WILD JOY: Donna Cameron's Literary Path
“I read literary fiction and I love literary fiction, but I hate the lack of plot, and I’m just like, why can’t we have both?”
Buy THE REWILDING
Welcome back to the Writes4Women Podcast! Today Pam is talking to Donna Cameron, author of THE REWILDING. Donna is an AWGIE nominated radio dramatist, award-winning playwright and short film write. THE REWILDING is her second novel.
In this episode…
🌱📚What’s an eco-thriller and what does Tim Winton have to do with this week’s author’s latest book, THE REWILDING? Find out in the latest episode of Writes4Women with host Pamela Cook and novelist Donna M Cameron. Donna shares her journey from playwright to novelist, the deep character psychology, the crucial role of hope, and the joys of writing that keep her going. Tune in for her thought-provoking insights and heartwarming humour! 🌍❤️
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Guest Overview
02:33 Transition from Playwriting to Novel Writing
06:26 The Journey of 'Beneath the Mother Tree'
10:26 Challenges in Getting Published
15:01 The Inspiration Behind 'The Rewilding'
26:09 Struggles with Flashbacks
26:44 Importance of Opening Pages
30:02 The Whoosh of Inspiration
33:55 Climate Change Themes
39:26 Challenges and Joys of Writing
47:52 Community and Hope
49:41 Final Thoughts and Farewell
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Transcript
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.
Donna Cameron
[00:00:00] Pamela: Donna Cameron, welcome to the Rights for Women Convo Couch. It's really great to have you on, especially after reading the Rewilding, which I absolutely loved and I've been raving about to everybody who I've been talking to about books in the last couple of weeks.
[00:00:15] Pamela: So congratulations on that.
[00:00:18] Pamela: Thank you so much, Pam. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited and nervous and honored to be on Rights for Women Pod podcast.
[00:00:27] Pamela: Oh, it's lovely to have you here. We are gonna get onto talking about the Rewilding, but before we do get onto that looking at your website you've very experienced in as a playwright.
[00:00:39] Pamela: You've had some short films out, you've worked as an actor, you've trained as an actor. How did you translate all of that into novel writing? Where was the kind of bridge that led you into writing a novel
[00:00:53] Pamela: Ah, novel? There was actually a bridge, and the bridge was radio drama actually.
[00:00:59] Pamela: So I was I was working as an actor and I ended up somehow becoming a playwright. It's a long story. But then I. Back when Radio National had their drama department which sl it, it folded after 50 years. But yeah, I had four plays produced on on a BC radio national through their drama department.
[00:01:21] Pamela: It was a wonderful thing for riders and actors and it's so sad that it all folded, but suddenly I no longer had to work just in dialogue. I could I could do internal voice and I was like, prose. And yeah, so I really got into radio and it really opened and freed my writing up.
[00:01:43] Pamela: And then when my first book beneath the mother tree came to me, it was like, it was even more freeing because suddenly I wasn't just writing for the ear. I. I was writing for everything, all the senses, and I was hooked. And I knew then I was like, oh my God, I found my form. I should have been writing novels all along.
[00:02:06] Pamela: What have I been doing with my life? I loved, I fell in love. I absolutely fell in love. I found my joy. Yeah.
[00:02:16] Pamela: That's fantastic. I love hearing that. So did that story come to you as a novel beneath the Mother Tree? Is that the kind of form that it, appeared in your psyche?
[00:02:26] Pamela: Yeah, and I knew it wasn't a play. I knew it wasn't a radio. By then, the radio department had folded and yeah, this just, this thing came at me and it was so big and I was like, whoa, this is a book. And I just felt like I was flying. I just. Do you remember, you've, you have written so many books.
[00:02:48] Pamela: Do you remember your first book? I've only, I'm only up to my third and it's such a, I don't know. There's something really special about the first book. Just so exciting and Yeah. Yeah. Ignorance is bliss. It really is. It's a great it's really good advice to anybody out there working on their first book really enjoy that process because so many other factors start, come into play when you get down the track.
[00:03:13] Pamela: Ignorance is bliss. I just was in bliss. I was like, wow,
[00:03:16] Pamela: and so did, so you obviously really enjoyed that process of writing the novel. How do you think your playwriting and also your acting experience. How do you think that kind of has informed the fiction writing side of things?
[00:03:34] Pamela: Yeah. Very much because as an actor, you are sinking into character and looking at the psychology of a person. Then as a novelist, you get to do that with not only one person, several people within the book, and you get to act them all out and understand all their psychologies.
[00:03:57] Pamela: You can do it in your pajamas if you want to.
[00:04:00] Pamela: Yes. That's one huge advantage.
[00:04:02] Pamela: , it's all about psychology, isn't it? Understanding the human condition and they just love people. People are endlessly fascinating.
[00:04:12] Pamela: That's a big part of the, what I love about the novel writing process too, is really thinking about why do people behave the way they do and what makes them tick? And how does your past inform your present? It's just fascinating, so tell us a little bit about Beneath the Mother Tree.
[00:04:26] Pamela: That was your debut novel. What was that about and how did that end up getting to a publishing contract for that.
[00:04:36] Pamela: I think I have the Rockiest road to publication that I've ever heard, and I've met a lot of writers now. Yeah, strap yourself in. So beneath the mother tree is my, the question that drove me when I write books, it's a question that I need to explore and the question that drove me for Beneath the Mother Tree was sense of belonging.
[00:04:57] Pamela: I was lucky enough to grow up on Quandamooka country and so I naturally went to school with a lot of indigenous people. And I always wondered about my connection as a fourth, fifth generation Irish, mainly Irish Australian a bit of Scottish and English as well, but mainly Irish. And, compared to the direct connection to country that the indigenous people had and.
