Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello Authors. I'm Joanne Morrell, children's and young adult fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for Authors. Thanks for joining me for the Hybrid Author Podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as a hybrid author both independently and traditionally publishing your books. You can get the show notes for each episode and sign up for your free Author pass over at the Hybrid Author website to discover your writing process, get tips on how to publish productively, and get comfortable promoting your books at www.
Let's crack on with the episode.
Hello authors.
I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to the podcast in.
Today is a Merry Christmas mash up of all podcast guests since July2024 and that's episode 133 generative AI for authors with fiction author Aminah Al Sharif. Episode 135 the importance of Finding a Writing Community with children's author Laura Holloway. Episode 137 children's author and illustrator Kylie Howarth on new geographic areas in a graphic novel format and winning the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Writers Fellowship. Episode 138 CEO of Writing WA Will Yemen on Writing as a Career Episode 139 Becoming an internationally accomplished author of eight books with Lisa Heidke Darcy. Episode 140 Writing Laugh Out Loud Books for Kids with best selling children's author Tim Harris. Episode 141 multi award winning author John Larkin on chasing the writerly dream. Episode 142 practicing reinvention through new Characters and Novels with novelist, essayist and reviewer Jean M. Blasberg. Episode 143 mystery author Andrea Barton on plot development, plot twists, suspense and tension for a more spontaneous writing style. Episode 144 Crossing Oceans Layla Moon on bookstore signings in America and connecting with dark romance readers. Episode 145 Spooky Stories, publishing paths and crafting middle grade thrills is a Hybrid author with Fiona Cosgrove. Episode 146Ari Rosenshine on reusing skills from a music career in publishing and republishing a book from traditional to self published. Episode 147 Creative Storytelling as an Experience with Leigh Lenar so I hope your Christmas was filled with good food and drinks, good company, good cheer, and of course good books under your tree. But if this time of year is a struggle, you're alone or you find your life landscape looks a lot different from what it usually does, then no, you're in good faith and you will get through this tough period it always feels a little surreal for me having Christmas in Australia, hot versus cold, as I grew up in Scotland, but it's been a good one nonetheless. Without further ado, let's crack on with this episode and I want to wish you a very merry Christmas from the hybrid author.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Just like when DJing came around, right, and it switched from vinyl to electronic music or EDM or house music. You know, a lot of people initially, when that type of music came out, they were skeptical, right? This is witchcraft. This is real, real music because it's being generated by, by something electronic. But at the end of the day, behind every single electronically produced thing or something produced by technology, software is a human driving it. And so that's where I think it's incredibly important to remind ourselves in the creative industry that even though these technologies are appearing at the end of the day, the uniqueness of using those technologies for something good or to create something new is going to rely on the human that's ultimately driving that technology. And so now it's kind of even to expand it out to the workforce. It's not about, is AI going to take my job? It's about, will the people who know how to use AI take my job? Because that's, that's really where the technology is right now. I'm sure it'll morph in the future, but for right now, that's. That's kind of where we're at, both the enterprise industry, but also in, in the creative industry.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: For me, I wanted to feel like I could at least know what everybody was talking about before I joined some of those groups. But at the same time, I think you also do kind of need to just jump in and learn along the way, because it's like anything, you know, you can feel a little bit like an imposter. And I felt quite nervous about ever saying, oh, I'm a writer or I want to be a writer or anything like that. But the more times you do, the more natural it becomes. And then you, one day you just say it quite naturally and it doesn't feel weird anymore. I think it's really up to the individual how they feel with groups and with new people and that sort of thing of when's a good time to join?
[00:04:50] Speaker A: I absolutely agree there. I think my first experience amongst other writers was at the Peter Cowan Writer center, and it was on a Saturday morning and it was a little writing group and they were specifically for. I think it was just fun for writing or to learn skills. And they had little exercises each week and then As I progressed then they had a more advanced group that was sort of working on longer form projects. And I end up. As you advance or you experience, like your experiences, you end up seeking out the people, I guess, that are similar to you and, and can give you the advice you need, where you're at in your writing journey.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I think so. It's like what you were saying before with that group that's invite only. You know, I think you, you're not going to be able to just jump into that group right from the go. You need to find the other people who are at the level that you are and then slowly build your way up. And then eventually you'll probably find you're in that group without even realizing if.
[00:05:41] Speaker D: You'Re just writing the book and you're not going to be the illustrator. One thing I found is that I will write, hey, I think this will happen here, blah, blah, blah, okay, next page. On this page, this will happen. But when I came to draw it, I found that you needed a lot more panels and pages than I expected for, you know, a couple of sentences. So if you're not sort of drawing it out yourself, perhaps visualize it, pretend it's a movie in your head. And once you can sort of see how many. If a character walks in and sits at the table and has breakfast, you've got to have them possibly opening the door, walking across, sitting down, pouring the breakfast, starting to eat it. Like there's a lot more steps than you might think when you just write, hey, they walk in and start their breakfast kind of thing. So just be mindful of how long things take to illustrate how many panels.
