Just keep writing: The secret to publishing success with Rachael Johns
Just Keep Writing: The Secret to Publishing Success
In this episode…
Pamela chat’s with best-selling author Rachael Johns about her latest romcom, 'The Other Bridget.' Rachael shares the unique challenges and creative processes behind her novel, which offers both humour and heartfelt insights. Tune in for an enriching dialogue that both emerging and established authors will find invaluable. For more on Rachael and her works, visit www.rachaeljohns.com
Key Takeaways
- Embrace Your Unique Writing Process: Rachael Johns discusses the importance of trusting and honing your personal writing process, a vital lesson for authors at any stage.
- Navigating Publishing Challenges: Learn from Rachael's experiences on how to handle the uncertainties of the publishing world, including tips on dealing with deadlines and publisher expectations.
- Character Depth and Personal Experience: Discover how Rachael uses her personal experiences to enrich her characters, providing insights on integrating personal history into compelling narratives.
- The Role of Patience and Persistence in Writing: Gain wisdom on the necessity of patience in the writing process, as Rachael shares how taking time can lead to better writing outcomes, emphasising the need to avoid rushing creative work.
Transcript
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.
Rachael Johns: I've learned that, yeah, you really have to just trust your process, not rush things. Sometimes like as hard as that is, even when we're on, contracts and stuff, sometimes it's best to say, okay, I am gonna miss a deadline. But the book that I'm gonna give you in the end is actually going to be better than if I'd, rushed it through.
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.
Pamela: 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
Pamela: and a quick reminder that there could be strong language and adult concepts discussed in this podcast. 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.
Hi everyone. Pam here. Welcome to another episode of rights for women. Today. I have a very special guest who is actually one of our guest hosts on the podcast on a fairly regular basis. And that guest host is Rachel Johns. So I'm really excited to be talking to Rachel today about her new release, the other Bridget. Rachel is a prolific author.
She's had somewhere in the vicinity of 25 plus books. I think she's even lost count. She's written across the rural romance and women's fiction genres. And this new release, which is actually with a new publisher is pushing a little bit more into the kind of romcom. Genre. And inspired by. One of the all time great romcoms, which is a book that I know Rachel loves, and that is Bridget Jones. So it's called the other Bridget, I'm going to let Rachel tell you about that in a little minute. Now
for those of you who don't know about Rachel, she is. Best-selling Australian author, as I said, she's written across a number of Shauna's and is an absolute stalwart of the Australian writing community heavily involved with the romance writers of Australia. She has a fantastic online book club, and she is also now running readers retreats.
One of which I attended last year and it was brilliant and she has another one coming up very soon. So it's been a real treat to read this book and to see the new direction. That Rachel's taken with her writing. I really enjoyed the book. It is feel good. Funny. But also has a few serious issues. Issues as well. And a great cast of characters.
So really looking forward to talking to Rachel about that if you're watching this on video. I actually did this interview with Rachel when I was recently on holidays in Canada. And if I looks like I'm sitting on a bed, it's because I am. And it was the quietest stream in the house with that was the best fit for recording at the time.
So I am in Canada. As we filmed this and yes, I am sitting in bed.
before we get into the interview. A couple of things I wanted to tell you about one is this brand new book by author. Debut author Maxine forces. I went to the launch for this book last night at man the manly surf club in Sydney. A. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. It's about a woman in her forties. Who's wondering if she has, is having a midlife crisis or if it's simply a cry for help. And from everything that I heard about the book last night, it sounds like. A fabulous story, a real page Turner and so many different issues that I think women readers of a certain age are going to relate to.
So that's, everything is perfect. By Maxine force it. I'll put the link to that in the show notes. I've also come back today from the very first inkwell writers' group meeting for the year. I am a member of the inkwell writing group. I've been. Been in the writing group in its original form for. I'm going to say almost 20 years.
I know that's scarily dating me, but. It's just so fantastic to have a bunch of writers that you can talk to about the writing life, the writing industry, the publishing industry. We're always there to bounce ideas off. And I guess that is actually my writing tip for this week. Now not everybody wants to be in a group.
It's not for everyone. And I have mentioned that on the podcast before. But I firmly believe that you need at least one writing buddy, who you can talk to about. You're writing the highs, the lows, the ups, the downs, just to also brainstorm your ideas to brainstorm, plots, to work out potholes, to dig into characters.
You know, I've been chatting this week with my, one of my writing buddies from the group Ray cans. And shout out to Ray and she, and I often brainstorm ideas. I also brainstorm ideas and share work with Penelope Genoo and all the members of the group. So I highly recommend that if you are a writer working in isolation, At Maxine's book launch last night, she had three other members of her writing group there and they met through doing an online course. And, you know, if you kind of, not sure how to connect with other writers. Doing a course, whether it's online or in person. Going to some workshops going along to writer's festivals. Talking to people, meeting people. And making those connections because it's often someone else out there who wants to make that connection to, and to have a writing buddy that they can share work with, talk to about have. Chats over coffee about books and writing.
So. If you are in an isolated location, there is plenty of stuff online. Contact me if. If you're looking for some ideas on connections. And you know, I highly recommend that you do have that person, at least one of them that you can brainstorm ideas with and just. Have someone along, you know, on your writing, right.
And be on their writing ride. So that's my tip for this week. So let's dive in and chat to Rachel on the Wrightsville women convey couch.
