From Horses to Heartstrings: Christy Cashman’s Fiction Journey
“Trust your process, even when it feels chaotic—your story will find its way.”
Buy THE TRUTH ABOUT HORSES
✨📚 This week on Writes4Women, @pamelacookwrites sits down with Christy Cashman, author of The Truth About Horses, for an unforgettable chat about her writing journey, from film to fiction. In this episode, Christy dives deep into the creative process behind her emotional debut novel—a coming-of-age story about a girl, her connection to horses, and the complexities of grief. Whether you're a writer or just love a good story, this conversation is packed with inspiration and insights you won’t want to miss. 🎧 Add this one to your playlist and prepare to get inspired by the world of horses and heartfelt storytelling! 🐴✨
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Events
01:48 Substack and Community Engagement
03:31 Exclusive Content for Paid Subscribers
05:22 Writing Retreats and Courses
07:22 Interview with Christy Cashman
13:13 Christy's Writing Journey and Process
28:54 Exploring Grief and Individual Responses
29:20 Character Spotlight: Wes the Selective Mute
31:37 Capturing Big Emotions in Writing
33:55 Non-Linear Writing Process
37:25 Descriptive Writing and Sensory Details
42:07 Narrating the Audiobook
43:54 Writing Rituals and Overcoming Writer's Block
47:02 Publishing Journey and Marketing Challenges
52:58 Future Projects and Creative Process
53:30 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review or consider subscribing to our Substack.
Transcript
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.
Christy: I didn't write linearly. I wasn't able to come up with scenes in the order that the story was written. So if I thought of where I knew. The story was going, I would just go ahead and write that scene and I'd plunk it in there somewhere at the end. And it gave me a place to drive to, in a way and transitions for me.
Christy: Then came later.
Pamela: Welcome to Writes for Women, a podcast all about celebrating women's voices and supporting women writers. I'm Pamela Cook, women's fiction, author, writing teacher, mentor, and podcaster. Before beginning today's chat, I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Dal people. The traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is being recorded, along with the traditional owners of the land throughout Australia, and a quick reminder that there could be strong language and adult concepts discussed in this podcast.
Pamela: So please be aware of this if you have children around. Let's relax on the convo couch, and chat to this week's guest.
Pamela: Hello, and welcome to another episode of rights for women. It is Wednesday, the 25th of September at. I am recording this. And this episode is actually going to go out this week on the 27th of September. As you will know, if you're a regular listener to the podcast. I am currently flying by the seat of my pants in all things I have. A pretty tight deadline.
Pamela: I'm working on my draft slash revision at the same time. For my novel, which I have to have in by the end of October. And this weekend, I'm actually going to be hosting a panel called fantastic tails at the Northern beaches Redis festival at Avalon. That panel has the fabulous Joe Ritchie only who is a guest host on Wrightsville women.
Pamela: From time to time, we have Kate Forsyth, fantastic master storyteller and kill woods who has also been on the podcast who we've heard to boon novel after the woods. Can't wait to talk to those three authors about their fantastic tales. There are still tickets available for that session. If you are in Sydney or you feel like a trip to Sydney and joining us at Northern beaches, Redis festival pop onto the website and brf.com.edu.
Pamela: And you can grab your tickets there. I'm also hosting a workshop at the festival. I would love to be able to say, you can join us in that, but it's actually sold out, which is really exciting. It's called climb inside your character skin. And it's all about getting into the head space and the experiential space of our characters.
Pamela: So I've been putting together. The slides and the presentation for that. And it's all coming together really well. So that's been keeping me very busy. Today's interview on the podcast is with an author called Kristy Kashmin, , who I will tell you all about in a moment. But I also wanted to give a shout out to everybody who has made the transition from Patrion across to sub stack to support the podcast. And also to the new people who have found the podcast and are following us on sub stack. Whether you're a free or a paid subscriber.
Pamela: Great to have you on board. As you join the rights for women writing community. I have had a couple of questions from Patrion subscribers as to how to shift. They're paid subscription over. So with sub stack, you can either be a free subscriber where you would just get the notes and the newsletters and all those sorts of things that come through sub stack. Both on the app and into your email account.
Pamela: If you sign up, it's pretty easy to sign up at rights for women on sub stack. I'll put the link for that in the show notes. And basically you just make the choice. Do you follow as a free subscriber or you become a paid subscriber? So if you're a free subscriber each week on a Friday, you will get a little outline of the podcast episode that is out that day. Along with the top takeaways. For our writing from that episode. You will also get various nuts and things popping up in your feed during the week where I'll share things from previous podcasts. Writing tips. Things that are coming up with my own writing, I'll share links and articles and posts and things like that, that I'm finding useful for my writing and feel that you might too. So that's all available to free subscribers. If you would like to join the paid subscriber. Community or what we're calling the rights for women family on sub stack. It's $7 50 a month.
Pamela: So the price just over the price of a cup of coffee. And for your additional support you will get two video vlogs if you like each week. One where I analyze a couple of pages from a book that I'm currently reading. So this week I've done a Coco Miller's blue sisters, where I basically just photocopy a couple of pages, put it on the screen and video myself deconstructing it.
Pamela: And there's a lot to learn from. Studying the writing of our favorite authors and just basically spend about probably 15 minutes doing that. The other thing that comes out on a Wednesday is the diary of a procrastinator, usually on a Wednesday, give or take a day or two. Where I talk about my own writing process the hurdles that I'm coming up against the obstacles and how I'm overcoming those.