[00:06:28] Speaker E: I'm always thinking about other benefits. We talked about AI before. A lot of these tools can basically do your thinking for you. You know, you type in the prompt, it makes all the connections. It's fantastic. How does, does that benefit you as a human being? How does that improve your own intelligence, your own creativity? Probably not much. In the same way as driving everywhere doesn't improve your fitness that much.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:48] Speaker E: So for those kids, you know, I'm just wondering if there's a way we can sell this, and it might, without making it sound like you're going back to school, that thinks, well, you know, if you do this, you're going to become just like this amazing creative intellectual, you know, that can do anything with your life. Is there a way we can send that message out? Because if there is, then reading will.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Be valued more, I think, with, with audio, especially, you know, audiobooks. My kids Go to bed listening to audiobooks and things like that. And they can still other things while taking that information. And certainly as a busy mom as well, you know, audio is great for me to be able to still consume.
[00:07:24] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And do it. So that was, that was another way to kind of have the stories heard and listened to.
[00:07:30] Speaker E: I think you're right about. If you pick really mundane tasks, I don't think it distracts you from listening because I. My favorite time is when I'm washing the dishes at night. Yeah, yeah, you certainly don't need to think about that. So you can be focused pretty much 99% on the audiobook, can't you?
[00:07:45] Speaker G: Which is great.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Again, it doesn't. You're not sort of reading the words or seeing the language in terms of learning to write though, which is completely different I suppose, for kids.
[00:07:55] Speaker E: But that is very true. But by the same token, it's actually tapping into a much older part of our brains and you know, it's. It's traditional storytelling.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:04] Speaker E: So in effect, in fact, it's probably more authentic and not less authentic than.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: The written word Is writing these books over the years, have you become faster? Obviously you said you've taken a break. How has the process been from one to eight books?
[00:08:18] Speaker H: I think it's faster. Well, it has to be, doesn't it, Joanne? Otherwise I've learned absolutely nothing.
So I'm still a pantser. I am still the person who gets the idea and writes it out as fast as I can to get that first draft written. Having said that, I would also say I can do it a lot more constructively. Now that's not to say that it's not. Not edited to the, you know, Nth degree, but I guess I know what not to do, you know, the silly little things. Whether again, whether that's tense point of view or including other characters on the.
[00:08:58] Speaker I: Protagonist'S journey more effectively, humor is definitely objective. So not everyone will find, you know, my books funny. But I do remember early on this was during the self published course. I was at a Bible study one night and the Bible study leader had bought a copy to give to his son. And halfway through this evening Bible study meeting, we just heard laughter coming down the hallway, like uncontrollable laughter. And in the end the. The minister's wife went to investigate and she came back and she said, he's reading your book to him. He finds it so hysterical. So that was really cool experience. Hearing that was the first time I'd ever heard someone. Someone laughs at one of the stories. So my books, there's all of my series and then the humor, the style. I'm a big fan of British comedy. I love the way they use dialogue to sort of set each other up for one liners and things like that. So there's a lot of that in my books. And if anyone listening has read either the Mr. Bambockles remarkable series or the Toffle Tower series, actually even exploding endings, there's often little sections where the whole story strips away and you're left with just two voices, two characters speaking to each other with nothing else. No tags, no description, and it's just this pure dialogue. And I love that. And that's definitely inspired from British comedy. And also sometimes there's visual humor as well. That's where an illustrator will inject their own sense of humor. So I've been lucky enough to work with James Foley. And I remember in one of the Topple Towers books, I remember just leaving a blank page and saying, here's the concept, but James, go to town. And he did. But there are so many different ways to create humor. There's of course, puns. And you know, when children are learning about words and language, puns become a really funny thing for them because they start to break through, through with their understandings and they realized, oh, that has. Has two meanings and it's a whole new world. Of course there's toilet humor, which is.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Very popular in it.
[00:10:50] Speaker J: So I sat down to write. I thought, I've got no idea what this is about. But then, you know, you trust yourself. You just trust yourself as an author. It comes from someplace, from within. We draw on our own stories. You know, I'm very much a working class boy and I was able to tap into my own childhood, my own. And when I left school, I ended up working in the factory for many, for five years before I went on to go back to school and go to uni. And so a lot of my experiences from that factory world came into this particular book. And it was, it was just gorgeous to relive those memories. You know, everything you do is to support your writing, so whatever that is. Yeah, I mean, like being a writer, like, who would, who would choose to be a writer? No one with an ounce of sanity would ever choose to do this. But you do it. And that's the journey it takes you on. You do other things to support that. So I'm fortunate now that I can I do this full time.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Oh, there's definitely, there's definitely highs and lows. There's there's torment and then there's, you know, pure beautiful moments when you actually get through. And you mentioned before, you know, trust, trust and faith and things like that. Did you always have that belief in yourself or from.
[00:11:56] Speaker J: Every author has imposter syndrome? Like, you know, for me, I left school, I worked in a production line of a factory, and I think, and now here I am in an author. I think at some point someone's going to tap me on the shoulder and say, larkin, you are a complete for all. Get back to the factory. And I go, thank you, because that's where I belong. So I don't know what it is about the insecurities of working in the arts. It's just the way it is.
