Crafting A Psychological Thriller: Insights from Debut Author Lisa Kenway
“When you’re close to something, it’s hard to tell if it’s ready. Keep pushing, keep refining, and trust that magic will happen.”
Buy ALL YOU TOOK FROM ME
📚🔍 Where would you be without your writer friends? Dive into the suspenseful world of psychological thrillers with debut author Lisa Kenway on this week's episode of Writes4Women. Tune in as Lisa shares the long journey to publication behind her gripping novel ALL YOU TOOK FROM ME and how her writing friends kept her going through rejections. Plus, discover how the beauty and menace of the Blue Mountains play a crucial role in her storytelling. A must-listen for aspiring authors and thriller writers! 🎙️🖋️
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Today's Guest
05:46 Lisa's Writing Journey
21:07 Inspiration Behind ALL YOU TOOK FROM ME
27:08 Creating Tension and Suspense
30:35 Importance of Setting
35:12 Writing Process and Discipline
44:18 Future Projects and Writing Philosophy
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Transcript
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.
[00:00:00] Pamela: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Rights for Women. Today is Monday, the 5th of August. As I'm recording this, and this is another episode that is actually going to come out this week and today I have the pleasure of talking to a fabulous debut author Lisa Kenway.
[00:00:15] Pamela: I'm really excited to talk to Lisa about the release of her. Very new book. All you took from Me, which was launched on Friday just a few days ago, and which I recently had the pleasure of reading,
[00:00:27] Pamela: I. It's a fabulous psychological thriller set in the Blue Mountains in Australia and in Sydney. And I can't wait to talk to Lisa about it. And I'll tell you a little bit about Lisa in just a moment. In my own personal writing news, I am. In the middle of I'm not in the middle. I wish I was in the middle of my work in Progress, which is a place of her own, the third in the Black Wattle Lake series.
[00:00:52] Pamela: I have stopped and going back and doing some planning. I'm not a planner by nature. I am a pants. But I have to say that going back and working out what the major turning points are and trying to work out what the. Future turning points are in the sections that I'm not yet up to. So the kind of middle moment, the black moment and the climax is actually really helping me to sort out the beginning of the story.
[00:01:14] Pamela: I'm actually, I'm not gonna call it yet to say that I'm turning into a planner, but let's just say I'm currently a plant star. If that is the thing, half plotting and half not. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. At the moment, I'm feeling sick about how much work I have to do leading up to the deadline for that in October.
[00:01:34] Pamela: But anyway, we will push on and get that done. I. I am also next week going to the Romance Writers of Australia Conference. So excited about that to be catching up with a lot of fabulous fellow authors down there in Adelaide for the trope actually conference. And while I don't write straight romance, I'm certainly I certainly have romantic elements in pretty much all my stories and I love a good romance.
[00:01:58] Pamela: And the Romance Writers Conference of Australia always has fantastic workshops. Brilliant networking opportunities and most importantly for me, the chance to catch up with some fabulous fellow authors. So I'm really looking forward to heading down to Adelaide for that. In other news, I am going to send out a new Patreon video today, which is actually gonna be about the advantages I can see in working out the turning points of your story as I've been doing.
[00:02:25] Pamela: So I'll be talking a little bit about that. It's probably gonna be about a 12 minute video. I try and send one or two a week to my Patreon family along with links to articles that I'm finding useful. Last week I sent a series of links to articles that I found on cause and effect in story and how to create narrative drive.
[00:02:44] Pamela: So anything that I'm finding useful, I figure other people might find useful too. So they'll go out to the Patreon supporters and the videos the vlogs go out to the Patreon family supporters so you can support the cod. Podcast for anything from, two, three or $5 a month costs, less than a cost of a cup of coffee and be part of the Patreon family to receive those ongoing benefits.
[00:03:06] Pamela: And thank you to everybody out there who is doing just that. Let's get on with today's chat with Lisa Kenway. And before we do that, let me tell you a little about Lisa. Lisa is an Australian author and anesthetist. Her debut psychological thriller. All you took from me has just been published by Transit Lounge Publishing.
[00:03:26] Pamela: It's August, 2024 for anybody listening to this in the future. It was long listed for the 2020 Ritual Prize and was runner up in the 2022 CYA conference competition for adult work. Her current work in Progress East Coast Low was long listed for the 2021 Fresh Ink Emerging Writers Prize and was highly commended in the 2022 writing New South Wales UNA Fellowships.
[00:03:51] Pamela: She was awarded a 2023 Catherine Susanna PRI Pritchard Writer Center Fellowship. It's a tongue twister to further develop this work. Lisa's short fiction and creative nonfiction pieces have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and her micro fiction was selected for consideration in the 2020 Micro Flix Writers Award run by Spineless Wonders.
[00:04:15] Pamela: She was also highly recommended in the 2018 Peter Coen, 600 word short Story competition, and was a finalist in the Hunter Writers Center Grieve Competition in 2017. Her first full length novel manuscript, the Jacaranda Tree was long listed for the Varuna Publisher Introduction Program Fellowship in 2017.
