Interview with Dr Rachel Grosvenor

Emma Dhesi: 0:03

Rachel, thank you so, so much for joining me today, it’s lovely to have you on the show all the way over on the other side of the world.

Rachel Grosvenor: 0:10

Thanks very much for having me.

Emma Dhesi: 0:12

My pleasure. So I always like to start by asking my guests, you know, tell us about your journey to writing and to editing and coaching.

Rachel Grosvenor: 0:22

Yeah, well, my journey to writing started when I was a child, so I read Lord of the Rings, when I was ill impairs the kid. And I was in bed for like, three weeks, I called up my mom and I was like,

I’ve just read the first one a lot of the rains, and you’re gonna need to get to the second one library, because I can’t believe it. And it was the first time that I was truly like, immersed in this world.

And I just couldn’t believe how good it was. I was bought up the road from sarehole Mill, which is where Tolkien developed the idea for the Shire and things like that.

And it’s a big reason why I’m talking to you from New Zealand now. So, right, I started writing Lord of the Rings fan fiction. When I was a kid. That’s how I began my writing journey. And I was like, obsessed with it.

And when it came to like, time to go to university, I was like, Okay, so the only thing I really want to do is be a writer. So I looked at courses and creative writing. And I went to bath spa university to do that.

And then when I finished that, I didn’t want to stop. So I did my MA in creative writing.

And then after that, I still didn’t want to stop. So I did my PhD in creative writing. And that’s really how I came to be where I am now, I’ve just always wanted to write, so I’ve kept doing it and yeah….

Emma Dhesi: 1:47

You know, you’re, you’re actually a bit of a rare beast, I think in that because so many people I speak to, as a child had this idea that they might want to write, but then life takes over and they go off. And they do let myself actually go off and do all sorts of other things that have nothing to do with writing.

And then later in life, kind of come back to it. We’ve taken what I like to call the scenic routes. But yeah, well, it’s wonderful to hear them that you know, this was it.

You knew right from day one, this was going to be your, your passion, your reason that was so to speak. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, that was the same for her, I think, wasn’t it?

Rachel Grosvenor: 2:22

Yeah, I was, I’m really lucky to have a very supportive mother, who was like, if you want to be a writer, go do creative writing. Absolutely wonderful. You know, she was never like, oh, you know, what are the job prospects?

She was always like, let’s do something you’re passionate about so…

Emma Dhesi: 2:39

That can make all the difference candidates have somebody to say yes, follow your passion, rather than why don’t you get a degree first and do that as a backup plan? Exactly. Yay.

So I cannot let it pass though, that Lord of the Rings is what took you to New Zealand? Yes. Is that Is that true? Is that literally what you thought? That’s it? I’m going

Rachel Grosvenor: 2:58

Yeah, well, it’s obviously Peter Jackson’s version of rather rings, because Tolkien’s was very much more like England. But I, you know, loved the films as a teenager, and I really wanted to come to the Shire, they have Hobbiton here, the set where you can visit and you can sit in the green dragon and have a pint of ale.

And I really was like, This is what I want to do. So yeah, that was a big, big part of the reason I came to New Zealand.

And I’ve had some wonderful times that Hobbiton since Hobbit Appreciation Day dressing up as an elf and going there. And, you know, I’ve met so many people here who feel the same, which is wonderful. It’s very cool.

Emma Dhesi: 3:42

Normalizing it, that’s great. Yeah. But New Zealand’s an amazing place. I had we had a fabulous three weeks there once.

And then I did work with a lady who she went for a holiday, she came back to London and hand immediately handed in a notice and said,

No moving, that I’ve fallen in love. And off you went. And yeah, ever after. As far as I know, it is an amazing place.

Rachel Grosvenor: 4:05

It is. It’s beautiful here and the people are so friendly. But it just it just feels very welcoming.

Emma Dhesi: 4:13

Mm hmm. Yeah. That you mentioned there that you you’ve, you’ve done your a beat your ba your ma and then your PhD. So I don’t know if you’re able to kind of divide them in any way. But I wanted to, you know, what did you feel that you got from each of those?

You know, what, what did the BA teach you that made you think? No, I want to go on and do the MA and then on?

Rachel Grosvenor: 4:36

I think when I was doing my BA I was very young. And you know, I was still learning how to study really, you know, it was the first time I’ve been at university.

And so really what I learned from that was how to kind of create a project and write to a specifications and something that spurred me on to do my ama so took a year out was that I realized when I finished my BA, that I didn’t take full advantage of the opportunities that I’d had.

And I realized that actually, I wasn’t knocking down lecturers, doors, to ask them what they thought about things. And I realized that not everybody wanted to talk to me about writing, and that it wasn’t something that other people were necessarily passionate about.

And I really missed it. Because of that. And I thought, you know, you had three years with all these people who wanted to talk to you about this subject, and you didn’t take full advantage of that, like, you should have jumped in more.

That was a huge push to apply for an MA, because I really wanted to get back to those people who I could talk to. And I was a totally different student from ima. I was staying late. I was, you know, knocking on lecturers, doors and being like, Oh, so you mentioned this, let’s talk more about that.

And then at the end of that year, I was really lucky that my supervisor said, you know, I think you should do a PhD in this, like, what do you think?

And I was like, I think that sounds amazing. So, yeah, I was really excited to do that. By the time I did my PhD, I fully understood, you know, self led learning, and how to, basically how to write and how to give peer review.

And that was really, one of the most amazing lessons was learning how to give feedback and peer review, and editing and things like that. When you’re doing your BA, you’re in your first year. And people are saying, you know, what do you think of this writing?

It’s really hard to answer. And it’s really hard to give that feedback, because people don’t necessarily teach that. How do you give feedback.

And that’s actually when I was lecturing, and teaching adults myself to first class was always on that. This is how we talk to each other.

This is how we give feedback to each other. Because that’s really important. It’s really important to make sure that people leave feeling positive, but also like they’ve got something to work on.

Emma Dhesi: 7:07

I might circle back to that later, when we talk about coaching and stuff. That’s, I think that’s invaluable.

I am but but I want to stick with your writing for now. Because I know you’re right across many forms, you do long form short stories, novels, and across different genres.

So is there any one that you particularly like, and that you’re more drawn to than the others? Or how do you decide what you’re going to write when?

Rachel Grosvenor: 7:35

It’s a good question, like my first novel was literary fiction.

And I read a lot of literary fiction and fantasy, those genres that I am drawn to in a bookshop. And it was a heavy novel. And by the time I finished it, four years later, I were kind of exhausted by it.

And I really thought, You know what, I just want to take a break with something fun. And I started writing this fantasy. And I was reading like Terry Pratchett, and things like that. And I started writing this book, and I thought,

This is really fun. Like, I’m having a really good time with this. So after I finished that novel, I moved on to what I’m writing at the moment, which had two companion novels. One of them’s currently being edited.

And then the other one is currently being written. And they are, it’s a genre that I loosely refer to as wild west fantasy. Oh, yeah. So the fantasy element is a little bit more which crafty, then say, you know, fantastical. But that’s what I’m really enjoying.

At the moment. I spend a lot of time at the stables have ridden horses my whole life. And I’m using a lot of that in there. And also, the landscape here really inspires me. You know, sprawling landscapes and mountains and things like that.

So yeah, but one thing that is always the case of my novels is there’s always a strong female main character. Always.

Emma Dhesi: 9:12

And so where do you get those ideas from given? Does it start with the protagonist?

And then do you just kind of feel your way into what what type of story it’s going to be? Or do you have an idea ahead of time of, okay,

I’ve written something fun. Now, I want to be a bit more serious, or is does the news come to you? In fact,

Rachel Grosvenor: 9:34

it does depend on my second novel, I had this idea of a it’s about 100 year old woman who’s retired from a university and she basically takes down a totalitarian government. And I love it. I really, she just came to me, you know, this like badass, elderly woman.

He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. You know, she wasn’t done and If they I will say characters come to me first they’ll just be sitting and then I’ll think of someone and be like, I like you, I like you. And I’m gonna see where you go. But I am a plotter.

Okay. So once I’ve got my character, I really sit down and think, Okay, what is going to happen in the story, I really like using the three act method that really helps me. But I, I love to plot because I didn’t plot my first novel, and it was incredibly stressful for me.

And I’m not the kind of person who can just, you know, see what happens, I have to plot it. But even if ideas come to me, I can add them into the plot, you know, it’s not that I’m really rigid, I just need to sit down and work that ahead of time.

Emma Dhesi: 10:43

So okay, and so if so you have a kind of loose, overarching knowledge of what’s going to happen in the story? Or do you like to delve down deeper and have more, almost a sort of chapter by chapter knowledge of what’s going to happen?

Rachel Grosvenor: 10:59

Yeah, I have a chapter by chapter knowledge. And something I found at university was that I felt like, once I’d got an essay plan essays were essentially written.

And that’s how I feel about novels. So once you’ve got a chapter planets, like, what that’s done, the novel’s written, all I’ve got to do is fill in those gaps. And that really helps me.

So that’s what I do with that. Yeah.

Emma Dhesi: 11:22

It’s always interesting how different people work from you know, I think it was I think it was PD, James, I wrote about, read about who should start off with the plot, and then fill in the plot.

And the, the outline got so so detailed, that it became a novel, and it was just kind of joining everything up as she went along. And then other people who just have an idea and fly with it, and then have all the work to do at the back end.

But yeah, this is slightly different. So I want to change tack just a little bit, because one of the, the, the questions I get asked a lot, and one of the things that my audience talk to me a lot about is finding the time to rage.