[00:12:16] Speaker F: Reinvention is kind of a trigger word for me because I almost feel like.
[00:12:21] Speaker H: We are trying to discover our real.
[00:12:24] Speaker F: Selves as opposed to reinventing ourselves. And I like to think of it that way.
[00:12:28] Speaker H: And I do like to write characters.
[00:12:31] Speaker F: Who are confused and maybe get caught up in certain trappings, whether it's trappings.
[00:12:36] Speaker H: Of wealth or class or upward mobility, only to realize that the trappings are hindering their understanding of who they really are instead of helping.
[00:12:46] Speaker D: I think the risk, too, is, you know, if you get too much into the plotting thing, like we were saying, now we're plotting things much more ahead of time. The risk with that is it can feel a little bit stale and, you know, it becomes a bit like color by numbers. If you already know what every scene is before you start. I kind of feel like, well, can't somebody else just write it for me now, like I've done?
So I think it's about then trying to. One of your questions is about keeping spontaneity in the writing. And I think to do that, you have to really be prepared to change. So if you've written something, you've planned something out and then you're writing it and your characters are telling you they want to do something else, you have to be prepared to make those adjustments. And I think that's also what makes it more interesting for readers, because if it's boring to write, it's obviously going to be boring to read.
[00:13:33] Speaker H: I had only been to two book signings before that, and I had no idea what I was doing. So I had to order my books over there from Amazon America and have them sent to the event organizer, and the event organizer would bring them to the table on the day. And I had to order enough to cover all of my pre orders, and then I had to bring some Stuff from home, like my bookmarks, my not so for work prints, my, you know, lollies, like just little bits and pieces. So we had one luggage bag for all of that sort of stuff, like my banner business cards. Like I had, I had one luggage bag for that and then one luggage.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Bag for our clothes.
[00:14:12] Speaker H: But yeah, I had to order everything over there. And obviously, unfortunately, I had ordered a little bit too much of one of the books in particular, so I ended up selling them the next day from our hotel because I'm like, I can't. We can't bring them back into Australia because it's going to cost us an absolute fortune. And. And there were some people that weren't able to meet me, so they threw their hands up straight away to get. To get the opportunity to have a signed copy without having to pay Australian postage.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:14:41] Speaker H: Yeah, so it worked out really well. But yeah, it was relatively straightforward once I got the hang of it. And now I know what to prepare for next time.
[00:14:49] Speaker F: I was sending things out for submission. I think Sadie is the first one to be picked up with a traditional contract. And that was maybe the fourth manuscript I had started. I had been submitting and I think it had been on submission for about a year. And I, like I said, I was just getting really frustrated, like, you know how fun it is to plan bookmarks and to plan merch and to start planning, like how you're going to gift wrap all of these fun things. But I could never get there because I could never get the book. Yeah, and I had been talking to a friend who was self publishing a Romantasy series and she was just so excited and so free and she was talking about all this art that she had commissioned and all of these additional things. And I thought, I don't want to be doing stuff like that. Whether or not it's going to earn me money, I just, I want. It's just this creative pool that you kind of can't get to unless you publish a book. And so I thought it started with just me wanting to write a short, a junior fiction one again, which I ended up sucking at and realized it was middle grade. But I thought, I want to write a junior fiction. Choose your adventure. And after I wrote it, I started to think, oh, maybe, maybe I could publish this. It was meant to be a Christmas present for my niece and nephew, but I thought, what if I just self publish it? Like, it's not going to hurt anyone. I think there was always this thought in the back of my head that if I self publish something under my name that it will hinder any potential for traditional contracts later. And I just don't know if that's the case. I don't. I don't think it is.
[00:16:06] Speaker I: It only takes one. Yes. That's sort of how I feel. It really only takes one. Yes. And it's worth continuing and trying to find that person who's going to believe in your project. And it can be very discouraging at times out there. But I would say just keep finding your own way forward. There's going to be the special way that your book is going to come out and it might not look like anybody else's book but that's the way for you. Doesn't matter what anybody else looks like.
[00:16:34] Speaker G: If I had have been raised with the spotlight on what I was meant to bring to the world and not about money but just about happiness, my life would have been a completely different story. And I wouldn't be writing this book in my 30s, 40s. I'd be writing this book in my 20s. Because I would have stayed true to what I'm here to bring into the world.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:56] Speaker G: Not what the world wants me to bring into it. And that individual, that individualism of every like this is a bit my crazy woman thinking. But I. I feel that imaginations and creativity was once the be all and end all. Imaginations would have kept people alive. Not money. The initiative to let your brain create or your imagination create something is what kept in things happening. Yeah. To keep us in survival to survive. And goes back to the origins of storytelling. Like you. You needed your imagination because things weren't once upon a time taught to you. There was no school. You had to use your imagination. And somehow through the history of time our imaginations creativity were dumbed down. And now it's like the non existent.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: That's the end for now. Authors, I hope you are further forward in your author adventure after listening. And I hope you'll listen next time. Remember to head on over to the Hybrid Author website at www.hybridauthor.com au to get your free author pass. It's bye for now.
