Invest in yourself advises Imogen Clark

Emma Dhesi: 0:03

Imogen, thank you so, so much for joining me today. I always start by asking my guests, you know, what was your journey to writing and publication? How did it start for you?

Imogen Clark: 0:16

Well, it started about sort of about 2010, I had a dream, I had a dream that written a book. And I woke up and thought, Well, that’s an interesting thing, because I’d always been a reader. And so I had to go. So I had a bit of an idea. And I, I, I wrote it. And then I decided that actually there was most of this writing a book business the night realize it’s quite hard. And so then I decided I would do some courses. So I found a little Oh, you open university creative writing course, I did that I really enjoyed that, that kind of led on to doing some English courses with the Open University. And I ended up doing a full degree in English Literature and Creative Writing with the EU. And all the time I was doing that I was still writing books, and you know, seeing if I could make them any better. And I’d finished one, and I’d put it away. And then I’d finished another, I think I, I blogged one chapter by chapter to see if my friends thought it was any good. And that was a bit scary. But I did that. And I published a couple of YA books under a pseudonym, myself, because I thought, if it all goes horribly wrong, I can just walk away and nobody will know, it’s me. I did that. And eventually, I think in 2017, I wrote one that I actually finally thought might be good enough to publish under my own name. And, and that was postcards from Stranger, which I self published. And after I’d self published it, about six weeks later, I got a call from my publisher to say, we really like that, what else have we got? And that kind of led into book deals, and then to where we are now? Yeah.

Emma Dhesi: 1:56

So that dream that you had actually turned into the dream that most new authors strive for is to have a book that a publisher comes to you rather than the other way around?

Imogen Clark: 2:06

Yeah, the whole thing has been a complete very.

Emma Dhesi: 2:10

I didn’t realize that you’d written some YA under the pseudonym Do you still write YA as well?

Imogen Clark: 2:15

I haven’t written any more. So she’s, she’s called Lucinda Fox is my pseudonym and show books are still there, and they sell every day. And that they’re sort of a couple of teenage protagonists, or they’re kind of 12-13 years old, these girls, they got into three scrapes, which came out of three, three novels. And then I started writing them doing plots stuff more seriously. And since then, I’ve left her where she is. But as I say, they do still sell. So I just sort of, they’re just there. They just they’re in the background,

Emma Dhesi: 2:45

then always there if you want to come back to them at some Yeah, absolutely. Because yeah, it was

Imogen Clark: 2:49

fun writing and Lucinda and, and I did enjoy read from those characters. It was fun. But I think at that point, my, I have four children. And at that point, they were a little bit younger. So they were kind of more relevant to what the characters were doing. And I obviously haven’t forgotten what it’s like to have coffee or children now, but it’s not quite as relevant as it was back then.

Emma Dhesi: 3:07

Although I’ll come back to that a little bit later on. And you might have answered my next question was about asking, you know, did you publish the first book that you wrote, but clearly, you didn’t? And so one day, how many because you know, we’ve all got a hidden manuscripts away in our legalese somewhere. So how many did you write before you decided, okay, this is the one I’m going to reach out with.

Imogen Clark: 3:32

So the first one I wrote, I made my book read. So that that was that one. The second one is the one that I blocked. The third one, I think became the thing about Claire, which was my second publishable fourth one was the first listen to book then there are a couple that aren’t quite finished, that were nano books that I sort of started and did the first 50,000 words and got terribly excited and and wrote myself into a complete backwater, and never picked up again. So there are a couple of those that that, you know, I’ve got quite interesting concepts, but I’ve just never finished. And then postcards was was in an access, I think, probably postcards was about number four or five. But all of those, maybe only two or three were actually finished.

Emma Dhesi: 4:15

I think that’s a wonderful sort of reminder, too many new writers coming up, you know, we get so excited. We think this is the one we’ve written our first book, it’s going to be amazing. And nine times out of 10. This is our practice. This is what we’re kind of doing our apprenticeship with. Malcolm Gladwell, I think isn’t at the talks about the 10,000 hours of practice you need to do and so if you’re listening and you have written one or two manuscripts and it’s not taking you where you want to be, just know that this is part of the process.