[00:05:25] Pamela: Have, and yeah, so I was exploring that in the book. It sounds really dry, but it's really just a no it mystery, fascinating mystery set on a subtropical island. But anyhow, I wrote this thing and it was a hundred and 110,000 words. I had no idea what to do with it. I had no idea about the publishing industry.
[00:05:47] Pamela: I listened to a podcast maybe it was you and Kel. I can't remember, but it was it was a, yeah I just realized I've gotta get an agent. So I Googled, I thought, oh, who's my favorite Australian writer? Kim Winton. So I googled Tim Winton agent and up popped Jenny Darling and I looked on her website and submissions were open and you had to send in the first three chapters and a cover letter and.
[00:06:17] Pamela: I think I sent in the weirdest cover letter. It was something like I always wanted. I found my form and, novel writing, just nothing to do with the book. Before enthusiasm, she must have thought I was like 18, where I was actually like much older than that. Anyhow I got a request for a full manuscript request like two days later and I sent that in.
[00:06:45] Pamela: And then two weeks later I, I got this email with two reader's reports attached. And she said, I'm very interested in your book. However, it's too long. You need to cut 30,000 words off it. You need to look at your comma placement and. Yeah. 'cause I had no idea about comma placement.
[00:07:07] Pamela: I'd been working in dialogue for years and Oh, of course I, my head wasn't around all these, prose things. So yeah, there were two readers reports attached. She said, read through them, take everything they say on board and I want you to rewrite it. And she was very lovely. She's take your time.
[00:07:27] Pamela: I had no idea. She was saying, you get one shot, give it your best shot. I was just dancing around the house saying to people, I've got Tim Winton's agent, I had no idea you had to sign, sign on the dotted line. And until you do that, they can just turn around and say, thanks, but no thanks anyhow.
[00:07:51] Pamela: I did not do everything she said. I think I cut about 10,000 words off it. And she asked for 30,000 words. Comma placement. I had no idea. So I just went through and everywhere I took a breath, I just put a comma. So I made it much worse. So I, and I just thought, I can't keep her waiting, this is exciting.
[00:08:08] Pamela: And I sent it back quite quickly and of course she said, oh, thanks, but no thanks. Best of luck and Aw, how disappointing. I know. Aw, I know. But it gets worse. Oh, tell, so then yeah, somebody in the industry read the manuscript and they approached Meredith Kerner from Penguin Random House and said, you've gotta read this manuscript.
[00:08:35] Pamela: And Meredith said, yeah, sure. I ended up, I. Printing the manuscript out and going into Sydney. I live like an hour and a half from Sydney, but I caught the training and I just had fantasies that I'd meet Meredith and it would all be so wonderful. And Meredith of course there was just some woman at the front desk who said, I I'm, I'll get this to Meredith, don't worry.
[00:08:56] Pamela: But I had incorrectly put my email address typed my email address incorrectly on the front of the manuscript. Oh, no. Yeah. By then I was listening to heaps of podcasts and I was like, don't hassle them. And my friend was like, just leave her. She'll get to you when she gets to you. And so , I learned that you could, it could take up to six months.
[00:09:17] Pamela: So I waited six months and then eventually I emailed her and she was like, oh, I'm just wondering if you had a chance to read my manuscript. And she said, oh. I read it within a couple of weeks of receiving it, and I was halfway through and I emailed you, but I never had a response to my email. So I stopped reading because I assumed you didn't wanna work with me.
[00:09:39] Pamela: Oh, no, Donna, I know. Oh God, you must have been absolutely dying at this point. I was a bit suicidal, I think, really. But yeah, anyhow, I, the week later I won a residency at Veruna and I took Meredith's email, I took the reader's reports from Jenny Darling and I got it down to 80,000 words and I learned how to edit and it became the manuscript it should have been.
[00:10:11] Pamela: And, but by then I'd sent it out already to all the slush piles. Oh, okay. So I was down to just all the little publishing houses and I ended up going with, got three offers of publication within three weeks with all the smaller publishing houses, and I went with Midnight Sun and yeah.
[00:10:26] Pamela: Anyhow, that was my journey to publication.
[00:10:29] Pamela: Wow. Wow. I don't, I have not heard a story like that. That is definitely unique.
[00:10:38] Pamela: I know, like I keep thinking when people say, oh yeah, oh, it was really hard for me. I am like, you got nothing on me, babe.
[00:10:44] Pamela: Yeah. I can Trump that. So when Meredith said assumed you didn't wanna work me, whatever, she didn't then was there any further conversation about her looking at the rest or, yeah, I emailed straight back 'cause she forwarded me the email that she'd sent, which basically said, I'm halfway through I'm loving your book.
[00:11:05] Pamela: Would you consider cutting exposition? There's too much exposition at the front half of the book, and. I never received the email. So she stopped reading. And then I said to her when she, when I, we finally made contact, I said, look, of course I would consider I said, I'd consider cutting off my right hand if it meant being published by you. I'm so sorry. And so we had a few emails. She said, look, I'm so busy. She was like five books right in. And we kept trying to email and she kept trying to make time. It was, it just got really awkward in the end. And in the end, another book came out that was set on an island kangaroo Island.
[00:11:44] Pamela: Mine was set in the Morton Bay Islands, but, and had indigenous content. It was very, it was similar to it, fulfilled that do you know what I mean? Yeah. It was like, yeah, it was timing. It was a little bit similar to my book. And I could see, it wasn't gonna happen. And I felt like I was hassling her in the end.