No, we’re all sorts of so busy now. I always think that since the advent of email, life has just sped up beyond belief, nothing, there’s no time breathing room anymore. So they’re always looking for suggestions, ideas, how to balance that time between family, we’re having a social life, and fitting in the writing.

And so I wondered, how does that work for you? How do you balance your professional life, your writing and your private life?

Rachel Grosvenor: 12:35

Yeah, it’s an interesting question, because they don’t teach you at university how to balance time. And that was something I struggled with, you know, when I was doing my PhD, it was full time.

And I was also working two jobs. And I, you know, I had a job in the daytime at the university, and I was teaching creative writing to adults in the evening.

And it was a lot, and I wanted to spend time with my partner, and I wanted to, you know, see my mom and all that stuff. So I, I had to teach myself. And what I learned was, methods that work for me are time blocking, and task batching.

And those are productivity methods that I find really powerful. So time blocking, and task. batching is essentially the act of looking at your calendar, and pulling together tasks and focusing purely on that one task.

So sometimes I think of my attention, like a hose, you know, there’s water coming out, and I need to focus that water in one place only. So my whole calendar is blocked out from you know, it might look like kind of bizarre to some people, it’s got sleeping time in it, it’s got, you know, breakfast time in it, and it’s got reading time in it.

It’s got work time, and it means that I never have to say to myself, Okay, what am I doing next? Because it’s actually planned out for me. I know exactly what to focus on at that time.

\And I know that if I’ve got an hour of writing time and an email pops up, it’s not time to look at emails right now, there is a time to look at emails, but that’s later on, that’s already planned out. So I don’t have to change that direction of water, essentially, from that hose.

I can just keep it focused, time blocking task. Batching has changed my life. And it’s no exaggeration to say that it literally enabled me to complete my studies while working and seeing people that I loved.

And that’s what I still do today. And I will say that this year especially has been the biggest year of personal growth me because I have added into that new planning methods like reverse engineering my goals, and making sure that I have goals for the year and that everything is linked into those set goals.

You know, I literally have four goals for the year I go through my calendar Everything is highlighted to match that final goal.

And if I can’t highlight something, then why am I doing it doesn’t need to be done. And things like that are very powerful. Yeah,

Emma Dhesi: 15:15

Yeah. Great. So that’s wonderful. I think that will speak to a lot of people who are just looking for that way to be more productive. But the idea of Yeah, blocking everything out and taking away.

Because once you’ve done that, then you’re taking away a lot of that decision fatigue. And that, oh, what should I do now? franticness that there is no, you know, exactly.

You can move on and do it. I’m going to ask, do you act as being as busy as you are? Do you still manage to write every day or several times a week?

Is that still something that you, you plan for?

Rachel Grosvenor: 15:48

Yes, I block out time to write three times a week, I’m not one of those people who writes every day. And I you know, I say to people that I work with, you don’t have to write every day, it doesn’t work for everybody.

And you know what, it just doesn’t work for me. And that’s okay. And it can be stressful. Sometimes, you know, Stephen King’s book on writing, as I write every day, including Christmas Day, including this, including that, I just cannot do that. That is not how I work, and that’s fine.

So, and this is what I say to people, you know, routines have to fit with you, you can try another writer’s routine, but it probably won’t work for you. So it’s alright to say you can write everyday and that is awesome.

I used to work with someone who wrote 1000 words a day, I mean, fantastic. But for me now. So I write about 4000 to 6000 words a week.

Emma Dhesi: 16:38

And that’s all though, isn’t it? Because then that’s how that’s how you write a novel. It’s just about being regular or being consistent with it doesn’t have to be all day every day.

Rachel Grosvenor: 16:47

Exactly. It’s just like climbing a mountain, you know, you just got to put one foot in front of the other. And sometimes, you know, I’ll sit down and I’ll be like, now I’m gonna write 3000 words. But actually, what comes out is 1000 words, but that’s all right. You know, that’s okay. I know where I’m going with it. And that’s fine.

Emma Dhesi: 17:03

Yeah. And, and I wanted to ask you about the creative tap, and whether that also how that helps you and how that helps the students that you work with?

Rachel Grosvenor: 17:14

Yes, so the creative tap is all about learning how to turn on creativity.

Basically, it’s about not waiting for inspiration. I think when you start to write a lot of people think that writers, you know, wait for inspiration to hit. But actually, the act of writing means that if you wait for inspiration, you’re probably not going to get much done,

I don’t find inspiration knocks on your door that much, you sort of have to force it. So the creative tap is essentially the act of practicing how to be creative on demand. So what I say to people is, you know, what you want to do is you want to first of all work out one of my most creative, so for me, it’s the morning,

I get most in the morning, some people write in bed at night, and they find that really works for them. Everybody’s different. But once you know that time period, that you’re at your most creative, if you practice being creative during that time, it’s going to be much easier for you to sit down and write.

And I say to people, you know, if you sit down, and actually the words, don’t come try something else, try free writing, try writing exercise. And even if that’s not working, get out a paintbrush, do anything creative for that set amount of time, and you will find that the creative tap is much easier to turn on. So it’s basically a way of teaching creativity. Yeah,

Emma Dhesi: 18:35

in training your brain at signs like to just No, I’m just trying to think of an example. You know, like you brush your teeth or whatever, it’s just an automatic thing that you do, you knew that when you go to the bathroom at night, that’s what you’re going to do. And think of a bit more of a better example.

But we do get, we do get used to things and things become second nature. And so when you know that this is when you’re sitting down to write, it’s not a big deal anymore. This is just okay. This is my writing timeless. Yes, a bit of the brain on.

Yeah, absolutely. And I like your suggestion there of even if the music isn’t coming at that moment in time when you sit down, but just to stick with it, to try some different exercises to get a paintbrush out. Try and do something that will start engaging that side of your brain.

Really good suggestion. And so So yes, I’ve mentioned before that you’re not only an author, but you are a book coach, and you’re an editor.

And I thought it might be useful to just differentiate the those two different roles and the part that they play in in shaping and producing a book basically.

So can we start with the book coach, what does the book coach do?

Rachel Grosvenor: 19:47

Yeah, absolutely. So as a coach, I basically work with authors on whatever their issues are, essentially. So I find that authors come to me at various stages.

And my most recent author They came to me because she was on, you know, the fifth draft of a novel. And she really wanted to get that finished now, and she was saying, I just need to have some kind of a plan to move forward.

How can I do this? You know, so that’s what we worked on. And, and I get different authors, you know, some people come to me and say, I have an idea, but I don’t know how to turn this into an offer, actually. And then we’ll work on how to do that together.

So it’s everything from Okay, I can’t find the time to write to I’m not really sure what the next step is.

And I’ve got a wonderful client in Australia who had never pitched to an agent before, but she had a meeting. So we had a big coaching session on okay, this is how you, you know, pitch your novel, let’s break it down.

And we rewrote her synopsis into like a pithy, short, five minute talk, and she ended up getting a full manuscript depress, which is really great. So yeah, so yeah, it’s, it’s essentially, whatever your writing issue is, I help people to move forward and find a solution to that.

And coaching is really about the client, you know, it’s about what is going on with them.

So although I have experience in writing, and a background in coaching and things like that, it’s not necessarily about my experiences, it’s all about how I can help them move forward with what they want to do, and investigating deeply into what they believe will help them as well.

Interview with Rachel Grosvenor:

Emma Dhesi: 21:32

Yeah. So the coaching side, as you say, is very much about the person about the author and what they’re going through. But the editing side, then presumably, is more about the the work itself.

Rachel Grosvenor: 21:44

Yes, absolutely. So I do developmental editing, copy guessing, I will say developmental editing is my favorite, because I just really enjoy going through a novel. And then I write an editorial report, which, you know, is anything from 12,000 to 25,000 words.

And it’s essentially, it’s a, you know, it’s an in depth essay on their work. And it looks at everything to do with narrative characterization, dialogue, consistency, I go through everything, and then send it back to them. And then we have a coaching session afterwards, once they’ve read it.

And we just discuss, you know, what they think of my comments whether they’ve got any questions and how we can move forward.

So yeah, and copy editing is basically all the other stuff. It’s grammar, it’s, you know, where’s that comma? Is it in the right place?

Emma Dhesi: 22:38

Oh, you must have a good brain for detail, I don’t think.

And so I’d love to know, because you, before we started recording, we both mentioned that we we work with coaches, too.

And so I wondered, what are some of the things just from your own experience that you found beneficial from working with a coach?

Rachel Grosvenor: 22:59

Yeah, I think it’s so powerful to work with a coach. And I think not a lot of people realize what coaching is, it feels like it’s a fairly new idea.

So people are maybe a bit confused about it. But coaching is very much about working toward the future.

So it’s not so much about the past. And what’s happened, it’s how can you move forward. And in my personal life, working with coaches has just really helped me first of all, in my business, I’ve got a business coach, and she is amazing. And she’s really helped me work out just how to move forward.

And what to do next, because when I started my business, you know, I really had no idea. I’ve been editing and working and coaching under the guise of another company for a while, but I didn’t know how to do this alone.

And I didn’t know anything about marketing really, or anything about that. So she really helped me figure out a path forward.

And also, there’s something amazing to be said, for someone giving you that time to speak. It’s a rare thing that you sit with someone and you have that space, they hold space for you to say anything you like.

And that’s really magical. And it can lead to some incredible realizations.

Emma Dhesi: 24:15

Yeah. It’s those intangible things I think is where coaching comes in.

That it’s not the the planning and the strategy and the words or anything, but it’s the kind of the relationship between you and your coach and what comes out of their conversations together.

And those wonderful kind of aha moments that you have, either about yourself and your own attitude to your writing to your work to your family, or about how you want to move forward and the kind of future that you want for yourself.