Imogen Clark: 4:44

And there was somebody an editor once said to me, I think I’d got postcards edited before I was going to publish it myself. And she I said, Though I’d written lots and I’d kept him in a drawer and moving on and she she looked at me in that You do actually have you know that that’s potentially an issue if you keep not actually. And I think you actually, I don’t think it is an issue because I knew that those books just weren’t quite right. They just weren’t quite what I could do. And I thought, well, I can do something different. And if you enjoy the writing, in the learning all the time by writing, aren’t you anyway. But I always compare it to being an artist. And if you did a painting, you wouldn’t send the first painting that you paid to the Royal Academy for the summer expedition, you just wouldn’t do that with you. And it’s the same with writing a book, you know, some people are really lucky that the first one that they write, is amazing, or is edited so well, and for so long, that actually come up with them. But I that didn’t happen for me, you know, my first ones are, you know, they’re all parts of the way that I got to the first one that was actually able to publish, but I wouldn’t really want to publish.

Emma Dhesi: 5:51

So let’s talk about your process a little bit. And so if you get a story idea, you know, for now, no, say, and you decide all that’s going to go with it. How do you take that that spark of an idea? Do you have a process for then developing it into a storyline? Or are you someone who flies by the seat of their pants?

Imogen Clark: 6:10

A bit of both, and I don’t plan I can’t I’m in every aspect of my life, except my writing, I am a massive planner. But this for whatever reason, I’ve got a real butterfly brain, and I can’t just sit and think. So things come to ideas from books come to me when I’m doing something else, usually. And often, if I’m driving or listening to an audiobook or cleaning the house or whatever. And usually comes with a, I will have a kernel of an idea. And think, oh, it might make a good book. And then I kind of think about it. And they usually start with the characters. Now, I didn’t used to do that before, I used to start with the plot. But now I kind of think of that first idea. So for example, if I wanted to write a book about a camping trip, I think well, okay, so who would be on this camping trip. Whereas when I first started, I would have thought what is going to happen on this camping trip. So it’s a bit of a shift. And so that’s mainly, where I start, I start with the concept of what the book is going to be about, and my characters, and they’re just set off, and then we’ll see where we get.

Emma Dhesi: 7:16

So I’m interested in that shift from plot to character. What brought about that change? And why did you what, why do you feel it’s made a big difference?

Imogen Clark: 7:27

I’m not sure what brought I think it’s just experience. And I think I thought when I was first starting that you just have to know what your book was about. And actually, as I’ve written, however, 15 or whatever. Now, I’ve discovered that actually, what my books are really about for me is the people. And what happens to them is almost obviously it’s not relevant, but it’s almost a sideline in comparison to the actual people because they’re the, that’s the bit I like the best. And so creating the characters, and then putting them in a situation that is going to be interesting for the readers is it’s fun. And so that I think it’s just I think it’s switched, because I just have more experience of how I do and I’m less panicky about just the process a lot more now. I’m much less panicky than I used to be when that’s what we’re gonna do.

Emma Dhesi: 8:17

I love that. Okay, so we’re talking about your books. And I do want to say a big, big congratulations, because I know you’ve sold over a million now and that is phenomenal. Just must feel wonderful. But you’ve got a new novel out Reluctantly Home. And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about it.

Imogen Clark: 8:38

Yeah, Reluctantly Home is about two women who both strive to leave the place where they were brought up for very different reasons. And the things that that happened to them that was out of their control, they end up being dragged back to the place that they were trying to escape from. And the theme is kind of, you know, escape and, and becoming more happy with your lot in life, you being becoming content. And so when I first started writing that I was interested, it’s amazing how you start off with one idea that the initial idea for reluctantly home was, I was in an airport. And you know, you have to put your iPad in that little tray thing. And somebody else picked your iPod up, if somebody else picked your iPad up, and it’s full of all these different assets, and that’s just stupid. And because you couldn’t get in, okay, can’t get in. I was thinking of all these ways in which I could create a book around this. And in the end, it was just silly, but it’s part of that I was thinking be really interesting if you kept a diary on your iPad, and then someone was into the diary. And then of course, that’s what happens here we find the diary at the beginning of the book, which is how the two women get to meet each other. But then the I was also very interested in the idea of being ashamed for for wanting a better would you the feeling that you’re or that your family aren’t quite good enough for what you’re aspiring towards. And which is quite, it’s quite, it’s quite a difficult idea, I think for both for the family, for the parents and for the child that’s trying to escape that you. You’ve got ideas that you think are beyond where you think your family says. And I think that’s a maturity thing. And I’m sure people who would think that, perhaps don’t think like that when they’re a bit older. And that was quite and that and that is, you know, that. So within, within Pips character, obviously, she’s Pip at home, but she doesn’t want to be Pip when she’s being a Barrister in London, because it’s just a baby name. And it’s not, you know, it’s she wants to be something that’s much more serious and taking a lot more seriously. And she ditches all her home friends, and she runs off to London and have this this successful career until she has this this issue that stops her. And I just thought I just really wanted to explore that you’re being be forced to go back home to they both women are reluctantly home, because both women really don’t, didn’t think that they would ever end up back in this tiny little town in Suffolk.