[00:04:36] Pamela: Lisa lives on the Central coast of New South Wales with her husband and two sons, and works part-time as an anesthetist. She's an active member of the Australian Society of Authors, and she is also an active member of the Sydney Writing Community and Coastal writing community, and appears at numerous launches, which is where I first met Lisa quite some time ago now.
[00:05:00] Pamela: She's also a key member. In fact, I think the founding member of the debut crew, a group of emerging authors who encourage and support each other, both online and in person. Now, I don't always include an author's shorter previous works in introductions and awards and competitions, things like that.
[00:05:18] Pamela: But I did today because. I think it's a classic example of something I want to talk to Lisa about, which is putting your work out there over and over again, entering competitions and becoming part of the writing community and building up a network. So that's definitely something I'm going to chat to Lisa about.
[00:05:37] Pamela: Let me introduce you to Lisa.
[00:05:40] Pamela: So Lisa Kenway, welcome to Rights for Women.
[00:05:45] Thanks for having me, Pam.
[00:05:46] Pamela: Great to have you on, and I've just told the listeners in the introduction about your lead up to having this very first book published, but I wanna talk a little bit more about that to you today and also about your kind of, being part of the writing community and how that has helped you.
[00:06:02] Pamela: 'cause I've, I think I met you many years ago now at a writing event and I've seen you at quite a few writing events and I know you do attend them and you've. Just had your very own launch for all you took from me. How was the launch?
[00:06:15] Oh, it was so much fun. It's, yeah, there's nothing like holding your own book and celebrating its release with a room full of family and friends.
[00:06:25] It was just so warm and oh, it was a really like a big hug.
[00:06:32] Pamela: Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Now of course, we're gonna be talking about all you took from me, which is an absolutely riveting psychological thriller. So congratulations on that. It's such a fantastic read. But let's go back a little bit in time to might be quite a long time.
[00:06:50] Pamela: When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?
[00:06:54] I've always been a reader my whole life. I've been the sort of kid who's immersed in a book all the time when I was little, and as an adult as well. And thinking back, I, I loved writing as a child. I loved, I wrote Poetry for Fun and made a newsletter for the family.
[00:07:11] And then at some point, being serious and studying for HSC and, uni and all that took over. So that occupied so much of my time for about two decades. It wasn't until I was in my early forties, my career was established, my kids were at school and I suddenly had time to take a breath and realize that I still wasn't.
[00:07:38] Fulfilled that there was something else that I needed and that was creativity. And I pretty quickly gravitated towards writing because I had always loved to write and I it deep very deep inside. I had wondered if I could write a novel. So I just started working by myself. I didn't know any writers.
[00:08:00] I hadn't done any courses. I read a couple of books and just gave it a go and stopped started. It was difficult, but after a few years, I got to the end of a first. Novel and that novel will never be published. It taught me a lot about writing and mostly taught me what I didn't know, and then I went looking for courses and, trying to write short fiction and stuff to learn what I didn't know at that point.
[00:08:26] But it got me hooked and I can't imagine not doing it now.
[00:08:31] Pamela: Yeah, I think a lot of us have that same story. Lisa is you know about the one that we've got in the draw, at least one. But the one that taught us so much about writing probably got us hooked on writing and that whole creative process.
[00:08:43] Pamela: And then, we went on from there. How long ago would that have been when you first started your first novel, do you think?
[00:08:50] I think it's just a bit over 10 years ago.
[00:08:53] Pamela: Okay. Yeah, I think it's great for emerging and aspiring authors to hear these kinds of stories because it's definitely something that takes a long time, isn't it?
[00:09:04] Pamela: You never stop learning. There's always something new to learn with every book and with everything in life. But it is a very long process, isn't it?
[00:09:11] It is, and I'm, I must admit, I'm not the most patient person in the world. So I have had to learn a bit of patience over many years because nothing happens quickly when you're trying to get books published.
[00:09:23] And just learning the craft takes time.
[00:09:26] Pamela: Yeah, definitely. When did you think. Okay. I think I've got something that I'm ready to try to submit to a publisher. I did read out actually in the introduction, Lisa, your very long, commendable list of things that you had entered and long listings and short listings that you've received for your various works.
[00:09:45] Pamela: So was that kind of a strategy that you had in terms of, getting some smaller bits of work out there first before the novel? Or did that just happen by accident?
[00:09:55] Yes. No. It wasn't an accident. I started writing short fiction when I was trying to for a brief period of time.
[00:10:02] I tried to get that first bottom draw novel published. And when I was at that point of pitching that novel, I realized that I didn't really have anything to go on my bio. And I started writing some short pieces, sending them out. Trying to get a few things published, but I think I got a lot out of that.
[00:10:23] More than I appreciated I would get just because it's a really good way to learn how to write when you're writing a short. Peace and you have a, a very limited word count and you're trying different genres. But the reason that I started doing that and putting my work out into competitions was to try and get a bit of a bio for that first doomed novel.
