Exploring Fantasy Worlds with Madeleine Te Whiu
“What we praise in morally grey men, we demonise in women.”
Buy THE QUEEN THIEF
📚✨ Jo Riccioni chats with fantasy author Madeleine Te Whiu about her trilogy's final instalment, crafting complex characters, balancing a vet nursing career with writing, and insights into her creative journey. Expect world-building wonders, fan experiences, and the evolution of her dark fantasy series! 🏰🔮💫
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Recent Events
00:35 Upcoming Shows and Book Progress
01:47 Listener Survey and Feedback
03:24 Exciting Upcoming Interviews
05:22 Guest Host Introduction
05:51 Interview with Fantasy Author Maddy
30:37 Inspiration and Mood Boards
30:57 Creating a Believable Fantasy Language
33:11 Choreographing Fight Scenes
35:58 Writing Romance in a Series
42:26 Balancing Writing with a Day Job
47:09 Mental Health and Writing
50:13 Future Projects and Social Media
58:41 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Transcript
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.
[00:00:00] Hello, welcome to another episode of rights for women. It is Tuesday, the 22nd of October. As I'm recording this. In my caravan, which is a little bit bare at the moment, I was at a horse show and on the weekend and I'd take the van there and slide her in Virginia in between all the big horse floods and. Ah, snuggle up there in the vintage van while the show is running Ballou.
[00:00:23] And I had a pretty good show. Ticked a few boxes that we haven't done before. Pulled out of a couple of classes. Early because by Sunday afternoon we were both pretty exhausted after three days overriding and being in the settle. Have a few more shows coming up over the show season that starts. Pretty much now and goes through to. I pro my. So looking forward to that, especially looking forward to that.
[00:00:47] When I get this book off my plate, I am so close to finishing a place of her own. And in fact my current manuscript, which is due to my publisher in the first week of November. Belinda the audio publisher. I'm celebrating this afternoon. Cause I got some really great feedback back from my editor.
[00:01:06] I still have a few scenes to write, but I wanted her to read what I had so far just to make sure that I was really nailing stuff before I'm. I wrote those final few scenes and. How happy was I, when I heard the words, Pam, you made me cry.
[00:01:24] Mission in life achieved. If I can get that sort of emotion from my readers, I'm always one happy author. So I do have a few more cents to write, hopefully in the next time I chat to you next week on rights for women I'll have typed at the end finally, and be doing the final read-through. So that is very exciting. Also very exciting is something that is out. Currently on rights for women, and that is a listener survey. So anybody out there who is irregular or even an occasional listener to rights for women. Or if you watch on YouTube, that's great as well.
[00:02:00] You're included in this. We want to find out what you want from rights for women going forward into 2025. Any and I, my VA, Andy Buckner, shout out to Annie. Who's doing such a brilliant job on rights for women. And he's put together an amazing survey where we're asking things like, do you like the length of the episodes?
[00:02:18] Who would you like to see on the podcast or listen to what sort of topics would you like us to cover? What do you want more of? What do you want? Less of all that sort of thing. So it would be great, really appreciated. If you could complete that listener survey. The link is all over the place.
[00:02:34] It's definitely in the Instagram. Link tree it's going out in pretty much every sub stack. Posts that we send out the weekly posts and there is also an added bonus in that you will be in the running for a book pack, a two book Christmas book pack of a country, farm Christmas, featuring yours, truly alongside Penelope.
[00:02:53] Genoo. Lily Malone and still a Quinn and also Merry Christmas by Marianne O'Connor fabulous historical fiction, little couple of Christmas books thrown in there too, as a little incentive to get you to complete that survey, if you need that incentive. But either way we would be really happy if you could complete that.
[00:03:13] And the more feedback we get. On the podcast, the better we can make it. And going forward, we want to keep doing everything in the best possible way at rants for women.
[00:03:24] A heads up on what we have coming up for the rest of the year on rights for women next week, this week we have guest hosts. Joe Richie Oni interviewing Maddy tofu. I don't know if I've got that pronunciation.
[00:03:36] But Joe will definitely be talking to you there about that. Maddie is a fantastic fantasy author and we've got the two fantasy authors riffing on the conveyor couch. So that's amazing. We have coming up. Also an interview between Mary Lou Stephens and Marianne Connor, author of Merry Christmas and lots of other best-selling historical fiction. That will be coming up soon. , I also have interviews lined up with Joanne Fedler, going to chat to Joe and very experienced writer and fabulous teacher about her. Brand new release, which has this most amazing, gorgeous hardcover, the whale song.