And so it’s interesting that they that Pip does have this second name that she uses the professional name that she uses when she’s in London. And was that something I’m always interested in the process kind of thing. And when characters take over, and you’ve mentioned that characters are very important in this process of writing. So did Pip say to you, I’m not Pip in London, I am rooms in London? Or was that a conscious decision that you made?

Imogen Clark: 11:35

I think that was a conscious decision that I made. Because I thought right at the beginning, when I was creating her as a character, and thinking about who she might be, I thought I liked the idea that that she would want to shake off her entire identity. And the thing that is most closely identified with who you are is your name. So I thought very early on, she’s going to have a different name in London so that she can just pretend to be a completely different person and not a farmer’s daughter from. And obviously, that’s yes. So it was kind of it was part of who she was from the very, very beginning, rather than her telling me that.

Emma Dhesi: 12:10

Now you yourself. I think it was in London, you had a very successful career in law as well. Is that right? Yes. Is there a bit of that? Did you have a second a London name and a home name as well?

Imogen Clark: 12:22

My, I did just law school in London. And then I did my practicing in Leeds. But no, I had my own name. And then my husband’s name when I got married in a very traditional kind of way. So so no, I didn’t have to have a professional name. But I do know lots of people who do have professional men, but mainly because of the not concerning thing, rather than giving yourself a whole new question.

Emma Dhesi: 12:42

Yes, yes. And no. So in the book, Pip, she struggled a lot with anxiety for various reasons. But you’ve written about it really, really well. And I wondered, is that something that you’ve experienced in your past that you could call upon when you’re writing pips character,

Imogen Clark: 13:01

The bitter pil that is very me is that I did knock a little boy over when I was driving. So the opening scene is that pit knocks his child over. And that’s what causes her anxiety, the child was fine, he walked away, he was absolutely fine. But yes, but it was, for me as the driver. absolutely terrifying, because he did bounce off my windscreen and land on the carriageway of the cars coming in the opposite direction. And from that, I did have quite a lot of sort of panicky, tacky, flashbacking kind of responses to start with to just about any loud noise. And, and then whenever, you know, when all you’re watching the TV and somebody gets hit by a car, every single time I see that it’s like, every single time. So but but it was quite short lived. And I haven’t had bouts of anxiety or, or anything like that. So whilst I had that, that one experience, in order to find out more about panic attacks and anxiety, I had to do quite a bit of research, research and talk to quite a lot of people. Because when you’re dealing with something that’s quite as, as very personal as that, it’s important that you do your best to get it right. Because you know, you don’t want to be you don’t want to belittle it or, or, or come across in any way as patronizing or whatever. But I think part of what we do as as writers is explore things, and not necessarily that we’ve experienced ourselves. And so you There’s so much available to researchers, so many people that you can talk to and there were lots of groups that I found online for people who had had actually accidentally through no fault of their own taking somebody else’s life. And you know, it’s very, very, very traumatic for lots of lots of these peoples. I researched it. That’s how I that’s how I found out how it might feel.

Emma Dhesi: 14:48

Gosh, wow. And it’s always it is always surprising him. Many people are willing to share their experiences because they do want it to be represented as closely enough. as possible that the boy was okay in your So, my audience, there are new writers. And one of the things that they’re still trying to get to grips with is the idea of managing time making space in their life, this writing passion, I know that you have a large family corporate life, I do a lot of traveling still. So I wondered if you could share with us how you managed to balance all those things? If indeed you do get the balance, right. And but how you kind of make sure you keep on top of your writing, but still have a personal life a social life at the same time?

Imogen Clark: 15:40

Yes, um, I felt easy. But nothing is, you know, nothing is easy. Everything is difficult. And so it’s all a question of priorities, and what you really, really want to do. So before before I was published when it was kind of my hobby. And I made time, I did the classic early morning thing, because I’m quite a morning person anyway. And so, you know, not so much during the week, because there’s a school run and all that kind of stuff. But at the weekends, I could get up early and just enjoy myself writing before everybody else was up. And so that that worked quite well. And as I began to be seem to be taking it more seriously about my family than they were growing, I have these four children. And they were quite accommodating, I have a little sign on my office door that says do not knock innocent sentences will die. Because if you just interrupt me right in the middle of something, I will never find that sentence again. So anyway, they don’t take any notice of that. And they do not and they do you. I think as as, as I then it was it became easier once I was published, because that then I can tell I’m working like job working. And suddenly, it takes on a whole different a different role. And now my kids are all gone. And two of them are college and two of them have just moved out now. So it is the only thing I have to battle against now is myself. Because obviously there is always millions of things that we want to do more than what we’re supposed to be doing.