Pamela: Rachel Johns, welcome back to Rights for Women.
Rachael Johns: Hello.
Pamela: So good. So good to chat with you. Always great to chat and of course, you are one of our guest hosts and have already recorded an interview for the year with Amy T. Matthews.
Rachael Johns: Yeah, that was lots of fun too. Could been like a.
Pamela: No, I think an hour's good people can pause and, come back to it, whatever. And also, Rach, happy birthday. It's your birthday today.
Rachael Johns: Thank you so much. I wish I could say I was doing anything exciting, but I am apart from this. This is the most exciting part of my birthday talking to you.
Pamela: That's good 'cause that means we'll get another book out soon. But we are here today to talk about your upcoming release, which by the time this interview comes out, we'll be just out the other Bridget. And having read this book, I can actually say to everybody, honestly, this is absolutely a fabulous read and I'm so excited to talk to you about this book, rich.
Pamela: 'cause I know this has been a long time coming. You have had. The idea for this book for quite a while. I remember chatting to you about it probably a couple of years ago at an RWA conference, and you said, oh, I got this idea, but I'm not sure. So before we get into where the idea came from, and obviously there is a very important inspiration in, in, in the book of Bridget Jones itself.
Pamela: But before we get into that, tell us what the synopsis is, little mini synopsis for the other Bridget.
Rachael Johns: Sure. So the other Bridget is about a librarian named after the famous Bridget Jones, and she feels like she's cursed in love because of her name. But she's obsessed with books and has a strong relationship with. In believing that books can really heal and help people and stuff. So she works in the library and her superpower is that she can match books to non-readers to turn them into Bookworms.
Rachael Johns: But her love life, yes, is not quite as, as smooth and straightforward as her work life. And she realizes quite early in the book that everyone, she knows who's got a really good relationship or marriage. They all met their partners. Organically that it wasn't the way that she's trying to, which is what a lot of people are through dating apps.
Rachael Johns: So she decides to give up dating apps, leave it to chance, and as soon as she does that, she suddenly gets a bit of interest from her sexy barista that she gets coffee from every morning. And also she meets her grumpy neighbor next door who seems just to be a pain in her ass.
Pamela: That's great. I think it gives us all the key ingredients for the story, obviously the other Bridget and , the protagonist's name is Bridget Jones. So there's immediately a reference there to the original book, Bridget Jones by Helen Fe Fielding., and I know just from chatting to you before that is always been a very much a favorite book of yours.
Pamela: So how did your love for that book morph into this idea for your own book with. A character with the same name, but obviously completely different circumstances.
Rachael Johns: Yeah, it came from a few different places, as I think all, most books usually do. So as you said I loved Bridget Jones diary when I read it, 20 or so. I think it's almost 30 years ago now that it came out. And I, it took me a while to realize that's the type of book that I wanted to write.
Rachael Johns: Books that, are really easy to relate to because they, the characters are going through sort of the things that we go through on a day-to-day basis. But they're also fun. They make you laugh, they make you cry, those kind of books. I always had that kind of feel. That I wanted to write.
Rachael Johns: But this particular book came about because a couple of years ago, I, and I probably talked about to you before, I was writing my book Outback Secrets, and I tried, I, that was a bit of, that was a really tough book to write. I wrote 30,000 words, then scrapped it, and I wrote 35,000 more and then scrapped it.
Rachael Johns: And then I finally, managed to finish. And one of the iterations of that book had a. A heroine or a female main character in there who was a librarian in a small town, and her superpower was that she could connect, books to non-readers, and I really liked that aspect of the story.
Rachael Johns: There was that was hanging around in my head for a few years. I had to scrap that, but I thought, oh, one day I would like to come back to a librarian character who has that. And then I was talking to one of my writing friends, Rebecca Heath. We do daily. Most of the time we do sprints where we, even though she's in South Australia and IM wa, we check in with each other and we say, okay, for the next half hour, I am not gonna check my email or Facebook or anything, and we're going to write only our books.
Rachael Johns: And then we'll report back how much we've done, in the next half hour and one time a year or so ago. We were doing this, and she said to me after a sprint, oh, I didn't get hardly anything done because I was playing phone tennis with the hospital because she'd got a text message at the beginning of the sprint for an appointment for her son with a psychologist at the hospital.
Rachael Johns: And this is the first she ever knew about her son, supposedly needing to see a psychologist. So she tried to ring the hospital back and forth, eventually she found out that because her son had something else happen going on, and he'd been at the hospital recently. Something else. They had.
Rachael Johns: An appointment for someone with exactly the same name as her son, same birthday. And so there'd been some sort of mix up. And so she said it was the other, then her son's name. And I just said back in that email, oh, that's a good title for the book. Like the other Pamela Cook, or the other Rachel Johns. I thought, oh yeah, that's good.
Rachael Johns: So then we went around and did our next sprint. And in that sprint time the title, the other Bridget Jones popped into my head. And. I find, I dunno about you, but I find that titles, if I've got a really strong title, if a title comes to me, suddenly the book takes shape and the story sort of comes.
Rachael Johns: And that's kind what happened with this book, the other Bridget Jones, because I then thought what would happen if you were named after, a famous character called Bridget. And that is actually what I had I'd done in my librarian book years ago. I'd had the this the heroine was a a farmer's daughter and her mum was obsessed with books and she had three older brothers who were also named after book characters.