[00:04:13] It's a kind of fable. I'm just starting it and loving it already. So really looking forward to chatting to Joe about that. Who else do we have on Vanessa McCausland. Possibly Nikki Gemmell, I'm in conversation with her publicist. And I will be chatting again to Megan Della Camina last week's guest who has really had a big impact on the rights for women audience.
[00:04:34] When we were talking about her book women rising and All the associated things to do with internalizing the patriarchy. Dealing with our imposter archetypes, all those sorts of things, our inner critics and Megan and I are going to be doing a specific chat just on the writer's mind.
[00:04:49] So watch out for that. In the coming months. So anyway, we have some great episodes to take you through to the end of the year. Don't forget if you haven't followed us yet, as yet on sub stack, you can do that either as a free subscriber or you can sign up to be a paid subscriber. And receive the extra bonuses, all of which you will find on sub stack there.
[00:05:08] And it's great to be communicating with so many rights for women listeners on sub stack. And sharing all the love that is there in the writing community on sub stack. So without. Me rambling on any further. I am going to now pass you over to guest host, Joe Richie Oni, who will interview this week's guest.
[00:05:27] And I know you're going to love this interview. Joe is a fantastic host and it's really interesting too. Dip into an in another genre. Even if you're not a fantasy also, there's plenty in here for all writers I sit back, grab a cup, put on your walking shoes, pop in your headphones, whatever it is you do when you listen to rights for women. And enjoy.
[00:05:51] Jo: Hi, Maddy. T I'm pronouncing it right, aren't I, because I know how to pronounce
[00:05:56] Jo (2): it.
[00:05:57] Jo: Maddie, welcome to the Rights Women podcast. I am really excited to have you on the show because you're another fantasy author. And I just wanna let listeners know that Maddie and I met at Supernova and we were both on our first books and then we met at another supernova.
[00:06:15] Jo: And Maddie was on her second book and I was promoting my second book. So our careers have run in parallel, which has been really nice and to make in that connection. So I'm really excited to have you on the show, especially because we're here to celebrate the final installment of your trilogy.
[00:06:33] Jo: Yeah, the assassin theme, Trinity Soul Thief being the second book, and the final book being the Queen Thief, which comes out, when's it come out? Maddy? 31st of October, Halloween. Best Day of the year. Wow. Really excited. I'm just gonna give readers a little bit of a background to you. You're actually a vet nurse, aren't you?
[00:06:52] Jo: In real life? I'm, that's my day job. Your day job, yeah. And you live in Western Australia and your passion for books, it says on your website was your mum reading to you particularly lying, the witch in the wardrobe? Yeah. Yes. And then when did your writing passion begin? Mario? I talking about people's how that their what's it called?
[00:07:12] Jo: Their, introductory drug to the world of writing My gateway. Your gateway drug. That was the word I was trying to think of. Yeah. Your gateway drug. What was it, what made you start to think about becoming a writer, do you reckon?
[00:07:25] Maddy: I feel like I've had a sort of in the back of my head for a really long time.
[00:07:31] Maddy: I think anyone that's a really big book nerds I'm gonna be a writer one day, I'm gonna write a story one day I'm gonna do it. So I feel like I just never really put it into practice for the majority of my, childhood and adult life. And it was actually, the Assassin Thief was the first thing I ever sat down and wrote from start to finish.
[00:07:50] Maddy: And the only reason I actually started was because I had talked about this character and this idea to my husband. I must have chatted his ear off because one day he just brought home a laptop and kind of just planted it in front of me and was just said, go, just do it then. I didn't know that story. Is that for real?
[00:08:08] Maddy: Yeah. I had made some really half-hearted attempts to type on my little tablet I had at the time. And yeah, I guess he just got sick of me talking about it or he thought he was gonna call my bluff or I'm not sure, but he just thought, here, stop talking about it.
[00:08:23] Jo: Oh wow. That's so good. Obviously it was the moment of inspiration that you needed to sit down and take yourself seriously. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so glad you did because your first book, the Assassin Thief, went on to be shortlisted for the Western Australia's Premiers prize for, as an emerging writer for 2023.