[00:11:59] Pamela: Yeah. She was being so lovely. But. They get so busy and you need to hit that point with them and anyhow, I am a fatalist, so yes. My journey is a different one and I'm sure it'll all end up. Absolutely. It's getting better and better all the time. Yeah.
[00:12:20] Pamela: Yeah. So how did you find that experience of having your first book out in the world?
[00:12:26] Pamela: Oh, it was amazing. Yeah. And it, it's so interesting 'cause the goalposts change all the time, don't they? The idea of success. 'cause you hold it in your hands and you think, oh, this is success. And then you get your first. Major review and you think this is success and yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:43] Pamela: It's it's a very interesting experience.
[00:12:47] Pamela: And when that book came out beneath the mother tree, had you already started on the Rewilding? Were you straight into the next book? How did that process work for you?
[00:12:57] Pamela: Ah, so seed for the Rewilding was planted actually while I was working on Beneath the Mother Tree.
[00:13:04] Pamela: And it was I went to see Tim Winton speak and I was going to meet him for the first time in Little Hall in Winne Manly. And I had my copies of the Riders, which was my favorite Tim Winton book. But right at the end of the conversation he said this really weird thing he said I never thought there'd come a time when I'd start lying to my children.
[00:13:25] Pamela: The interviewer was like, why are you lying to your children? And he said if your house is on fire and your children are looking, to be told that everything's gonna be okay, of course you're gonna reassure them. You're gonna lie and reassure them and tell them that everything's okay.
[00:13:40] Pamela: Like basically, not that you're all, we're all gonna die. And it was a, typical winter, he was talking a metaphor about climate change. Yeah. And I didn't meet him. I was so upset 'cause I knew how well connected he was to scientists. I knew how well read he was. I knew how intelligent I'd fallen in to enough of his words, to know that this man had his finger on the pulse of the planet.
[00:14:02] Pamela: And I just walked out into the car park just going, oh, wow. And then the next day I had a. Phone conversation with one of Australia's leading entomologists, Dr. Steven Doggett, who was giving me research for Beneath the Mother tree. 'cause the lead, one of the lead characters is an entomologist. And I told him what Tim Winton had said and Steven said to me, yep.
[00:14:28] Pamela: So glad I never had kids without hesitation. Oh God. And I was just, I'm a mother of two. Yeah. I was just like, oh. And I've got goosebumps actually, as you're saying all this, it's just, I know. So confronting isn't, but I just, yeah. I pushed it down. I was like, I was writing beneath the mother tree.
[00:14:47] Pamela: It leaks into beneath the mother tree. 'cause the protagonist ala she comes back to the island because she is really depressed about what's happening with the planet and everything. It's all there in beneath the mother tree, but not as overt as it is in the rewilding.
[00:15:03] Pamela: The seed was planted back then, but the rewilding didn't happen until so my third, which will now be my third book, I was actually working on that. I was first draft into that, oh, I'd finished the first draft and then the rewilding came to me and I was like, no, I know about the shiny new thing.
[00:15:22] Pamela: I'm not going there. But the Rewilding was it screamed at me in the end. I had to write it. I, so I abandoned Bloomfield, which I've now gone back to and I'm editing madly. And hopefully it'll be finished soon. But yeah. Yeah. It it screamed at me. Yeah. I can understand why, Donna, because there's.
[00:15:42] Pamela: There's so much in here to do with climate change and the emergency really that the planet is that we're in. And I'm gonna get on to talking about that, but just for anybody who's listening, could you , just give us the rundown on the rewilding on the plot, your elevator pitch.
[00:15:59] Pamela: Okay. So yeah, so it's about a whistleblower, Jagger Erman who blows the whistle on his father's, his multimillionaire property developer father's business activities.
[00:16:10] Pamela: And then he freaks out, so he goes to hide out and lay low in a cave in a national park which is north of Sydney, a cave he found with his mum when he was a kid. And he doesn't realize it though, that the cave's already occupied by an eco warrior, radicalized, eco warrior woman. Reti who's, and she's hiding out for reasons of her own.
[00:16:32] Pamela: She's up to all sorts of illegal business not business activities, protesting activities, and they end up trapped and on the run together and all sorts of things happen. Yeah it's a chase thriller and it's an odd couple love story and it's a love song to our planet.
[00:16:49] Pamela: Oh, beautiful description of it. It's, for me, it's really beautiful blend of beautiful lyrical literary fiction and that. Pacey thriller. You've managed to really blend those two forms, so well done on that.
[00:17:06] Pamela: Thank you. That's my that's my thing that I wanna do. Yeah. Yeah. You've nailed it because I write liter I read literary fiction and I love literary fiction, but I hate the lack of plot, and I'm just like, why can't we have both?
[00:17:20] Pamela: Yes, exactly. Why can't we have both?
[00:17:23] Pamela: As I mentioned at the beginning when we first started, I've been raving about this book to quite a few people, including my Patreon supporters on Rights for Women, and I've been telling them that I feel that. I love you. I love you. I love you.
[00:17:37] Pamela: I really think that the first chapter of this book is like a masterclass in what to do in a first chapter, because you have this.
[00:17:46] Pamela: Amazing opening sentence. You've got this fan, this fantastic hook at the beginning of the book, which we are going to get into talking about, and all these kind of seeds planted, pardon the pun, with the rewilding, but all these seeds planted in that opening chapter that just compel the reader to keep going and find out more.
[00:18:09] Pamela: Before we actually get into talking a little bit more about that, I wondered if you would mind reading the first couple of paragraphs, Donna, just so people can get a bit of a taste of what I'm talking about.