So I totally agree. I think it’s, it’s a bit hard to kind of quantify it because it’s the moments that you least expect it that the magic happens.

But yeah, so So worth doing. Absolutely. So you mentioned briefly that you’re re editing a book Right now, and but you’re also writing a book right now.

But I know that you’ve been working on something else for, for your audience as well as starting in the new year. So could you tell us a bit about that?

Rachel Grosvenor: 25:13

Yeah. So basically, I wanted to offer my audience and clients a way to plan their writing year, because I know that when you are heading into a new year, it can be a bit overwhelming. And you look at your plans, and you’re like, how am I going to do this, this is actually going to happen.

And then you set new year’s resolutions, and you’re like, I’m going to write a novel, but then you kind of forget, and you’re not sure really what that means. So I developed this, it’s called The Ultimate writer’s planning workbook.

And this is exactly what it is. It’s 60 Plus pages of okay, what are your goals, this is how we reverse engineer them.

This is how we fit them into your schedule. This is how you time block, this is how you task batch, this is how your year is going to look. And that’s going to be available from the first to the 15th of January. And it’s essentially just going to be okay, going from, I want to do this.

This is actually how I do it. Now I’ve got a written plan.

And I find that having a written plan and having everything planned out really limits overwhelm and limits those feelings of stress. Because actually, you can just sit down and say, It’s alright, I know what this looks like.

And I know how this is gonna work. And it’s really great to end the year, you know, if you could end 2022, having written that novel, what an awesome feeling that would be,

Emma Dhesi: 26:39

it would be. And I’d love that. And so I love that you’re giving people a roadmap to share your techniques in the way that you are so productive and give them those steps and how they can work out for themselves. And the idea of reverse engineering, which I think is quite a lot of people. Yeah, it was certainly new to me when I heard about it.

Rachel Grosvenor: 26:59

Okay, yeah, lovely.

Emma Dhesi: 27:00

So tell us where can listeners find out more about you. And not only your coaching, but your your fiction as well.

Rachel Grosvenor: 27:09

So I am mostly active on Instagram. It’s Rachel Grosvenor author, and also my website as well, which is the same title Rachel Grosvenor author, Grover has a silent s in the middle, which might trip a few people up. But yeah, so that’s, you know, I do blog posts every Thursday.

And they’re about productivity, craft, coaching and publishing.

There’s like a wealth of information there. I offer to PDF booklets on writing as well, just if you sign up to this subscription service, and I send out newsletters and things like that. So I like to, I like to give a lot of information. I spend a lot of time kind of serving. So you know, that’s my why essentially,

I want other people to just be able to write because I think that we can all write if we’ve got that dream. We can all sit down and do it. It’s just about finding a way to do that.

Emma Dhesi: 28:06

Wonderful, Rachel, that’s fantastic. Thank you for sharing that with us. And I’ll make sure I linked all of those pieces in the show notes as well. It’s been wonderful learning more about you your writing the work that you do. And so thank you so, so much.

Rachel Grosvenor: 28:19

Thanks for having me. It’s been lovely

If this interview with Rachel Grosvenor was useful, you’ll love:

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• Healing trauma through narrative with Nadia Colburn – EMMA DHESI
• World building with Fantasy writer Stephanie BwaBwa – EMMA DHESI

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.

Interview with Emma Robinson

Emma, thank you so so much for joining me today and really, genuinely delighted to have you on the show.

Emma Robinson: 2:46

That’s lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me

Emma Dhesi: 2:48

A pleasure. A pleasure. Well wonder if you wouldn’t mind just starting off telling us about your journey to writing and what brought you to where you are?

Emma Robinson: 2:57

Absolutely. So this is a story I’ve talked quite a lot. I do go into primary schools a little bit. And I tell the students there that I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was their age. So probably a lot like the listeners to your podcast, I think that urge to become a writer that starts quite early.

And for me, I’ve got a vivid memory of being in a primary school classroom when I was around nine or 10. And there was a book by a girl called Jane Fisher, who was about the same age as me that had been published. I don’t know if people remember them.

They’re all about fruit and vegetables. And having always been an avid reader. That was the moment I think that I thought hang on a minute, maybe I could do this, maybe I could be a writer.

So I guess from that point on, I’ve been stories throughout sort of Secondary School University, I was always writing bits and pieces of stories and never really finishing anything. So I’d be inspired to do about three or four chapters.

And then it would cut, you know, life would get in the way. And then as I approached my 40th birthday, I thought well, actually, I need to put up or shut up, I need to actually write this book that I’ve been talking about writing for a long time.

Or I need to stop saying I’m going to do it. So that’s what I did the year I turned 40 I actually finished what was a very, very rough first draft of my first novel, the undercover mother. And in many ways, I think although it taken me a long time to reach that point.

I don’t think you know, by that time I had young children a job, a lot of friends you know, but you get to nearly 40 We’ve accumulated hopefully a lot of friends.

And I don’t think actually I would have had the material to finish a novel until I’ve got to that point so that’s what I tell myself anyway when I explain why it took me so long but yeah, so that that was the the first finished novel.

Emma Dhesi: 4:48

Oh, gosh, your story is very similar to mine in the it was getting towards that 40 mark and thoughts myself. Do it or move on? Yeah. Do that first draft or less? Go.

Emma Robinson: 5:00

Absolutely, absolutely.

Emma Dhesi: 5:02

But so I can absolutely relate to that comment that you made about, you know, starting lots of projects and never finishing that was something that I experienced.

And I think it did take me to get to be a bit older before I had that patience to sit down and just get on with it.

Emma Robinson: 5:21

Yeah. Yeah. And it is that getting on with it isn’t I mean, I think the best writing advice I was ever given was just get in the chair and write, you know, because that’s even now, you know, I’m about I’m currently writing my ninth book.

And even now, you know, I’ll wash up all tied to my husband said the house is never as tidy as when I’m doing a first draft.

But you know, that’s essentially it, isn’t it? It’s just sitting there and going and going until you get it done.

Emma Dhesi: 5:46

But yeah, yeah. And it sounds so simple.

Emma Robinson: 5:50

Exactly that.

Emma Dhesi: 5:52

And you mentioned your husband there. I know that you’ve got a busy family life, two kids and a dog.

And so how do you balance the family life with the writing and promotional work?

You do that going into schools? who write with other, you contribute with anthologies? And how do you fit it all in?

Emma Robinson: 6:11

I would say, boundaries and boxing off my time is vital for me. So I also teach I’m three days a week in school teaching anyone GCSE. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how much longer I can sustain that, to be honest.

But yeah, so for the last, or since I was published four years ago, yeah, I’m continuing to teach three days a week, the children are kind of two in the twin size. Yeah, and then the writing. So I kind of feel like there’s three areas of my life that I need to juggle.

And up to this point, how I’ve managed it is by really ring fencing my time. So when I’m in school, I stay at school until my schoolwork is finished, I don’t bring work home, and I get everything done.

And when I’m at school, my students have the best they have every part of me, you know, I’m focused on them. And in getting that done. Once I come home, I’m mum, and that’s my time.

And then when I have writing time, so I have Tuesdays and Fridays, I’m at home without the children. And, you know, one of the weekend days, that’s my writing time, and I have to be really focused. And I have to write in that time.

So I don’t have the luxury of sitting down and thinking, Oh, well, you know, I’ll get a bit done, I have a, I use an app called pacemaker, which I love. And I would recommend to anybody listening to this that finds it hard to keep themselves going.

Because pacemaker is free app, pacemaker dot press, and you literally plug in the amount of words you need to do, how long you’ve got to do it.

And it will tell you how many you’ve got to do each day. And if you do more or less, it will, it will kind of kick itself around.

And I find that useful. So I’ve been very, very focused. And I don’t think I realize how important that was until lockdown. So during lockdown, I had my children home, I had to teach from home via via Google Classroom. And I had booked still to write.

And I found that a very, very, very difficult time because suddenly all these boundaries and all these ring fenced parts of my life, blended. And emotionally, mentally, intellectually, in every way. I found that really, really difficult.

So I’m only just I would say getting out of that now, because school is starting to get back to normal, the kids are back at school. And my time is now I can go back to that. So So yeah, I would say for anyone with it with a busy life, keeping your writing time as precious time.

So for example, on my days off, I will frequently have friends say, Oh, you’re home, let’s meet for lunch. Let’s do this, let’s, which is lovely, don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely. But I can’t, I can’t, you know if it’s something special I will.

And I’ve also learned that if a friend wants to meet up I’ll say, well, let’s meet for breakfast. Because I can do an hour first thing because because for me I need a run at it when I’m writing.

I can’t snatch half an hour here and there because it takes me half an hour to get back in up to speed of where I want to be. So it’s far better for me to meet for breakfast.

And then from 10am I’m at my desk until three o’clock when I click the kids. And I’ve got you know, I’ve got a run at it. Whereas if I met for lunch, it would destroy the whole day.

So so it’s kind of, I guess, working out how you work and ring fencing that time but I’m also extremely fortunate to have a husband who’s hugely supportive.

So when I’m kind of stressing about deadlines, obviously now I’m published I’ve got deadlines to me. It’s not just my own writing it’s I’ve got to get it back to my editor.

So you know if I’m if I’ve got my back against the wall on a deadline and I’m getting stressed, I will just go away for a weekend so I’ll find a cheap premiere in relatively close to home far enough.

A way that I can’t pop back, but not so far that I’m wasting time on a car. And I will literally lock myself away in a premier room with a bag of stuff from Tesco and not move from Friday night to Sunday afternoon.

Get it done. So yeah, so that’s my process. That’s my process.