[00:10:44] But in the process of doing that I got a lot more out of it than a bio. I just learned a lot and developed my writing a lot for that next novel.
[00:10:56] And then I did the same thing with it. I I then, and while I was trying to get it published, I was also submitting it to competitions and had some successes, which opened doors a crack, but not quite wide enough for a little while.
[00:11:09] Yeah.
[00:11:10] Pamela: Yeah. , were your first two books in a similar genre or the same genre, or were they different?
[00:11:16] The first book I wrote was different. I would probably classify it as a like a. Coming of age, like literary coming of age type novel. So I, I have to say, looking back now, I'm pleased that one wasn't published as my first book because it's a very different in tone to what I write now.
[00:11:34] And yeah, it would've taken me in a very different direction. And so it was probably just meant to be.
[00:11:39] Pamela: Yeah. Isn't that interesting? So you shopped your second novel around a bit and had some, a little bit of a few bites with that. When did you actually start work on all you took from me?
[00:11:51] So all you took from me was my second novel.
[00:11:53] Pamela: Oh, okay.
[00:11:54] It's just been a long time in the gestation. So I started it at the end of 2017 in nano Rmo actually. Okay. So it was my first attempt at Nano Rmo because I knew that if I didn't do it. That way, I would probably get bogged down at 20,000 words like I did the first time. I would doubt myself.
[00:12:15] I was a bit scared of writing a, what was quite a complicated plot compared to what I've written before with lots of layers and, I think I was a little bit spooked, so I did Nana Rmo wrote 50,000 words in the month of November and then collapsed in a heap and spent like the best part of the year writing the rest of the first draft, and then another year, restructuring it, rewriting it myself, and getting it to the point where I was happy to send it out.
[00:12:43] I, looking back, it wasn't probably ready, but it's very hard to tell, isn't it? Yeah. When you're close to something and I had a lot of feedback, so I started sending it out to agents, unfortunately right. Near when Covid hit at the beginning of 2020. Oh. And everybody was looking for uplifting fiction and nobody seemed to be looking for dark twisty thrillers, partially set in hospitals for some reason.
[00:13:11] So I just have a lot of nos. But yeah, I know I did have a few yeses along the way, as in full manuscript requests. Personalized feedback that I could apply. I had a revise and resubmit with a big five publisher who just couldn't get it through acquisitions and this went on for almost three years.
[00:13:33] Pamela: Oh wow. That is a long time to be, yeah. Hanging on, that is someone gonna take it. How did you handle that process of rejection? Because it's inevitable and, when we are submitting over and over again we. Very lucky if things get picked up the first time, or even the first 10 or 20 times sometimes.
[00:13:50] Pamela: How did you handle the rejection part of the process?
[00:13:54] Look, I've had a lot of practice at rejection from all the short fiction I've been sending out, so it's like a, it's immunizing you against rejection. Yeah. Because you get so many rejections all the time. Having said that, I think there was a lot more emotional investment in a lot of the, in some of those rejections for the manuscript, especially when I got really close and I had a, commissioning editor who was.
[00:14:18] Keen and championing it, but couldn't get past the rest of the acquisition team. And that took months to get to that point. And I'd done a big rewrite, for them. And when that fell apart, I have to say that rejection took a lot longer to recover from and I did reach a fairly low point. Around the end of 2022, beginning of 2023, where when I'd sent it out to almost every publisher that I thought would be interested and I hadn't got anywhere, and I was starting to think that this wouldn't happen. And that was pretty low rejection. My reaction to that rejection was pretty low. How I got through it was with friends.
[00:15:02] So I have a lot of. Close writer friends, and I have a fabulous writer's group on Central Coast where I live, and one of them is Donna Cameron. And she and I go for bush walks when we're at our low points and we talk it out. And I think that. There's nothing quite as helpful as having friends in your corner who have been there, who know exactly what it's like and exactly what you're feeling to bounce things off and recover, bounce back from those rejections and, work out what you're gonna do next.
[00:15:35] Pamela: Oh, a hundred percent agree. It's, I've said many times on the podcast, I certainly wouldn't be doing what I'm doing and still writing, if not for my writing buddies. And it's just so important to have that encouragement and support. So you said that was the beginning of 2023, so that's only last year.
[00:15:52] Pamela: How did you then go from that to getting a publishing deal with Transit Lounge?
[00:15:58] It's funny, it's almost like the universe aligned. And it's so strange. It's not uncommon, I think for people to get that publishing deal right after they've reached the point of acceptance that it might not happen.
[00:16:11] I don't know. It's strange thing, but two things happened at that point. I I had. Lined up a freelance editor to work on the next, my next novel, which was at a fairly advanced stage required, ready for restructure, structural editing advice.
[00:16:29] And I decided to put my energies into that and I'd lined up a freelance editor. To work on it and give me a structural report. And she was the same one who had worked on all you took from me an early version of it. And when she replied to my email, she said such lovely things about all you took from me, having been one of the most memorable.
