New Episode - 'A Country Vet Christmas'
A panel on writing an Aussie rural Christmas anthology
In the Intro
In this episode of Writes4Women, Pamela Cook introduces an exciting collaboration with four renowned anthologists for the upcoming book A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS. Featuring contributions from Pamela herself, Alissa Callan, Penelope Janu, Lily Malone, and Stella Quinn, this anthology celebrates a collection of novellas with a festive touch, all beautifully packaged with a cover by HQ HarperCollins.
Originating from diverse writing backgrounds, each contributor brings their unique flair to the project. While Pamela ventures into the realm of novella writing for the first time, she joins her fellow writers in sharing insights about the anthology, the process of penning shorter tales, and offering invaluable writing tips.
Pamela holds off on her usual writing advice segment, anticipating a wealth of knowledge from the episode's panel. The conversation promises to delve into the stories within A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS and the art of crafting compelling novellas.
As always, listeners are reminded of the potential for strong language and mature themes in the podcast. Before delving into the heart of the episode, Pamela pays her respects to the Dharawal people, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of the land where the podcast is recorded, and extends her acknowledgment to Indigenous peoples across Australia.
Join Pamela on the Convo couch for a special episode, celebrating the spirit of Christmas and the joy of collaborative storytelling in A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS.
Episode notes
Join us on the Convo Couch as we celebrate women's voices and writing with a special discussion featuring my fellow anthologists from the upcoming book, A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS. Listen in as we share our experiences writing novellas, reveal some behind-the-scenes stories about our anthology, and offer invaluable writing tips. From our shared 10-year publishing anniversary to our distinct writing styles and themes, we have a lot to discuss, so settle in for a lively and insightful conversation.
Prepare to be whisked away to the world of Australian Christmas-themed novellas as we explore the unique elements of our anthology. Hear how we created unique characters, built captivating stories, and navigated the challenges of writing a novella. Whether it's Lily's character inspired by Dolly Parton's "Jolene", or Penelope's story of bushfires and unforgettable characters, we're giving you a sneak peek into our upcoming book and the inspiring stories behind it.
As we discuss our individual writing processes, learn how we approach writing differently. Whether it's Penn's planning for a happy ending, Stella's hybrid method of plotting and editing, or Ryan's pantser style, we all have our unique writing routines. Hear tips for aspiring and emerging writers, explore the power of deadlines, and find out about our upcoming book releases. This is a conversation not to be missed if you're interested in writing or just love a good Christmas novella.
Episode Chapters
(0:00:00) - Introduction with Pamela Cook
(0:04:24) - Writing Anthologies and Novellas
(0:17:18) - Exploring Christmas-Themed Novellas in Australia
(0:27:59) - A Christmas to Remember
(0:32:32) - Writing Processes and Daily Routines
(0:43:04) - Tips for Aspiring Writers
(0:49:45) - Writing Tips and New Book Releases
Transcript
Let's get straight on with chatting with today's guests, my panel of anthologists from A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS. Welcome to the Writes4Women Convo couch. My guests today are my fellow anthologists, I don't know if that's a word, but it is now, from A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS. And I didn't introduce them because I'm going to let them introduce themselves to you. So Penelope Janu, can we start with you?
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing.
[00:02:47] Penelope Janu: Thanks Pam, lovely to be here today. My name is Penelope Janu and I live in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney. But I basically grew up on a horse in semi rural areas in New South Wales and Victoria. And yeah, I write rural fiction, rural romance. I was a lawyer for many years, many decades to be honest. And so I started writing. My first book was published in 2017 and I've been pretty much writing a book a year and the odd novella ever since.
[00:03:16] Pamela Cook: Thanks, Pen. Lily.
[00:03:17] Lily Malone: Hi, I'm Lily and I'm sitting in my little walk-in robe closet over here in Kawaramup, which is usually, we're better off to say it's near Margaret River in southwest WA. I've been writing this since 2023 is my 10 year anniversary of when I was first published, which was back with Escape Publishing as eBooks initially.
But yeah, I'm really thrilled to be part of this A Country Vets Christmas with all these gorgeous ladies sitting here. And my writing life, I haven't been very productive lately, but it's always fun and the people in it are great people.
[00:03:54] Pamela Cook: Oh, thanks, Lily. And we share the same publishing anniversary, 10 years for me. Oh, and Melissa too. Yeah, we've been going for a while.
[00:04:02] Penelope Janu: That's why we're beloved. That's
[00:04:08] Stella Quinn: I'm the new kid on the block then because there's nowhere near 10 years. So I've got three rural fiction books out with another three coming. Only one of which is written. So yeah, two of them are just a twinkle in my eye at the moment. So a lot of work ahead. I live in Brisbane. I grew up in a small town in New Guinea and that's why I like writing about small towns.
And anyone who's read my stories will know there's always animals, there's a lot of knitting. And I generally got some pretty eccentric town characters. All of whom are based on the small town characters we had growing up. And I just love having them in there, they're my favourite part to write.
[00:04:49] Pamela Cook: that you draw those from your real life experience too. Alissa.
[00:04:54] Alissa Callen: Hi everyone. I'd just like to, before I introduce myself, thank you. Say thank you to all the rural listeners that [00:05:00] might be out there and who read our books and their support is very much appreciated. So if you're a rural reader, thank you so much for listening and tuning in. So my name's Alissa and I'm coming from you even though it looks really tidy and calm.
My office is in my little farmhouse and it's actually really noisy outside, so I apologise. I write books that are basically, as Sola was saying, loosely based on my own real life, threads of my real world, often make them into my stories. I write stories about communities and small towns and basically the same sort of things obviously that, that what makes rural so special, important.
I love animals and I also love that sense of resilience that we have out in the bush here as well. I hope if you haven't, at least if you haven't read any rurals that yeah, you pop on and find some books to read because they're really lovely. Thank you. It's a special genre to read and it's also a special genre to write in as well.
[00:05:45] Pamela Cook: Couldn't agree more, Alissa. Thank you so And for anyone that is listening that doesn't know about me, I write stories about women who are at turning points in their lives, stories about longing and belonging, and always sit... Generally in a rural location and often have a horse, often feature a dog so have a lot in common with my fellow panellists here today and I'm recording this in my caravan, vintage caravan, Virginia where I always record the podcast so let's get on to talking about the anthology.
Okay. And I'm going to start with you, Penelope, because the anthology was really your brainchild. So can you tell us where the inspiration came from and how it happened to be that all five of us are part of it?
[00:06:32] Penelope Janu: A good question, Pam. I think it was yeah, I, the first thing, the title came to me, Country Practice Christmas. And for country practice, for me being a lover of animals and everything else I always really loved the idea of being a vet, but I was not at all strong in maths and sciences. But that is, yeah, having animals obviously has a lot to do with vets and things.