Pamela: So there's a lot in there about writing craft, writing tips, writing advice. There's a few other things as well, which you can find on the sub stack. Platform when you go to sign up. And I'm also going to be running some writings once a month. We'll have a rights for women writing sprint. Probably for about 40 minutes or so which we will do on zoom. And you'll also have the opportunity to then ask questions or bring up any issues that are coming up for you in your writing. So I am. Very soon going to be sitting dates for that.
Pamela: I'll be sending out a poll to paid subscribers on sub stack and finding out what the best time for you is. And of course it might not always work for you. I might vary the time a little bit each month so we can cover different time slots. But no matter where you are in Australia or the world, it would be great.
Pamela: If you could join us on rights for women on sub stack, I'm really enjoying the platform. There are so many great writing resources. Courses on their fantastic writers on their sharing, their experiences, not just about writing, but about life in general. And it's a really great way to. Yeah, just become part of a really wide creative community.
Pamela: So do join us. It's fantastic. Over on sub stack.
Pamela: I also wanted to let you know, I do have a couple more things that you can check out on my website, Pamela cook.com.edu. I've now opened up an expression of interest form, which you can find there for my next writing retreat, the next level writing retreat, which was a huge success this year. Back in may.
Pamela: I'll. I'll be doing it probably late March, early April in 2025. I'm about to lock down a date for that. If you are interested in joining for that, it's a kind of four day retreat at Cara winter house in beautiful Kurrajong, not far from Sydney itself, so easily to access. Do pop your name on that form. And the other thing I wanted to let you know is that my turn up the tension course. Which I've run a few times now.
Pamela: And usually I run it with a set starting point and end point set dates where we have zoom calls and all that sort of thing. As part of it, I just do not have the capacity to run. On those zoom calls at the moment, and to set new dates. So for the time being, I have done a radical price reduction on turn up the tension. It's only $199 for the eight modules.
Pamela: Each module is jam packed. There's probably about three or four hours worth of work. If you really get into it and do all the exercises that are provided there. So there are hours and hours of material there you can do as much, or as little as you want. You also have lifetime access to the material from the course. People who've done the course cited as being really helpful in getting their writing to the next level.
Pamela: And I really would. I'm really happy to be offering that at such a great price reduction and hope that new people like yourself perhaps will hop on and find that on the website under courses@pamelacook.com dot a U. I'm also going to be. Adapting the course that I'm doing this weekend at NBR F into an online course. Climb inside your character skin.
Pamela: With another follow on course going on. On from that about getting characterization onto the page. So hopefully you will find something there that works for you.
Pamela: Let me tell you about today's guest.
Pamela: Christie Kashmin is a mother author and active member of the Boston literary community. She's on the board of directors for the associates of the Boston public library. And it's the founder of youth, Inc. A not-for-profit mentorship program for young artists in the United States. And in Ireland. In addition to the truth about horses, which is Christie's debut fiction novel, which we're talking about today.
Pamela: She's also published two children's books, the nutso Everage monkey of Kilkee castle. And Petrie's next things. Christie her husband and their two sons and three dogs live in Boston and spend time in Ireland and on Cape Cod. She's currently working on her second novel Beulah and on her third children's book, the cat named peanut shrimp, cookie fry muffin, who lives on Steny or key.
Pamela: It's quite a mouthful. I've just finished chatting to Christie actually. And we had a fantastic conversation about the truth about horses, which is her. Y a kind of slash over adult novel. I didn't know it was a white novel when I started reading it. The only thing that really gives that away, is the age of the protagonist, but it's a very moving gripping story about a young woman enter father. Coming to terms with grief and the role that horses play in her awakening and also in her healing now. For anybody listening out there who might suddenly be thinking, oh, I'm not into books about horses. Don't let that put you off, either reading or listening to the book on audio or listening to this interview with Christie. There is so much in this chat with Christie about the creative process about just getting the words on the page and how that whole process worked for her.
Pamela: We do talk about the book and we do talk a little bit about horses. But there's so much more in here on the writing craft and plenty of great writing advice or shared writing experience. I do also talk about the audio book. I talked to Christie about that, and there are some great sound effects and all that sort of things.
Pamela: And there will be a little snippet of the book if I can manage that, to get that into the interview as well. Just so you can hear what I'm talking about when I say how. What a great experience it was to listen to the audio book. So if you're listening today on Friday, I hope to see you at NBRs.
Pamela: Come up and say hello. If you're a friend of rights for women or listener or subscriber, please come and see me at the Northern beaches readers festival. This weekend. Sit back, grab a cup of pop on your headphones, pop on your walking shoes, whatever it is that you do when you're listening to what's for women, or you can find us at the rights for women YouTube channel and see Christie and I on your screen. Hope you enjoy this interview with Christie Kashmin.
Pamela: So Christie Cashman, it is fantastic to have you on rights for women.
Pamela: You are on the other side of the world. It's currently 7:00 AM in Australia. What time is it and where are you? Can you tell us?
Christy: Sure. I am in Cape Cod in Chatham, Massachusetts and it is 5:00 PM
Pamela: Fantastic. And you are going into, you're in fall over there, aren't you? In autumn?
Christy: Just going into fall.
Christy: I thought when I put this hat on I was like, do I look too fallish? But I'm going with it. I'm going with the fall. The air has changed for sure. From those, steamy summer afternoons to a much more cool cool breeze and that kind of thing.
Pamela: Yeah. We've got the opposite.
Pamela: We've got the warm air coming in, still a little bit of a nip in the mornings and night, I imagine that's a beautiful time of the year where you are.