[00:08:41] Jo: So that was a massive achievement.
[00:08:44] Jo (2): Wow.
[00:08:45] Jo: Probably way beyond you'd ever dreamed of getting, like I know it's always amazing when we get acknowledged for our work and we it's a kind of seminal moment. But let's talk about how you planned the series because it's fascinating to me that you, like you say Joey gave you this computer and then you sat down and wrote it.
[00:09:04] Jo: Had you not mapped it out all out the whole series before?
[00:09:07] Maddy: No, I'm a pants.
[00:09:10] Maddy: So I write by the seat of my pants for those who don't know what a pants is. I actually sat down and wrote the end scene of the Assassin Thief first. So if you've read the book, you know where it is. It's where big epic end battle scene and everything just falls apart.
[00:09:23] Maddy: That's the scene I actually wrote first, and then I went, okay, I have to go back and work out how we get here. And I must've got about two thirds into the book before I wrote myself into a corner and got really stuck and I couldn't work out. Why I was stuck. So I sat down and I have to say planned in quotations because my planning is not planning, but I planned it out and I realized that I was writing a trilogy, which is why I was getting stuck.
[00:09:48] Maddy: So I realized there was more to the story to tell. And, the arc, the character arcs were just starting. But when I say planning book two and three was two to four pages of like bullet points. That was my plan for the book. Even though I know the overarching story I definitely don't plan things out to any sort of minute degree at all.
[00:10:08] Maddy: I just
[00:10:09] Jo: wing it. Oh, that's actually really refreshing to hear because I know that so many fantasy writers I've spoken to have told me their in depth planning and the way it all works, and it like strikes fear in my heart because I'm not a planner either. I'm not either. So I'm gonna revisit this a little bit when we talk about writing a series, but I think we better tell listeners what the series is about to begin with, what kind of classification of fantasy it actually is.
[00:10:36] Maddy: Yes. So it's what we're marketing is a dark fantasy. It does have some mature content. All the books do have a list of content warnings in the back. We say from about 15 years plus. It has, a bit of romance in it. So it's swings across into the romantic category as well a little bit, but it's got morally great characters, enemies to lovers, betrayal, revenge all the good things.
[00:11:01] Jo: Brilliant. Is set in the world of the Faye though, isn't it? And Faye as we all know, is having a resurgence at the moment on TikTok and social media because yeah, several celebrity celebrities and celebrity Instagrammers and book talkers have, re ignited this Serge mass.
[00:11:22] Jo: Phenomenon. Phenomenon, which we thought we'd seen the back of, but now it's resurfaced, which is brilliant. People are rediscovering fantasy because of that. Yeah. And obviously they want more. Yes. How would you say your books differ from the AAR series or the Serge Master Court of Thorns and Roses?
[00:11:37] Jo: For those people who dunno what guitar is,
[00:11:39] Maddy: They're a bit older like they are. I know near the end of the guitar series specifically it gets a bit it targets an older audience which is why they had rebranding and everything. But I think the series as a whole sort of targets an older audience.
[00:11:53] Maddy: And I have so many people, I have to preface this 'cause I have so many people go, oh, but kids have the internet at their fingertips and they know sex and all and violence and. For me, like yes, that is in there. There is mentions of assault and there's swear words and there's lots of violent fight scenes.
[00:12:10] Maddy: But for me in particular, especially in the Assassin Thief the reason I say it's not for a young audience is because it depicts some very unhealthy relationships. And as children, I feel like you don't have the life experience that we as adults have to be able to read that and go, this is fiction and this is messed up, and this is not a portrayal of a good, healthy relationship.
[00:12:30] Maddy: So I just need to always preface that because I have some people like, oh, kids, I. Kids have access to everything. And I was like, I understand they have access to everything, but that doesn't mean they have the understanding that we have as adults. So yes, it is a little bit older. It is a little bit darker.
[00:12:45] Maddy: It probably swings more towards the Throne of Glass series than aar only because of, the female main characters an assassin. She's morally gray. She's definitely got a mouth on her. But she can back it up as well. So it does, it has, that sort of similar vein and all the tropes that we know and love now, it's got a bit of faded mates and found family and all that, that you see in a lot of those books.
[00:13:08] Jo: Yeah. Let's let's circle back a little bit to the Faye and the idea of Faye. What do you think are enduring fascination with fairies and Faye and, what do you think that is? It's never seems to die. It's like vampire fascinations, isn't it, as well?