So I thought And then I really thought about some gorgeous writing friends I knew, and I read stories where the main characters had been vets. And of course that was Alissa and Stella and Louie and also you. And I was at that time, I think, writing a character, a main character who was a vet. So I thought, wow, what about, that's such a fascinating area.
And we all write. Quite differently we like to focus on the animals and the environment, all different aspects of country or rural life. So I thought how wonderful it would be to bring all that together. So I actually emailed all of you, I think, and said, would you be interested in doing that?
And then informally, my publisher at HarperCollins HQ I pitched that to Joan McKay and and Johanna Baker there just informally at a conference actually, when I was meant to be talking about something else, that I've got this really good idea. And they were, just went for it. I think it is a really lovely idea, and I think it was lovely and fantastic to work with.
All of us together, but also having that kind of that common thread that we found that we've written Vets, yet we've all written, which is wonderful in this anthology very different stories about Vets, because let's face it, Vets are, characters, and all our characters are so different, and so that means all our stories are very different too.
[00:07:59] Pamela Cook: Yeah, that's so true. That whole idea of it, having that common theme, but all the stories being different, of course, we all write in different styles, but, it's always fascinated me. You can be in a room full of writers, give them all the same topic or the same starting point and go in so many different directions.
And I think this anthology is a really great example of that. So Pen, you'd been in, you had been in a previous anthology was it last Christmas or a couple of Christmases.
[00:08:24] Penelope Janu: No, that was actually, oh goodness, that came out in 2018, I think, and that was good because I'd only written one rural novel that was on the right track. That was the one, my first rural and my publisher said that these other more established writers were writing anthologies, and I think that was one of the stories that had been published previously. would I like to write another rural Christmas anthology.
And I just jumped at the chance and that was, Christmas is a wonderful time together in our life and, we have Austrian heritage and English heritage and yeah, I just loved writing that story and it was such a joy to write. And I think that was probably part of the stepping stone to do this one.
But that was the first novella I'd ever written. We've written the longer form obviously, but it is actually a lot of fun writing that shorter form.
And especially with having that Christmas theme and the vet theme.
[00:09:10] Pamela Cook: Yeah.
[00:09:11] Lily Malone: I was just going to say I'm probably the Christmas Grinch amongst the group. I find it a bit funny here's me sitting writing this Christmas. Novella with trees and presents and Christmas fates and glitter and tinsel and all these things. And goodness me, in my house, you'll never walk into this house and see the Christmas wreath going, welcome on the front door.
[00:09:37] Pamela Cook: Melissa, you've been in a few anthologies yourself in the past. This for me was a new experience. I'd never been in an anthology and I'd never written a novella, which I wanna talk about in a little while. But what do you see as the advantage in a couple of things in writing short, and, but also in being part of something like this where you're in a group of writers or publishing in the one book.
[00:10:01] Alissa Callen: I think for me, because I am a really slow writer, but writing such a small chunk of words actually gives me a greater motivation and sense of achievement, because I think look, I'm almost halfway. Whereas in a longer book, it's really, am I already at this point? I really adore that about novellas, it's just that it's their smaller format.
I think too, with novellas they're, as much as I enjoy writing my multi-layered and longer stories, with novellas, you really strip it back and tear it back. So you can really focus on a few core things. And so I really find that sort of attention to detail I really enjoy doing in a smaller format as well.
And I think if anyone is writing a novella, a little tip is that you have the characters know themselves before, so all that time And that you might spend in a longer story having the characters get to know each other. Already they know each other, they can hit the ground running straight away. So is that too, because in a way that backstory is already done in your head.
So when you're writing a smaller novel, it already just comes onto the page. So I really like that about a novella as well. Another thing I like about a novella and it's because we write about communities and I really like that sort of writing a project with other authors because that is like a little community within ourselves as well.
I've done some Australian novellas. I've also done some for some American based ones as well and so it's lovely because people can have ideas and they can, people can spark off other ideas and that just sense of camaraderie as well that we're all Had the same deadline and we're all trying to work towards the same thing.
So I think doing a novella, I love doing that by itself, but if it's part of an anthology, it's even better.
[00:11:30] Pamela Cook: Yeah, great. Stella, I was going to ask you because I remember when we first started off on this project and some people started straight away and others were like, had other projects on, so it had to be delayed and things like that before we got to the deadline.
[00:11:43] But I went into a bit of a spin because I had never written a novella. It's a virginal experience for me. And, I actually like in long form writing to do all that character background and have the backstory and have the psychology of the characters, but as Elissa was just saying you really need to just get going and just launch straight into the story even more so than you would with a long form.
But what are some of the other things that you find are important in writing in this shorter form of a novella?
[00:12:11] Stella Quinn: I do remember that conversation and I think I gave out a lot of advice, none of which I followed. I did find it challenging too, because I really wanted to, you want to go deep with your characters because really my story, it's a relationship story. So you don't want to just have plot, you've got to have feelings involved, but it's very hard to go deep in that shorter timeframe.
And this totally hit the nail on the head when she said make it a second chance. opportunity for two people who already know each other. That way they've got runs on the board in a sense. So if they're suddenly, madly into each other in the third chapter of, 10k words, it doesn't seem forced and ridiculous.
And I did not do that either. My people have never met. So then I would try and have time passing between scenes so that the reader thinks, Oh, two weeks of living in the same caravan, for example, or have occurred. So we can understand that there's been some more of a gradual getting to know than there might appear to be.
And I know I started a few chapters two weeks later or whatever, and the editor made me remove those. She said no. Yeah. Yeah, nothing was easy about this, writing this novella, to be honest. The other problem I had was, I set it in a world where I've already written some stories, and so I picked one of my fun secondary characters and thought, oh, I'll give Sandy, the vet receptionist, I'll give her a story.
Because she was a great character, but I'd already established the fact in a prior novel that she had three children. So then I had to have three children also on the page and I didn't want them to seem like cardboard cutout characters. So I had to give them a personality and some speaking lines.
So, suddenly I was clustered with all this stuff that wasn't really driving the relationship forward, but it had to be there to make the story seem like a rich world that you know.
What I did love was because I said it in a world I'd already written and I'm so fond of and I've got maps. It was just a joy and delight to bring, to trot out these characters that I love, like the bossy woman who runs the town social agenda, getting Marigold and her husband Kev back on the page again, that was fabulous.
[00:14:34] Pamela Cook: So nice to go back and when you know the characters already, it's like meeting old friends, isn't it?