Rachael Johns: Her Sur wasn't Jones, so she was just called Bridget for that reason. And so it wasn't like a big thing how it's become in this book, but I then thought what if. My character was called Bridget Jones. And how would that go? So then I melded those two ideas together. And I suppose, yeah, then the rest of it came from actual the Bridget Jones diary book.
Rachael Johns: I, I tried, it's not a retelling of Bridget Jones, there's many retellings and stuff, but it's definitely inspired by that book. And I guess one of things that I. Appealing about Bridge's diary movie and the book is the whole love triangle, between Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy and her.
Rachael Johns: And so I knew immediately I wanted to do a love triangle as well, so it was a love triangle, the librarian character and the title. So
Pamela: Oh, that's great. I love the way that. Can come together like that, like they're, three or four disparate kind of places. But then over time, they just meld together and become this one storyline.
Rachael Johns: I think that's just what you said over time is sometimes the key that one came together quite quickly actually, the moment I had, the title and then note. But other books, there's been something you've wanted to explore or a character, but it's not quite there. And sometimes it just, yeah, it takes years of that sort of idea or character or theme sitting in the back of your head and then suddenly it clicks with something else and you're off.
Pamela: Yeah, I love it. I love the way that Creative Brain works. Once you landed on that idea, with the name of the character and all that sort of thing, you thought, yeah, I can draw on the Bridget Jones, the kind of love triangle type side of things. Did you have any kind of qualms or nerves about taking on a title character that's so iconic, in that kind of chick click. Not that we use that term anymore, but at the time that came out, that was what it was called, the to the chick click rom-com genre. Did you feel nervous about doing that?
Rachael Johns: Yes and no. I don't think I did because I, so the thing it was is that we called it originally the other Bridget Jones. And then quickly discovered that while titles are not. Copyright and you can, there's so many tiles of the same out there in the world. And also character names are not like copyright usually.
Rachael Johns: That Helen Fielding had trademarked the name Bridget Jones.
Pamela: Oh, okay.
Rachael Johns: So you can't have Bridget Jones Pasta. You can't, have a Bridget Jones punch or Bridget Jones cocktail, because yeah, she's trademarked it, so we couldn't. The other Bridget Jones. So that made me feel a little bit uneasy because even though I didn't mind immediate, immediately we changed to the other Bridget.
Rachael Johns: And I actually think that's a better title because, you don't have to have read Bridget Jones, yeah, there's a few, there's a few reasons why I think it's better. But then I was like, Ooh, is this could get me into trouble. But then I also thought Bridget Jones diary, the original Bridget Jones diary was inspired by Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.
Rachael Johns: And it's supposed to be a retelling of that, even though it's, so I figure, he field it to Jane Austin. I can do it to Helen Fielding.
Pamela: I know I was thinking about that when I was writing out the questions to ask you. I thought there, Helen Fielding did exactly the same thing with Pride and Prejudice and Drew like really obviously on it. So you've mentioned a little bit about Bridget, your main character already in terms of her superpower, but tell us a little bit more about Bridget, your character and who she is.
Pamela: When we meet her at the beginning of the book.
Rachael Johns: So Bridget did grow up in a station bar Western Australia quite isolated and then went to school in Perth where. I had a few issues that led to an eating disorder. She was an anorexic and that's where she really consolidated her love of reading. 'cause she had a lot of time where she was in ho in and out of hospital and reading helped her through that time.
Rachael Johns: So we meet her past this having recovered from anorexia. And yeah, just in, in a job that she loves, in a place with friends that she adores but there's still a little bit of body issue and stuff there. And this may be what we talked about, years ago, I don't when you mentioned that, is because I had anorexia myself in my teens and while I got as bad as.
Rachael Johns: Bridget. And, luckily things happened that made, I didn't go have to go down the hospitalization track. But I wanted to write about eating disorders for a long time because it not, so it's wasn't not just me, but my mom had BIA going and my cousins had eating disorder as well.
Rachael Johns: And so that whole. Seeing is something that I've always wanted to write about, but I always struggled. I think years ago I did try in an early book, one that never saw the live day. When I was trying to write for Meals and boon years and years ago. And I remember being told being in the middle of an eating disorder is like not a good, like not for the character.
Rachael Johns: It was too dark to, for.
Pamela: Okay.
Rachael Johns: , I think Marianne Keys did it really well in grownups. I think it was. It's hard. It's a hard sort of subject to well deal with. Maybe it's because I was too close or not, but I did wanna turn a light in it, and then I suddenly realized I have recovered.
Rachael Johns: Like I, it took a lot, it's 20 or so years afterwards. But I do have a reasonably healthy relationship with my body now. I still think about, calories and how I think most women do, when we, or you feel guilty about eating too much and all this sort of stuff.
Rachael Johns: But overall, I have a reasonably healthy relationship with food and a reasonably healthy relationship with body image. And so I wanted to show. It's possible, so yeah, so that's where she is in the book. She's still seeing a therapist a little bit about, that, but also just her general life.
Rachael Johns: And yeah, it's interesting because I, took a while to work out. Because I'm not much of a plotter. , I even dunno if that would've fixed it. I think sometimes you need to get into a story and really get to know a character. But initially, I'm just trying remember what I changed?