[00:13:24] Jo: There's so many people writing about Faye. What is it, what was the attraction for you?
[00:13:29] Maddy: I just love the idea of of being a race of, creatures that physically look quite, similar to people, but they could've been more different because they are long lived and stronger and faster.
[00:13:42] Maddy: To me it's like, how must that affect you? Same with vampires, because, I love the idea of that you see reoccurring a lot in Faye and fairies and elves, that they become very cunning and they're very careful about their emotions and what they display. And I think a lot of us as people are just impulsive, and I know me, I would love to be able to have a better handle on my emotions and my reactions. So it's so interesting to be like what would I be like if I had a thousand years to live? How would that change me and shape me? So it's just that fascination of the never ending, and say young and beautiful forever.
[00:14:16] Jo: Yeah. I was about to bring that up, because I think that is definitely a fascination. Especially in our sort of youth obsessed culture and beauty obsessed culture that Faye represent this kind of fantasy that a lot of people have. But also I think it's that inbuilt conflict, isn't it, in them that they've been portrayed as angels and demons in various mythologies.
[00:14:37] Jo: Yes.
[00:14:38] Jo: And you definitely play with that in your series, don't you?
[00:14:41] Maddy: Yeah, I guess the faith, the way I thought of them, they weren't, they were neither good nor bad. They were their own people. It played a lot in the series. The Mad Fake Canyon book one, it was that if someone horrible sits in a position of power and you are immortal or as, as close to it, that was such an interesting thing to play on because short of death, there's nothing that stops that rule.
[00:15:04] Maddy: And I guess the same could be true for the reverse, but I def I didn't make them this, traditional Faye, they weren't mischievous, they weren't stealing kids or anything like that, but they were a bit more gritty and a bit more rough as well. But as you go further into the series, there are other Faye especially in book two and three that you see as well.
[00:15:23] Maddy: So it's not just what telly of the main character understood as being Faye. There's a whole nother world out there that she didn't know about.
[00:15:31] Jo: Yeah. And that's a, that's an interesting idea for me. The way the books get bigger and bigger each, with each book. Can you just hold up the books and show us how, what difference there is in the word count there?
[00:15:46] Jo: Just to give people a little bit of I know there's a lot of wannabe fantasy writers out there and they get very worried about Oh, word counts. And we are told, books can't be over 90,000 words. With fantasy you might be allowed a little bit over 90,000. Just talk us through the word count, you reckon.
[00:16:01] Jo: So
[00:16:02] Maddy: this is my estimate. I'm pretty sure that the assassin, the book one is 113,000 words or thereabouts. The sole thief was from memory, I think in the high 120 thousands. It might've even got to 132. The Queen Thief is 203,000 words. Oh my goodness. It's like she's a chunky baby. I had a lot to say apparently.
[00:16:26] Maddy: You had a lot of wrapping up to do. Yeah,
[00:16:28] Jo (2): my
[00:16:29] Maddy: goodness. Yes. My first draft that I sent to my editor was already I think it was at like 180 or 190,000 words. And I sent it to my editor and she was like, this is great, but you've missed out a whole plot line. You forgot to add it. 'cause in my brain it was in there.
[00:16:43] Maddy: She's I just feel like people will want to know Telly's history and back, like who she is and why she's able to do what she will do. She's 'cause you dragged that along for the series. And I just forgot to add it in completely, which is why it got even bigger again. Okay.
[00:17:00] Maddy: At least you caught it
[00:17:02] Jo (2): and Yeah.
[00:17:03] Jo: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your publisher, new Dawn, because it's interesting for those people writing fantasy because New Dawn's a new publisher. And you were their first author, weren't you?
[00:17:14] Maddy: I was, yeah. So New Dawn had started up, they had all their little ducks in a row and then they just needed an author when they were looking and when I pitched and Stars aligned. So yeah, I was their first author. The Assassin Thief came out in 2022, although technically they found it in 2021 because that's when we started editing and I was signed on and everything.
[00:17:34] Maddy: But are a, originally a Perth base, but they go, they move around quite a bit now. A spec thick publisher. So they only publish fantasy and Sci-Fi. As you would know, there's a huge market for it because a lot of Australian publishers won't take fantasy 'cause there's no market for it changing, isn't it?