You don't have to go through that whole process of getting to know them
[00:14:41] Stella Quinn: yeah. And I wouldn't necessarily give them their own story like a 100k word book, but there's a lot of miles and miles in them yet to show on the page. Yeah, that was great.
[00:14:51] Pamela Cook: How about you, Lily? How was the whole process of this novella writing for you
[00:14:55] Lily Malone: It was good. I really enjoyed it. I've written one before quite a while ago, which was called The Goodbye Ride. It was actually the second book. I think I even self published it, but then Harlequin Escape wanted it. And it's still with them. And that book came out in an anthology, funnily enough, in print this year.
The interesting thing for me too is both A Country Music Christmas in our anthology and The Goodbye Ride have characters that I have never met.
And the goodbye ride. They have to get their love story happening in four days because it's set over a long weekend in Hdo in South Australia. So they, I think they run into each other on Friday and then everything has to happen super fast . But, what I love writing about them.
Goes back to what Alissa said, I like that, you only have these 30k sort of words and you can really feel you're steaming along and that the end is in sight. And for somebody like me, especially last year, this year struggling with time to write, struggling with the idea and how I would go about it, just being able to think of it small.
It really helped me motivate myself and keep going and push through to the end. And I love Jolene's story, Country Music Christmas. I had such fun with all of you ladies writing it. And just that idea was one I'd been brewing and sitting on for a little while for Country Music Christmas.
[00:16:22] Pamela Cook: Brilliant. We're going to hear about the actual stories in a minute, but Penn, first I'll go to you. Did you have any challenges or anything or how did you find the process of writing this particular novella?
[00:16:33] Penelope Janu: Yeah, it was interesting actually, because the first novella I wrote, the characters didn't know each other at all. And more of a challenge because that was very much a relationship based story. In the second novella maybe I took Alissa's advice. I probably did. Why wouldn't I?
The characters did have a little bit of history. Amber Churchill, the main character, was the younger sister of. Of the male lead, and so they knew each other, so they had background, and I think that makes a really good point Alissa and Stella reflected that too, in that you know the family, that the person comes from, perhaps, or you know something about what they've done, people that know them, and I think that does probably help in a matter of trust, is a certain element of knowing that character.
But again, I'm just a real dag and I do like Christmas, and I think we've got some really fantastic, yeah, things in Australia. I know it's the traditional Christmas tree, but things like ours are native flowers and you just have to look really hard for some of these things.
But there are fascinating facts on Australian mistletoes. We have so many mistletoes in this country. There's one in the UK. And so bringing out that, those elements of the Australian Christmas as well. There's the smaller things you have to look for. It's a really good opportunity to explore some of those things.
So yeah, it was a happy experience and I did Christmas and I did a bit of a countdown in this novel. So then it's a matter of finding all sorts of exciting things about Christmas for the characters. And this particular character really enjoyed Christmas in my last novella.
That character didn't enjoy Christmas and there's all sorts of backstory stuff that comes into that. So it's a really good opportunity to explore that.
[00:18:03] Pamela Cook: As I said, I hadn't written a novella before, so I was really appreciative of all the advice from you more experienced novelists. But yeah, in the end, I actually really enjoyed the experience because of that short, The short thing, like I'm getting towards the end of a draft of a novel now, full length novel, and I'm at that point where I just want to poke my eyes out.
I do not want to still be writing this book. I could have written almost two and a half novellas by now. So that was really good. I did struggle a little bit with, as I said, like having to pull out the backstory, but I actually set it in a town where I set my first book, Black Waddle Lake, so the setting was familiar.
I didn't have to worry about that. I could describe that easily. I had one or two characters who were really minor characters make an appearance, but otherwise it was a new cast of characters. But I actually enjoyed that too, like putting some new characters into that setting and, it came out relatively easily, shall we say. So let's get on to talking about the actual stories. Lillian might start with you 'cause I can't wait for listeners to hear about Jolene.
[00:19:04] Lily Malone: Thank you. I think that if I go back to the inspiration for it I've had this idea for a little while a few years ago. A while ago, we watched a documentary called Country Music. It's an amazing documentary. And it's got Charlie Pryde and Johnny Cash and goes right back to Hank Williams and Patsy Cline and I love the music.
So in many respects, the music was a soundtrack for me through writing this book. But the idea of Jolene, which is a song that I just love and it's so iconic for Dolly Parton. But I started to think about, poor old Jolene gets a bum rap and, there's another side, I'm sure, to every story.
There's another side to every character. And I was like, I wanted to write about another Jolene, a different Jolene. But one who's struggling to, to run away from that. Stereotype. So that's mine, A Country Music Christmas. My main character is Jolene and she's a singer and her mum is a huge Dolly Parton tribute show act, so she lives or she's grown up with a mum with the big wig and everything and the huge boobs in her house and they sing and they sing together.
Jolene always sings Jolene but to make just a little sidetrack in her life, she has studied to be a vet. And when a scandal erupts for her on the tribute show, she runs away. That's where my story kicks off and starts. Jolene lands herself as the locum in Chalk Hill vet practice filling in on some maternity leave.
For my character from The Vets Country Holiday, which was Izzy and and my little novella kicks off from there.
[00:20:45] Pamela Cook: I love the links there, the link to your previous novella and then the whole Dolly Parton thing and Jolene. Lily, that sounds fabulous. And I know, the whole Dolly Parton theme there is just going to be one that readers are going to love. Stella, can you tell us a little bit about the story and your character?
[00:21:04] Stella Quinn: Yep. So also a documentary was one of the inspirations from our story. I had two inspirations. One was the ABC series called Mustard Dogs, which came out maybe a year and a half ago. Five kelpies are born and they're given to a trainer each. And in the documentary, one of the Kelpies called Lucifer, he's a nutcase and he doesn't really make the cut, but I loved the idea of the naughty dog. And then my other inspiration was cause a bit like Lily, I've got a Grinch core.
[00:21:37] Pamela Cook: Another Christmas Grinch.
[00:21:39] Lily Malone: Yeah.
[00:21:40] Stella Quinn: Christmas is complicated. Particularly like in my family, we're a separated family. Lots of kids. Christmas can become a tussle about who is where. You lose sight of whatever the good stuff is. It can be very difficult so I wanted to put these two competing ideas in a story. So my main guy character, he is a locum vet, a bit of a nomadic sort of wanderer character. And he has a side gig doing a radio show. He brings in radio stories from Outback Australia from wherever he is. Cause he goes to all these weird and wacky locations.
So a bit of a Steve Irwin type, really, but on the radio. Anyway, he has been watching the Master Dogs. It's called Working Dogs in my story. And the cattle dog gets booted off the show at three months because it's not, it's useless. And so my guy Elliot, he makes an on air bit.