Rachael Johns: Initially I had her looking for love, I think, or try. I, there was, then I talked to my cousin, Lizzie Dent, who's also an author, and I realized. I didn't have a strong goal. And so instead I, I changed it so that her strong goal was to stop dating apps and to find love organic so I had to do a little bit of writing about her before I worked exactly what was gonna be her, trust the story, if that makes sense.
Pamela: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's exactly what I was gonna ask you. So just going back to what you were saying about the anorexia, I think that's works really well in the story because it gives the character such a strong backstory. In terms of not only her relationship with her food, but her relationship with her family and her mother in particular, who helped her through that time.
Pamela: And that, that sense that she still carries some of that stuff with her. Like she's obviously recovered and, but there's obviously long lasting effects of having something like that in teens. So it gives her such a strong backstory that I think it worked, really well,
Rachael Johns: Too lightly skimmed over, if
Pamela: no. As you say, it's a long time after for her as well, just as it is for you. And so it's part of her story, but it's, she's moved on from
Rachael Johns: Yeah.
Rachael Johns: Not this book kind of thing. Yeah.
Pamela: Yeah. So you said you had to write your way into the character a little bit, like in terms of note taking and stuff.
Pamela: I know that you are pretty much a plotter a pants, sorry. Washed my mouth out. So yeah, tell us a little bit, about the process for writing the book before we got onto talking about the other characters. Was there a lot of kind of note taking at the beginning, or do you do a little bit and then stop and do more ta, more note taking?
Pamela: How
Rachael Johns: Always do a little bit of character, for the main characters. I try and work out what their archetype is. I find that helps me. And then make that or, its own thing. So grow it from. I've got a book that I always use called Heroes and Heroines.
Pamela: Yeah, that's great.
Rachael Johns: and, but then that just gives me a little bit of something to jump off kind of thing.
Rachael Johns: And so I think that about the characters and that beforehand and with this book particularly, I thought because it was inspired by Bridger Jones' diary that I was going to do a year. The life of my Bridget Jones. So I started the book, the one you read, it starts on Valentine's Day. I actually, the original book started on New Year's Eve the same
Pamela: Same as Bridget.
Rachael Johns: Yeah, it was the same. It was basically, and so then I didn't do a diary format. I never was gonna do a diary, but I did, I was gonna do month by month. That was the major big chapters. And so I started that way and thought that was just the way I was gonna do it.
Rachael Johns: But I didn't plot out what would happen exactly in each of those, chapters. I just had a vague idea in my head, but what needs to happen by the end of the year, and then I realized probably, I think I'd got over almost. 65,000 words or something.
Rachael Johns: And I was only up to May in the story and I thought, if I keep going this way, then the book, could be like 200,000 words or whatever. I do write long books. That was, too long. But also apart from that, like there was there months, I was like, what's, I'm gonna have to drag this out, like what's gonna happen?
Rachael Johns: And I think one of the reasons I was gonna do that, one thing I haven't mentioned yet, but you would know about is that there's book club in the group. In the book as well. A lot book club. And so one of the reasons that I was gonna do it month by month is that it could be like each month, we see what they're reading in book club and I thought a monthly book club is the standard kind of thing.
Rachael Johns: And if the book was shorter, we wouldn't get enough of those characters. And they're important for the plot too. And so that's why in the end, it making me crazy. I was going insane because I was like. I have to have that book club, I have, how's it gonna work? And I have to have the month because, by month I can't just start a book in New Year's Eve and then finish it Like it, the way it set it up, it felt like it needed to be the whole year.
Rachael Johns: So then I suddenly had a thought, hang on, if I don't start it in New Year's Eve, I'm not doing a diary or whatever, then I don't have to finish on New Year's Eve. If you say Valentine's Day, I can finish it whenever, it just be as long as it needs to be. But then again, some things had to happen reasonably quickly. It wasn't, I'm trying to say this without spoilers, but I
Pamela: Yeah. It.
Rachael Johns: take it out over a year. It would've been, wouldn't have worked. But so I decided just to make the book club every two weeks instead. So I think, yeah, with fiction, sometimes we have to.
Rachael Johns: I would try to be as true to what would happen in real life as possible. I don't think most book clubs would happen every two weeks, but I figured there's a bunch of, retirees, seniors who have hopefully plenty of time to read on their hands, and I just thought, yep, I need to make it two weeks so that I could keep the story tight.
Rachael Johns: So yeah, that was a big rewrite. Then I had to go back once I. Change it all. But I knew my heart. I've realized I really have to listen to my gut and stuff. Now when writing, and as soon as it doesn't seem to be working for me or it's, I'm starting to doubt a lot, I realize that's because I've done something wrong.
Rachael Johns: And if I just I'm trying to force it and it's actually not gonna work. So it's better than for me to work out what I did wrong. And to go back and change it and yeah, changing it meant there was a few things I had to change that I loved, darlings I had to kill because, I had to change a New Year's Eve party, which was at so Xavier and R two of the characters in the book, the New Year's Eve party was at their house and it was a whole lot of other fun things going on and that.