So I have I try to I try to be relatively strict with myself and I tried to do the writing part of my work early. So not not necessarily early in the day, but at the beginning of the day. So the writing is when I’m freshest. And when I use what I’ve got. I’m just better mornings. And then I tend to use the afternoon to do the stuff that is not quite so interesting and responding to emails and doing marketing. And that seems to work quite well. And because I make up my books as I go along. And I only really have about 1500 words in me in any day. So because by then I kind of run out of ideas and have to go away and process but have written and think about it. And then the next day I get up and then I write the next chapter. And so it sounds like it’s not many words, but it means you do sort of a 90,000 word draft in three months, which is fine. That’s up. Yeah, that’s absolutely fine. And but those, those clouds of words, or whatever I write every day, and some days that only took me an hour, because I know exactly what I’m going to write, it just flies out my fingers and it’s fine. Other days, it can take me take me all morning, really. I just I allow myself to become distracted by all kinds of things. And partly, that’s because I’m just easily distracted. And partly because if I don’t, if I really don’t know what I’m going to write, I’m going off and doing something else sometimes trigger something and then come back and start to get.

But what I don’t do is I never give up until I’ve done it. Okay. So at the end of every day, I will have done my allocated words on a writing Scrivener and I set up the project targets thing and it tells me how many words I’m supposed to do that day. And you know, if I haven’t done it, it’s the wrong color. And then when I’ve done it, it goes into the right color. And then I can stop. And sometimes I think, yeah, I keep going. But generally I don’t. I don’t stop until I’ve hit that target. Because because this is my job. And this is what I’m supposed to do. And you know, I can’t just sit around and wait for the news to strike I have to. I have you’ve got to write your you’ve got to write it you don’t write you never say yeah, you have to do.

Interview with Imogen Clark

Emma Dhesi: 19:16

Yeah, so so true. Thank you for sharing that with us. There’s there’s sort of two things I really picked up on there. One was, you know, you had young kids when your kids were still young when you were writing. Yeah, restarted. But you took that, that step two, put a boundary up and it’s something I do try and encourage everybody to do that. Only until we as writers start taking it seriously and see to our friends and family. No, this is important to me, putting on the headphones putting a sign on the door and saying don’t come in for the next 40 minutes or whatever. It’s only then will our friends and family start to take us seriously if we step up and behave like writers and lately, so I love that you’ve done that. And then the other thing is Well as that you mentioned, they’re all 1500 words might not sound like a lot, but in fact, that is a lot I feel anyway. And that it’s that accumulative effect. If you just do keep plodding on and doing a little bit every day, every day, it does build up, because I think a lot of new writers have an idea in their head that being a full time writer means that you write for six hours a day. Yeah.

Imogen Clark: 20:26

No, not at all. No. And I think, also, I think, at the risk of staring stereotypes, generalizations, the only people I know who sit at their desk and write all day are men. I don’t know any women that do that. You know, women are always doing lots of other things at the same time, my kitchen, which is just the other side of the door, it’s full of machines that beep at me all day long. And so you know, it’s quite good way to get to a sentence, and then the dishwashers finished and the dishwasher, and then I’ll come back. And actually, as Joking aside, I think, for your health as well, it’s really important that you don’t just sit there because it’s you know, everything, season’s up and get sore. And I think the fact that I am, you know, up and down all the time, means that I never sitting very still for a very long time. So I don’t tend to get I don’t tend to get wrist pain and back pain and neck pain and all those rightaway complaints. And I think it’s simply because I don’t sit there for long enough. I’m always stopping. Going to do whatever’s just pinged at me most. So yeah, I think I think it is, yeah, full time writing is not full time writing, it really isn’t full time writing is full time thinking, but not full time writing.