Emma Dhesi: 10:16

I love that. Thank you for sharing that with us, I kind of took away from that you have to have strong boundaries

Emma Robinson: 10:20

Yeah, no. Yeah. So initially, my daughter was and be quite tough with yourself and honor those boundaries.

And ring fence is a word that I use quite a lot, making sure that they that you honor those and that you give the that writing time the importance that it needs. I wonder if I could just take you back to before you. Before you were published, or when you were first started writing?

Did you always have those two days available to you? Or did you at one point did you need to fit that writing in amongst a full time job or having the kids at home full time? still at home. So I’m trying to think actually, maybe my son was still at home as well.

I’m trying to think when I was No, I think they were both still at home. He was I’m not good with maths. He was born in 2000. And yeah, I think they were both still at home, or he was maybe just going to school. So no, that was a lot more difficult.

So then it was about writing into the night. So you know, I would get them to bed or some nights my husband would take over bedtime, my children are not good sleepers have never been good sleepers. So that was always a bit of a trial.

And I would often sit there and write into kind of one two in the morning. But each time one of them would probably wake up and I’d be putting them back to bed again. So yes, I think that was more of having to write into the night, really at that stage.

But in some ways that was easier because I didn’t have that my did work deadlines were self imposed.

So I would say it was less effective. It took me longer to do so I you know, undercover mother with revisions and sending out to agents and things.

Probably I say it took me my year 43. But it was another couple of years on top of that, before I got the publishing deal for it.

So yeah, I think really, there was a lot of nighttime writing, then I’m writing around them.

So if I just happened to get lucky during the day where they were both playing, I could snatch an hour with my laptop. But it Yes, it was a lot more ad hoc then.

Emma Dhesi: 12:13

So great example there of when it’s important to you will find it you’ll find a way to make it work for you.

And so for any of our listeners that is looking for those gaps in your day, or gaps in your week where you can make that your waiting time and order it and sit down and give it to yourself as a treat and a gift

Emma Robinson: 12:31

Absolutely and I watched no TV during that time apart from with the children.

Absolutely not. So it’s quite funny I now there’s so many TV series, which I’m catching up during lockdown, particularly that I was catching up on that people watched six years ago that I have no clue about for me, it’s all new TV, because I just didn’t you know it was TV or writing.

That was the choice really. And I couldn’t give up reading. So TV man. Oh,

Emma Dhesi: 12:57

I bet you’re glad that you made the choice to write it’s because it just rang my goodness.

And so you mentioned there the querying. Couple of years there.

What advice do you have for any new writers who are starting out, they’re looking now to find an agent or a publisher, they want to go that traditional routes?

Emma Robinson: 13:16

Okay, so I’d say there’s a couple of things to think about. One is in terms of the traditional route, if you want to go to the big publishers, the big name publishers, you’re going to need an agent, which I’m sure they know.

But there, there is a second route. So I’m with a digital first publisher, Butcher, who are part of Hachette Tisha obviously a big publisher, and put your digital imprint of Hachette.

And a lot of these digital first publishers will take direct submissions without an agent, which is what I did. I did submit to agents at the same time, but I also sent sent the whole manuscript to butcher as well.

So as some of the smaller imprints as well, so smaller publishers will take directly rather than through an agent. But But either way, I think, really, it’s, it’s in many ways, it’s a numbers game.

So first of all, you need to really be clear on who you’re submitting to just sending out as a blanket send out is pretty fruitless, because particularly if you’re going on to agents, websites, they agents and publishers are very specific about what they’re looking for.

So if you’ve written a sci fi romance, there is absolutely no point submitting to an agent that only represents horror or literary fiction. So you need to be really clear, and there’s lots of resources out there for that.

I used a website part of Jericho writers, which was called agent Hunter, I’m not sure if it’s still called that.

And that’s an online database of agents which is similar in I guess, to what probably most people use it to the writers and artists yearbook, which is very useful, and it’s very expensive, so just get it out but use it at the library Don’t buy a copy.

I shouldn’t say that. But you know, they are is quite expensive that that the agent that that’s useful, but I found agent Hunter was good because it was updated during the year. And the thing is in this industries, agents move around quite a lot.

And people in publishing move around quite a lot. So yeah, so do your research, find an agent that you think or a publisher that you think wants to publish the kind of books that you’re publishing.

Another route is follow agents on Twitter, because a lot of agents and I’ve seen two or three this week, which I’ve tagged unpublished trends in where agents are opening up because I, some agents will only have a few months in a year where they’re accepting submissions, and then they’ll close their books.

So if you’re on there, if you’re following them on Twitter, you’ll be the first to hear about that. So yeah, so keep an eye on what’s going on. And then I would say, don’t focus all your desire on one agent.

Because I think that’s the root of disappointment. If you you know, there, there are so many people out there, and there’s so much luck involved. In the whole thing, I’m probably being a bit random now.

But I know that when I had undercover mother published, my wonderful editor, still, my editor now had just got back from maternity leave. And my book was about a woman on maternity leave.

So you know, the stars aligned for me perfectly. And it’s sometimes that little bit of luck, that actually makes a difference between you know that there’s so many great books out there that don’t get published, because there’s so much luck. So don’t be despondent if you’re sending out and not getting response, because you only need one response.

So kind of keep going. So yeah, I guess in summary, it’s do your research on the agents, keep an eye on the agents on social media, particularly Twitter, I think is quite useful.

And then start sending out, I sent out a batch of six, I think, the first time and kind of every time you get a rejection, and expect the rejections because then they hopefully won’t hurt quite so much.

Or that they will, you know, when you get a rejection, then send another one out, you know, keep it going, keep going.

And listen to feedback. Because if you’re really, really fortunate, the first aid when the first agents that rejected me very, very generously, gave me three pages worth of feedback as to why or why undercover mother wasn’t ready for publication.

And she was spot on in every single respec and it was immensely useful. So although it was a rejection, she did me a huge, huge favor.

So if you get anything other than a standard response, take that as a real positive, because it means that they think you’ve got something, yeah, they’ve taken that time to actually read the whole thing.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Emma Dhesi: 17:43

Wonderful kind of feedback there and an insight there into the business of publishing.

Because I think as you know, when we’re new, we’re excited. And all we see just the published authors out there, and the best sellers, and we think that that’s what it’s all about, and wouldn’t it be marvelous, but actually, the harsh reality of publishing is that it is hard is tough.

As you mentioned, it’s a numbers game, there’s an element of luck. The industry is shrinking in many, many ways. So bearing all of that in mind, just to kind of manage, not necessarily expectation, but that level of taking it personally and feeling that it’s not good enough.

But I love to your advice there about, you know, going looking at the smaller and smaller imprints like butcher, that going that digital first route, which I would imagine not many people are aware of. And so that’s something really good to look forward because you are great.

They aren’t factoring in a lot of my favorite writers with them. And then they information as well to the advice about going to agent hunters through Jericho writers and the yearbook, of course, such great tips. So thank you for that, Emma, that’s really helpful for my listeners.

Thank you. Fantastic. So you mentioned your, your first book there, which as I mentioned in your bio is, is a much more humorous look at family life.

And then you’ve made the transitions into the kind of what we call women’s fiction, I guess, which are the more kind of heartfelt emotional stories.

So what made you make that switch from one to the other?

Emma Robinson: 19:18

I guess? Well, I really, I can credit my editor at Butcher. And that’s one thing if you get an editor that you work really well with.

So, you know, as I say, we’re currently working on our ninth book together. And she’s been amazing it not just managing each book, but kind of helping me shape my career quite a lot.

So you know, which is fantastic if you get to work with someone that kind of gets your writing and gets what you’re trying to do.

So yeah, as I say we the first three books were all more humorous. Sales of the first two are okay, the sales of the third one pretty poor.

So I’d signed a three book deal and I thought, right that’s me down that’s me. You know, I can remember to Two or three days of schlepping around the house like Sylvia Plath kind of dressed. In black. It’s all over, it’s over.

And this is part of publishing, I think, is a bit of a roller coaster remote writers, by definition, I guess a quite empathetic, which means we really feel every part of it, don’t we? So yeah, so I, you know, and then we had a long phone meeting to talk about it.

And she was so so lovely, and so complimentary about my writing. And she said to me, I just feel like you’ve got a best seller in you. And we need to think about, you know, what we need to do next.

And her books are fantastic at looking at reviews, looking at what sells, they’re very commercially focused.

And what she said to me was looking at my reviews, the part of my novels, even though they were humorous, the part of my novels that readers had responded to in reviews were the more emotional storylines, were the moments where maybe she had made them shed a tear.

And she said, I think that’s where we should go next, I think we should, you know, look for bigger issues, look for the emotional side of things and kind of move away, not, you know, not move away from the humor completely, because I hope that there are lighter moments in in my book, still, because no one wants to read something that’s depressing all the way through, you know, they are emotional, but I hope this did a light element to.

And she said, that’s the way to go. So that’s when I wrote my son and daughter, which was about a mother struggling with a daughter, who she thought might be autistic. And then I kind of went into, and that book did a lot better.

And we’ve moved on and on and on in that vein. And I think with each one, I’m getting a little bit braver in terms of the subject matter, you know, that I’m covering, which is really scary every time because when you’re writing about things that people have happened to them in their real life.

And there’s a lot of a responsibility with that. And, and it’s scary. And I live in fear of someone saying, No, you got that wrong.

But yeah, I’m loving it, I’m really enjoying kind of really digging deeper into myself and into the stories.

Interview with Emma Robinson

Emma Dhesi: 22:08

And did you find that in terms of your own writing style, and the way that you approach a manuscript?

Do you find that shift quite easy? Or was there a sort of transition period?