[00:16:53] And intriguing manuscript she worked on, and she works for all the big publishers. So she works on a lot of manuscripts and it had stuck with her over the last few years and she was very surprised that nobody had picked it up yet. So that kind of, you don't, you can't always rely on external validation, but sometimes when you're at a low point, a little bit of external validation goes a long way.
[00:17:14] So it just made me think, oh, maybe I, maybe she's right. Maybe I shouldn't give up on it yet. And then. Very shortly after that, my friend Donna Cameron signed a deal with Transit Lounge. And I had read her book and I knew that it was literary, but it also had some suspense and thriller sort of threads through it.
[00:17:37] And I had discounted Transit lounge as a literary publisher who wouldn't be interested in my. So I guess that's a lesson learned that, maybe self-rejection is something to avoid in future. So I went on the Transit Lounge website and they, although they are a literary publisher, they were specifically looking for upmarket genre such as psychological thrillers and their submissions were open.
[00:18:04] So it felt like the stars had aligned. I sent, I just sent off my full manuscript. Not expecting anything from it because I had reached that point where I had accepted that probably nothing was gonna happen for this manuscript. And then it was only two and a half weeks later I got an offer in an email from my publisher and he at the launch the other night, he said.
[00:18:28] Looking back, he thinks that might be a record for them to make an offer that quickly, but it just landed on the right person's desk at the right time. I'd done more work, I'd developed the manuscript compared to when I was sending it out at the beginning of 2020, and it was meant to be.
[00:18:46] Pamela: Oh, it's a, it's such a great story, Lisa.
[00:18:49] Pamela: I love it. And I think there's just so much that, people listening can take on board from that. We all can. What do you think? Was the thing, like you said you had that, you were at that low point with the rejection and you just thought, oh, I'm just gonna send this out, and and you were already working on your next novel.
[00:19:06] Pamela: What do you think is the kind of. Secret ingredient that keeps you going? You've mentioned, the support of friends and things but is there something else that you think keeps you going with the writing in the face of those rejections and thinking just oh, I'll just write another book.
[00:19:22] Pamela: 'cause it's so easy to just say, oh I've given writing a shot. It's not for me. I'll try something else. What do you think it is that kind of kept you going back to the writing and starting the next project and the next project?
[00:19:35] lisa: It's not fame and fortune. .
[00:19:37] lisa: I I think I love writing. I love it. Even if there's no published book at the end of it, the only time when I really can shut out the rest of the world and immerse myself in a story and create something and then look back perhaps and be proud of what I've created. And I love playing with words.
[00:19:57] lisa: I think when I was at a, when I was in between manuscripts and. Feeling a little bit uncertain about how I wanted to proceed. The best thing that happened for me was I found flash fiction and I did some workshops with Kathy Fish, who's in the us who's a real, really well regarded flash fiction writer, but she's also a lot of fun and.
[00:20:20] lisa: Just playing with the words, trying out different prompts and doing it purely for the joy of it, I think reminded me that's why I started doing it in the first place and all of this external validation and getting books out in the world and getting shortlisted for a prize is wonderful and lovely, but it's not the reason that I started doing it, and it's not the reason that I keep doing it.
[00:20:43] Pamela: Oh, I love that. So important to keep that in mind. Lisa. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk about all you took from me. As I said, I have recently finished it and found it really riveting. I just was, each night thinking, great. Can't wait to get in bed so I can read the next few chapters.
[00:21:01] Pamela: That's good to hear. You are an anesthetist, as is your main character, but. Where would you say that the initial inspiration for this story came from?
[00:21:12] It came when I was sitting in an anesthetic conference. And I was, it was a research presentation about measuring depth of anesthetics, so it's a little bit technical.
[00:21:23] And I got to thinking about how little we really understand as anesthetist about how the drugs we work, we use all come together to affect consciousness. Which, on the surface sounds a bit concerning, but we, we know a lot about how the drugs work at the cellular level, how they affect electrical waves or functional MRIs or whatever.
[00:21:44] But when it comes to describing what consciousness is and how the drugs come together to affect consciousness. We just haven't nailed it and we don't really understand it. And then in this meeting, the other thing that he spoke about was the different levels of anesthetics and between awake and fully anesthetized this study.
[00:22:06] Found a small percentage of patients were able to follow commands with a squeeze of their hand while under anesthesia, had no recollection of it afterwards or recollection of the surgery. And they call, they coined the term connected consciousness. And that was fascinating to me as well as a novelist, thinking about my own interest in memory and consciousness and fallibility of memory and, whether I could incorporate those ideas in a story was really interesting to me. But I sat with it for a few months, I would say. But then at the character Claire came to me, I knew she was an anesthetist. I could see her, I could hear her, and she was feisty and a bit prickly and I didn't understand her as well as I understand her now, but I knew that.
[00:22:55] I wanted to tell this story. It's a little bit of a trope, the thriller about a protagonist with amnesia, but I thought with the anesthetic knowledge that I have and the, these concepts I could maybe put a new spin on it.