[00:18:19] Pamela: Sure. I've never actually read the opening. I've done quite a few author events lately, and I actually choose to read the part where Nia and Jagger meet.
[00:18:31] Pamela: Okay. Yeah. So I've never actually read the opening, so this is the first time. It's the first chapter's called out of a puddle of stinking silk.
[00:18:42] Pamela: The instant he ruins his life. A vision of his mother explodes in his head. He can't see a face yet. He knows she's smiling. Fly away wisps of hair flare in the light and she is gone. Leaving him blinking at his computer screen, then the guillotine click of the mouse as he opens the cent box, hoping it has failed.
[00:19:03] Pamela: But there the email sits silent and lethal. He hits delete. Owning the futility, knowing his world has come undone. Through the glass panel in the hallway, the light above the elevator dings to life in his every nerve ending. The shock of truth has robbed him of time, robbed him of lucidity. He's caught scrambling to his feet as the metal door slides open and Ed steps out in all his rotten triumph.
[00:19:31] Pamela: Jag, you are in early. What happened? Shit, the bed Jagger can't speak. His voice trapped down a dark well.
[00:19:39] Pamela: Fabulous. That was really good. Thank you. A couple few things I wanna talk to you about there, Donna. One is at the beginning of your chapters you have these little kind of subheadings, or titles.
[00:19:51] Pamela: Some of them are quite quirky. So in this one it was out of a puddle of stinking silt. Did you have those there as signposts for you as you were writing and then they stayed? I know that happens with some authors. What's the story behind those?
[00:20:05] Pamela: I, yeah, I think it's, I, first I didn't have them, and then I started to go, oh, I just don't want chapter two, chapter three.
[00:20:14] Pamela: I thought, oh, maybe I'll just choose a line from the, so at first, no, I was just choosing a line and then as the book progressed and I started to edit, I. I was choosing a line that kind of summed things up for me. Yeah.
[00:20:31] Pamela: They're great. And I think they act as really great hooks too, because, they've all got that little bit of edge or inbuilt conflict in them that Yeah. Makes you think straight away, oh, wonder what's gonna happen in this chapter.
[00:20:43] Pamela: Yeah. And it's so interesting, I think because I was writing for radio, I'm really aware of the audio form, and I started to think, oh, chapter one sounds so boring. You know what I mean? So I started to think how can I change that up a bit?
[00:20:58] Pamela: Yeah. Do you find you're writing more for audio now? I find I'm starting to consider things. As I'm writing with audio in mind it's interesting, isn't it?
[00:21:08] Pamela: Yeah. My backlist has all been over the last kind of year, 18 months has been converted into audio. .
[00:21:14] Pamela: Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, it's been really exciting to have it out in audio and to, helpers and that. I can imagine. Yeah. But audio's huge and it's getting bigger because we're so busy. Yeah, everyone's just listening rather than reading. My, my children, they're young adults and they're, they would rather listen than read.
[00:21:33] Pamela: Yeah I listen to, yeah, all lots of audio books. I do all my book club books on audio. Yeah. In the car, on the train, wherever, when I'm out raking paddocks, I've got an audio book on. Yeah. Yeah. It's just getting better and better. Yeah. Doing the dishes, everything.
[00:21:48] Pamela: As authors Donna we're, we're very aware of how important the opening is, and we're told, make sure that you're opening is really up to scratch.
[00:21:57] Pamela: And then we work and work on that opening chapter. How different is your opening chapter to the original one that you would've first drafted?
[00:22:08] Pamela: That was the original chapter. In fact, I didn't really change. Much that kind of came that first chapter. And what happened was the actual story starts when Jagger's fiance Lola.
[00:22:22] Pamela: He opens the door to their apartment and hears her talking about how she stalked him for his money and breaks his heart, basically, which sets him off on the whole journey. And I, so then I tried to write it from that point. I thought, oh, otherwise I'm going into flashback. I need to, so this was always the original first chapter.
[00:22:45] Pamela: And then I tried to change it. 'cause I didn't wanna do flashback, but it just didn't work. It did not work. It didn't have that oomph that I wanted. So I just went back to the original chapter. And the reason I wanted to. Start with an m is feedback from beneath the mother tree. I know writers hate good reads, but I love good reads because I learn where I stuffed up.
[00:23:13] Pamela: Okay. And okay, that's a great way to look at it. Yeah. The big thing that I got was, lots of wonderful reviews, but oh I took me a while to get into it. I kept hearing that, oh, it was a slow burn at the start. I almost gave up. I wasn't, but once I was hooked, I was in there.
[00:23:31] Pamela: I thought, I just started that hook too late. And so I was really determined with the second book. I thought, okay, I am just gonna get right in there and start with that action straight away. But yeah, so what happens is he gets on the train and he's heading up to the, where the cave is, and then he, flashes back to.
[00:23:53] Pamela: Walking in on Lola and we realized how we got to that point to send the email. So I started with sending the email, but I didn't set up how we got to that point. And yeah, so I had several drafts of trying to be really logical and linear, but it didn't work. I just you know what? I just have to do the flashback.
[00:24:15] Pamela: And I think it works with a flashback because I just got really clever about it in the end, and
[00:24:20] Pamela: I think it works too because of where he is when he is having that flashback, isn't it? It's he's on the train. It's a natural point at which he would sit there and think about what just happened.
[00:24:30] Pamela: Reflect, yeah. And I think that's a really important thing, to keep in mind when we're doing flashbacks and backstory and things, is inserting it in the right place. Yeah. Yeah. But, i, as a writer, I've started to learn, wow, opening pages are so important. I had no idea. And I realized as a reader, I judge a book by, I, I read the first line, and if it doesn't turn me on, I'm just like, and then I might give it a paragraph. Yeah. And then I'm just like, put it back on the shelf. So Yeah. It's brutal, isn't it? It's, but that's what we really need to be aware of, isn't it? Yeah. We need to bring our readers mind when we're at the particularly revision stage.