Emma Robinson: 22:19

I don’t know, I think relatively easy, because I think in all three of the previous books, there had always been a thread in it.

That was quite emotional. And I like emotion. You know, I like nothing better than a real movie that I can cry to.

So you know, so, again, there’s that whole thing about reading in the genre that you want to write, you know, I’ve always read books that make me cry.

So in terms of this writing, I don’t think it was a huge shift. In terms of trusting myself maybe in terms of making I fell out.

I think it makes your list for me, I think it may be a little bit more vulnerable, because obviously by then I had, I haven’t got big platform, I’m no Jodi pickle, but I had followers, I had readers, and I was scared that they would say, Hang on a minute, we buy your books to make us laugh.

What are you doing here? And secondly, I think it’s that, again, that whole thing of getting it wrong. And I think I grew up very much in a home when when things were tough, we’d laugh about it, you know, you can’t do that with my own children.

You know, let’s try and cheer ourselves up. Let’s laugh. And I think you can hide behind laughter. I’m getting a bit deep here.

But I think you can hide behind laughter quite a lot. And when you kind of peel that back, and you have the bear emotion, you kind of are making yourself quite vulnerable. So I think the very long answers your question is, I don’t think the writing was more difficult.

But I think the emotional connection and the vulnerability was more difficult.

And I think I still find that difficult. Every time that I write because I think right, this is the one where people are going to start pointing the finger and saying how dare you? But But yeah, no, it’s I think it’s harder.

But I guess if it didn’t make me feel like that the writing wouldn’t be good.

Emma Dhesi: 24:04

Yeah, a lot to be said of that, that that I think women for race people who write women’s fiction, those darker kind of more realistic stories, almost as writers we are having to kind of dig into a side of ourselves, that maybe isn’t the nicest part of ourselves that we can pull out these characters in these stories.

And I think vulnerable is absolutely the right word. I certainly always worried that people will think my character’s or me and have I done that. And do I say that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, kind of have that little bit of distance can be tricky.

But you’ve mentioned too as well that your subject matter.

And that’s getting you’re getting more and more brave for that, I think was the word that you use. Yeah.

So where do you get your story ideas from? And bearing in mind that as writers we come up with a million ideas a day, how do you determine

Okay, which is the one that is going to stick and actually Will you can develop into a full storyline? And do you have a process for that?

Emma Robinson: 25:05

Yeah, I think process is probably giving it a bigger day than it actually is. It feels a bit more random than that.

But I think what I’ve learned is, I think there’s two things. By nature, I have things I want to write about, rather than plots that come to me. So I think I want to write about emotional abuse, or I want to write about what it would be like, for x to happen to you.

And I kind of pitch these ideas to my editor. And she says, Yeah, it’s really great. But here’s the actual plot about like, we need a plot. So I think what I’ve learned is that I, I,

I love the what if I think God pick up particulars excellent at this, what would you do if, and I’m very fortunate, again, to be 47 and have lots of friends who have had lived many lives, and be able to steal bits and pieces from them.

I listened to people all the time. I’m very nosy I love to learn about people’s lives. And for me, I often have an idea, which isn’t enough for a story. And I’ll write that up, and I’ll store it on my computer and put it in the back of my head. And then sometimes another idea will come to me.

And then I think, right, if I put those two together, that’s a plot. So to save my child, the one that’s just out, my brains gone on my main character’s name.

That’s terrible. The mother? Gosh, it’s because it’s because I’ve been writing today the new one. So that one’s gone from my brain. So the mother in that happy? No. Libby’s the daughter? Oh, my gosh, it’s really embarrassing.

Emma Dhesi: 26:41

Gonna look it up. You carry on?

Emma Robinson: 26:42

Yeah. Okay. It’s really embarrassing. But yes, so the mother that obviously has everyone’s nightmare, her daughter is dangerously ill.

And that’s a nightmare. But there’s not a plot there. That’s something we can relate to. It’s an idea, but it’s not a plot. But then I had the idea of, and I was actually guided to this for this one by another writer, friend, we were talking about this.

You’ve got this idea that if What if you had to go to the person that you least wanted to go to for help.

And that had come from a conversation, a lunch with a friend, who had just escaped from quite an emotionally abusive relationship.

So that was an idea that had been at the back of my head for maybe two, three years?

And then I suddenly thought, right, if I put those two together, now we’ve got a dilemma. Now we’ve got a plot.

So I think, yeah, I think it’s kind of picking up bits and pieces all the time and just letting my brain chew on them and then to bang together.

And I have the plot. And that’s kind of my process not

Emma Dhesi: 27:44

it’s a good process there. And I think it’s certainly one that Stephen King always, I think talks about, isn’t it? It’s that what if you’re being hurt, then that’s how you take something ordinary and kind of make it extraordinary.

Yeah. And Anna? Anna, thank you.

Emma Robinson: 28:01

Because I’m writing about Julia at the moment. So all I can think of is Julia.

Emma Dhesi: 28:06

Julia for a moment, because we can’t come back to her.

But that’s yeah, so that idea of what if is really an as I think it’s kind of sparks the brain then to think in slightly different ways. Outside the Box, yeah.

Emma Robinson: 28:21

And also pushes, pushes you because another thing that my editor says to me frequently is right, you need to up the stakes, up the stakes, you know, because I’ll say, Oh, this could happen. She’ll say, Yeah, but she can easily get out of that you need to up the stakes.

Why can’t she? And sometimes I feel like I’m literally throwing all these horrible things at my characters.

But that’s, you know, there’s no point giving a character a dilemma where the reader can think, well, she just needs to do this.

You know, we’ve all watched those awful TV shows where all films and the characters running all over the place. You think that’s ridiculous.

Just go there until the person that and it’ll be fine. You don’t know there can’t be an easy out for the characters. Otherwise, there’s no dilemma.

Emma Dhesi: 29:02

That’s it? Yes, it and so that’s where that kind of why people say you’ve got to be so mean to your characters, so that your reader can feel that tension and that sticks through. So your most recent book to save my child, it was published last month, but congratulations.

Thank you. Um, so what can you tell us about that? You’ve sort of hinted at it, but what what more can you tell us?

Emma Robinson: 29:25

Yeah, so basically, it is from one point of view. So the like, the previous couple of books had actually been a split narrative between two characters, which I’ve done a few times, and I’m doing again at the moment. So it was first one sort of stayed with one character.

And I and I needed to do that because I needed to read to really feel the dilemma that she was going through.

So Anna was a single mother to live as a six year old girl and chapter one dB collapses. They go to hospital, and Libby has a kidney disease and Anna is not a donor, she cannot be a donor, she’s not match for kidney transplant that her daughter needs.

Nor is anybody else. So, because of her love for her daughter, she would do anything for for a daughter, like every mother would, she has to then go to her ex partner who she’s recently, only months previously managed to get away from, who was as we begin to find out, not a very pleasant man and, and that kind of unfolds as the novel goes on.

So I think what I really wanted to explore is this whole thing that a mother will do anything for her daughter with her child, in terms of sacrificing herself, and, and just To what lengths a mother will go to make sure that her daughter is safe and well.

And obviously, there are other twists and turns along the way. There’s other characters that come in. Hopefully, there’s a couple of other characters who are nice characters to kind of give a bit of balance. So it’s not, it’s not tense all the way through.

But I think what I enjoyed most in this book is the gradual unfolding of Ryan’s character, the Father’s character, because having spoken to quite a few people about that kind of partner, that sort of narcissistic, emotionally abusive partner, it opened my eyes really, to how common it is.

And possibly I’m being very naive here. But I hadn’t realized how many women have been in a relationship with someone like that.

And I’ve had quite a lot of feedback from people, which has been quite humbling, to be honest. Because again, as I said, previously, as soon as you start to realize how many people have experienced this, that responsibility to convey it, in a, in the right way, becomes even more important.

So I’ve never had an all out baddie before, I think so I really did enjoy that aspect of it. But also it to keep that tension going the whole way through for for Anna. And that was quite a challenge as well. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed writing.

And I’ve been really, really blown away by the reviews, which has been fantastic.

Emma Dhesi: 32:09

Right, right. Quite right. And so in terms of research for a new subject, like the kidney disease, how did you go about that was, again, this was some such an experience that you knew through somebody else, were you able to talk to them was online? Did you speak to any medical staff? What did you do?

Emma Robinson: 32:28

Again, what so always, for me, the first stage stage is to go to YouTube, because I think there’s a million, it’s amazing what people will put on YouTube. That’s very personal. And it’s a really good first stage, because when I, I did speak to people that have had kidney transplants, I’ll speak about that in a second.

But I think you can’t keep going back to people and asking them questions, you can a couple of times, but I can’t be, you know, saying someone can have an hour of your time because I have another hour of your time.

So I like to think that by the time I’ve speaking to somebody that’s experienced it, I know which questions I need to ask. So I’m not using too much of their time. So I start off with YouTube and get some general information, work out what might work with my plot, what I can use.

So for example, I can’t explain too much detail, a little giveaway stuff in the in the book, but there are a couple of things that happen. And in the latest stage of testing for whether or not Ryan is a donor, which I got completely from a YouTube video on someone’s experience, and I thought that would be a great plot twist.

So sometimes the research feeds the plot, which is also interesting. Yeah, so when I’ve got that I then normally, I’ve I usually no pizza, a lot of the things I’ve written about I do know people that have been through similar things.

But weirdly, I don’t know anybody that’s had a kidney transplant. So I literally put on my Facebook, any of my friends knows anyone that’s had a kidney transplant that would happily spend an hour answering some questions on the telephone.

And I was very fortunate that two of my friends knew people who were willing to do that.