That he can have that dog walking to heel in, in eight weeks. And anyway, the show producers say, all right, come and pick it up. So at the beginning of the story, he rocks up to Hammerham to do his Christmas locum work. And he's got this cattle dog puppy under his arm.
My main character, Sandy, she's been divorced. Twice. She's got dickhead ex number one and dickhead ex number two. She's got three sons. And she hates Christmas. And when she sees tinsel going up in the stores, it's the beginning of a huge pressure build up because she can't afford good things.
The kids all want an iPad or whatever because their friends are getting them. She can't afford that. Will their dads call them on Christmas day? Maybe they won't. So she's not looking forward to anything at all. She just wants to slide through the season with as least drama as possible.
But then she makes this guy who he's just filled with joy and he gives her a different way of looking at what Christmas could be for her and her family.
[00:23:34] Pamela Cook: Oh, I love that. Yeah. A lot of tension. Alissa, can we hear about your story and your protagonist?
[00:23:40] Alissa Callen: Okay, so my story in this wonderful volume is Snowy Mountains Mistletoe, and the title basically encapsulates all of my story. It just brings together, I'm team Christmas a little bit, actually a lot. My kids would say that when they were growing up, it looked like Christmas had just exploded.
But now that my children are all young adults. I think we've got one tree, so we've definitely downsized the whole Christmas chaos. But I think the thing is for me this story basically brought together everything that I loved. So it was the setting, the mountainous small town community festive seasons, and I too have a main character that is not a fan of Christmas, but hers is more based on trauma. So for her, it's a very emotional time. And so basically I had to laugh though, because my main character, the vet, the orthopaedic vet is called Trent. And he appears in my Stony Mountain series across all the other books. And I always had him there in the background, but I hadn't actually worked out if he would have a story.
And I was writing the second book, Stony Mountains Cattlemen, and this, City Girl just suddenly appeared on the page and she like power walked on and basically it was like she never left so I thought she's the perfect foil for Trent and so her name was Aubrey and she comes to my small town, of Bundilla just basically took an escape.
And it's there that she is reacquainted with Trent, and then everything that she has experienced over Christmas, she has emotional closure as well. It is hard, what Stella was saying before, about having that emotional element as well as the plot but you can still have, there is still some wiggle room to do that because I think, yeah, to me, as I was writing it, I didn't mean it to be such an emotional story but I think I'm fascinated by how brains of writers work, and some people are plotters and some are pansters, and I plot in broad outlines, but then I basically go off road as I write, and there was a little bit of A deeper element in there that I hadn't originally planned, but it just came along with Aubrey.
So it turned out to be a little bit more emotional than I planned, but it still has all the lovely Christmas things that I really enjoy writing about. So it's basically just a footnote because my Snowy Mountain series is finishing, and this is that lovely way of ending it with Trent and Aubrey having their happily ever after.
With a bit of help from a Kelpie matchmakers and the quilting club that sort of mistletoe bombs an old cow shed. So I had a lot of fun with this story.
[00:25:48] Pamela Cook: Yeah. It's got a bit of everything in it. Yeah. Pen, what about yours? Tell us about
[00:25:53] Penelope Janu: Yeah, and Alissa made that point about plotting and pantsing and so on. That was my trouble because I thought I had this vet character in the country and she was decorating her house because I knew that she would love Christmas and I had an idea about the other character who wouldn't be so keen on Christmas.
And she was walking down the steps after wrapping Tinsville around the eaves and she pointed her toe and that was literally on page one and then... She was a ballerina. And so she ended up, she was a professional ballerina for a few years. She had a terrible injury and that had been her dream since childhood.
That's all she wanted to do. And so she had to find a new dream. And the way it turned out was actually through, animals need movement to survive. And so she has made this link between this past career and her current career. As a vet. So pointing the toe down the steps meant that, yeah, I had the ballerina thing going.
And that gave her a very rich, very true backstory. But it also meant that she was in the country now. She's away from her family and she really started again, very much started again, and she was in a very safe place and she was happy there. And so when this kind of big city blows in, Jasper, Arrives on her doorstep.
That was a real risk to her to take him on as she knew him as a certain sort of person. And he really has to prove to her that Because she loves Christmas and loves the idea of it all and bringing everyone together. And not necessarily the tree, she has lovely secondary characters who don't celebrate Christmas and they have a real Christmas Day barbecue for all those who don't necessarily have families or others to go to.
So she's very involved in the town and also the medical centre. Yeah, so he really has to prove to her that she knows that Christmas has got nothing to do with money. It's to do with everything else but commerce and finance. And so then it ends up some sort of a challenge. It's a countdown to Christmas.
So he has to show 10 non commercial ways to show her that he actually does understand the spirit, true spirit of Christmas in terms of love and forgiveness and acceptance and joy.
[00:27:47] Lily Malone: I think that's just brilliant. And the commercial aspect of Christmas does my head in too and the plastic and the wrapping and the stuff. So I think that just sounds brilliant.
[00:27:59] Pamela Cook: My story in this anthology is called A Christmas to Remember. And I thought to make it easy for myself, I would set it in the world that I knew, which was the world of Black Wattle Lake and the town of Yarrabee. And I kept one character from Black Wattle Lake; he is the vet in the town.
And I brought in a main character who is the daughter of the previous vet. So the vet who had been in the town for years and years had handed the practice on, and this other new guy had come in. But the older guy who is the father of the main character has had a stroke. And she's been working overseas for Vets Without Borders and travelling.
She's an only child and she found being in the town quite suffocating. Being an only daughter expected to take on the practice of her father was quite suffocating. And she left the town and hasn't come back for about four years. She comes back because her father had a stroke and she has been a bit estranged from her parents, but is going to reconcile.
But at the same time... bushfires are breaking out in the area. So the current vet in town, Hugh, asks for her help in helping with some of the influx of animals that are coming in as a result of the bushfires, which are at this point south of the town. They're not actually threatening the town, but they're getting animals coming into the practice.
There's also a wildlife refuge, situated in the bush to the south of town, which is under threat. That is, the character called Chad Stewart, who runs the Wildlife Refuge and he is getting animals coming to the refuge, wild native animals. And because she's been working overseas, Darcy, who's the main character, goes out to the refuge to help him and there are bushfires around.
It was partly inspired by obviously my previous book, Blackwater Lake, but that came out. 10 years ago, that story, but a couple of, a few years ago in the bad bushfires in New South Wales our family property on the South coast, where my daughter was living was threatened and almost burnt down and pretty much everything around it burnt.