[00:25:12] Pamela: But for me, when I was reading this first of all, that opening sentence, the instant he ruins his life, like already within the first, four words, that word ruins is just oh, okay. Here we go. It's so evocative. A vision of his mother explodes in his head. And I think this is a really great example of how important word choice is.
[00:25:32] Pamela: The vision of his mother doesn't just appear or hover or whatever. It explodes in his head. And then you go on. He can't see her face yet. He knows she's smiling. We've got that vision of her, and then she is gone. Even though you don't tell us there that the mother is I should, I don't know.
[00:25:47] Pamela: Is it a spoiler to say the mother's dead? No. Not at all. No. It all happened, that all happens before the story yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Something about the description there that you gave immediately gave me that clue, that, oh he's pining for his mother. There's this sense of yearning for his mother.
[00:26:03] Pamela: You set up so much in this opening paragraph, and then of course, the email being sent and him immediately wishing, that he hadn't pressed send. And that sense of trepidation that he has, you've captured it all in that opening paragraph. And I think you know, your word choice there with, the email sits silent and lethal.
[00:26:22] Pamela: He hits delete, owning the fu futility, knowing his world has come undone. And even that phrase there about the world coming undone is so prophetic in terms of what the whole story is about. So just total kudos to you, Donna. 'cause I think it's, it really is just thank you. Skilled, you've really nailed it.
[00:26:41] Pamela: Aw. Can we just talk for three hours?
[00:26:48] Pamela: Can you deconstruct my whole book?
[00:26:50] Pamela: I actually love doing this, and this is something I tell my students to do, is to get books that you're enjoying or that you love, or, your comp titles, books that you think, oh, I would love to write a book like this. And to really sit down and pull them apart and have a look at what the author's doing, because I think we can learn so much from that. Yeah. It's interesting because I didn't even realize as a writer that I had written he ruins his life and then his mother's smiling and I thought later, wow, that's really an interesting tension already happening, that his mother's smiling 'cause he is ruined his life. And as the story goes on, of course you realize, yeah, he's ruined a life, one of his lives.
[00:27:34] Pamela: Yeah. I could ramble on about your opening chapter for ages, but I just urge everybody to read it. Let's talk a little bit about Jagger because he is. The name is immediately interesting. And his situation, obviously is precarious right from the very, very first kind of sentence, really.
[00:27:52] Pamela: What was the inspiration for him and how did you develop his character? How do you go about your character development?
[00:27:58] Pamela: I've gotta say all of my books so far have come to me in what I call a whoosh.
[00:28:05] Pamela: Jagger arrived and his mother arrived with his name and I don't know where they come from. To me it's like big magic. Yeah, it's I can't explain it, but everything arrives in a big whoosh, and I have to take notes to stop point notes and they don't make sense. But I get a plot, I get the characters, I get the ending all arriving at once.
[00:28:30] Pamela: And all my novels so far have arrived like that. I've got notes for my fourth novel now, and it arrived the same way. Yeah. I love that. Very weird.,
[00:28:42] Pamela: it's exciting when it happens. Yeah, I bet. But then you're like, oh, I know all the work now I know, oh God. Years of work that are gonna happen because of that little arrival.
[00:28:53] Pamela: And do you then get to know does the writing process itself then allow you to learn about the characters and you they're developing as you do the writing.
[00:29:03] Pamela: Yeah, absolutely. And they surprise you and but then sometimes you have to change them to, it's half craft, half magic. Yeah, because sometimes like Nia for instance, in the first draft, she was just up on her. So Nia is the radicalized eco warrior character just for the readers.
[00:29:23] Pamela: She was up on her soapbox in the first draft, and yeah, she was just raving like a lunatic about what's happening with the planet. And my first readers were like, oh, I just I couldn't stand that character and I skipped over all those bits and so I just had to pair her back till she was minimal.
[00:29:43] Pamela: And then she was much more powerful. Yeah, it's interesting. She's still got that edge, hasn't she? She's still pretty full on as a character. Yeah she's much better than she was though. But you need that because that's the kind of interesting relationship that develops between her and Jagger.
[00:29:59] Pamela: But she also has a point of view, not as many point of view scenes as Jagger. When you were writing the book, obviously, it's mainly from Jagger's point of view. Did you write the whole thing through in his point of view and then go back and add the Nia sections? How did that process work for you?
[00:30:19] Pamela: No. They came all in, in logical order, but she had a diary entry between every every one of his chapters originally, but it was just too much, so I just got rid of a lot of them. Yep. I was very much inspired by Hope Farm, by Peggy Fru. Okay. I dunno if you've read that book.
[00:30:37] Pamela: I haven't read, but I have heard of it. Yeah. Yeah. There's these beautiful diary entries that happen in that book and I just thought, ah, it's such a wonderful way to get a second voice in there, a really powerful way, inserting that first person. 'cause first person is, I don't know, it's uber power compared to third person.
[00:30:57] Pamela: Even though Jagger's third person's very close. There's nothing like first person. Yeah. It's interesting to have that mix of the two.
[00:31:05] Pamela: When you are writing Donna, how do you go about developing the backstory and the psychology of your characters? Or is that part of the whoosh and it's just there and you are uncovering it?