[00:23:11] Pamela: I think you certainly did. I love a good amnesia story myself.
[00:23:15] Pamela: As soon as I see that in the blurb, I'm like, yep, I'm right in there because. Like just listening to you talk about that whole thing about consciousness under anesthetic, but and memory. I'm just fascinated by the way the brain works and why we remember certain things, why we block certain things.
[00:23:32] Pamela: Some people have fabulous memories, some remember nothing from their childhood. And I was really interested in the sections of the book that talked about, I don't wanna give spoilers away, but No the sections that talked about, where. Where our consciousness is when we're under anesthesia.
[00:23:49] Pamela: Yeah, I found that really fascinating. I loved the way that you wove all that kind of, research and just those ideas into the story through your main character, Claire. As you said, Claire is a little bit prickly. She's a little bit feisty. And we first meet her when she's woken up and she's really not that aware of what's happened to her.
[00:24:11] Pamela: Did you go about developing her character? Just through writing her? Like you said, you sat with the kind of idea for a while and she came to you fairly quickly. Did you find that as you just then launched into the story and started writing, you learned more and more about Claire as the story itself unfolded?
[00:24:27] Pamela: I.
[00:24:28] lisa: Yes. I've tried over the years filling out character sheets and what's your favorite, what's their favorite TV show or whatever those sheets have on them, but they, I find them minimally useful. I have to develop the character over time, unfortunately. And just, it took a long time to get Claire right.
[00:24:49] lisa: And I think that was probably part of the reason that the manuscript didn't get picked up earlier too, because as you say, she's. She's not a likable protagonist in the true sense of the word, although I like her now, I know her better. But she's not the sort of protagonist that a reader may necessarily warm to immediately.
[00:25:11] lisa: And she was more so like that in earlier versions. And there's reason, there's good reason for her to be the way she is. But the reader doesn't know that at the beginning. So I had to do my best to develop her. Layer her, give her backstory, explain why she's the way she is, and perhaps show different aspects of her by bringing in her cat and the magpie and all these, and then they, her interactions with other characters to show that she's not just this, prickly anesthetist who's lost her memory. She's a lot more than that.
[00:25:51] Pamela: Yeah. Yeah. She's this bottled up character, isn't it? But you do such a great job of making us wait to find out why. But also then, like you say, you're shredding through the bits wall. If she's got a cat and she loves the cat and she, it's literally almost to save the cat moment there.
[00:26:07] Pamela: When we first meet the cat and find out about Lance and she's got this lovely relationship with her neighbors, which I think also, we think well they really love her and they, obviously see something good in her. And it's not that she's this horrible person, but she's quite closed off, isn't she?
[00:26:21] Pamela: , it's like when you meet someone, at a social occasion and they're a little bit quieter, a little bit standoffish, but there's something intriguing about them and, with a bit of time you start to get to know more about their personality.
[00:26:32] But it's quite tricky, I think to write a character like that.
[00:26:36] And strike that balance because she's been through a lot. And her background made her that way and that was how she needed to be. But I think that does, that probably did make it harder to get people to say yes to it.
[00:26:53] Pamela: Yes, definitely agree with that. And you do a great job with that backstory. And it's a very important part of us getting to know her. But then holding it back and, filtering a drip.
[00:27:04] Pamela: Drip coffee filter or something filtering those things through. The storyline there is also a lot of tension and suspense in the current time action of the story. Are you somebody who reads a lot of these sorts of books yourself? Do you think that you have absorbed that ability to create tension and suspense in your writing through what you read?
[00:27:27] Possibly. I do read widely. I like a lot of other books as well as thrillers, but I do read a lot of psychological thrillers and crime for sure. But I think, I am by no means an expert at this yet. This is my first crime novel and I learned a lot from my editor, or both editors, but especially the editor on the last pass about, just about how to really fine tune that pace and attention and suspense. It just take, took me a lot of asses, a lot of moving things around and chopping chapters and so on to get it all right.
[00:28:08] Pamela: Yeah. Was there one thing, Lisa, or a couple of things that kind of stand out for you in terms of light bulb moments about creating that tension and suspense?
[00:28:17] I think there were a couple of a couple of points along the way where I I needed to spread the reveals a little bit more than I had. In an early version of the manuscript I had a whole lot of reveals boom in the last second half of the novel. And I my editor at Transit Lounge.
[00:28:37] Was absolutely fabulous. She's, she's worked with some great crime writers and she was pretty straight with me about the expectations that crime readers have and what my book needed. And one of those was more red herrings and, she gave me a fantastic exercise to do, which is really useful.
[00:28:56] She got me to write down every character's name, even the most minor characters. Just make a list of them and then for each of those characters, think about whether they could be a red herring, how they could be a red herring, even for a chapter or two. Obviously. And then I came up with quite a few and a few ideas in the process about how to develop.
[00:29:17] The tension in the story and suspense. And I just selected a few of those and inserted them, retrofitted them into the story. And then in the process of inserting those, this, that also contributed to having reveals paste out, earlier in the piece. And because I think it's important to have questions and answers.