So we were involved in that and it really brought home to me firsthand how frightening and traumatising and How it can throw a community into such a panic. That was the inspiration as well. And then I went down so many rabbit holes on Facebook with wildlife being rescued during bushfires and things like that.
So it was great to research it and found some amazing stories. One of which I drew on for this story.
[00:30:21] Lily Malone: I was just going to say, just going back to novella writing a little bit, but I think even though we're writing shorter, it doesn't mean you can't include these issues, the community issues like the bushfires or commercialism at Christmas or whatever the my, my story has a bit of a touch on mental health issues and things like that.
So I think you can still have a lot of depth to it, even writing shorter.
[00:30:46] Penelope Janu: Yeah, and I think that's part of the challenge too, isn't it, because we're all, we're used to writing the long form, but we know there are certain to make a character true and rounded and believable and for the readers to care about those characters, we can't give any of that away at all.
And yeah, there's different layers, but yeah, and I think that's probably why we all get yep, involved even, with our characters of form, just because they have to be real people and with real issues too.
[00:31:11] Pamela Cook: Yeah, definitely. Exactly as you said, Lily, for my character Darcy, a situation that comes up as a result of being involved in the bushfire triggers a memory from her childhood that she had forgotten or repressed and explained a lot about her character. I can't say too much because it gives away too much of the story.
Even though it is a shorter story, there's still very much that kind of background and depth to the characters and the psychology coming in which is what I love about writing. We've touched on writing process pantsing and plotting, but I just wanted to go around if everybody could do a little bit of a quick roundup on whether you're a pantser or a plotter and how you basically structure your time in terms of getting your writing done.
[00:31:52] What is your kind of writing process? Pen, can we start with you?
[00:31:56] Penelope Janu: Oh yes. Oh, my writing process is somebody walking down the front steps and pointing their toe, and there I've got a ballerina. It's all a bit but sorry, as far as doing it yeah, I do make myself sit at the desk, and I do write full time now. I do one, one novel a year, and then the ball is a little bit of icing on the cake.
So yeah, I basically work. Five days a week. Obviously it's lovely and flexible being a writer and it's really nice being part of all that writing community and so on. Also importantly obviously is like hiking and doing other things and I think that does play into my writing. Like animals, I like being involved with those.
So all of that kind of comes together but essentially you have to be Sitting down or standing at a standing desk to actually write, get the words down and I do make myself do that. And I start early, usually I do three or four hours early in the morning if I can. Now the kids have grown up obviously, although I have my grandson, so sometimes I can't do that. Yeah, and then I tend to edit in the afternoons. So yeah, I do by the end of sort of five days, I do have words on the page, hopefully. And yeah, things go on that way pretty much throughout the year.
[00:33:00] Pamela Cook: And you don't plan in advance, do you Pen?
[00:33:04] Penelope Janu: I don't know. I plan a happy ending. That's easy. And I get to know my characters and I edit as I go, so I'm quite a relatively slow writer in a way but I think part of that is Plotting while you're writing, really, because I know that if I'm editing and I'm not feeling the love for it, I think it's probably gone in the wrong direction.
So that means that I will go back again. So by the end of it, really I'd start on page one, I finish on page whatever. And it is basically there. Sometimes, it's only the later half or third where I really get to know the character as well. And then I had that sort of aha moment. Okay, this is the problem.
And then obviously you have to go back and strengthen the first half. Now that you know the characters.
[00:33:44] Pamela Cook: I love that. Alissa, how about you? You mentioned that you were a panther, I think?
[00:33:49] Alissa Callen: I'm a hybrid. And I'm probably, call me crazy, but before I even start, I write my blurb. That's really crazy. I have to have a title that's symbolic and I write my blurb, but basically my blurb then distils down to the core sort of issues and elements of my book. It's also my blueprint, so it just sounds really strange like I'm doing it in reverse, but I have my blurb first.
I plot in broad outlines, but then as I go, basically off road. As I said, I can go anywhere within that sort of framework. In terms of my sort of writing I do, I write like Pen, I, yeah, writing's what I do. But that doesn't mean I get to write every day. So basically there is no typical day for me.
I might be able to spend all day writing words on the computer or I might only get five minutes. But the only common denominator seems to be that when I'm on deadline that basically there's lots of chocolate eaten by me. My husband has very quick meals and when I'm walking outside in the paddock, I've got my arms waving and I'm talking to myself.
I really call myself a feast and famine writer basically. I might not do very much because of life and then suddenly I just have to just. Write a lot. So yeah, I probably don't recommend that because I think a little bit like Penn was saying consistency, it's probably a much better way of writing a book.
I only ever work on one book at a time. I write it chronologically and, again, like Pen, I edit as I go because I figure if I take a U turn or a wrong turn early on, I don't want to powerhead to the end to then come back and realise, 80k words ago I took a wrong turn and I have to rewrite.
I am a very slow writer. But yeah, I think That's what I said about being fascinated by a writer's brain. Everybody has an individual process and there's no right or wrong way to do it and I just think it, yeah, it's just amazing that we all do the same thing but we approach it from so many different angles.
[00:35:26] Pamela Cook: Yeah, I love that too. It's great, isn't it? Stella, how about you?
[00:35:30] Stella Quinn: I want very badly to be a plotter and I love a spreadsheet and I also use index cards and I write little scene maps for each scene and what usually happens is that I, write about 30k words and then I think this is all garbage and sometimes it really is garbage but then sometimes... I find that I don't actually know my characters well enough. Even though I know this is a problem, if I start a new project, right now I'm going to really know my characters. So I think I've done the work, but then I get into it and I think I don't know who my characters are until I've written 30k words.
And seeing them do stuff. And then I start to get an idea of who they might be, which might actually throw my whole pot out the window and I have to pounce my way onwards. So I wish I had a good process and I wish it got easier, but it just doesn't seem to. And I find when I get to the 100, 000 word first draft, I've lost all objectivity and I cannot tell if it's amazing or the biggest load of rubbish anyone ever typed into a keyboard.
Completely no objectivity at all. And I have to put it away then and not think about it. Just really pretend I don't even write for a living to come back to it to give me that some objectivity again. But Penelope, I'm an early bird. I need to find a coffee shop that opens at 6am.
I like to write in a coffee shop. with my dog at my feet. I like a grungy coffee shop. I don't want anything fancy. And I need it to be almost barely empty. So the ideal one I go to at the moment is in a sporting field. It's a shipping container. And you sit on it like a milk crate. But the beauty of it is it's not busy.
So I can be there eking out my coffee for three hours and I don't feel bad because it's not as though they need the table or the milk crate to serve up someone's fancy eggs benny or whatever. And deadlines are very motivational. I've got a day job as a tax accountant which is awesome, very creative, not three days a week.