Christy: It's gorgeous. Oh, yeah. Fall is actually one of my favorite times of year in New England.
Pamela: Yeah. I've seen photos and it looks amazing.
Pamela: It is so good to have you on what we call the Rights for Women Convo Couch, where we have a chat about your book the Truth About Horses. I finished reading or listening to the audio book a few weeks ago, and as a horse lover and somebody who really devours books about people coming to terms with different issues in their life, particularly grief, I found it.
Pamela: An absolutely amazing book, so congratulations.
Christy: Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
Pamela: It is your first foray into adult fiction, I believe. Is that right?
Christy: Yes, and the book sits on a, on the shelf in the bookstore In Ya, young adult fiction, but I actually just won. My second award for the New York Big Book Awards, and I was, I think, favorite for general fiction, and I also won the Ben Franklin Award for general fiction.
Christy: So I think that when people read it, even though that's where it is in the bookstore, or on a bookshelf, I think when people read it, they realize that the content is really for anyone. Which is what, would I want it anyway?
Christy: Yeah, , I would agree. And in fact, Christie, when I started reading it, I didn't even realize that it was, categorized as ya, so I just started reading it as a general fiction book.
Christy: It did occur to me at one point because the main character is in her kind of late teens, I think, it moves through her late teen period , as the story unfolds. I did think at one stage, oh. Maybe this is a ya story, but it didn't feel particularly ya to me. So I definitely agree with you that it's in that kind of crossover category and would be great for anybody to read of any age.
Christy: Excellent.
Christy: So before we get onto talking about the book, can you tell us a little bit about your kind of path to publication? How you got to be at the point where you're writing, a fiction book.
Christy: Yeah, so about 10 years ago in 2014 almost exactly 10 years ago, I wrote in my journal that I wanted to start taking myself serious more seriously as a writer.
Christy: I had been involved in. In film and that kind of thing. I did some writing, some screenplay writing. I read a lot of screenplays. I I actually worked on a book show where I interviewed authors who'd had their books adapted to film. And so I think I was in some ways grooming myself too, without knowing it, because I was really, fascinated by story. I was fascinated by process. I was always asking other authors what they, how they started, what they did, and what their writing process was like. And got this idea that started with this vision of a herd of wild horses after watching caval, which is like the Cirque de Soleil for horses.
Christy: Yeah. I remember seeing Caval many years ago now, but it was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It was very spiritual for me and when I watched that, I had this idea of a herd of wild horses that was mystical for. The main character that almost what led her to the truth in a way, or brought her, gave her something else to think about other than what, this, the, just this physical dimension.
Christy: And and I love magical realism, and so that was my attempt at bringing in a magical realism element. To a story that's very much grounded in reality. And and then when I decided about where, where the character would be set in the world and all that, I knew, that it would be set in the world of horses and I chose out west because that's where, there are some herds of wild horses.
Christy: And I also wanted. Her to lose have a, a tragic loss in her life because I also lost my mother, but the main character is not me. Reese is not me. I just wrote some of the same things that happened to me, but I didn't write about me. I know it's hard to yeah.
Christy: No, I know exactly where you're coming from. Yeah. But, she's so different than I was. I was more not in tune with my anger over my mother's law, my mother's death and experiencing that. She just got angry so fast at how her dad dealt with grief differently than she did. And I think what I really liked about writing her is that in some ways it was it was cathartic.
Christy: It was almost like therapy to be able to write this character who just.
Christy: Angry thoughts and. Acts on them at times because she's struggling and she's in pain.
Christy: So you said you had that original idea back in, around 2014, started journaling about it, and I imagine gradually the idea, started to coalesce for you.
Christy: Yeah. , then I signed up for every class that I could take at a place called Grub Street, which was a writing workshop in Boston and. I just took everything that I could. I took creative nonfiction, is what I started with. Then I took fiction one, fiction two. I took incubator workshops. I took novel in progress workshops.
Christy: I just didn't stop with the classes because I found that the more I produced, the closer I got to. A rough draft with my novel because even though maybe in class we weren't always working on our manuscript, producing and writing was always something that helped me hone. A lot of where my character was going and what she was doing and what was taking place in my story.
Christy: So , as you were doing the classes, you were gradually building on the story and building on the character
Christy: and learning tools. Almost yeah, I like the expression building the plane as you're flying it because Oh, I love that. That's how it felt, and I didn't, I didn't really stop. I just kept doing it at times. I put it down for months at a time that manuscript, but I was always trying to work on something else. I wrote two children's books as an, as a, an exercise to make my brain think more simplistically and make myself distill the story down to as if you were going to tell a child.
Christy: That was one of the exercises we had to do in one of the classes that I took. Distill your story down to something that you could tell a child and then see if that's something that you can do in two lines or three lines. Yeah. And and if you can do that, then in some ways, that you have a solid story.
Christy: We tend to want to complicate our characters to the point that, oh she's not really that and and. She has this going on and to make them unique. But really what people want when they read a book or watch a movie, is they want a relatable character, a relatable character in a world that might have different rules than we have, but a relatable character who make us feel, and so I, read that one time. Totally believed it and tried to stick with that in, in my in my story.
Christy: I agree with what you're saying about getting the story down to its essence. So it's a bit like creating, the pitch for your book or the logline or what, whatever you want to call it, that's right. Yeah. If you're able to do that and really get it down, it really helps you as the author work out what the essence of the story is, doesn't it? It does even the exercise of trying it because actually, I don't know if I ever really did get it down,
Christy: I don't know if I got the exact right log line for it. But yeah. The exercise of trying is important. It's basically you have this world that's been, that you create, you have these characters that you place in this world. And the character has to want something. So often we also forget that , we often forget how important it is to make this character that you want people to care about, really want something.