[00:17:54] Maddy: It's sounds like fibs to me. So they now have four published authors. And I. They've just signed on a new self pub author. They're gonna republish her set as a traditionally published, I think their whole 2025 schedule's full now already, which is so awesome. With all their books.
[00:18:15] Maddy: It's, yeah, they're just growing in leaps and bounds and it's been really fun to grow with them because I was learning how to be an author and they were learning to be a publisher, and we just got to, walk the journey together, which has just been really cool because it means I'm involved in every single bit of the process, which I absolutely adore.
[00:18:32] Maddy: I got all the behind the scenes stuff.
[00:18:34] Jo: That's great. Maddi And, new Dawn, like you say, they've only got four author at the moment, but they have Kate Forsyth signed with them. Yes. They're doing, they're going great guns. That resurgence of fantasy, and there is quite a bit of interest amongst publishers who weren't.
[00:18:50] Jo: Always interested in romance. I know they've got, they're trying to get on that bandwagon, so it's nice that New Dawn have, actually said we are gonna specialize in that.
[00:19:00] Maddy: Yeah. Absolutely. That's a runny joke now. I said, I always say when New Dawn have the monopoly on all the good fantasy authors, that's just bad.
[00:19:10] Jo: That's good. Can you tell us a little bit, let's go back to the books. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your protagonist and tell us a little bit about what her deal is? 'cause she's a special character. She's, I wanna talk about her gifts and how you imagined her, where the idea for Tellium comes from.
[00:19:30] Maddy: Yeah. Yeah. Tellium or telly as I call her quite often. 'cause I'm, I love a good nickname. Yeah. She is our female main character, so she is an assassin. From what she knows and from what Loreta knows, a human, you learn other things down the track, which I'm not going to spoil. But basically she was adopted by the queen's closest, confident and best friend whose name is Trigg.
[00:19:55] Maddy: And she's raised in the castle. She's raised under Trigg, who is a very proficient assassin, which means that telly then becomes a very good assassin from a very young age. And she swears her life in, into this queen to protect her. That's gonna be her bread and butter in our choreo, which is the human realm.
[00:20:12] Maddy: Magic users are called thieves. And gifts are your magic. And if you haven't come into your magic at the age of 18 years, then you don't have it. And there is not always a rhyme and reason. Sometimes the magic stays in families and sometimes it randomly will manifest. Telly, however, founds her, finds herself in possession of magic in at her 21st birthday.
[00:20:31] Maddy: Which she shouldn't her magic or gifts also they have no precedent. They unlike anything else that has come before. So magic system is based off what we know and love in fantasy. Warlocks and vampires, sirens, werewolves, those sorts of things. They're just different types of thieves.
[00:20:50] Maddy: So you have blood thieves, which is obviously a vampire. Freedom thieves, the sirens. So they sit into these categories. Tellium has all or nothing of these gifts. There's, she doesn't fit into a proper box which is just fun to watch her, learn to navigate.
[00:21:07] Maddy: Her magic because it has a life of its own. And in a way, her char her magic is its own character. She has a battle throughout the books of her trying to rest control of it. And sometimes she loses. But she's very sassy. She's very morally gray. It was important to me., I knew I always wanted to write a female man character that is truly morally gray, because we love morally gray characters in fantasy.
[00:21:32] Maddy: But I feel like what we see, and we praise in male man characters for being morally gray is very often demonized in women. And we are so much more hypercritical of morally gray women, and it takes so little to be considered a morally gray woman or to step over that invisible line into being morally black and irredeemable.
[00:21:53] Maddy: But our morally gray men can get away with everything.
[00:21:56] Maddy: So it was important to me to write that. So therefore, she is rough around the edges. She's very abrasive, she's sarcastic, she's sassy, she's definitely like a stab, burst, ask questions later, kind of girl. And I feel like I take inspiration from everywhere.
[00:22:10] Maddy: I know what I want this character to feel like, and I will pick apart different parts of different people that I know and of myself and of movie and book characters and Frankenstein them into their own character.
[00:22:23] Jo: Yeah, I get what you're doing and I yeah, agree that's the way I approach it as well.
[00:22:26] Jo: Yeah, she is a character that people, she's gonna brush people up the wrong way, a bit like Nara does as well. And I really, appreciate you saying, truly morally gray for women and the way it's successed differently for men. I think it's a really good way of.