Rachael Johns: I had to cut that, but I also wanted to keep Library Lovers Day, which was another day, but that didn't actually fit so then I changed that. You have to go in, you have to pull it all apart, and in that process you lose some things. But hopefully it's better, in the
Pamela: For the overall story. Yeah. Do you still, Rachel, I remember talking to you before in one of our chats and you said when you start one writing session, you go back basically to the beginning and look at everything you've done up to that point, and then I know there was a point where you were beating yourself up about that, but then said, that's just my process and I'm just gonna do it.
Pamela: Do you still do that?
Rachael Johns: I do. I've realized, yeah, as that process, I try not to, read completely from the beginning and like slow, through. But I'll I will allow myself to, skim, I skim through the manuscript fix, pick things up here and there, fix errors. But I also find that it just.
Rachael Johns: It's hard to explain, but I'll say something that I wrote say in chapter six, just when I'm skiing through it, it'll just plop out. Like I did believe there's an element of magic in writing, and for some reason the right thing pops out to me at the right time, and I'll see that I wrote in an earlier chapter, and I'm suddenly that I've forgotten, that I was going to draw that together with this kind of thing.
Rachael Johns: But then I'll see that and I'll suddenly realize hang on. Now I know what to do in. The chapter I need to write today. So yeah, it's a balance between wasting too much time on scripting through the manuscript. But I do think, like I'm currently, as I mentioned, I think before we started close to the end of writing my next book.
Rachael Johns: And I'm still doing, that, but my deadline is way, way over. But I will be handing it in early next week and I will not have time to read through it again before I hand it in. But that actually doesn't matter with my process
Pamela: Yeah. You probably end up with a cleaner manuscript at the end of it all. Yeah.
Rachael Johns: And obviously there's still mistakes and we all have, those things.
Rachael Johns: But I do pick up quite a few of those. But, so it's not just that it's cleaner though. It is means that I have basically edited as I've gone. So you know, instead of doing multiple drafts, one after the other, I'm doing multiple drafts while I'm drafting.
Pamela: Yeah. Yeah. I've actually been doing, that just happened that I was doing that with the novella I'm writing this month, and like I still have quite a few words to write before the end of the month in a week. I know because I turning I'm not, it's terrible, but because I've been going back and revising EA lot of it as you do I'm pretty happy with what's there so far.
Pamela: And I know like I'm still gonna have to go back and tweak things, but it is not, it's not gonna be a massive revision at the end,
Rachael Johns: That's how I feel too about each book. And I think then obviously when you give it to an editor there, it doesn't mean that it's perfect when you get handed up, but it means you've got it as close as you are gonna do without leaving it aside for a couple of months. And when you're contracted and stuff like you can't necessarily.
Rachael Johns: Leave it aside for a few months. So I think that time when an editor is reading it, is it that time when, you can take a break for it and then come back with fresh eyes, so it's not that it's perfect and it's ready for publication, but it's as far as going to get it before that next step.
Rachael Johns: Yeah.
Pamela: Yeah, for sure. You mentioned some of the characters in the book club before, now you, something that struck me as I was reading it. There is actually quite a big cast of characters in this book. But you keep a hold on them really well. There was no point that I don't think I ever had to go back and check who the characters were.
Pamela: Were you conscious of that as you were writing it, the number of characters? Was it kinda snowballing.
Rachael Johns: A book for a community library book club. So the book club is hard. You have in the book you have Bridget obviously, and then you have her library colleagues, I think there's four of them who are like her closest friends as well. You've got already Yeah. Five characters kind of thing.
Rachael Johns: And then you've got her to love interests as well yeah.
Pamela: Gotta have those. Yeah.
Rachael Johns: And then you, I needed, because I needed her to run a book club, which is part of, the plot. Obviously I ne needed a cast of characters in the book club. Yeah, that was tricky. That I think the trickiest thing though was, and I'm not saying I've done this at all perfectly, like I think definitely there could be room for improvement there, but it's description is ne never my strong point.
Rachael Johns: But, I picked about a handful of names. The people in the book club that I could continually, refer to and tried to give them only one really key 'cause they are secondary minor characters. Only sort of one key thing each about them. That was their sort of personality, that was hard because you don't wanna, a, there's a couple things that I think it's hard when you it is minor characters like that, but also when they're all the same age I don't wanna. Be stereotypical and, cliches, but in some ways with minor characters, it means that people immediately have an idea of what that person is like. You can't like, go into so much detail and make such minor characters, completely individual. So you don't wanna be cliches on one hand, but sometimes, you need a little bit of that to just immediately make people recognize who they are. But I guess the other problem is when they're all pretty much, they're all seniors, they're all retirees. They're all in a book, like interested in books and stuff. So yeah, that, that was tricky. A little bit. Yeah.
Pamela: And how did that, you find that kind of structurally, because you do have quite a few different threads. You've got Bridget's kind of love interest storyline with Fabio, who's fabulous and Sally, her neighbor. And then you've got what's going on with the library. Library itself. And the librarian type people.
Pamela: And then you've got the kind of book club issues. So there were quite a few different threads going through it that Did you find that hard to keep track of as you were writing?
Rachael Johns: I don't even really know. I think possibly that's why my process works for things like that because, you just stay grounded in that stuff, the whole time. And. But yeah, like it is all linked. So I guess the hardest part is like all the things that are happening with the library people and the book club people and Bridget's love life ends up being quite entwined.