[00:31:16] Pamela: Yeah. I think it must be part of the whoosh. 'cause I don't. I don't do exercises or I don't yeah, I don't know. I work a lot with Dream. I do work a lot with Dream Middle of the night stuff. I like to early hours of the morning, still half asleep, pull my laptop into bed and start writing in that half dreamlike state.
[00:31:38] Pamela: Great. I don't know, I just, that subconscious stuff, that, where that magic is. I like to tap into that. Yeah. I don't know how it all happens. That's what I love about it.
[00:31:51] Pamela: Of course the other, which we touched on earlier in the conversation, the other, the huge theme in this is climate change and the state of the planet.
[00:32:01] Pamela: And that is very much the story that Jagger gets. Pulled into, even though there is already a connection with that for him at the beginning as I was reading it, I thought of you as the author and I thought how much re how much research you must have done to really, get all that into the story.
[00:32:20] Pamela: And you did it in such an interesting way because it became part of the dialogue or part of a character's thought process or whatever. But also how disturbing it must have been for you in a sense, writing it, like you said you had that initial reaction to Tim Winton's statement, when he was speaking.
[00:32:36] Pamela: How did you cope with that as you were writing it?
[00:32:39] Pamela: I had to write this book to cope, if that makes sense. Every book so far, it's actually just been about exploring a question. And for me, I was in an incredible state of climate grief. So Tim Winton set me off, but then it just got worse.
[00:32:57] Pamela: 'cause I, I started just reading then and yeah, I realized how bad things were and then I had to write the book to find hope. I wanted hope. I wanted to know if there was hope if there was a possibility that we could turn this around. I need to manufacture hope. And yeah, I did a lot of research and I came across the work of Joanna Macy, who's a Buddhist scholar and writer and she talks about maintaining the gaze and maintaining the gaze is really hard because there are days where you're just like, I can't do this. But to not do that is worse for me. 'cause, just trying to ignore it, you can't because it's there in your subconscious and it rises up anyway. So it's better to make, maintain the gaze, to walk straight into it, open-eyed and deal with it. I think. And I think as a species, we actually need to do that.
[00:33:58] Pamela: I think at the moment we do have our heads in the sand and subconsciously as a species we're screaming we're all like this. 'cause we're not dealing with, we're just open-eyed. We need to go, okay, actually collapse is occurring right now. What can I do as an individual? And that's what I really wanted to explore in the rewilding.
[00:34:20] Pamela: There is so much we can do as an individual, so we can't, sit back and go, oh, I'm just disempowered. It's all up to the governments because. If we wait for the governments, we are not gonna save ourselves. But, it's so weird. I keep thinking that John Lennon is going to have a comeback, power to the people. Imagine do you know what I mean? I think we'll get to that point. As a species, humans are in incre. We are just the most beautiful, compassionate, creative, or one of the most beautiful species on this planet. At the moment, what we are doing is we are actually destroying so many other species as we speak, but I think we have incredible compassion.
[00:35:07] Pamela: And I so wanted to weave all of that into the book, that all the good stuff we are doing, and we can tap into that. And we can believe rather than feeling disempowered, because despair is our biggest enemy. If we think we can't make a change, we will just go, oh whatever.
[00:35:25] Pamela: Give up. Yeah. Whereas if we go, oh, maybe I could look at my superannuation fund. Maybe I can look at my bank. Maybe I can divest, maybe I can look at my food sources. Maybe I'll grow my own food. I'll buy from my local farmer's market. Maybe I'll buy a hybrid car, an electric vehicle. Maybe I'll drive less, maybe I'll carpool.
[00:35:48] Pamela: Do you know all these little Yeah. If we all did that imagine if the whole of Australia suddenly divested super banks power companies, overnight we just all went, no, we're not gonna support fossil fuel anymore. What an incredible thing that would be, we are capable of doing that.
[00:36:07] Pamela: I wanted to capture that feeling in my book.
[00:36:10] Pamela: You definitely have, and it sounds like the writing of it also inspired you, to just continue on with that kind of mindset and to share that mindset. And I think that's a really important message in the book too, without being, it's not preachy, it's not, it comes through, it filters through the story because it permeates, pretty much every aspect of the story.
[00:36:33] Pamela: But I think you've filtered that message through there really beautifully.
[00:36:37] Pamela: I found the answer to my question through writing the book. Yeah. Hope comes through action. Yeah, that's what I realized. , I got to the end of the book and I was like, I felt so good when I was writing the book and then it went out on submission and I got started to get really depressed again, and I realized, oh, it's 'cause I'm not.
[00:36:55] Pamela: I'm not actively pursuing like a, when I was writing the book, I thought, this is good. I'm, I feel like I'm doing something. And then it went out and then I was like, oh, I have to actually keep doing something. 'cause otherwise all this despair is going come back. So yeah, in my own life I've started to, I've become a red rebel, which is exciting.
[00:37:18] Pamela: That's very exciting, very inspiring. What would you say is, was the biggest challenge for you, Donna? In writing the book?
[00:37:26] Pamela: Not becoming didactic, not getting on my high horse. The first draft was really me just venting. Yeah. And then I had to get rid of it all.
[00:37:37] Pamela: What about the biggest joy? What did you find the most joyous aspect of writing?
[00:37:41] Pamela: The love story between Nia and Jagger and the humor that they've got great banter as they get to know each other and the way she dresses him. There's some really funny moments in there actually. His shoes and the way that he ends up, like his beautiful business suit, Amani business suit just gets tattered as the book goes on.
[00:38:05] Pamela: And to me that's a symbol of capitalism, just yeah, getting destroyed. And yeah, that was, all of that was so much fun. Yeah. I love fun, love.