[00:22:40] Jo: Of looking at it, because sometimes we do get readers who say, look, she's confronting like she's doing stuff I don't like. Yeah. But it, it's yeah. If that was a man, you might be a little bit more forgiving of that. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, she's a great character and I'm fascinated with how you put it together and took risks with her actually, because it's quite, it's fairly risky as a writer to do those things.
[00:23:03] Jo: 'cause you know that you are walking the line between right readers possibly. Getting annoyed with her or Yes. Or being turned off. Yeah. At the end of the day she's an assassin. She's a killer. Yes. Yeah.
[00:23:14] Maddy: Yeah. That's, yeah. She grew up to be this sharpened sort of warrior and, failure is not an option, especially not when you are, your whole job is to protect the queen of your country.
[00:23:25] Maddy: Yeah. There's no soft edges to be had. And she is very ruthless and the way that she unlive people is super underhanded at times. Like honest just goes out the window for her at the drop of a hat if someone stands between her and what she wants. So yeah, that was really cool.
[00:23:40] Maddy: But then in book two and in book three as well, I really get to play with the humanity of her because she messes up in book one, and book two is the fallout of that and. That was also really important to me to be like, you can be the roughest, toughest, most badass assassin out there.
[00:23:57] Maddy: But yeah, she's not invulnerable, like she, she messed up and she knows she messed up. A lot of book two is she's falling down and she's trying to pick herself back up and people are kicking her while she's down and she is quite vulnerable as well. So it was quite fun to, to do she could still take on five dudes and win.
[00:24:16] Maddy: She's gonna have a cry about it after, because she's, down in the dumps. So that was a really fun part of her character to explore as the series went on her growth?
[00:24:25] Jo: Yeah. Some, I think some of your fortes in the writing that I love the most is the dialogue is so good. The dialogue between the characters is excellent.
[00:24:35] Jo: And especially when they're having those vulnerable moments, especially when, they're doubting themselves or have had mistakes or they're trying to overcome these having done the wrong thing and trying to make up for it. And I just think I, you've done that really well.
[00:24:50] Jo: Do you wanna read us a little bit from book three? Okay.
[00:24:54] Maddy: I have a nice thing that won't be too much of a spoiler. It's just like a bit of a fun, world building.
[00:25:01] Jo: Yeah. World building is always good because it gives people a taste of the books. Yes. And and I think it's it's a great way of introducing people to the world. Yeah. And seeing whether they're gonna enjoy it and I think they will.
[00:25:15] Maddy: Yeah. It doesn't have any spoilers for book two.
[00:25:17] Maddy: It might have some mild spoilers for Book one, but I don't think it's too bad.
[00:25:22] Jo: So fast forward anyone who doesn't like any spoilers for book one.
[00:25:25] Maddy: So this is chapter 15 of the Queen Thief. Apologies in advance for my Bogan Aussie reading voice. Chapter 15. Walking through the market, she cradles a steaming cup of tea to her chest. It is the final full moon of spring, and the people of Skyra are celebrating Lar, the Flower Moon Festival.
[00:25:48] Maddy: She has not celebrated the turning of seasons since she was the siren Queen's assassin. The thought no longer holds the sting at once did while she still mourned Selen and what she had lost when the queen went mad with grief, it is not so sharp anymore, not so close to home. Maybe it has something to do with the passing of time.
[00:26:10] Maddy: Maybe it has something to do with knowing Reus is cold and buried with worms feasting on his flesh, she takes a careful sip of her tea. Definitely the latter. A dagger is carefully tucked into the ever present black silk tied about her waist. She hasn't had much time to read more of her adoptive mother's words.
[00:26:31] Maddy: Triggs Journal sits on her bedside table in its box. The sketches and familiar handwriting are constant companion while she sleeps for once. The city around her isn't dominated by the alluring smell of spices. Now flowers of every shape and color, adorn, doorstops, and window sills, they're hanging garlands around the market stalls.
[00:26:53] Maddy: Children run about with flower crowns atop their brows. The blooms grace the air with their sweet floral fragrance. Reaching up. Her fingers, brush a chain of white croces that have been skillfully linked to reach from one stall to another. The petal was the softest silk.