Rachael Johns: And even I've got this other people too. There's, the, there's lo Lola and her mum who come into the library and I'm sure. Yeah, there is a big cast of characters. But yeah, it's all linked together. So I think as with any book especially planting pantsing it's just a matter of sometimes working out what needs to come in what order, and I don't always get that right first.
Pamela: Yeah.
Rachael Johns: Like sometimes that moves around as I'm writing. But no, it just happens.
Pamela: Oh they're really fun characters. I you referenced anorexia and there are a few other really very serious topics too that do come in, which I'm not gonna talk about 'cause I don't wanna give too many spoilers. But you've got that kind of.
Pamela: Little touches of seriousness, but there's a lot of fun stuff going on, and it's just a really fun group of people to hang out with. So imagine for you as the writer, it would've been really fun to write
Rachael Johns: Yeah, most of the time, as we know.
Pamela: Oh, yeah. Most the time. Yeah.
Rachael Johns: And I think that's the thing, like to me actually, since having a bad, really bad patch a couple of years ago where I did really feel like burnout and anxiety, that's the most important thing for me now. In writing books that I'm writing, characters that I love, whether that's love to love or love to hate, but you know that I can have fun.
Rachael Johns: With, and yeah, it's not always fun as but if you love the characters deep down, even if, even when it's hard, actually, I just reminded me I saw this. Quote or heard it somewhere. It's by Ariel Lawton who had a think book called The Frozen River Out recently.
Rachael Johns: And it says if you care about your work, the work is hard because you have high expectations of yourself. But I think that's the same if you care about, the characters and even when it is hard, there's a reason to go on kind of thing, if that makes one of the reasons I realize in the book that I'm currently writing now, apart from that, I was lost tension and.
Rachael Johns: I when I was a bit stuck, it was, I think because I wasn't in love as in love with the characters as I should be, so I had to go back and fall in love with them, if that makes sense.
Pamela: , I think that makes a lot of sense. And something else I wanted to talk to you about Rich. 'cause it is obviously a romance, is that the genre that you would say it falls
Rachael Johns: It's so hard because I would say it's a contemporary romance.
Pamela: Yeah.
Rachael Johns: It's being marketed as, a romcom, which is fine by me as well. I was thinking, oh, is there, is it a romcom? And then I was said talking about this to someone the other day and I thought, oh yeah, there's a scene when her mom walks in on her and Sally
Pamela: Oh, there's some very funny books in
Rachael Johns: So I guess it's a romcom because I guess that's what a romcom, is yeah, I mean it's definitely, to me, it's interesting because my rural romances are all.
Rachael Johns: Dual point of view and you get in the head of their heroes, as well. Whereas my women's fiction novels don't know if I've got any with a male point of view, maybe one brief. And so it's very they're very much more women centric and it's, the male characters are, they're there because of the women, if that makes sense.
Rachael Johns: It's not whereas and I suppose in this case it's romance because you don't get the male character's point of view, but I feel like it's also slightly different from my really, romance focused ones in that there's also, Bridget's kind of on her own, like more, I don't know.
Rachael Johns: It's hard to
Rachael Johns: explain,
Pamela: yeah, it's got that women's fiction and I know that title is contentious.
Rachael Johns: Yeah. No, I like it. You've made me.
Pamela: Oh, interesting. It does have that women's fiction kind of ca main character centric story. Like it's about her life and her journey, to use the cliched term.
Pamela: But, and the romance is part of that, but it's not the whole thing.
Rachael Johns: I think the thing is too, when you're writing a love triangle, it's very hard to, if I had chosen to write the hero's point of views or. Both of them. Like I, if I'd have to do both of them, but then you get a track, I don't know. It's whereas, and I can't just do one of the love interests.
Rachael Johns: One that up with, because then it's very obvious from the beginning, what's the point of a love triangle? So I realized, yeah, writing a love triangle, I think. I'd love to know if anyone's done it. Anyone can tell, with where you have all of the point of views or it's, yeah, it's a tricky thing to do.
Rachael Johns: The next book that I'm writing, which is in sort of romcom genre and it's linked to Bridget 'cause I'm writing Fred's story. I would like to do the hero's point of view or the love interest point of view in that, but I don't think I can because it is linked to this one. So it's gotta be, I feel just a, we can do what we like in some ways, there's no rules, but I feel because they're gonna sit side by side as a duology, I need that.
Rachael Johns: So Fred, for anyone who's listening, Fred is Bridget's best friend in the book. Her short for Winifred. I feel like they need to be in the same sort of vibe, tone, things. I feel like it needs to be Fred's story, like it was Bridget's story rather than Fred and the love interest story.
Rachael Johns: Yeah.
Pamela: and she's such a strong character too. It would be great for her to have her own story.
Rachael Johns: I had never intended to do that either. And it was after I'd finished that we decided that I should probably do that, and I had. I had set something up in the book for her in the first draft, but then I'd taken it out that I thought, oh, hang on, that could be her story. But it was not her story in the end.
Rachael Johns: But there was just one line. And this is funny how the magic I think of writing and stuff. There was one line I wrote in Bridget's book that says she'd only seen fred cry twice. One was when her cat died and the other was when her mom got married for the fourth time or something like that.
Rachael Johns: And so I suddenly realized, oh, Fred's backstory has to, I think, be to do with her mom, her parents kind of thing. And the fact that, she's a braid of commitment or anti commitment because her mom has been married so many times and from that one line, a whole plot has come.