[00:38:14] Pamela: Yeah. You had those really lovely layers to the characters, even though they were in these, at times quite dire situations. One of them would make some smart ass comment and there'd be a bit of banter and it just was a really lovely balance.
[00:38:27] Pamela: Yeah. It's the best, isn't it? When you crack yourself up, you're just sitting there laughing your head off and hoping that maybe some reader might find this funny. Yes. I did, same happened with Beneath the Mother Tree. The, yeah, the grandfather character. I just, I like, I was cracking myself up writing that role part character and yeah, you just hope that it comes off the page.
[00:38:52] Pamela: Do you know what I mean? You never know whether it will come off the page, but,
[00:38:56] Pamela: it's the same with the other emotions, isn't it? If you find something in the story, particularly emotional and it brings you to tears, there's a strong likelihood it's gonna have that impact on readers, or at least on some readers.
[00:39:09] Pamela: That's a such a skill, I think, to make a reader cry. Yeah,
[00:39:14] Pamela: I always feel happy when readers say they've cried in my books. I know that's a little bit, yeah. Sadistic, but, sorry. Donna, in the acknowledgements in the back of the book, which I always love reading acknowledgements. I often read those first and then I go back and read the book, and then I read the acknowledgements again. But there are co there's a lot of kind of people in the industry, friends and writing friends who you acknowledge.
[00:39:39] Pamela: And it struck me, and you may even have said this, but it's a little bit like that idea that writing a novel is a bit like raising a child. That concept that it takes a whole village. Would you agree with that? In the case of this book,
[00:39:51] Pamela: Definitely. So I submitted the manuscript to Curtis Brown , I just submitted it through the general button.
[00:40:02] Pamela: Oh, okay. And Benjamin Stevenson, I think he gets the first manuscripts or whatever and he read it and he sent me the most beautiful rejection. I've actually printed it out 'cause it's so beautiful. You basically said, what did you say?
[00:40:17] Pamela: What was the gist? It, say what you said about that. I can write literary, but I still have that, page turning. I should have. Had it in front of me. I could quote it to you, but it was so beautiful. But he also said stakes aren't high enough. Okay. And at that point, I didn't have, I didn't have the hip men in right.
[00:40:39] Pamela: In the book. Jagger was just running. 'cause he was scared that what his father would do and maybe he might get arrested and it was vague. And Benjamin Stevenson gave me that 'cause it was like a, something in my brain just dropped. And I was like, oh, he doesn't have Jack. Why is Jack running? He's not running for, a solid reason.
[00:41:01] Pamela: Yeah. I luckily I got a residency at Una and I went for two weeks and I wrote those, that whole, you know, all. I've probably given things away that I shouldn't, but yeah. The hit men, I wrote the hit Men in and that changed everything. It changed everything. And that was a, an agent who just took the time to write me a detailed rejection.
[00:41:27] Pamela: So agents out there who do that. Thank you so much. Yes. That's fantastic. And what other sort of feedback did you get along the way, between, as you were drafting and re revising the book? What other sorts of feedback did you get from people? Yeah. So my writers group up here on the coast they're fantastic.
[00:41:48] Pamela: And I'm lucky enough to have Anna Downs in, in my writer's group. Brilliant. And she was just like, where's the sexual tension? And I was like, oh. It was like another penny dropped yes. They so have to be sexually attracted to each other and it really annoys the hell out of them right from the start.
[00:42:06] Pamela: Yeah. Yeah. And that changed everything in their relationship, it was just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And do you use beta readers, Donna? Do you have people that read Absolutely different stages. Absolutely. Yeah. But I've gotta say with Bloomfield, which is my third book, I haven't it's interesting as you get more experienced I'm holding off this time 'cause I feel like I'm a bit more all over it, but I know it's getting to that point where I will need readers soon.
[00:42:35] Pamela: But I used to get readers in earlier and I haven't with this book. Yeah, I've heard that happen. Yeah. And nothing different. How about you? Yeah, I always get people in my writing group to read it and because there's eight of us, it's great because you can give it at a certain stage to, certain people.
[00:42:55] Pamela: Yeah. Certain people. And then, or if you want particular feedback, like you were saying, Anna's got that great eye for, probably the thriller plot and the, that sort of thing. So there's different people with different skills that you can give the manuscript to at different times, which I find really helps as well. Yeah. Yeah. So this one has been published by Transit Lounge? Yes. Which I'm so honored and privileged. I couldn't believe it 'cause I just thought there's no way Transit Lounge would pick me up. They published such good writers and I just didn't think I was in that league. So I'm, I. Yeah, I'm gobsmacked.
[00:43:34] Pamela: That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. And I, what sort of reception has it been getting, like you said, you do read Good reads and you're really aware of what reviewers are saying. Have you been happy with the reception so far? I'm actually, yeah. I thought that being such an unusual book, it might get ridiculed or yeah, it's been amazing.
[00:43:58] Pamela: All the reviews have been incredible. Just writers that are really respect, saying incredible things. I'm just like yeah. That's great. I feel really it's interesting, a lot of it's about confidence, isn't it? 'cause you go through these bouts of I'm sure you do and we all do, where you just think, oh, I, I can't write.
[00:44:21] Pamela: Really? Yeah, I know. And then, yeah, and then you new book gets received so beautifully. You just think, oh, actually maybe I can do this. And it really helps with your next book as you're working on it. 'cause that voice in your head's just going, actually, it's all right. That's a really good passage. Own that. And it helps having a publisher like Barry Scott, who's just, he's so in my ballpark is just yeah. He's so supportive of my writing. And that makes such a difference having someone backing you like that. Yeah. You've got that person there championing your book, which is exactly what you want.