[00:29:41] All the way through. Ideally, every chapter in a novel especially in a thriller, should raise a question, maybe go some di distance towards answering a question that's being raised previously, just to keep the reader reading keep them curious and keeping, keep them wanting to find out what's happening.
[00:30:00] And that's what those red herrings did. By inserting them earlier in the piece, even if they were small reveals, they were keeping that tension throughout.
[00:30:14] Pamela: Yeah, I love that. I love that idea of creating questions and then I. Providing small answers or providing part of an answer, but then holding over, the bigger part of the answer.
[00:30:25] Pamela: And of course you have some bigger questions and then some smaller questions throughout the manuscript as hooks for the reader to pull them through the story. I think that works so beautifully. Thank you. Another big part I think of the tension and certainly in, in some more than others, but the settings in this story are very specific and they go a long way to helping create the tension.
[00:30:49] Pamela: So you have Claire lives in this, you know what sounds like a beautiful area in the Blue Mountains. She is also an anesthetist. She wakes up in the hospital, she goes back to work at the hospital, and there's a couple of other really important settings to the story, which I won't say too much about 'cause I don't wanna give spoilers.
[00:31:08] Pamela: You can talk about them if you feel they're okay. But how important for you was using the setting to help create that atmosphere and to help build the tension in different parts of the story?
[00:31:19] Oh it's crucial. I think. I love writing, descriptive writing. I love writing setting, and I had to restrain myself a bit because it would've impeded the pace I think of the novel if I'd really leaned into that joy of writing, that sort of thing.
[00:31:35] But I love creating atmosphere and setting comes really early for me in a story. I need to know where it's set and I need that setting. To reflect the tone of the story, and I think the Blue Mountain setting did that because. Yes, the Blue Mountains are beautiful and I love them and I love being up there and I feel like I can breathe out when I'm up there.
[00:32:00] But there also is quite a bit of menace. If you are out in the bush by yourself, there's noises everywhere. It can get fog and rolling, and the weather was really useful as well. Although that's something that I was. Trying not to overuse because I think that you can overuse it, but employing the weather to build, to amplify that suspense and tension and especially around the climax.
[00:32:27] I did do that as well. Deliberately. Yeah.
[00:32:30] Pamela: Yeah. And you've got some great scenes where we see Claire alone in different places too, and that, that sense of menace of being alone in specific environments and and how. Daunting that can be and you really get that onto the page for the reader too.
[00:32:44] Pamela: I think that worked so beautifully. What do you think were the biggest, you've talked about, this book evolved over quite a long period of time, and of course you had challenges with, getting it across the line in, with the publishing. But in terms of the writing, Lisa, what did, would you think would be the biggest challenges that you faced in overall in finishing the book? Getting it to the point where it was ready for publication,
[00:33:08] yes. I I don't mind editing. I actually like editing with a good editor. But I was pretty exhausted by the time this novel got picked up. I'd been through so many, it had been through so many iterations and I'd worked with editors and publishers and.
[00:33:26] And other, beta readers along the way. And then I did another big structural edit with the publisher. Which made the novel, it pulled it all together, but that was a lot of work and it felt like a lot of work at the end of a marathon. Yeah, I bet, because I did, I wrote another 10,000 words.
[00:33:45] I changed the big twist ending. I added scenes with characters that hadn't been on the page before. And as I mentioned. Alluded to earlier, I had to retrofit a bunch of red herrings and that was actually quite hard because you change one thing early in the piece and then you need to make sure that everything else falls into place.
[00:34:08] So at one point when I was doing this big restructure, I was worried that I'd broken it completely. But then some, something magic happens. Every time something magic happens and it just all comes together like in a whirlwind and everything falls into place and you think, oh. Wow. I'm so glad I did that.
[00:34:27] But that it was hard, it actually was hard.
[00:34:31] lisa: Yeah,
[00:34:31] but I'm very grateful that I was put through my paces as much as I was. 'cause I think the book is much better for it.
[00:34:38] lisa: Yeah.
[00:34:39] Pamela: And it's only gonna make your writing better, isn't it? Taking those lessons through into the next book and the next book with you, which is fantastic.
[00:34:45] Pamela: But it's so hard, isn't it, when you are so familiar with a. A book and a story, and the words on the page that you know when you have to go back to it over and over again, it just starts to become a bit of a blur at times.
[00:34:58] Yes. Although I think I was also grateful because I could see that the changes that were suggested were gonna breathe new life into it.
[00:35:06] So I was excited. It was just a bit daunting and I wasn't sure if I could pull it off.
[00:35:11] Pamela: Yeah. What's your kind of overall writing process? Lisa? Are you someone that writes every day? Are you pretty disciplined at, sitting down and getting the words out? How does that all work for you?
[00:35:22] I'm disciplined, but I I slot it into my life.
[00:35:25] 'cause I work three days a week as an anesthetist, and I keep two days weekdays protected for writing. And then often I end up slotting it into the gaps. Or if I'm on a deadline, getting up early and doing a little bit before work or writing on weekends, often write on weekends. So I'm pretty disciplined, but I don't write every day.