So I had long telephone conversations with two people that had had slightly different experiences. One of whom was given was donated a kidney by her father and the other one by a stranger.

So it was really interesting to hear the two different stories and work out how what you know what I want you to do.

And that is immensely helpful, because I close my questions, and they answer them. And it is amazing how honest and how open people are willing to be and generous with their information.

And then also, as they’re talking, sometimes they will say things which again, like I say, will feed into the plot and I think I have to use that in the book because it’s such a great, a great thing.

And you know, and 95% of what you’re told will not make it into the book and I think you need to be careful to not you know, this is not a book about how to do kidney transplant, you know, no one’s gonna read this and they know everything about kidney transplants.

All I’m looking for those three or four really specific details. that if someone reads it that has had a good chance that they’ll say, Yes, she’s done our research, yes, she knows what she’s talking about so…

Emma Dhesi: 35:09

A good a good thing to mention there is that that 95% doesn’t make it in.

Because sometimes I think, if we’ve done a lot of research, we really want to demonstrate that we’ve done that. And then we can end up just kind of info dumping, look, what I’ve done

Emma Robinson: 35:24

Exactly that my editor has got a really good way of talking about she says about, you know, getting that plot first, as like the skeleton of the story, and then you can lay on the things that you want to talk about.

But the plot drives what you put in it, not the other way around.

So you’re not kind of writing about a kidney research you’re writing, I’m writing about a mother who has to make a big decision, you know, and that’s what I’m writing about. And the everything else is incidental.

Emma Dhesi: 35:53

So it sounds like your editor is very involved in the process, she doesn’t just come in at the end and look at your first draft or even your second draft. you’re discussing this with her as you go along.

Emma Robinson: 36:03

Yeah, I would say that’s happened more with later books. So you know, the first three, I kind of delivered as it was, obviously, the first one I did, because that’s what I submitted. But the next two, even I, I kind of submitted a first draft and then we talked about it.

And then I think there’s a couple of books where the structure legit was quite big. And you don’t have to check it out once I’d written it from three perspectives. And she said, Actually, I think you want it from one perspective that was happening ever after.

So it was a huge structural edit. So very quickly, we kind of realized that actually, it would be better to have a, you know, I now submit quite a detailed synopsis. Before now almost a chapter by chapter synopsis, I am a planner, not not a pantser.

And she will have input there. So that really helps a great deal. And then for this particular book that I’m writing at the moment, I’ve written it, I’ve written a first draft, but I know. I know it’s not right, you know, it’s fine.

But I know it’s missing something. So I sent it to her and said, I need your magic wand on this one. I know, I know, I’m missing something. I don’t know what it is. And we had a lovely lunch last week, we spoke for about two and a half hours about lots of other things.

But We then talked about the book. And she’s very talented at beyond tech, that sort of helicopter view.

I think when you’re a writer, you’re so close to the plot that it’s sometimes difficult to see what it what it’s missing. And, and that’s the other advice I’d give people about.

I know it’s hard when it’s your book, baby, but not being too precious about it, because you are too close to it to realize. And I think there’s that famous quote, isn’t it? If someone tells you there’s something wrong with your book, they’re probably right.

If they tell you how to fix it, they’re probably wrong. Which you know, which I think is great. But I think with with my editor, she’s she’s great at saying, you know, this is what, what it is.

And I left that meeting, after feeling quite Oh goodness, I’ve lost my way with this. I left that meeting, excited to get back to it.

And you know, and start. And I knew she’d kind of just hit that nail on the head of what I was really trying to do with the book. So yes, she’s very involved, very involved

Emma Dhesi: 38:11

Shows how important that having a relationship is absolutely so openly and constructively.

Emma Robinson: 38:19

And I would say sorry to it. But just because obviously your listeners are possibly not at the stage of having an editor for the first book, so I had beat it. I had friends, writer friends who were BETA readers, so I did the Jericho writers self edit calls, which is absolutely fantastic.

That’d be ALPA teaches that course and it’s not cheap, but it was the best thing I’ve ever done for my writing.

And from that there were a group of five of us who were trying to get published. And we used to, you know, we lived all around the country, we would meet up once a year for a weekend.

And we would send each other things and be to read for one another. And if you can get that it’s it’s so vital, is, you know, there’s things like whole characters where I thought, you know, this character is well rounded and great.

And they’d say, Well, that character is not very likable.

And I think what you mean she’s not likable, she’s lovely. But clearly it hadn’t come across on the page, because you’re too close.

You know, those characters like your best friends. So, yeah, it’s really vital to get somebody else’s eyes on it, I would say.

Emma Dhesi: 39:21

So how long for you? No, no, because your ninth book? My goodness, yeah. How long does it take you from initial idea to? Let’s say, final draft?

Emma Robinson: 39:34

About five or six months? Okay. Yeah. So two books a year, two books a year. I’m publishing them when I’m not pushing because you’re publishing of mine.

Yeah, two books a year. So yeah. First Draft. I would say that probably a bit. It really fair is actually I would say, Yeah, first off about four months, and then two months of edits. Yeah.

Emma Dhesi: 39:53

Okay. Yeah. That’s a nice ballpark for Yeah. And for me, too. And so you’ve mentioned Julia, I think I remember rightly.

So tell us about that, if you can, what you’re working on at the moment.

Emma Robinson: 40:05

Yeah, it’s still in quite a quite an early stage. But this is another sort of jewel narrative.

So two mothers again. So these are two mothers that have been friends in the past.

They met when the children were young, and probably sort of drifted apart, they’re both very, quite different. And then a big thing happens, which I can’t talk about, but it’s a big thing happens.

And they’re kind of thrown back together. And it’s, again, it’s a kind of what it for one of the mothers, it’s kind of, you know, how far what would you go?

How far would you go for your daughter. And for the other one, it’s, her journey is a bit more internal, and it’s a bit more realizing, and taking stock of life a little bit, and I’m being really vague there. But it really is in embryonic phase.

And I think, should anyone from should my editor catch this, I’ll be in big trouble.

So yeah, I’m being very vague, but it’s to mothers get all my books are about mothers. And all my books are about female friendship.

Because female friendship, it’s and it’s really important to me, and has, you know, been big in my own life. So it’s something I really enjoy writing about.

Emma Dhesi: 41:13

Oh, lovely. Well, I’m excited for that one. That’ll be next year now, I guess.

Emma Robinson: 41:17

Yes. I think March or April, April, I think next year. Lovely.

Emma Dhesi: 41:23

Lovely. Oh, well, just to round off, I’m just working listeners find out a little bit more about you and your books online.

Emma Robinson: 41:29

Right. So I’ve got a blog called motherhood for slackers. So if they want anything that’s a bit more fun.

You can visit me and motherhoodforslackers.com. But I’ve also got a relatively recent website called emmarobinsonwrites.com.

So which does need to be updated? But yes, you’ll be able to find me on Facebook on Twitter.

So on Twitter I’m at at Emma Robinson UK.

Emma Dhesi: 41:53

Okay, that is great. Well, I’ll link to those in the show notes.

Emma, it’s been a joy speaking with you shared so generously about your own experience and your own thoughts and your own processes in your writing life.

I really appreciate the time you’ve taken today.

Emma Robinson: 42:08

You’re very welcome. Thanks for having me.

If this interview with Emma Robinson was useful, you’ll love:

• Navigating and co-writing with Autumn J Birt & Jesper Schmidt – EMMA DHESI
• Healing trauma through narrative with Nadia Colburn – EMMA DHESI
• World building with Fantasy writer Stephanie BwaBwa – EMMA DHESI

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.

Interview with Grace Sammon

Grace Sammon is an entrepreneur, educator, speaker and author. She has started and managed to for profit and to not for profit companies.

And she has travelled to 35 states in America and to eight countries overseas. recognized in who’s who in education and who’s who in literature.

Grace is utilising skills built up over the decades as she reinvents herself with her award winning fourth book and debut novel The Eves as well as weather returned to one of our early loves radio.

The Eves is an intergenerational story about lives lived well and lives in transition. It is a novel that challenges us to ask who we want to be in the world regardless of our age.

Grace brings that quest for a good story, and a drive to keep contributing to her new radio show the storytellers each episode captures the stories of authors and others who leave their mark on the world through the art of story.

Grace is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association is director of membership for one of the fastest growing Facebook groups because roadtrip and a contributing moderator of the rate review.

She is currently working on several anthologies and sketching out her new novel. So let’s have a chat with grace and find out more about the Eves her debut novel, the storytellers her radio show and what she is working on next.

Well, Grace, thank you so so much for joining me here today. I’m thrilled to be speaking to you.

Grace Sammon: 3:26

Emma I am thrilled to be with you. I love popping over across the pond to Scotland today.

Emma Dhesi: 3:32

And I always kind of start my interviews by asking my guests What was your journey to fiction?

Grace Sammon: 3:39

Well, it was actually a long journey, even though I always wrote and always enjoyed writing. My first three books are all in the area of education. So switching to being a fiction writer was quite honestly a surprise.

I had been travelling 200 days a year on my educational consulting job, and that was getting exhausting. And my mom had died. My father was ill my children were grown. And I thought, Who am I in this story of life anymore.

And as I began to wrestle with that, I began to fantasise about what a really perplexed character and a complex character who was facing those same issues might feel like look like and wrestle with which issues.

So I created the Eves. And all of a sudden I was a novelist.

Emma Dhesi: 4:35

That’s nice. I love that they just this inspiration came and, and then it sort of came from your own chapter of life and the thoughts that you’re having about, okay, where I’m at a crossroads here.

You know, how does this impact me and where am I going to go from here? That’s quite often how story ideas come to me as well.