Christy: Because that's why we as readers then become invested, is that Oh yeah, how were they gonna get it? Then it's the writer's job, or the author's job, I think to put as many roadblocks in their way as possible.
Christy: Yes. That's the fun part, isn't it?
Christy: Yeah.
Christy: So before we continue, 'cause I do wanna come back to your writing process a little bit later, Christie, but before we do continue, you, we've mentioned a little bit about the story, but just for listeners, could you give us a rundown on what the story is actually about?
Christy: Sure. Yeah. Reese Tucker is a 14-year-old girl who lives on a farm in a horse farm in South Dakota. And her parents were the trainers. They ran the farm. They were the ones who really knew all the ins and outs of the business. And Reese suffers a couple of horrible tragedies. Write off, it's not really a spoiler alert.
Christy: Her mother dies. And. It's really after that of what happens to her and how she navigates after the tragedy that where the story begins. And it begins with her and her father having been very separated from each other because they navigate grief very differently. And really the story as much as it's about horses and finding the lost horse and training and, for a very challenging race, it's really very much about.
Christy: A story between a father and a daughter and finding their way back to each other after a tragedy.
Christy: Great summary. And so many elements in there, like from the horses to the relationships to Reese kind of coming of age herself. And I have to ask though, before we continue.
Christy: What's your own relationship with horses? Because the way that you write about them and describe them and many listeners to this podcast know, I'm a massive horse lover myself. But I just found some of those scenes in there were just absolutely beautiful and, it was really clear to me that you have a real spiritual kind of connection with horses yourself.
Christy: Would that be right?
Christy: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I was my parents had horses. I'm one of 10 kids, and so my parents, we live, I was born in Ohio and the first seven years of my life we were on a. A poultry farm in Ohio. We had four horses. Two ponies. Two horses. And when I was seven we moved to North Carolina. We brought the mayor with us.
Christy: Her name was Mary, a bay quarter horse mare, and we brought her to North Carolina. Bred her with a quarter horse stallion. And my parents let me raise the baby rambler. And so at nine years old I had a baby horse, which was probably the most life changing. Event for, for me at that time, it was just so magical.
Christy: And I just had, I don't know. So all of my senses were alive at a very early age when I was in the barn around the horses smelling the grain, smelling the leather, and the, the grass and just. Even the way a horse smells is different than anything else, yeah. When they breathe in, when they, with their big soft noses at your, on your cheek and breathe on your, it's it's yeah.
Christy: It's for an artist or for a kid, I think when they're passionate, there's nothing like it.
And you still have horses now?
Christy: I have, I just got off my horse. I have four horses where I am here and I have two horses in Ireland.
Christy: Oh, fantastic. And I got goosebumps when you were talking about, as a 9-year-old, having that relationship with a young horse and just growing up together.
Christy: It must have been amazing.
Christy: It really was. Yeah, he was. It was a special experience.
Christy: I've come to horses later in my life through my own daughter's riding, so it wasn't till I was in my forties that I really connected with horses. I did a little bit of trail riding when I was young, but yeah. And now I'm completely hooked.
Christy: Of course. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Christy: So let's get back to the book. Tell us a little bit more about Reese. So as you say she has this very tragic experience when she's young, in her kind of mid to late teens. And that kind of sets up the story, but tell us a little bit about her personality and how you went about creating that character arc that we see so clearly in the novel.
Christy: I was in some ways very lucky because once I started writing her voice, it came really clear to me that she was she had an edge to her. She also thought she knew everything, and she thought that if you weren't a horse person, you weren't really anybody who mattered to her. And.
Christy: I remember feeling that way somewhat when I was a kid and I just went with it. I took some things that I knew, some things that I experienced, and I just gave it, times 10 or whatever, I, I gave her a snarkiness that that I think that I, my friend growing up in North Carolina had, but then I, again, just quadrupled it and.
Christy: I, I had fun doing that. I had fun sometimes writing something that she would say and going back and reading it and going, oh no, that's not snarky enough. That's not, that's not Reese. She would have something much more unique to say, and then that gave me a challenge with her character to always have something unique and.
Christy: And snarky and a little bit of an edge that showed that really she was in pain. With her snarkiness in her her having to feel like she knew everything in her world, that was her comfort. She was comforted by that. She was comforted by horse people, horse talk.
Christy: Surrounded by horses, the horse world,
Christy: , she's definitely a really strong character and I think really interesting that you say that about, when you were looking at the different decisions you made about her characters, is that idea of pushing it a little bit further, because while we want fiction to be believable, it needs to be a bit more than real life too, doesn't it?
Christy: In a sense? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think that it's important to. Get those characters to pop off the page without being caricatures, so I think it's fine line too. Yeah. And also I think it's also important to make sure that your character is grounded in a place of motivation.
Christy: Like they're not just snarky for being snarky , nothing is gratuitous, there's a purpose behind the way she talks, the way she moves through the world. And, once I had that, once I had a handle on that, then then I was, off to the races.
Christy: As they say.
Christy: Yeah. And of course, it's not just Reese who is dealing with grief. There are a couple of other characters that we get to know reasonably well in particular her father. So can you tell us a little bit about her father and their relationship and how that unfolds in the story?
Christy: Obviously, without too many spoilers.