[00:35:46] I write when I have time to write.
[00:35:49] Pamela: When it works for you. And do you on those days when you sit down, are you launching straight into the writing? Do you sit down and do much planning before you start to write? How does that kind of really, in the moment process work for you?
[00:36:02] It depends a lot on what stage I'm at, but most of the time I find it really helpful to go for a walk knowing what I'm working on next. Often I'll do it without any, without listening to an audio book or a podcast, just just without anything in my ears. I'll go for a walk and even without.
[00:36:22] Deliberately thinking about the story problem the whole time. Usually by the time I get back, I have a good idea of how to fix whatever I was trying to fix or what the scene will look like that I'm working on and what I'm trying to achieve. Yes, just something about moving the body, being outside helps me get my head into the right space to sit down and write.
[00:36:45] Yeah.
[00:36:46] Pamela: I think having that time, giving yourself that time is really important too, isn't it? Just letting the idea brew and marinate and then just trusting that an answer will come and sometimes it needs longer than others, but but it's there. We've just gotta tap into it.
[00:37:03] I think that's some, that's also, I see that as a bit of a strength of not, but riding full time because you do have days when you can't.
[00:37:10] Be at the desk writing, but I'm still thinking about the story and maybe sometimes I need that extra time for my subconscious to, to solve a little naughty problem and work out. What needs to happen next?
[00:37:25] Pamela: Yeah. No, I agree. It's taken me a long time to, to realize that, but lately I've been really noticing that happening.
[00:37:31] Pamela: If I just get to a point where I think, yep, I'm done for today. I, I could push harder, but it would be a struggle. But if I just leave it, I then find, your brain tends to work it out. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, Lisa and I talked about this earlier a little bit with you and mentioned it in the, in introduction, but you are part of a network of writers called the debut crew.
[00:37:55] Pamela: Could you tell us a little bit about the debut crew and how that started?
[00:38:00] Yeah, love to so the debut crew. Is a group of traditionally published debut authors in Australia. We are currently, I think we've got 81 members. It's huge and it's growing all the time as people find out about us And you, it's astonishing, isn't it?
[00:38:18] That there's that many debut authors in Australia.
[00:38:20] Pamela: Fantastic. Yeah. But
[00:38:21] it's across all genres. So there's. Picture books. There's, junior fiction, middle grade, there are memoir writers, there's a poet. So it's a really a broad group of writers. And we got together last year. There've been similar groups in previous years, and there was a debut crew in 2023.
[00:38:43] And I realized that there wasn't one for 2024 yet. So I put the. The call out on social media to see if anybody was interested and people were and we just gravitated towards each other since then and get the word out. If people know someone who might be interested, they invite them in.
[00:39:02] And it's been so great. Like most of the time it has been for most of us, I would say it's been invaluable to, to cope with the. Process after signing the contract to becoming published, if you spent so long trying to get published, you don't necessarily put much mental energy into what happens after that.
[00:39:27] And to be honest, the doors are a little bit closed and until you go through that door, you don't really know how it all works. But you don't necessarily wanna ask those questions in public either. It's really useful to have that private group where we can bounce questions off each other, share opportunities, celebrate wins, commiserate each other when things don't go well.
[00:39:48] And we've had really generous, established authors come and talk to us as well. We've had marketing experts talk to us and we had some media training as a group and now people are getting together in person as well. And. Friendships have formed that I'm sure will last well beyond 2024. And I'm just really happy that I initiated that.
[00:40:13] Pamela: Oh, good on you. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. Yeah. And as you say, I guess that's the beauty of social media in a way, isn't it? And I think Covid really hit that hit home during Covid is the way that we can connect, it doesn't matter where we live, we can connect online and in various ways through social media, that can be really beneficial.
[00:40:33] Oh yeah. It's a, it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? It's really distracting and it can damage your mental health if you spend too long on it. But I've met so many of my writer friends that way. My writing group, local writing group who meet in person. We wouldn't exist if we hadn't all been on a few of us hadn't been on social media and realized that we lived in the same area and got together that way.
[00:40:56] I think the benefits outweigh the negatives for me.
[00:41:00] Pamela: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And how are you finding that kind of promotional and social media side now the book's been released, Lisa and I guess in the lead up to the book coming out too. How is all that going for you?
[00:41:11] It's a learning curve. Oh, it's just delightful.
[00:41:16] Like I'm just. It's so heartwarming seeing people sharing pictures of my book and writing lovely things about it and supporting me. They don't need to do that. So I wanna read, I wanna engage with all those people, but it's been a bit hectic, I must admit the last few days. But yeah, hectic in a wonderful way.
[00:41:36] And yeah, I think it's good for promotion. But I need to take a bit of time away from it as well.
[00:41:42] Pamela: Yeah, keep that balance. It's really important, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, I just had a question came to me that I didn't have written down, but it's gone again. No, it's gone. Oh, I know what I was gonna say.