Grace Sammon: 4:53

Well, I was going to say as an author, you know, we tend to write the book we want to read And there was just no other book out there.

And that is a whole other thing. You have such a wonderful world into the whole world of publishing and writing, you know that that whole journey is made more difficult to get published, especially if you don’t have another book that you can say to a potential agent.

My book is like that book. So in creating and writing the book that I wanted to read, it was then also a publishing challenge, if you will, but yes, very much from my own experience.

And I think readers feel that, you know, they feel when an author is really connected to their story.

Emma Dhesi: 5:39

Mm hmm. Well, you’ve mentioned the eaves as your debut novel.

And it is a beautiful story. As I said, before we started recording, I recently read it.

And it’s all about Jessica, who is telling the stories of the women that she comes into contact with on a sustainable farm. But I wonder if you could give us a little more detail into that and what the story’s about.

Grace Sammon: 6:05

Thank you. So Jessica, is basically a hot mess. She’s in her late 50s.

She’s lost her connection to her children. She’s basically given up on her career, her looks, she hasn’t given up on her vodka, and she has not given up on her lies that help her get through every day.

And she has a very, very bossy friend named Sonia. And I hope everybody listening has a very, very bossy friend. Because Sonia says to her, you will stop hiding, you are hiding from the world, you are not making your mark on the world.

And I have this group of women that I want you to meet, I want you to catalogue their stories.

And Jessica wants none of it, but realises she is lost enough. And she doesn’t want to disappoint Sonia.

So she starts writing the oral histories of these women and the youngest character is 15 and the oldest one is 94.

And she starts writing the characters of these older women. And as she does everybody’s story changes.

Emma Dhesi: 7:12

Yeah, it’s a particularly Jessica’s, it felt like as well.

And it’s one of the things I really enjoyed about your writing was how, after each kind of, after certain kind of deep conversation she has with other people about their lives, she would have a realization about her own life and you did it very subtly.

About You know, for example, you mentioned the vodka.

No, remember, just as an example, after a conversation she’d had with somebody, she decided not to finish that mug of vodka that was beside her import it down the sink and I thought it just little things like that gave us a clue into how her slowly but surely she was evolving and changing and coming out of this key that she’d been hiding in by on her own.

I’m intrigued to about the love interest in her story, whose name for the moment has just popped out of my head.

Grace Sammon: 8:10

Which character?

Emma Dhesi: 8:11

A man in her life? Oh, Regulus Oh Yes. What was the inspiration behind Roy and and why was it important to give her you know, that kind of companionship.

Grace Sammon: 8:26

Writing is an interesting character. One of the things that readers and reviewers say about the book in general, is that if you love a character driven novel or if you love a place driven novel, you will love the Eves because the characters are so well developed and and I love that as an author. Truth be told, however, Roy Gillis is word for word, my husband.

He there is no there is no wonderful creativity about how I cast Roy. And it was important for me to have Jessica, meet Roy fall in love with Roy. Because her transformation as you alluded to, is very complete. You know, she’s such a hot mess.

As I mentioned, she’s broken in so many ways. And I wanted her to heal in as many ways as possible. And that, for me was very realistic. I’m married to my Roy Gillis only nine years. So it’s relatively new for me.

And I wanted to also address the idea of love at a later age and intimacy at a later age.

Our bodies that was something that was very important for me to write about, you know, my body at 68 Unfortunately, or fortunately, is not the same body I had when I I was younger, a young mom, even 10 years ago, it’s amazing how there seems to be this little meter, after which you pass.

It’s like the point of no return, you realize you’re never going to have that flat stomach again. And coming to terms with that, and also been able to talk about that, candidly, was important to me. So there is a love scene between Jessica and Roy.

And I think it probably should have happened about five chapters before it did. But I couldn’t figure out how to write about it. I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don’t. I don’t want any touching.

Emma Dhesi: 10:38

It’s so tricky. It is a tricky sort of scene to navigate doing a love scene and how, how subtle you want to be and how not, and what will readers like and what will they not? It’s, it is a fine balance, I think. But I think you did it very well.

I also wondered, I was sort of thinking about the now that I know that Roy is your husband, I need to think about what I say. But one of the things I wondered about the two of them is because he’s very steady, stable.

And she’s not. And I wondered if you know, he had she adds a bit of excitement to his life that he can, he doesn’t have, you know, he’s not that type of character. So she gives him that kind of mood, a bit of a kick, a bit of excitement.

Grace Sammon: 11:24

It’s true in reality, and in the book, in my reality, and in the book.

Emma Dhesi: 11:30

It Well, I wonder about this reality then. And so Jessica is, she’s far from perfect, as we’ve alluded to, and could come across, as you know, some people might not like her. And, and I wonder how you did you?

Were you worried about that, that people might not like her drinking that people might not like that sort of slightly more prickly or slightly more outspoken side of a character?

Is that something you worried about when you wrote about her?

Grace Sammon: 12:01

I’m so glad you asked that question. Because in your own writing, your own characters aren’t always you know, the person you want to embrace right away. And I think that that’s a risky thing sometimes to do for an author.

But I also think it’s a very real thing. In truth, I don’t think I worried about it at any point, because even though Jessica is probably not is not my favorite character, she is very human, Lee flawed.

And I thought readers would be able to see, she’s flawed.

She’s not a bad person by any means. But I use a beta group of readers always to test the waters to help me with where plot should go, just to give me a feedback on the overall process, if you will, I also use beta readers in a very selfish way, in that if a beta reader, if I’m not done my piece, a beta reader will say, give me the next chapter.

And that’s very motivating. To me. It’s very, it’s egotistical. And it’s like, oh, they want the next chapter. So that is a piece that I considered critical to any writer to have a beta group. But in my beta group, I had at least three people who said, she is so unlikable, you will never get published.

One person said, She’s a liar. I won’t even finish this book, she is a liar. Oh. And so that gave me pause to really rethink her, I don’t think I changed her eye may have changed some of the language around her.

There’s a wonderful expression that the wonderful author Lainey Cameron uses, I think it’s called pet the cat, you know, so if you have a bad character who’s doing bad things, someplace along the line, he has to pick up a cat and pet the cat and feed the cat and then all of a sudden he becomes likeable.

So I love that lane. You taught me that piece. So I don’t think I did change her considerably.

But putting her out there in the world as flawed. Once I knew that people would think she was very flawed was a cause for concern.

Emma Dhesi: 14:12

Mm hmm. Certainly, I the the women that I write about are often start out very imperfect. And I have to admit, it is something that I do worry about whether people will like her and want to carry on, but for some reason, she still, you know, I keep writing she comes out the way she comes out.

And that’s, that’s the way it goes.

Interview with Grace Sammon

Grace Sammon: 14:32

Well as in, you know, to and people who are not writers will not necessarily resonate with this, but the characters take on a life of their own. And just like I couldn’t ask you to behave differently.

After we finished today. You know, you are a real entity and our characters are real entities. And when they act out of character readers also pick that up. They’ll say, oh, you know, Jessica would have never done that.

Roy would have never done that. You know, you mentioned Rye is very, very steady.

I can’t imagine a point where Roy would have yelled at Jessica for anything, because the readers would have said Ryan would have never done that.

Emma Dhesi: 15:13

Yeah. Now, you mentioned just before, we’re about talking about the road to publication.

And I wonder if would you be happy to share a little bit about that journey with us and how you went from having your finished manuscript to finding finding your publisher.

Grace Sammon: 15:29

That’s a wonderful journey. And I love to be asked that question. So my very, very first book in education was self published, made me quite honestly, a good bit of money. But I really struggled with that self publishing concept, particularly in the area of education.

Because I wanted to be vetted, I wanted to have that juried process, if you will. So my second book was published by Corwin press, as was my third book.

And those are incredibly, I thought would be very difficult road to publication, because as I said, they have superintendents and Dean’s of universities, and so many people who vet it and check the data and do a myriad of things to make sure that the volume is valid, if you will.

I sent out 16 letters to various publishing houses for my first book in education. And I think I had 14 responses or it was a ridiculous response rate, and very gratifying as well. In the world of being a novelist, it’s a very, very different route.

First of all, you don’t as many of your listeners will know, your, don’t ever send it directly to a publishing house, you send it to an agent, you have a 1% chance of getting an agent, you don’t even have a very good chance of hearing back from an agent whether they want it or not.

So there are some other routes, you can go without an agent.

And you can just Google those, you know, publishing houses that submit without an agent, and I could have gone that way. My brother Rick salmon has written 46 books, mostly in the area of photography.

The first I think 39 of them were traditionally published, which is now the word I use his 40th, one was independently published. And as I was searching around for agents, he said, This is ridiculous, you’re wasting too much time become an independent published person.

And I didn’t understand the subtle switch that has happened, in my mind anyway, between traditional publishing and indie publishing, I now even separate out self publishing as differently.

Because the indie world, even though we are technically self published, if you will, we tend to have book creators, as you know, I listened to a fabulous podcast on your show, about how do we do this and get such a professional product together.

And that was a very brilliant show on your part, by the way. And I think that I work very closely with a company called Writing knights, and a man named Chad Robertson, who is a brilliant editor and a absolutely fabulous book developer.

So I started working with him and he did all of the things that authors need to do if they’re going to go that self publishing route, which I now call indie route, you know, nobody says to Robert Redford’s Independent Film Festival, Oh, those are just indie films.

Those are real valid films. So making that mental switch was important. But then there was also a trick, because and this was the trick.

The traditional self published, or indie author gets their ISBN number, and it goes up on their Kindle version in their Amazon, and they’re usually Barnes and Noble. And there may be different vehicles, to the listeners that are listening to your show as well.