Christy: Sure. I think the best way to describe the father is. After tragedy, he was much more interested in moving on and not really dealing with his feelings and not and, not really seeing his daughter and what she was going through because he was too busy avoiding his own feelings, all I did there was I just wrote about myself. I'm always avoiding my feelings. I'm always avoiding the hard stuff, and we can so easily distract ourselves with life and with other things. Like he was trying to patch up the family and bring somebody else into their life and, and make it look like it was all good.
Christy: And I guess I think I do that. I am, I've done that, I've done that. I've done the sort of trying to patch it up. I do it in my writing sometimes. Sometimes I try to take the shortcut, and make it look like it's there. But then, but I haven't really done the deep dive into the character and I haven't really given them enough sort of foundation to be three dimensional, and just think that's, he's a character who did that and wanted to skate over the tragedy as opposed to deal with it head on. And Reese and he, just butted heads because she wanted everything that she had before the loss of her mother. The, she wanted to be at the farm.
Christy: She criticized her father for kind of throwing it away with both hands. And and so they were living totally different lives. And just passing each other in the house, not really taking each other in. And, and, she was always seen as the difficult teenager who's now really difficult because she's lost her mother and possibly even has some mental problems and that kind of thing.
Christy: And he's just the dad who's, trying to get a life back.
Christy: , it's interesting to see the two different ways and as someone who, like you, I I lost my father when I was young. I was only three. So I grew up in a family, that had everybody dealing with grief in a different way.
Christy: So I'm always interested in reading stories like this, where it is. Really delving into the way, and it doesn't have to be grief, it could be any experience, but the different ways in which individuals deal with particular life events. I find that fascinating and just the whole psychology behind it.
Christy: And yeah, I think this is a really interesting, the way that you look at it. And there's another character in there that we meet too. We don't get to know quite so much about him. About him because of his personality, but that is Wes who runs the barn. Can you tell us a little bit about him?
Christy: I found him a really interesting character as well.
Christy: I'm so glad because once I decided that he was a selective mute, I went back and looked at the co, the corner I'd painted myself into because. When you have a character who doesn't speak, you don't have a lot of other options of expressing what they're doing and thinking and all that.
Christy: But I also liked that challenge because, it gave Reese a chance to look at herself. When you're talking with someone who really doesn't say much, you start listening a little bit more to yourself. And I think that. That's what he did for her. And he, and also just in general somebody who doesn't, who chooses not to speak.
Christy: There's a lot of guesswork that goes on and sometimes she was right and sometimes she was wrong once she picked up on some of his, gestures and that kind of thing. She felt oh, she had 'em, figured out. But towards the end we find out that she didn't quite have him down, and it, and I just also just raising the question of how we sometimes just throw words out there without thinking, we just we get hung up on words a lot. We get, we use a lot of extra words sometimes to say something rather simple. We feel an awkward moment with words.
Christy: We're in a way, always searching for feelings that are way more complicated than what are limited words. Or limited vocabulary can ever express. And I think that's the plight of every person who lives. We, no matter how huge your vocabulary is, they're always gonna be standing on the edge of the. Unavailable word to express your feeling.
Christy: And even more so as a writer.
Christy: Yeah.
Christy: Trying to capture that, those things on the page. Which actually brings me to my next question. There are a lot of big emotions in this story. Obviously, grief being one of them, but, anger so many different things.
Christy: Moments of happiness and joy as well. You capture those moments so beautifully on the page. How did you go about doing that? What was your process? And I know that it is generally a process of refinement as you revise the novel and all that sort of thing, but were you conscious that, I really need to get these emotions across and working on that as you wrote and revised the novel?
Christy: I think that for me the best stories, the ones that I've learned the most from, the ones that I've enjoyed the most are those one, are the ones that have a great plot, but really it's an emotional rollercoaster. It's something that's happening emotionally for character that that maybe I haven't experienced, but that I can relate to.
Christy: I think that I just tried to put Reese in as much the stuff that she was most afraid of, stuff that she was fighting the most even without knowing it, really what she wanted was a connection with her father, but the more you know, but in, in reality, when you saw them. In a scene together, you thought that she hated him, you think that she doesn't want anything to do with him because he wants nothing to do with the horse farm that he gave up that, her, the mother ran. I think what I attempt to do is I tried not to write on the nose so much, but.
Christy: I don't know. I keep going back to it, but I feel like when I used anger for Reese, it, it worked every time. Yeah. Because I think it's a teenage thing, you know that Yeah. That you don't wanna be sad, so you're angry. , you don't wanna hurt, you don't wanna feel pain, you don't want.
Christy: So a lot of that for a teenager just turns to anger, and I can again relate to that, so I was in, I'm a little bit in Reese, I'm a little bit in the dad but not fully,
Christy: Yeah. And did you have a pretty clear idea when you started writing or at some point during the process of where you wanted Reese to end up at the end of the story?
Christy: Were you working towards that end of that character arc as you wrote?
Christy: I wrote the last scene probably three years before I actually had a polished draft. Okay. The last scene stayed pretty much the same. Even that whole last chapter really so I was just talking to somebody about this recently about how I wrote in islands a lot.
Christy: Like I didn't write linearly. I wasn't able to come up with scenes in the order that the story was written. So if I thought of where I knew. The story was going, I would just go ahead and write that scene and I'd plunk it in there somewhere at the end. And it gave me a place to drive to, in a way and transitions for me.