[00:41:57] Pamela: So you had your launch on Thursday night at Better Read Than Dead in Newtown. Fabulous crowd of people came to celebrate with you. Do you have other events going forward where you're gonna be talking about the book?
[00:42:09] I've got quite a few. I have another launch on the central Coast on Wednesday night.
[00:42:16] I think half the hospital's coming to that one, so that could be big. That's that book Face Era Now, which is my local bookstore, and they Oh, great. They've been so supportive. They let me decorate a whole window display with my book in it. It's been absolutely delightful. A big shout out to booksellers.
[00:42:32] They really are. What makes this industry go round? Oh, they're amazing. But after that, I'm speaking at Mji Writers Festival. I have two panels at Mji Writers Festival. Oh, som Mji Readers Festival in mid Octo mid August. And I'm also on two panels at Bad Sydney in September.
[00:42:51] Pamela: Yes.
[00:42:51] Fantastic. And I am doing an online event for Sisters in Crime.
[00:42:55] And I'm doing a couple of Brisbane events in October and books at the BOLO in Newcastle later in the year. And all those events. Or on my website, or we'll go on my website when they become live because there's a couple other little library talks and things as well. Yeah.
[00:43:12] Pamela: Just something you said there about your launch on Wednesday.
[00:43:15] Pamela: Lisa are up on the coast and a lot of the people from the hospital coming at. Have you had any kind of interesting or curious reactions from people that you work with? When they know that you've written a book that's partially set in the hospital and that the main characters an anesthetists, what sort of reaction have you had from your workmates
[00:43:31] at the moment?
[00:43:32] They're curious. I guess I'm about to find out what reaction I get when they read the book. 'cause it's not without controversy. Yeah. I just hope they realize that it's fiction and not an autobiography.
[00:43:42] Pamela: Yeah, they might all be looking for themselves in those pages.
[00:43:46] Oh, I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are.
[00:43:48] And I must admit, I used one of the nurses' names is a name of the nurse, a nurse at work who is not like that character. But I'm sure they'll all laugh when they get to that.
[00:43:58] Pamela: Let's go. So good. I think we're almost done. Is there anything that I haven't covered? Let me think. Is there anything that you can think of that you wanted to add in?
[00:44:06] Pamela: Liz?
[00:44:08] No, not that I can think of right now.
[00:44:10] Pamela: One thing I love to always ask writers at the end of our chat, Lisa, is oh, first of all, lucky I edit this. First of all you said that you have another book that you've already been working on, is that how far off are you getting that ready for publication?
[00:44:26] Pamela: Is that gonna be your next release, do you think?
[00:44:30] That's a very good question. I have learned that sometimes I don't know when it's ready. Have a bit more restructuring to do. I learned so much during the structural edit of all you took from me and I went back to the drawing board and applied all of those new things that I've learned as well to the UMUC restructure.
[00:44:48] And I'm hoping that I'll have something ready in the next six months. To start shopping around again, and I'm hoping it won't take me seven years to get the next one out. Yeah. But yeah I've got a little bit more work to do first.
[00:45:01] Pamela: Yeah. Fair enough. And enjoy the, bask in the wonderful celebration of having your first book out as well before you worry about that.
[00:45:08] Pamela: Hopefully. One thing I do like to ask at the end of our chat is what do you think is at the heart of your writing?
[00:45:17] I think. For me, at the heart of my writing is, yeah, the same thing that's at the heart of my work as a doctor. It's it's a curiosity about people and what makes them tick. It's empathy and compassion for those people.
[00:45:37] And certainly with Claire I'm trying to I'm hoping that I've done enough to convey that a character. Who is not always a likable victim is still worthy of our compassion.
[00:45:51] And I think that's what interests me people, what makes 'em tick and open, trying to be openly curious about them.
[00:46:01] lisa: Yeah.
[00:46:02] Pamela: I love that. I think it's such an important part of writing, isn't it? Creating that. Empathy for people and looking at the reasons why people are the way they are and how they behave. I find that whole side of it really fascinating that psychology, of why people do the things they do.
[00:46:18] Absolutely. Psychology is at the heart of a psychological thriller. Yeah. Character. It's all about
[00:46:25] Pamela: character.
[00:46:25] Yeah.
[00:46:26] Pamela: Yeah, and I think this book really is the kind of epitome of a psychological thriller because yes, there's crime in it, and the crime is. So important to the story, but it's really about how Claire acts and reacts.
[00:46:42] Pamela: For me that was the really intriguing part of the story. So I think you've really nailed that psychological thriller aspect of it. So well done.
[00:46:49] That's good to hear. Thank you.
[00:46:52] Pamela: Lisa, I wish you nothing but the best with this book. It is really a great read. So I urge everybody out there listening to grab a copy head along to see Lisa if you can at some of the events.
[00:47:01] Pamela: I've booked for your bad crime, bad Crime Sydney event. That's good. So I will be seeing you there and yeah, wish you all the best. Congratulations.
[00:47:10] Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.