories,
but if the theme is good, and if somebody who's
like one of the like a gatekeeper to publication, really
likes the concept of the book, that's great. You know
that you can work on the plotting and you can
work on these other things. So I've spent a couple
(55:19):
of months redoing that, and now I'm at the edge
of resubmitting that back out, so we'll see how that goes.
But it was written as a duology. It's it's different
for me for sure, but it ties into some folklore
and magical realism and some different things that are popular
(55:40):
right now. So I feel like, you know, it's going
to be a pretty good one, and you know, we'll
see how it goes, you know, get it out there
and you know we will see. You never know in
this publishing world, You just you just never know. And
then I have another COVID project out there that's about
thirty thousand words in, and then start on the next
Simon and and hopefully take a nap at some point.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Well, Ross says, as I agree, Wow, that's amazing and
a huge compliment to be asked to do that. So yeah, congratulations,
and I'm sure you'll do a sterling job with it.
One more question, I think, and then we'll try and
wrap things up as we're hitting the time limit. Halo
says again, thank you for your questions. Will any of
the future Simone books feature at the point of views?
Speaker 3 (56:27):
You know, that is a great question. I am not
a huge fan of multiple points of view, and I
may be in the minority in that I find them
hard to write. I've tried to do it, and I
just find them really hard to write. And now with
the Simone books, now I feel like I have a
(56:49):
pretty good sense of them and I just don't want
to mess it up, because that's the best way to
describe it. I feel like I have it pretty well
oiled at this point and I just don't want to
mess the machine up. But it's a good question, but
points multiple points of view. They're tricky when they're done well,
they're they're brilliant, but they're they're they're tricky. It's just
(57:12):
a tool that's not my toolbox.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
So let me ask you this then, Yeah, I want
to christ We should ask this every every guest. But
top three tips you can give an author who may
be starting out on their journey.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Starting out on the journey. Yeah, so you hear a
lot of the same ones. You know, read your work
out loud, you know all that stuff, read read, read.
That's a huge one, all that stuff. The one that
I'm finding to be really helpful is work on two
projects at the same time. Okay, I'm finding that one
(57:47):
to be really good. Sort of like I can only
focus on like sort of jump energy, like you sort
of weighing on one thing. Want to you know, go
from one to the other. But I would say, if
you're starting out, I think you mentioned there. For a
starting out author, really think about the concept of the book,
not necessarily just the story, you know, think of the theme.
(58:09):
Think how this is going to impact it. You know,
if you can one of the really good things, if
you can do this at the start, if you can
write a great log line on your book. And that
was one of the things with the duology that I'm
working now. One of the first things I wrote was
what I thought was a really good log line. If
(58:30):
you can write a really good log line and use
that as your north star. That is because a lot
of authors can't do that, you know, or they sort
of stumble on what that is, right, you know, write
a really good log line, make sure it's plotted out,
you know, and it don't set a schedule, just you know,
get after it, do your best right, authentically nice.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
This is definitely comments in the chat.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
There making me laugh. I put them on greens and
some people can seem a little bit bigger. But Halo
said I should put Jim in one of my books,
and Ross said, Halo, no, And then nobody wants to
be a character in your books. We just want to
let's live. Yeah that made me laugh, But yeah she
did reference obviously said Jim is a character in your
(59:19):
books though, and an awesome character. I think she was
saying that during the conversation when you were talking about
maybe doing that transition into young adult and I think
that's why she mentioned Jim in that moment, because that's
what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
But yeah, before we do wrap this up, can are
you any good at editing? Because I want you to
try and edit this comment from Ross. It's fantastic advice, Steve,
you are remain my enemy.
Speaker 3 (59:46):
I don't know. That was tricky.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, tricky.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
I think it needs some work and maybe some grammarly Yeah,
editorial intervention there. I don't know, workout.
Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
They go on Corross, you need to do some some
edit and work on there from Steve. Okay, brilliant, we've
hit We're over the hour. But like importantly, like I said,
if you are watching this and you haven't seen Steve's
roator writing, please go and check out the interview that
we highlighted earlier from three years ago. Kind of crazy
(01:00:22):
and Haier says you are the remains of my enemy.
That makes more sense, yes, and of course pick up
the Simon Simon La Fray series, which we will link
in the description go back to book one. But more
importantly for the people invested in the series, when would
book four and five be there?
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Roughly? Well, we're hoping, let's say book four would be
early twenty twenty seven would be the hope if everything
goes well there, and then the hope is to get
books four and five together, so they're you know, hopefully
within the same year to go out. So yeah, I
got to push hard on this, but these other ones
that I'm working on come out in the middle of
(01:01:02):
as well, So yeah, busy, busy.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Busy, Yeah, of course. And we're with the best place
be for them to go and pick up the series.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
So they're available everywhere. Amazon, Books, Barnes and Noble. Local
bookstores carry them as well. You can find me anywhere online.
I think everybody in the chat can probably know all
of my socials also sbo Farrell and working on my
first newsletter from my website as well, the much anticipated
(01:01:30):
newsletter I love it, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Anything from you, Chris before we wrap this up.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
No, obviously huge fan of for the smon On the
Fray books, and I would definitely recommend them to anyone, you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Know it could.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
I love the idea that somebody could pick up one
of these books for the very first time and just
really get into reading off the back of it. I
think that's fantastic. And yeah, absolutely a huge credit for you, Steve,
to actually create a character that you can put in
the same ballpark of you know, do you like Harry Potter?
Oh you might like this? You know, that's an incredible
(01:02:07):
achievements to be able to do that. Obviously all readers
across the world. I loving her as well. So yeah,
looking forward to seeing how the journey progresses well.
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Thank you and good luck with your velvetize.
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Brilliant Steve, absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much, and we
hope to see whether it's an animated series or a
movie or a TV show, whatever the case may be,
we hope to see that journey come to Fruition And
thank you so much for sharing another story with us.
Fantastic working effort being put in by you, and it's
showing so well done. Thanks guys, everybody, Thank you for
(01:02:43):
tuning in. Please stay safe and we will see you
all next week.
Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
By guys SID was bad in the gasl
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