Pamela: That is so good. I love it when
Rachael Johns: I think that actually line may have come in structural edits. Because the editor had said to me, Fred's a bit harsh. You know what I mean? We need to see, we need to see that. Yes, she's this in your face kind of strong character, but sometimes she comes across as a little cruel or a little sharp, so I had to soften her a little bit towards Bridget, but I also had to show that she's human. And that was in that one line, which, so it's just, yeah, amazing how things work out.
Pamela: Amazing. Always great to have you have your character crying over an animal. 'cause that's definitely
Rachael Johns: Yeah, exactly.
Pamela: save the cat. Literally, in terms of the romance in this one, Rachel, as you said, there's the love triangle, but there's a very strong enemies to lovers trope in this. Which you must have had a lot of fun with.
Pamela: What have been your favorite kind of enemies to lovers stories that maybe have influenced you in that?
Rachael Johns: My mind has like completely gone blank now. I think my favorite probably of recent years, with Emily Henry's . Beach read. They start strongly as enemies and there's so much good banter between them.
Rachael Johns: So I love that. I also love I read recently Beth O'Leary's, the wake up call. And that's enemies to lovers, I think you can have a lot of fun with. I love friends to lovers too. But it's a very different vibe. You can have a lot of fun with enemies to lovers because, love and hate is such a closely related thing, and you can have lots of banter in the fighting and stuff, but I think it's hard as well because there needs to be good reason why they're, fighting. So that can be tricky. With this, it was slightly easier because of his personality.
Pamela: The neighbor's angle is really great
Pamela: because we can all relate to that. Like we've all had a neighbor that we've, probably hated at one point. We might not always end up loving them, we can all relate to that situation, I think.
Rachael Johns: Yeah, exactly. And that was also fun, like it was just that unfortunate meeting, not so cute meet, meet cute that sparked their hatred of each other.
Pamela: One of the things is that because Bridget is a librarian, and as you say, her superpower is matching books to non-readers and trying to switch them onto to reading, which is, I love that whole thread of the book.
Pamela: But we have a mutual virtual assistant, Annie Bucknell,
Rachael Johns: Isn't she fabulous?
Pamela: She's amazing. Big shout out to Annie and you put me onto her and she's just help. So helpful with the podcast, but I saw on, I think it was Instagram the other day or TikTok that you had given her the task of going through and counting up the number of books that were mentioned in Bridget and there were 83.
Rachael Johns: yes.
Pamela: They just come up as you wrote did those
Pamela: books come to.
Rachael Johns: so she suggested to do that, by the way, 'cause she'd started reading it because I gave it to her to read to do some, quotes and stuff, graphics and things like that. And then she said, oh my gosh you've mentioned so many books have you kept a list? And I said, no, I didn't.
Rachael Johns: I should have. And she said, oh, I'm not that far in yet. I'll go back to the start and keep a list. And so when she told me how many there were, she was like, do you wanna guess how many there were? I'm like, oh, 30, maybe 25. And she said there's 83. I could not believe it. How I chose them it was a mixture of some that I have really loved myself and others because I was getting Bridget to choose for different people with different ages, genders, and things like that.
Rachael Johns: Ones that I just knew were quite popular for those types. And then I had to, so the majority I'd say I've read two thirds of the books. Or two thirds of the authors that are mentioned 'cause some, but there are definitely books in there that I haven't read. I haven't read 15 minutes. Italian, a couple of the Yas.
Rachael Johns: But some of them I've got my to be are but yeah, so that was a fun thing to do. Initially though, I will say there was a change in the edit. Hundred percent sure. I hope I publish. She's not listening. Love you Ally. But I know the reason why she did this I had written many friends books into basically instead of having all the, American and TikTok kind of books that we had in there, especially for the book club instead of, I think in the end the book club reads, Kristen Hannah listens in chemistry ones that are quite well known.
Rachael Johns: I had. Initially them reading friends like Australian books and things like that. I think in the end, the only Australian references I've kept was probably Trent Dalton. 'cause he's quite well known overseas. Maybe a Jane Harper reference. I yeah. And and Michael Tran because he managed to stay because I was.
Rachael Johns: Comparing. I needed something for a blokey bloke in WA and he'd liked Lee Child previously. And so Michael Trent is the only one who managed to stay in there, I think. Because yeah, my publisher said, look, if you want to hopefully appeal to an overseas market or overseas editors, then we probably should, but I'm not sure I'll ever appeal to an overseas market or an overseas editors.
Rachael Johns: So I.
Pamela: Oh as you say, that's their job we've gotta listen to the publishes. Sometimes they give us that.
Pamela: Yeah, sometimes.
Rachael Johns: She also didn't epilogue
Pamela: Okay.
Rachael Johns: fought for that, and I'm glad I did. We won't say what that.
Pamela: I love the epilogue. Great. Well done fighting on that one. And the other thing, of course, as a avid romance writer and reader, one of the things I loved was the thread in it, about romance writing and the importance of romance books, and you don't shy away from.
Pamela: Really pushing how important those books can be,
Rachael Johns: because it's true, like when you write romance, you do sometimes. Get that sort of eye rolly response from people. And I think also in the world of romance readers or have traditionally been people who don't necessarily admit to reading it, which is always funny because, romance on the highest selling genre, so obviously.