So the other four days a week I devote myself to writing. So I'll do say three hours of writing in the morning. And then I faff around on social media, but if I've got a deadline, that'll be four, eight, eight hour days in a row for the month before the deadline, because I'll be panicking and typing.
I think the most I've ever written in one day might be about 12k words. writing, white knuckle boom. But in general, I'll probably try and do about two and a half thousand. If I'm motivated, I know where I'm going. I'll try to do two and a half thousand words in a session because that for me tends to be about a scene.
[00:38:16] Pamela Cook: Yeah. Okay. Lily, how about you?
[00:38:19] Lily Malone: I would immediately answer this question and say I'm a pantster. I think I actually have a little bit of a plot that I'm trying to grow like a little plant. So I have to get the idea. I definitely don't write the blurb first, Alissa. So if I have my idea, then I handwrite just something about what's going to happen in each chapter somewhere.
I'll put chapter one, this chapter two, to the ending sort of thing. And it's only small and it's really rough. But that's plotting, for me. I have no whiteboards, I don't have spreadsheets. Anything that makes writing mathematical just turns me off so fast. My brain just doesn't work that way.
And that goes right back to the things about, you read stuff about three act structures or seven act scenes or whatever that is. And that has never meant anything to me. But basically that sort of outline and then I just start at the start and get to the end and I do also edit as I go.
I've been told and I like to think that I write a very clean copy by the end of it. I'm a long time journal and ex editor of various different things and I think that comes through.
So I have always found that as quite a compliment. When you submit something that they've not been able to find a bazillion errors in it sort of thing. But on my writing days, like Stella, I work a three day week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I like to think that means that I have Thursday and Friday for writing, but usually Thursday I clean my house.
I have two teenage boys. And, they have sport and they have cricket and football and they have stuff and I'm a taxi service and
I think when they're younger, maybe there's more time somehow, although they're more demanding, but you're not driving them places and then sitting and watching the game three or four years ago, I was. working one day a week and writing four. And that was the sort of period when I wrote the three book Chalk Hill series.
But the world changes and circumstances change. And my writing, I'm very grateful for the time I've been able to put into it, that 10 year time. But it has to pay its way too. And, I do see it definitely as a business for me, or I call it my side hustle. But my side hustle does pretty well.
And it's a real weighing up of the financial business aspect. I, whilst I hate math, I do have a business brain about these things, and I don't quite see the point of writing for nothing financially, like it's got to give a return.
Like it's got to make something at the end of the day. So I agree with Penn that the only way to get going is to put your bum on the seat. I seem to find every possible way to not put my bum on the seat. But having a goal. Penn's suggestion of writing Country Vet Christmas helped get my bum on the seat at a time when I really wasn't doing much writing at all.
So I'm very grateful for that. And I think I said that in my acknowledgements, she gets a big rap for motivating Lily.
[00:41:28] Penelope Janu: We're all so grateful to have Jolene on the page. Thank you, and just quickly Stella mentioned, when you mentioned the spreadsheet idea, and Stella very kindly, because she knows these things, I think, very early on when we were just getting together on the anthology you sent around a spreadsheet, because, in case we had the Overlap of names or animals or this or that and I don't think we were very good spreadsheeters.
I remember there was something, I said I had a wombat and Pam said okay I won't have a wombat.
We did have discussions via email about whether our characters had sex or not, or where they were up to, and someone, I Stella, had a very funny comment that she's been divorced twice already, she's exhausted and whatever.
[00:42:05] Pamela Cook: Let's do a very quick throw in of that, if you don't mind. Go around and quickly tell the listeners. What's the heat rating on everybody's story? Cause I know that between all of us, we have various heat ratings in terms of whether the bedroom doors open, closed, or, blind to pieces.
Pen, what's your heat rating on your story?
[00:42:22] Penelope Janu: That's another challenge in the shorter format, because you want to make it believable. Yeah, my door's open normally. My characters tend to talk when they're having sex, so they tend to have it, whether it's 35k words or 105k words open, but very in context, it's quite an uplifting part of the story, I think, and it's a special part of the story yeah, door open for me.
[00:42:43] Pamela Cook: What about yours, Lily? What about Jolene?
[00:42:46] Lily Malone: I think she describes it as a kiss that rocks her world. And then beyond that you have imagined it, whether they even do it or not, I don't even know. Did they? I don't know. We finished the scene with this. The Kiss That Rocked Her World, and then the End Chapter.
[00:43:02] Pamela Cook: Don't give away too much.
[00:43:05] Stella Quinn: Oh yeah, PG.
[00:43:06] Pamela Cook: PG. Is that the same for all your books?
[00:43:09] Stella Quinn: My Rural Fiction, yeah, PG slash M my Rural Fiction. I've got some books. That I've indie published previously they're set in America, more of a standard adventure, action, romance sort of thing. I would call them Fade to Black. Yeah.
[00:43:29] Pamela Cook: And Alissa?
[00:43:30] Alissa Callen: I'm all about the journey, not the destination. So mine mine, mine is sweet and closed door.
[00:43:36] Pamela Cook: Yeah. My story is more probably romantic elements. There is some romance in there, but we don't get to see them doing the hot and heavy stuff. So Pen, I think you win the spicy rating for this anthology.
[00:43:49] Penelope Janu: And the funny thing is I never think of mine as particularly spicy because I always think it's, I don't think I've had enough experience for that.
[00:43:57] Lily Malone: I think I've read everything Penn's ever written. I'm a big fan. And I love your sex scenes. They are off the page. I think they're awesome.
[00:44:09] Pamela Cook: So it had a little tangent there talking about sex scenes and heat ratings, which I think Penn definitely wins the award for. But we'll get back now to talking about writing process and part of course which is procrastination and you were talking stellar about using spreadsheets
[00:44:24] Stella Quinn: I use spreadsheeting for procrastination, the way I suspect Lily uses Thursday housecleaning day for procrastination.
[00:44:32] Pamela Cook: I use the podcast for procrastination, amongst other things. Oh, my process is a bit higgledy piggledy. I'm a pantser by heart, but having, as you'd all know, like when you are writing for traditional publishers and they ask what's going to be in the next book, you have to come up with some kind of synopsis or a blurb, like you were saying, Alissa.
And so I guess over the years I have taken on a little bit more of a plotting brain, not that I plot everything out at the beginning, but thinking about the turning points. And I'm someone who loves the three act structure, Lily.
Lily Malone: Oh gosh. Oh, my head explodes.
Pamela Cook: I love to know where my turning points are going to be and what's going to happen at the midpoint and all that sort of stuff. And sometimes I'll get to that point and think, nah, that's not right. And like you Stella, I think I get to about the 25k to 30k word mark and go, nah, that's not right.