Christy: Then came later. I worked on moments of. Okay, in a story, you can't constantly have all these horrible things happen and nothing nothing rewarding for the character. Yeah. And I felt like the way that she wanted to start running the big green barn with Wes and, advertising it on social media and stuff, that felt.
Christy: German to the character, it felt for a teenager they are so much more well versed that than adults. , she would think that she could help out and she did. But then, then it, it wasn't all that well thought out.
Christy: So that's really interesting that you didn't necessarily write chronologically.
Christy: When you did have that kind of final draft and you were starting to pull it all together, did it all fall into place reasonably easily then, was it hard to piece it together
Christy: I think that, along with writing in the island, sometimes I would write a scene, like a placeholder. I'd say, okay, I know a scene that has something going on here that has to do with this. And I just tried a quick placeholder and then I'd move on. Because if I tried to work that scene out right then and there, then I might get stuck, which I did a lot.
Christy: So just as a way of getting unstuck, I would go and write a scene that I knew. That I was, going to eventually get to now some of those scenes didn't say stay the same. Once I started what I had this vision in my head of, which is so true, is that it's if you were to take a sheet from your bed and try to iron it, all the wrinkles, then all end up at the end, you're, yes, you're ironing something out.
Christy: You're smoothing it out when you're doing revisions and. You're pushing all those wrinkles out to the end and I just kept having that vision and I was very visual. I had to have these things to think about as I worked on each phase, writing the islands, connecting them, the w graph, where.
Christy: You think this bottom of the w is the worst thing, but really it's the next bottom of the w that's the worst. And I liked those visual things it helped me with structure. But yeah the ironing out was interesting because as I ironed at the end and all those wrinkles ended up at the end, some of them just, weren't necessary.
Christy: They were superfluous to the story and it was useful to write it because it kept me moving, but that I don't need that scene,
Christy: I love that. I think that's a really great tip for any writers listening out there is if you are stuck, write a scene that does come to you and, you might use it in the end or you might not, but if it gets you going and it keeps your head in the story, then it's really useful.
Christy: Absolutely.
Christy: We referenced this before Christie, but you do such an amazing job of capturing the beauty of the horses. Not just the horses in the barn, but particularly these, this herd of wild horses that appears for Reese. You're obviously a horse lover. You've been involved with horses for a long time.
Christy: But. How was that process for you of writing those scenes? Because you do such a beautiful job of the sensory descriptions in those scenes, and actually with your permission, I might include a little clip in this podcast of a, one of those scenes where the horses appear because it, they were just so striking and the scene was so visually and.
Christy: Censor really strong.
So he is a little snippet from the audio book of the truth about horses. Just to give you a little.
bit of a taste of the kind of sound effects that have been included in the audio. I chased the ball, but I can't move fast enough to catch it. News. Sitcoms sports seven.
It becomes a dot on the horizon and then starts rolling back to me again. News sitcoms sports eight. But it's not a ball. News sitcoms sports nine. News sitcoms sports 10. It's the herd of horses. They're back. They Gallop toward me across a wide open field. A burst of when brushes across my face. As they pass.
Ray's. And paints. And chestnuts. Buckskins. Piebalgs. Dunn's and Palominos. Each one is more beautiful than the next. But I'm looking for just one. The black one. The biggest, most powerful. Then I see him. And he sees me. He separates from the herd. He runs a close to look at me. This time. I want to ask him a question. Ask him, why he's here again?
Ask him what he wants. But I can't form the words. He stares at me. Like he understands my question anyway. And I hear his voice. It seems to be coming up for the ground. Mixing with the thundering sound of oops. You will see.
And he turns and gallops off with the others. They disappear into a canyon. You will see. You will see. You will see.
I opened my eyes.
Is.
Pamela: How was it writing those scenes for you? It must have been quite an experience, I imagine.
Pamela: Yeah I definitely pushed myself to be as descriptive as possible, because You could look out and say I see a bush, or you could say that you see a bush that looks like its leaves are, rimmed in gold or dusted in gold, or, you can just say the sun was setting.
Pamela: Or you can say that it was, a burst of blood orange and you. There are a lot of shortcuts and I tried not to make it so that my descriptions were too over the top. But that they were, there were something enough that the reader could see what I wanted them to see. Because if you're, you don't wanna just say, and the sun was steady. You wanna describe it and let the reader see the particular sunset you're seeing, yeah. And the bird, and how the bird flies. And all of those are like, in some ways you're, you're painting images with your words.
Pamela: Yeah. And I think, you talked about this earlier about. Being exposed to a lot of different senses as a child, when you're growing up around the horses and things. And I think that's a real feature of your writing is the way you do bring those other senses in. The sounds in particular and the because I listen to it on audio yeah, and the smells and all that sort of thing, which really brings it to life, I think, for the reader or the listener, however you are taking the story in and.
Pamela: One thing I particularly loved about the audio, which I'd love to talk to you about as well, because you. Recorded the audio yourself. You narrate the story. Yeah. And and it has these amazing sound effects of the horses in the background and, different sounds and things that, that play in the background of the story.
Pamela: Not all the time, but just at specific moments. Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about how it came to be that you did narrate the audio and that process of putting it all together with that beautiful soundtrack?
Pamela: Absolutely. It was a fun experience, but it was so much harder than I thought it was going to be because I do have some acting in my background.
Pamela: And so I thought, oh, I've done voiceover work. This should be easy. But sitting there reading an entire novel, even though I wrote it, was. At times painstakingly difficult. I can imagine It was like, even if my stomach rumbled, we have to start over again. It's, and eventually I got better at it.