Emma Dhesi: 21:31

Yeah. And it can be a difficult shift to make, I think, especially if you come from the corporate world, and you are expected to do your eight hours a day or more many cases. So is a mental shift. Yeah. So because this podcast is predominantly for new writers. I wondered if there was any suggestions or advice or thoughts that you might have learned when you were doing your own due course, that really made a kind of shift for you, or change for you that you could share with our listeners to see if it helps them? get over that hump and get their book finished? Yeah,

Imogen Clark: 22:04

Absolutely. It’s from something that you just said, actually. And when you said, you know, it’s important that you take it seriously, and you pass your family that they understand this is important to you. And what happened to me, what made the difference to me, I think I heard it on something not dissimilar to this, and that you had to, you had to invest in yourself. And so what I what I did was I invested in my manuscript, I sent my manuscript to an editor, and I had it edited, and it cost me lots of money, or it felt like a lot of money at the time. And I was trying to add six, but I’ve got money saved up, but I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. And I said to my husband, I want to actually spend this money on going to have my book edited. And he said yet, that’s fantastic. How much is it going to be on a told him? Oh, okay. But as I went through, by read, see, and so I found a, you know, an editor that had been curated, who was used to dealing with my kind of the books that I was writing, and I spent the money to have that book edited. And that was like a shift in my head. Because up until then, it really had been, it was kind of my hobby, but I was I didn’t seem to depart from the old course, I didn’t really want to invest in it. And once I invested in that editor, and the editor then said, Yeah, this, this is good, you might want to do this. And not only did that boost my confidence in what I was producing, but it also meant that I was, you know, I was money in that I’ve got skin in the game. And, and from that point, then I then invested in a training course on how to do self publishing. I learned how to actually do formatting and all the things I needed to get postcards out. And I think it but it was that it was that money that I spent on that editing, that changed. That was a game changer for me, because suddenly, I was a writer. I wasn’t just somebody who wrote books per foot, and even 100, a publisher or anything at that point. That was the switch. Yeah,

Emma Dhesi: 24:00

it’s that mindset shift. Yes. Okay. Lovely. Thank you for sharing that with us. That’s great. Now, I know that you’re not someone to sit on your laurels. And I believe you’ve moved on to the next manuscript your to your new book. You’re like, can you tell us anything about it at the stage?

Imogen Clark: 24:17

Yeah. And I will I built I’m writing is is busy. And so my, my publishers now have the next three books, but that Yeah. So three, three more books are with my publisher that the next one to come out is beginning of February, and it’s called impossible to forget. And it’s about a girl whose mother dies and so she’s only 18. So her mum in her in a letter of wishes, gives responsibility for the 18 year old to four of her closest friends, and she gives each of the friends responsibility for different parts of her child’s life. And so, whilst the book takes place So the girls 80 year, so the year that she’s doing her a levels, and there’s a degree of the the adults leading the child is quite a lot of the child’s leading young adults, because the adults or none of them are perfect. And they all have things that they demons that they have to deal with which the which the mother who died was very aware of them quite cleverly puts them in positions, that means that everybody is going to come out of here better. And so that’s, that’s the next one. So that one there will be out in February.

Emma Dhesi: 25:28

Oh, exciting. And where did the idea for this one come from?

Imogen Clark: 25:32

Well, I think I think I overheard something about giving responsibility to more, you know, you. Everybody thinks about whom who might be guardians for their children’s children. And I think I overheard a conversation about somebody who was saying that she quite liked the idea of having different guardians for different aspects. And I was thinking, Oh, that sounds like quite good fun. You know, what would you do? Which, which bits would you think were important, that was important that your child follows, and that would depend very much I think on the personality of the of the person whose child it was. So I know I’m not very sporty, and not really very interested in sports. So if I was setting up guardians for my children, I wouldn’t be interested in their sporting prowess. But I would want to make sure that somebody made sure that they traveled or that they were well read, or that they went to the cinema or in the theater, you know, the things that are important to me that I would have passed on to them. Had I been there to do, I would then be scouting out amongst my friends to make sure that those areas of my child’s future were banked.

Emma Dhesi: 26:33

Yeah, gosh, my children are still young. And we have allocated one poor soul to take them if anything happens. We should rethink this actually, maybe this is a good idea. Well, imaging has been a joy speaking to you. Thank you so much for your time today. Just very well. We say goodbye. I wonder if you could let listeners know where they can find out more about you and your books. Yes, that’s great. And my website is imaging club.com. And I mean, all the usual places. So you know, Facebook and Instagram, particularly those are my favorite places where I’m Clark author. So yes, have it have a have a look there. Fantastic. Thank you so much.

Imogen Clark: 27:17

You’re very welcome.

Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is author mindset coach and bestseller author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer’s block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!