And usually I have to go back and tweak the beginning and get back to that point. So I'm, I find particularly with this book that I've been writing at the moment, which is fairly typical, I think of my process. I tend to move forward a bit. Then I'll go, Oh no, that's wrong. I've got to go back and fix that.
So I go backwards and revise a bit, then move forwards again. So it's a little bit stop, start. I'm not very disciplined. I'm very fortunate to have Penelope texting me most mornings and saying, are you writing yet? Cause she knows what a slacker I am. But. Like many of you too, a deadline is a magical thing and it does actually make you put your bum in your seat and get the words down.
[00:46:00] Stella Quinn: It's important to say if there were aspiring writers watching this, you know how we, say, edit as we go or if it's wrong so we go back. I think there's a whole other writing process challenge to the aspiring writer, which is finishing a book. you know how it's really easy to start, having a compelling beginning is a much easier thing to do than having a compelling middle and compelling end that goes with that beginning.
So I think if you're an aspiring writer, getting that to the end has to be done, no matter how much editing you're doing along the way of thinking you're editing along the way, you've just got to reach that end point because you learn so much by getting there.
And short stories are such a great tool for that because you can practise doing beginning, middle, end in a shorter form than the 100k women's fiction.
[00:47:00] Pamela Cook: Yeah. That, that leads me on to finish up with asking everyone what you got, what you are working on now, what your next release is. But before we do that was a great tip, I think, Stella. Let's go around and just one tip that you could give to aspiring or emerging writers or anybody out there who might be struggling a bit with their writing. Alissa?
[00:47:20] Alissa Callen: I'd just say to read, so read for craft but read also to feel that creative well and one thing is to also, it sounds strange but pay it forward kindness and helping other people, it really particularly for people starting out on this writing journey, it really means a lot.
So I try and pay it forward, but just reading because I think that's one thing about deadlines is they're really good for that volume of words, but that they can stifle that creative joy I think that's the thing is that just to enjoy even wherever stage you are at in your writing journey, just to enjoy the little things because deadlines can be when you, it is a business like Lily said, so you have to reach that.
So just enjoy whatever stage you're at, try and pay it forward and just read, just find that love of reading and of writing, which is probably what motivated you to put fingers on keyboards in the first place.
[00:48:03] Pamela Cook: True, very true. Penelope?
[00:48:06] Penelope Janu: I very much echo Stella's advice to actually finish the book, because I think that is so important, and I know when I finished my first book, it took forever and it was much too long, but it was in the editing of that book that I learned how to write. You can't learn those lessons unless you've actually done it.
And so that's really important, whether it's a really long book or a really short one. Also just finding time to write too. You mentioned your teenagers and we've all, I didn't start writing until later in life because it's just finding the time to do that. I think it's really important if you possibly can to, and this is speaking as women generally, we do have all sorts of, not only paid work, but we have a lot of unpaid work, and it is, if possible, to get the people around you to respect that when you are writing no, it might not have an immediate financial consequence or value, but it is valuable and it is to be respected.
And so it's not tinkering around, even if it's an hour a day on the weekends to be given the respect to actually Have that time to write, to dedicate to writing, and to have people around you respecting that is something that's worthwhile, that it's something that is giving you joy and pleasure, but more than that, that you're going to be able to reach readers with a voice, with something to say, and that you do have something to say, and that should be respected.
[00:49:21] Pamela Cook: I love that, Penn. Thank you. Lily?
[00:49:25] Lily Malone: I think I would say find a tribe and make sure you've got supportive people around you. I would, if it's romance that you're looking to write, and it doesn't have to be, but Romance Writers of Australia is a really great group.
There's Sisters in Crime, if crime writing's your thing, but join a group, find a tribe. I think that helps a lot.
[00:49:45] Pamela Cook: Lovely. Stella, did you have anything to add?
[00:49:47] Stella Quinn: Oh yeah, I think don't discount competitions. The only reason I'm published by HarperCollins is through a competition, which I didn't win, but my entry was shortlisted, and so the publishers read the shortlisted manuscripts, and that was what got me the phone call. Because Australia is a very small publishing market, and a limited number of books are published. each year and particularly if you're writing genre fiction, I love genre fiction of all sorts. I think in genre fiction, they have a limited number they can publish each year. They want them to be immediate sellers off the shelf.
There's a lot less give, like in a, like a literary style publisher, like University of Queensland, per se, they're, they've got one strategy they're working towards, which is not necessarily You know, things flying off the market at the shelves at Big W, whereas genre fiction, they really want to appeal to the Australian reader who's going to Big W and Kmart and Dimmicks and places to buy their books.
And entering a competition for a genre of fiction can get you exposed to publishers other than sitting in a slush pile that may never get picked up.
[00:50:56] Pamela Cook: Yeah. Great advice. It's hard to come up with anything because I give writing tips every week on the podcast, but just something that you mentioned, Stella, and it's something that's been helping me this week is using index cards. Sometimes I plot out the whole book. When I'm at the revision stage playing each scene on an index card, looking at what's the character's goal, who are the other characters involved, what's the conflict happening.
This week I've actually been writing down to remind myself of those things. What is the character's goal? What does the character need? What are some of the obstacles? And actually putting them on index cards and having them in front of me as I write the scenes. So it's fresh in my mind. I'm like, oh yeah, okay.
Because I have got a deadline, I haven't got time to waffle. So it's really me. on track, having that in front of me. Whether it's post it notes or index cards or something, I just find jotting things down like that and having them laid out in front of you as you write can be really helpful.
[00:51:46] Stella Quinn: Some years ago I, at the university in Brisbane, there's a university that offers a course in, a postgrad course in writing, editing and publishing, which is fabulous. And we did a subject on the structural edit of a novel. And one of the tips we got was to use an index card for each scene.
But I wanted to say, what has changed at the end of this scene? Because the idea being that if nothing has changed at the end of this scene, maybe you don't need the scene. Or you can collate it with another scene so that, yeah, but what's different And that can help you focus on what the scene is actually supposed to be doing as opposed to just talking beautifully about the gumtree. Which is worthy in its own right.
[00:52:24] Pamela Cook: I have kept you all for so long, but it's been so lovely to talk to you. But before we go, if everyone could tell us what you're currently writing, and or what your next release is. Pen? Apart from A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS, of course.
[00:52:35] Penelope Janu: Okay, yes, of course. Yeah, my next release is actually 1st of December ‘Sunshine Through the Rain’, so that's another long rural fiction novel about a vet. Another bet, not a ballerina bet, but I'm a very committed bet. And I'm currently working on my 2024, which will be my 2024 book.