Pamela: I didn't have to have the technician tell me, I just read a sentence, I'd, I hear that I slurred or I, ran two words together unnecessarily. And so I would go back and just read it again and then. I did get better at it. And then once I got better at it and finished the novel, I then went back and read the first two or three chapters over because there was more confidence in my voice.
Pamela: A felt more natural. And rather than the be the very beginning, the first three chapters, I was a little bit, nervous. And I was got into the flow of it and it became easier, but it's, it's a, it's tough work. And then. As far as the sound effects went that was something that the sound technician suggested, and I said I like that.
Pamela: I think that could be very cool, for especially when she sees the horses. Like you said, it wasn't used throughout. I think that can be a little off putting in a, audio book is, you don't wanna hear too much because you wanna hear what you imagine you wanna hear.
Pamela: Yeah. But I think those, I think they, the way they did it and the way that they suggested it was just the right amount and I was really happy with it.
Pamela: Yeah. It's a really great listening experience. Highly recommend it to anyone out there who would love to read the book. It's a really great way to take it in.
Pamela: One other thing I wanted to just come back to Christie was your writing process. So you worked on the book over quite a long period of time. You said you did have points where it was like, I'm not sure what to write now. So you jump ahead to another scene. When you actually sit down to a writing session, what's your kind of process?
Some writers have a little bit of a ritual where they light a candle or they meditate or whatever. How does a writing session work for you?
Pamela: Here's my candle. There it is. I have my, I have a stack of spiritual quotes that I like to read. I start off with, I like to meditate.
Pamela: I feel like meditating clears your. You try, even the attempt, even if I'm not very good at it, I find that it's beneficial to my creative process. Because I think that so much of being creative, no matter what your discipline is it's coming from the subconscious, and it should, it's once you start overthinking, that's when you're in trouble.
Pamela: I think as an artist, as a writer it's. You really, I do want to feel like the conduit to a story that is, is being told to me and, I'm the conduit for it. And I had those feelings. I had those moments because there were some things that I thought about in my story that I, when they came up, I was like, wow.
Pamela: Where'd that come from? I never experienced anything like that. I knew never knew anyone like that yet. It works perfectly, and it popped into my head out of nowhere. And those are the really, like the moments that are just so rewarding as as an author. And I really just couldn't even express the joy after a day of writing when something like that happened, it was.
Pamela: Overwhelming in a way. . And so I, yeah I try to clear my mind. I try to meditate. And then another thing that I love doing is setting the timer for 25 minutes and doing a purge session where you just get everything outta your, whoever's bugging you, whatever's on your mind.
Pamela: For me, it's which animal has to go to the vet, whatever is just in your ear about oh, you better get this done, or you gotta get that done, or then I just write it all down and get it done get it outta my head, and then it's done. And then underneath that, usually there's something worth,
Pamela: writing about, and sometimes not, sometimes it's a whole day of going through all these exercises that feel like they get me nowhere. It's and just digging away at the layers. Yeah. Yeah. Even that's part of the process. I think that what we have to realize is writer's block is part of the process.
Pamela: It's not, when you don't feel motivated and you don't feel particularly creative. That's just, that's part of the process. It's part of what we deal with is, being flawed humans who aren't, who don't always have, that magical creative moment.
Pamela: Yeah. We don't always have the answers, that's for sure. How did you go about when you got the book finished, you were revising it, at what point did you think this is ready to find a publisher? And how did you go about that?
Pamela: The publisher, spark Press was interested took me on before revisions essentially.
Pamela: Okay. I had, they had they had said yes and then. I was actually the one who said I really wanna do, this whole work on revisions. And that then took more than a year for me. That was during Covid and I just felt like it was, I was really glad that I got, the interest in the positive feedback from the publisher.
Pamela: Based on the draft that I had. But there was just something in me that said it's not quite there. I wanna give it one more push. And and I did, and it made all the difference, it was worth it.
Pamela: And you've got some amazing cover quotes for the book.
Pamela: I was very fortunate about that.
Geraldine Brooks. I know. Sorry. I was just trying to think because I haven't got the book with me and Joyce Carol oes, . Yes. Yeah.
Pamela: Amazing. That must have been just mind blowing to get those.
Pamela: Yeah, actually, Geraldine spends, I think half the year on Martha's Vineyard, and I had given her the book after I did an interview with her for the Boston Public Library. I sent it to her and she loved it. She offered to interview me at the West Tisbury Library on the vineyard last summer, and we had a really great time just talking about the book.
Pamela: I couldn't believe it. I wanted, it was like, pinch myself every time she, praised the book or said something complimentary. I was sitting there going, oh my God, this Geraldine Brooks telling me this. So I felt really,
Pamela: oh. That would've been amazing. She's a fantastic author. I've written all her books and love them.
Pamela: So I can imagine how mind blowing that would've been for you and how do you find the whole kind of promotion side of the business? Christie, is that something you are okay with? I know a lot of authors, they like the writing side and all, everything behind the scenes, but they're not so happy about having to get out there and promote it.
Pamela: How do you find that side of things?
Pamela: It is definitely like wearing another hat. Pardon the pun but I had been in the film business for a while and I had been an independent producer and tried to produce a few different projects, and I knew that enough about having done that, that creating it, just doing it isn't even half the battle.
Pamela: Breaking it out in the world is the battle. And that's a story in and of itself. And, you can write the best story, the best book and publishers nowadays and almost no matter who you are, they're not gonna spend a lot of time. It's onto the next thing. And very similar to how I had to be about agents and all of that, I just had to go with.