Rachael Johns: Some people read it, people will admit to reading the book a prize or a more literary book or something that's in the, in the zeitgeist at the time. And that's why I really love and I did mention a few like book talk books and I love the fact that young people. Loud and proud about reading their romance novels.
Rachael Johns: Probably they're loud and proud about everything and they're like, I'm not gonna be shamed for what I love, or, and good on them. But yeah, I think the tide might be slowly turning there because of that. But yeah, I did wanna put that in there. Usually I don't like try and preach to people in books, I just explore issues and stuff.
Rachael Johns: But that angle I, where I did have a bit of.
Pamela: Yeah, and it fits in with the character and the story. She's a librarian and she's, one of her jobs is recommending books, so I think it works really well into the storyline. Good on you for pushing it in there. I think.
Pamela: So you've had an enormous amount of fun with this book and it's had its challenges. , you are with a new publisher for this book and you have a big tour coming up. You tell us a little then for the tour, for the other Bridget.
Rachael Johns: Yeah, we're going a lot of places in the southwest of WWA to start with, and Perth a lot of my old favorite places that I've been to before. And then I'm going to Sydney and doing books and bars with Di Sydney and a Newcastle event, I think then going up to Queensland, quite a lot of events there.
Rachael Johns: Then back to News Victoria. Three events there, one in Melbourne, I'll take two in Melbourne, and then one in Geelong and then back to Sydney for a lasts luncheon to finish it all off. So yes,
Pamela: In Sydney, where's the luncheon at?
Rachael Johns: , is the restaurant with Fiona Higgins?
Pamela: Sounds good. What would you say, Rach, I know that, we've talked about this on the podcast before. In terms of your process and just being someone who is, has been very prolific, you've had well into the twenties, in terms of the number of books that you've written in the last 10 or 12 years what would you say be the most important things you've learned about writing and publishing in recent times?
Pamela: Maybe in the last couple of years?
Rachael Johns: I think the most important thing I've learned about writing is that you really can't fight your process. And also that you have to trust your gut. And I like, I'm probably not, I'm not woowoo in any other aspect of my life.
Rachael Johns: Not there's anything wrong with that, but I'm very believing that there's an element of magic in writing, but also that your body has to be in tune with your mind. It sounds really bizarre. And as soon as I am feeling in my gut that something's wrong, I know. Then now I feel like it's had to postpone, but I'm.
Rachael Johns: I guess the more books you write, the more intuitive you become in a way. there's a lot of mistakes you've made, and that in some ways makes things harder but I've learn that I can fix almost anything.
Rachael Johns: It's really hard sometimes, but, so I, I've learned that you have to follow your gut and that you have to not let rest on your laurels and I. Know that I could say the book that I was writing, I'm writing now, I could have just finished it once my gut started to tell me that it lost the tension and it would've been fine, but it wouldn't have been the best thing that I could do at the time.
Rachael Johns: And so I think I've learned that, yeah, you really have to just trust your process, not rush things. Sometimes like as hard as that is, even when we're on, contracts and stuff, sometimes it's best to say, okay, I am gonna miss a deadline. But the book that I'm gonna give you in the end is actually going to be better than if I'd, rushed it through.
Rachael Johns: I've just learned to be kind to myself to allow myself thinking time
Pamela: it's really good. Yeah. And the other part was publishing. What have you learned .
Rachael Johns: What I've learned in publishing, and I actually talked about this with and he gonna be on your podcast soon. We're having a chat the other day. Is that really you have control over nothing. No matter whether you are self published, indie, published hybrid or traditional publishing, you have no, no control over how anyone else is gonna receive your book.
Rachael Johns: You have no control whether the re spin a spoon is gonna pick it up or whether the publisher, is gonna put all the money into it kind of thing. And really push it. And even if they do, doesn't mean that anything. It's, publishers put lots of money in some things and it works, and other things they put lots of money into and just doesn't, whatever.
Rachael Johns: The zeitgeist just does what it wants to do. And so literally you have no control over any of that. What you have control over is the book. And doing the best that you can in that book. And that's really, that can be really disheartening because, you can put a lot, I think it's one of the careers where you can put so much effort in, you can work really hard and it doesn't necessarily pay off in terms of financially or, what we see as success in other ways.
Rachael Johns: So I think, yeah that's the biggest thing that I, have learned that. To manage my expectations, to try and not compare myself to other people. And to realize that, yeah, when it comes to publishing, there's so much out of our control. The only thing we can control is the book.
Rachael Johns: Really. Yeah.
Pamela: Great advice.
Rachael Johns: Yep.
Listen, I'm really excited. I loved the book. I can't wait to see you in Sydney at the books and bars very soon.
Pamela: And all the best with the book, Rach. I'm gonna let you get on, enjoy the rest of your day 'cause it is your birthday, so enjoy that.
Rachael Johns: I You've been recording from, but it's isn't
Pamela: It is, it's now. So yeah, I should have mentioned at the beginning, it's actually now six 20 in Silver Star in Canada where I've been holiday and we are chatting from, you're in Perth on the other side of the World Star.
Rachael Johns: cold.
Pamela: Yeah. So I've had the day like skiing, I went snowshoeing, I've been in the hot tub and we're going out for dinner.
Pamela: So
Rachael Johns: Enjoy your dinner and I'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Pamela: Thanks, bye.