So I've actually a few times we've all mentioned the 100, 000 words and you think, oh my god, this is just an absolute crock of shit. I'm very much in that stage at the moment. So I'm hoping to have a little break from it and come back to it and fall in love with the characters all over again, fingers crossed.
In the meantime, yeah very excited about this anthology coming out and I love it how we've all been Christmas nerds and Christmas grinches and everything else, can't wait. All right,
[00:53:17] Pamela Cook: Thanks, Pen. Alissa?
[00:53:20] Alissa Callen: So I'm not working on anything at the moment but my next new release will be out in February and it is Snowy Mountains Dawn and it is the final, apart from this book out next week it is the final chapter of my Snowy Mountains series. This is Brenna and she's my horsewoman and She says, unless someone looks good on a horse and calls a shot, she's not interested.
And it just so happens this city boy, who doesn't, spoiler alert, doesn't turn out to be quite so citified comes to the mountains. And I had a lot of fun writing this story. And so now I just have to put and think about where I'm going to go for my next series. But I'm actually going to take a break.
I'll have a book out next year and then I'll take a break and then I'll be back. Already signed a contract, so I have a book out 2024 next year, then I'm skipping a year and then I'll be back in 2026.
And I just want to say thank you so much, Pam, again, for having us and to all the other orders for being my Christmas collaborators.
[00:54:09] Pamela Cook: Stella?
[00:54:10] Stella Quinn: Okay, so I've got a book coming out in June and it's Royal Fiction again. This one I've set in Queensland, first time I've set it in my home state. It’s called Down the Track. It's a Second Chance Romance, which I love writing. My main character Jo is a palaeontologist, and she's recently divorced, and is having a cold war with her 12 year old son.
And she's about to lose her job. She's no good at budgeting. She is on the bones of her ass, as we'd say in Queensland vernacular. And she gets this letter from these two old girls in outback Queensland in a town I've made up called Yindy Creek, which is based mostly off Winton.
They think there's a dinosaur buried on their sheep station. Can she come out and have a look? And she thinks this could be a turning point for her.
And it's Christmas holidays, so she could take her son with her for a bit of camping. Yes, it'll be 40 degrees. They could die of heat exposure, but a bit of mother son bonding time only problem is she's been to Yindy Creek once before 15 years ago, and she had a fling with a local helicopter pilot called Gavin Huxtable.
He's known as Hux to his mates. But surely he won't be there and surely no one will remember her. she thinks they just had a one off fling, he had his heart broken.
But he's actually used his broken heart for commercial success because whilst he's a helicopter pilot, He also had a dream when he was 15, years ago.
He wanted to be a thriller writer like Matthew Reilly. So he's actually become a successful thriller writer in the meantime. And his main character in his series is this guy who's emotionally stunted because of a woman who dumped him years ago. So we've got a missing person's case, we've got a fossil possibly being dug up, we've got these two old birds who call themselves the Dirt Girls, they're in their 80s, who realise that actually the real drama isn't the bones being dug up.
It's the relationship drama that they have a front row seat for. So yeah, it's a lot of fun and I have not yet got the structural edits back from, they're with the editor at the moment. They get back to me on November 7th and I have to get it back to them finished, ready to go, super duper by December 5th.
So that's going to be a big four weeks for me.
[00:56:27] Pamela Cook: Oh, you've always got Christmas to celebrate
[00:56:29] Stella Quinn: Yeah. Prawns and champagne at the end. Yeah.
[00:56:33] Pamela Cook: Ha. Lily?
[00:56:35] Lily Malone: I think all those books sound amazing, ladies, and I can't wait to find them on shelves. Not too far away. So my next release is a country music Christmas, in a Country Vet Christmas, the book that I'm working on at the minute is a crime story. I wrote a crime story called The Waterhole that came out in 2022. That was my first sort of foray into that genre.
So maybe a bit funny being a rural romance author mixed in with a bit of crime, but I do enjoy writing crime and mystery. So that's what I'd started. I'd be about 20 words into it and it's called Best Served Cold.
[00:57:20] Stella Quinn: Nice.
[00:57:21] Lily Malone: So that's what I'm working on. The other thing happening for me next year, one of my older backlist stories is going to be in a HarperCollins anthology again. It'll be the second time for this particular book, which I do like. When your backlist kind of gets recycled through the publisher's various avenues that they have to try and keep them fresh.
And I like it from the business perspective, as I talked about, that you don't have to do more work on it, but you end up with a bit more income from it. Yeah, so like I said, honestly, I haven't been doing very much writing this year. I've found every reason in life, every excuse not to.
When I am on a roll, I'm pretty disciplined but I need a kick up the butt. I need something to work on and get me going. Otherwise I tend to. Drift through things. And also for me at the minute, it's spring over in wa.
One of my absolute loves is the wildflowers and the orchids and there are so many out in the bush right now that I'll take any excuse to not be sitting in a desk and get out amongst the bush at the moment.
But yes, gimme a deadline and I'll come through.
[00:58:27] Pamela Cook: Yes.
[00:58:28] Penelope Janu: I'll give you one.
[00:58:31] Pamela Cook: I'm on a deadline for the end of October for a book called Out of the Ashes, which is the follow-on book. I've decided to write two follow-on books to Black Wattle Lake, and that's being published by Belinda Audio. So it's coming out on audio first. That, yeah, I'm really furiously trying to get that finished for the end of And yeah, , my backlist is being released kind of one at a time, including this new book, Out of the Ashes, and then another third book, which will finish Eve's story that started in Blackwattle Lake, but I'm writing them as standalones as [00:59:00] well, if somebody can pick them up and just read them.
Hopefully that's what I'm doing. So thank you very much everybody for being here. A Country About Christmas is out on October 4th. So this podcast is going to be out on October 6th. So anybody who's listening, you should be able to find this in your local Big W and also Target, I believe. And you can always ask your independent bookseller to order it in if they don't have it.
And it will also be available online at online bookstores.
[00:59:27] Stella Quinn: And ebook. Ebook as well.
[00:59:29] Alissa Callen: If you would like a signed copy, they can just email me on my website or any, and Facebook, and I'll send them.
[00:59:35] Pamela Cook: Great. And Penelope and I, because we are both Sydney peeps, we are doing a little book tour out to Central West, New South Wales, and Alissa is going to be joining us at Orange. For a fabulous lunch at Collins Booksellers owned by Kelly Rimmer, which will be wonderful.
And Penn and I are heading out to Forbes, Narromine, Cowra and Borowa following that, doing some libraries and writing workshops too. You can find info about that on our websites and I'll pop it in the show notes.