Pamela: With believing in myself and it just started to feel like agents were taking on flavors of the month, whatever politically was happening was affecting their. Decision, and I didn't wanna be part of that. I didn't wanna be part of oh, woe is me. This agent doesn't want me because you know whenever they tell you the reason, it's usually not the reason.
Pamela: And so I, I knew I had a good story. I knew in my heart I had a good story and I knew I also did the work and I knew that I did a great job of telling the story that was on my heart, the story that. I set out to tell emerged, yeah. And I love, there's a, that, that's a great quote.
Pamela: When, when the story that you set out to tell finally emerges, there's this feeling of Wow, that happened. That little thought that I had started with her wild horses, then this whole world was. Created and all these things happen to these characters and people care about them.
Pamela: That's what, yeah, that's really all you want is all you want is for people to care about the characters you've created and put in this world that's totally fictitious. And so I had enough confidence to know that I'd done that because I'd read enough books, I'd read enough screenplays I'd had enough.
Pamela: Storytelling experience. And so when the game of agents and that all came out, I, yes, I was devastated when a couple of agents passed who had me on the line, I was devastated. I thought, this is my thing, I'm gonna be represented by the best agent. I'm gonna have the biggest, publishing company because I was confident about my story, but.
Pamela: That's what authors have to know is it's not always about their story. It's about the political climate, it's about a lot of times everything except your story. Yes. And sometimes you're the only one who can advocate for yourself. And at times that was the case for me. I was the only one that.
Pamela: Went out and advocated even when, spark Press took me on. I was like, great, I'm so happy. That's great. I'm gonna go with them, but I'm gonna go back and spend a year in revisions. And glad that I did, since I'd gone that route, then there was absolutely no one who was going to market it for me, do the advertising and marketing.
Pamela: So I had to do that on my own. And I hired a team and which, sometimes people can do it themselves. I, I wanted to have a really strong team because I think sometimes you only get one shot at it. And I wanted to put everything I could into it. And so I invested even further into myself after 10 years of writing.
Pamela: And I invested some, real money into myself and luckily I was able to and it's, it's gonna pay off.
Oh, absolutely. And with your filmic background, any thoughts of perhaps. Becoming a film one day or seeing if you can get it into film.
Pamela: I don't know if you saw, but Jane Seymour optioned it.
Pamela: Ah, no one did not know that.
Pamela: Yeah. She optioned it and we would together produce it under that agreement. And right now it's being thought of more. Now it is with an agent, it's with innovative artists and it's being thought of more of a series. So that's exciting.
Pamela: That's very exciting. , I will be looking out for that and hopefully seeing it on the screen one day. Thank you. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I bet.
Pamela: It's been so lovely chatting to you, Christie, and just to hear about the evolution of the story and how it all came together. But before we finish up, what's next? Are you working on another novel?
Pamela: Oh my gosh. I'm bleary-eyed because I'm not used to sitting for long stretches because as you mentioned, the whole marketing and all of that is a whole different set of set of experiences. And I I. I'm getting back into writing and I do have 300 pages of my next book, but it's just not usable pages.
Pamela: It's a lot of scattered thoughts and scenes I won't use, and scenes that don't drive the story along., but I'm finding that, oh, I recognize this feeling. When I'm lost in the weeds and I'm like, oh, I recognize this feeling. And then I'm like, oh, I'll be out of it soon.
Pamela: It's just, I've gotta be patient. And so that's the nice thing about doing a, the second one is that you remember all those feelings of feeling hopeless and frustrated and you wanna give up and you get to say the second time around, you get to say, I've been there, but I kept going.
Pamela: Yeah, you've gotta have faith.
Pamela: Yeah.
Pamela: Faith in the process. So is it gonna be along similar lines or is it something quite different to the truth about horses?
Pamela: It's quite different. I wrote about another world that I know about, which is the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. I grew up in North Carolina, but Tennessee is right right across the border about an hour away.
Pamela: And the Smoky Mountains are just this mystical place. And and I wrote about it in the 1980s, during the gentrification of this little town. And right off the bat that a girl goes missing and so I'm working on it. I'm not telling the story chronologically. I'm starting in the eighties, then I'm going back to about 10 years to the seventies.
Pamela: Then I'm jumping forward again, then I'm going back, then I'm going forward. It's confusing me right now.
Pamela: That's great though because you're stretching that creative muscle, aren't you? And you're just trying something new and I think that's really important with each book.
Pamela: Yeah. Trying.
Pamela: Yeah. It's, if it doesn't drive me crazy, it should be pretty good.
Pamela: Good luck with that.
Pamela: Thank you. Yeah. And I'll let you get on with your evening over there and it's been so lovely chatting to you and I can't recommend the truth about horses highly enough to people who wanna read it in print, but also listen to it in audio 'cause a fabulous experience.
Pamela: So thank you very much for putting all that together.
Pamela: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it. Thanks, Christie.
Pamela: Thanks for listening to Rights for Women. I hope you've enjoyed my chat with this week's guest. If you did, I'd love it if you could add a quick rating or review wherever you get your podcasts so others can more easily find the episodes. Don't forget to check out the back list on the Rights for Women website, so much.
Pamela: Great writing advice in the library there. And you can also find the transcript of today's chat on the website too. And you can connect with me through the website@rightsforwomen.com on Instagram and Twitter at WW podcast.
Pamela: The Facebook page writes for women. Or find me and my writing@pamelacook.com au. Thanks for listening. Have a great week. And remember every word you write your one word closer to typing the end.