[00:44:59] Pamela: Yeah. Yeah. Do you have an agent now, Donna, or yeah, so I did end up getting an agent for the Rewilding, but it took a long time. Many, I had a year of rejections. I think I tried every agent in Australia and they weren't even, they were rejecting it on the premise 'cause no one wanted to know about climate change. They said climate change doesn't sell. Publishers don't wanna anything to do with it. It won't sell. And the same thing happened with the publishers. They were just not, nothing to do with climate change. It doesn't sell. So yeah, two years of rejection basically. God, yeah, go you on keeping going with it, and being really determined and just persevering and getting it out there.
[00:45:44] Pamela: Oh, I would've self-published if it hadn't Yeah. Got picked up. It just. I, yeah, I'm not writing to, I'm not writing for the accolades. I'm, I don't know, I am writing from this strange space. Think we're in we're in a very odd time in history at the moment. That brings me to my que last question, which is what I like to end the chat with, which we've touched on.
[00:46:10] Pamela: But what would you say is at the heart of your writing?
[00:46:17] Pamela: Joy? Yeah. Yeah, I do get off on it. But also there's always a question, a burning question that drives me to actually pursue a book. 'cause it's a big thing, isn't it? I'm not a quick writer. It takes me years. It's a lot of work for no money. You've gotta have some, I. Burning thing that's driving you to, and for me with Beneath the Mother Tree, I wanted to know how I belong here.
[00:46:46] Pamela: The rewilding, I wanted to know if there was hope. Bloomfield I wanna know about community, whether that will save us. Whether we'll be kind enough to each other. Oh, I love the sound of that. Have you got a contract for that one, Donna? No, I, no, I'm still working on it, so I, yeah. Who knows? Yeah.
[00:47:14] Pamela: Yeah. Oh I am really looking forward to it, and I am going to go back and read Beneath the Mother Tree, not having read that one yet. So now that I've read the Rewilding Wow. Or you could wait for the audio book, which hopefully if I get my. Shit together. We'll be out soon. Okay. Brilliant. So tell us a little bit about that.
[00:47:32] Pamela: You're recording that yourself or you've recorded it already? Yeah, I have recorded it at Argus Studios in Malaney. I'm producing that myself, so I'll be hybrid. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. And who will that come out through Donna, or are you like, how does that work? That's what I'm trying to figure out, all of that.
[00:47:51] Pamela: Yeah, I don't know how to do all of that. So I'm about to do all of that, do all the research. But you've already recorded it? I've recorded it and I've listened and yeah, it's ready to go. It's hot off the press and I just need to know how you, what you do with it now yeah.
[00:48:12] Pamela: That's so exciting. I might just do that 'cause I love an audio book, so I'll be looking to listening if you, if you know how to help me in getting it uploaded, I know that used be uploaded. Yeah, I know there used to be able to do it through a company called Find A Way Voices, but I've got a feeling they were absorbed into another company.
[00:48:31] Pamela: I dunno if it was Audible or whatever. But yeah, I've, a couple of the podcasts that I listened to have talked about that. The Self-Publishing show. I don't know if you've ever listened to that. It's James Publishing. Huh? Self-Publishing. I'm gonna write that down. Yeah, you can go through there.
[00:48:48] Pamela: Episodes, obviously I'll edit all this out, but you can go through their self-publishing show. So it's with, used to be with a guy called Mark Dawson's. Oh, he's come on. But now it's a guy called James Blatch who is doing it. They were doing it together. Mark Dawson seems to have dropped out, but if you go onto their, show website, their.
[00:49:08] Pamela: A podcast website or just on Apple or whatever and flick through. Yeah. I'm sure they've had episodes Yeah. On producing audio. Yeah. And the other one to check out is Joanna Penn, A Creative Pen podcast. Oh yeah. She does stuff on it as well. Yeah. So I've, it's all ready to go. I just need to, I could do it through Audible, but then you just stuck with Audible, so Yeah, I think I can go. My, my friend Samantha Wood, who's a self-published and audio as well knows all, she's guiding me, but yeah. Okay. I just realized my hair looks green. No, it doesn't for some reason it looks green.
[00:49:54] Pamela: Got green hair. It looks gorgeous. I've got green hair anyhow. Maybe I'm a mermaid. Oh, you never know. Alright, I'm better let you go. But thank you so much for being on the pod. It's been such a great chat. It's been so lovely. I'm just feel so grateful. Thank you. I hope maybe someone buys my book. Oh, I'm sure they will.
[00:50:18] Pamela: And I, as I said, I'm out there spruiking it this one will be out. I love you. We've gotta have a drink together sometime. We do. Are you are you going to, what's the next thing? I'm going to I'm going to Petronella launch, I think on, I don't know, early July. Yeah, I think I'm at Cy. I'm up in Brisbane at the CYA conference at that time.
[00:50:40] Pamela: Yeah. Yeah I'm about to go off to the Northern Territory Writers Festival. Oh, fantastic. I know, and I'll be appearing with Kate Milden Hall, so Oh, lovely. Very excited. Yeah. I love her work yeah. Yeah, I had a quick catch up with her at Sydney Riders Festival, went to her session and then we had a quick drink afterwards with a few people, so that was really nice to catch up with Kate.
[00:51:04] Pamela: But I'll enjoy the Northern Territory. That'll be fun. Yeah. Yeah, my childhood best friend lives up there, oh, lovely. It's a holiday as well. Yeah. Yep. Alright, Donna, I'll let you go. Thank you so much and thanks Pam. Yeah, good luck with the new book, the next book. You too. Thanks, Donna. See ya. Bye. Bye.