But those then cannot be carried in bookstores because bookstores can’t afford to get them at those rates, and they’re not returnable, and etc. So I worked closely with Chad Robertson, and we re issued the eaves under upstream press. And I had a different ISBN.

And now it can be in bookstores, bookstores may or may not carry it, but they can carry it they can carry it for a profit. People can go to independent bookstores, which I think are so important in our culture and say could you order me a copy of the eaves under this ISBN.

So the learning curve and the journey to that type of publishing was also immense.

Emma Dhesi: 19:56

It shows just how vast the publishing world World is even for us, you know, humble indies, but also how it’s evolving, you know, and listen a lot to Joanna pen and Jay Thorne who were in the indie space back and when it first started and listening to what the experiences they had 10 years ago, compared to how it is now, and that even on Amazon, you can publish a hardback, for example. It’s just evolving and changing all the time.

And it’s one of the exciting things about it. And, and even that move kind of, towards the more hybrid model, where you get the boost the best of both worlds, an author can retain a lot of their independence, but they still get the benefits say, of having a publishing house, advise them, guide them, help them with the technical side.

So it’s just wonderful how it’s evolving. Very exciting.

Grace Sammon: 20:47

Very exciting, and also very quickly evolving. I would tell you, almost nobody asks me who has who’s published my book. It never happens. And I do. I think I’ve done 56 interviews, perhaps on the book.

I’ve done various guest appearances, if you will, at retirement communities and libraries. And nobody ever says, Well, you know, are you published by Random House, they just don’t care anymore. What they want is accessibility to good stories.

Emma Dhesi: 21:18

Good stories, so keen. Now talking of stories, you have your radio show called the storytellers. So I would love for you to tell tell us about it.

Grace Sammon: 21:29

This is a real gift to me to have this radio show, as you know, because you were kind enough to read the eaves. It’s a story about never been done, regardless of your age. So the old lady’s transform, and many things happen to them, Jessica transforms, and many things happen to them.

And I think if I’m really honest with myself, deep down, I thought that in writing the book, I was done, I had finished the book that I got it out in the world. And I thought I was done.

And the surprise to me at 68 is that I’m not done. And that has mentioned or emerged in so many different ways. Certainly the way my social media has taken off the opportunity to speak with you in Scotland today.

But also with the radio show, I was had the great gift of being interviewed by a woman named Dr. Gail Carson. And she wanted to talk to me on her show, spunky old broad.

And the reason for that was because she loved the idea that I was writing about older women and she was 83 at the time. So she interviewed me on her show, we talked partly about entrepreneurism, and publishing, and we talked a lot about the story.

And she called me about two weeks later, and she said, I loved our episode, I want to give you your own radio show, whatever you want to talk about, I want you to have your own radio show.

And I said, Oh, I can’t do that I’m done.

And she just laughed at me and said, No, you’re not done. Remember, you just wrote that book.

So she and I spoke and she offered me a radio show on her station. And I did it. I think I’m into Episode 13.

Now, and I think 13 launched yesterday.

And it was just such a gift of her seeing something in me that I did not see in myself. And that’s also a theme in the book. And I think for so many of us and for so many of us as women, we don’t see ourselves as others see us.

So having Gail, give me the show, if you will was a huge gift. She was supposed to be guest number six on the show. And she literally passed away the day before we were taped.

Emma Dhesi: 23:45

Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.

Grace Sammon: 23:48

It was really sad and shocking. And I’m so blessed that I got to meet her for minerals.

For a minute of my life. She was like four foot three and had more energy at 83 than I will ever have.

Emma Dhesi: 24:00

So sounds like you’re enjoying doing storytellers.

Grace Sammon: 24:04

I am in very surprising ways. I enjoyed being on both sides of the microphone, which is a surprise to me. I love putting together the puzzle of what a good interview looks like. I love doing the research.

I like finding the quirky things out about my guests. And I like the development of a different kind of conversation too. And you know, you’re on both sides of the microphone as well. So it’s just a joy. I’m very, very surprised.

I love that people resonate with it. Mm hmm. So basically, we focus on authors and others who leave their mark on the world through the art of story.

I’ve done mostly authors, but I interviewed this amazing newscaster the other day, who was with President George Bush, when he learned of the terrorist attacks.

She was As a follow, or she followed as a very young reporter, Martin Luther King and his wife, and went to the house as they were getting the news, because they had become friends that he had been murdered.

So it’s not it’s all of our stories, because I think we all have a story to tell.

Emma Dhesi: 25:18

Oh, gosh, fascinating. I’m just going to change tack a little bit. And I wanted to chat to you a little bit about the women’s women’s fiction writers Association.

You’re a member and I’ve recently become a member because I did want to connect with, with women who are writing the same kinds of stories as me about women’s lives.

And I wonder, do you feel that it is important to build that kind of community writing, author, community, and maybe to have that kind of network around you?

Grace Sammon: 25:48

I think it’s essential. I’m a relatively new member to WF WA, myself, the women’s fiction writers Association. It is a remarkable organization that I know I need to get more involved in.

I haven’t found the bandwidth in my time between some of the author things and getting the storytellers up and running. But they have a wonderful weekly newsletter, where they talk about volunteer activities, they talk, they celebrate certain authors.

So it’s a platform to get your feet wet in if you’d like. They do a monthly podcast, they post questions. So if you go to their Facebook page, you’ll frequently see an author posts something that says, My characters a little bit unlikable. Is that a risk?

What do you think about that, and you can kind of test the waters that way, because it’s such a supportive community.

So I’m so glad that you joined WF WA. And I think that network of authors has been such a support to me in this work in the last 17 months, 16 months, because we become friends.

And that’s something I especially at my age, I really kind of poo pooed the host social networking that you create real friends, I was like, no real friends are real people in real life that you can sit down and have dinner with.

And the idea that I can call up now 30, 40 authors if I needed to, and say, I’m really struggling with this, or I’m doing a Facebook Live, would you hop on with me is amazing. And we’re very honest and supportive group to each other.

And there are just a couple of people who really stand out. I already mentioned lady Cameron.

She’s somebody who’s won like 10 awards. And on her book, the exit strategy with her book, she just won. I can’t remember what her 10th award was.

Emma Dhesi: 27:49

Or 11th award. It wasn’t a crazy number.

Grace Sammon: 27:52

It could have been a crazy number. It’s hard to keep up.

But she immediately posted and said and congratulations to everybody else who was a runner up a finalist, whatever. She’s just amazing that way.

Julie Cantrell is similar. She was doing a workshop this week. I don’t know if you saw her social media posts.

But she was doing this workshop and Sharon to cat who’s another wonderful author was running to it and literally face planted on her way, and very horribly messed up her face.

And Julie Cantrell hopped on her social media showed a picture of Sharon to cat and said, We need to support this woman look at here, she was coming to my workshop lifting me up.

So lets everybody go over to her page and like her and follow her and send her a note of congratulations.

And that those are the two standouts in my mind. But the opportunity to lift people up in share and support is just amazing.

Emma Dhesi: 28:53

It is. And I hear so much more than I used to about the benefits of community that more people are looking for community and not just, you know, not just a big giant Facebook group where there’s 1000s and 1000s.

But actually a specific community where there’s joint interest and that support and lifting people up, as you mentioned.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that with us. So I’m conscious of time. But before we go, I’d really love to know, what are you working on at the moment?

Are you working on novel number two?

Grace Sammon: 29:26

I would love to tell you that’s a true story. I was so happy to talk to a fellow author, another great reason to have fellow authors.

We’re both working on our second novel. And I just asked her the other day said how many pages have you actually written she said 14 And I said, Oh, I’m so happy.

I think I’ve got three. So I have three novels at the back of the eaves.

I talked about writing one. I have three novels in my head. But I’m doing a lot more short story. We’re not article ready and I can’t even call them short story.

So I’m doing a lot of short, independent article writing at the moment.

I hope I have another book in me because truly, I’m never as happy as when I’m sitting there, and something forms in my head.

And sometimes it trickles down into my fingers and onto a keyboard and then onto a screen that that is magic to me. I don’t know how it happens.

I don’t know how we as humans do that. So I have three maybe in my head, and I hope they turn into real books.

Emma Dhesi: 30:29

Oh, me too. Yeah, I’ll be looking out for those. Yes. If any of our listeners would like to find out more about you, or more by the eaves? Where can they do that?

Grace Sammon: 30:40

Probably the easiest way to find me is on gracesammon.net and my name is spelled not like the fish.

It’s s a m m o n. So gracesammon.net and there you can find all the storyteller episodes are loaded, you’ll find biographies.

There’s lots of extras, there’s music that inspired the Eves.

And there’s some wonderful pieces of music up there.

There’s recipes, there’s questions, there’s book club guide, so lots of things available on gracesammon.net, they can always email me and they can email me at Grace at gracesammon.net or, you know, the ever present Facebook.

I’m at Grace Sammon, just my name. I also have an author page, but most authors aren’t on their author page as much as they are on their personal page.

So they can direct message me on Grace Sammon, and over on Instagram, I’m at Grace Sammon writes, as in Grace Sammon writes books.

Emma Dhesi: 31:34

Oh, perfect. I will make sure that I link to each of those in the show notes.

That’s wonderful. Well, Grace, it’s been a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you very much for joining me,

Grace Sammon: 31:43

Emma. Pleasure anytime, a real honor.

Emma Dhesi: 31:48

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you find that helpful and inspirational.

Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, turning readers into writers.

It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel.

If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet there called Three Secret hacks to write with consistency.

So go to emmadhesi.com/turning readers into writers. Hit join. I can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you. Bye bye.

If this interview with Grace Sammon was useful, you’ll love:

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Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.