[00:27:10] Maddy: The flowers swaying gently under her touch. People will celebrate lahar well into the early hours of the morning. All over. Our co people will be hanging flowers and sending prayers to thanking her for a bountiful spring and wishing good fortune to follow them into a merciless summer Tonight, even the assassins worship the goddess of fertility in life.
[00:27:34] Maddy: They mingle amongst the people of scarra laughing and drinking with friends and family. She wanders amongst them speaking to the people who stop her happy to see the new Lord assassin, carrying on the tradition by attending the festivities.
[00:27:50] Jo: Wonderful. That's amazing. Yeah. I just love the world building.
[00:27:53] Jo: I love the way you get us right into the scene and it's so believable. , I think when people think about writing fantasy, they think they've got to have. These amazingly fantastical worlds and some writers do that, but yeah, I dunno about you, but my touchstones are always the real world and real experience.
[00:28:09] Jo: Absolutely.
[00:28:10] Maddy: Yeah. One thing that. I put in merely for me and my nostalgia, but quite a few readers have commented on and loved is in the book, it's called Bones, but the game, as we know it, is knuckle bones. Yeah. If you don't know what that is, you're too young for me. But yeah, that was I wanted something to add to the well building that people in the background could do or the characters could do off to the side to kill time.
[00:28:35] Maddy: And I was like, oh, cards, yes. But that's boring. And I think I was playing knuckle bones with my nieces and I just looked at these actual animal bones in my hand and went, what is more dark fantasy than a kid's game that you are playing with animal bones? So that got added in.
[00:28:51] Jo: Yeah.
[00:28:51] Jo: Brilliant. That's so good. Yeah. What other touchstones did you use for your world building? Were there particular countries or things that you close to home for you?
[00:29:02] Maddy: Yeah, I Australia definitely. And the Australian Bush I had quite a few people comment on book one has a bushfire scene basically.
[00:29:10] Maddy: Yeah. And I had lots of people say, you definitely grew up in rural Australia. Yeah, you definitely write you can feel that the panic and the heat and this, you, these bush fires are so all encompassing, they're not, you can't just run away from them. They're huge. The fire fronts are enormous.
[00:29:28] Maddy: And that, in, in the assassin thief the kingdom is in a drought. So it very much draws on, my experiences growing up in rural South Australia and it's dry and hot and. Just nothing has moisture. Not the air, not the ground, not the trees. So I definitely draw on that a bit. I think as I moved into the fake kingdom of three zero, I probably draw on New Zealand a little bit.
[00:29:48] Maddy: There's a, it's a bit softer, there's more rolling hills and meadows and mountain range and stuff. So I definitely
[00:29:57] Jo: picked up on that.
[00:29:58] Maddy: Yeah. Sometimes I'll just be scrolling through the internet or Pinterest and be like, that is a really cool place. I can't recall where it is in the world.
[00:30:08] Maddy: But in three zero, the. The king's castle sits up against this huge jutting piece of stone, and that is actually a place it's in Russia or something, or this frozen lake. And I just scrolled past the picture and went, that just doesn't look real. It's so fantastical. This, these stones that are just jutted up out of the earth beyond reason, and they just look like they defy gravity.
[00:30:29] Maddy: And I was like, cool, let's make that bigger and fantasy. And so sometimes it's just that, yeah, I'll just see a teacher and get so stuck in my brain. I will find a way purely self-serving to put it in the story.
[00:30:42] Jo: Yeah, I do the same. I think it's, it is absolute essential. Do you keep Pinterest boards and mood boards?
[00:30:48] Maddy: Yes. I have printed out like four pages of Pinterest pictures for my new working in progresses and I've stuck them up on my board as inspo.
[00:30:56] Jo: Brilliant. Going back to the New Zealand references that you made. Yes. I was listening to the audio books of the first two, two books in the series.
[00:31:05] Jo: And when you have the face speak, and I'm so impressed with the language you created, you're like, for me it was like hands, like I could believe it, this is a yes real language, but it did have a very Maori absolutely cadence and formation to it.
[00:31:20] Maddy: Yeah. Yeah. And it, it was as well, I always say that nefe language and even just lots of the character names or place names in the world very heavily based on Al Maori and a little bit of Latin purely because I think it's such a beautiful language.
[00:31:35] Maddy: It is it's so lyrical sounding, but it's also, it sounds very grounded and solid. And I didn't wanna base something just in Latin 'cause it was. It was too pretty to me. Latin was too fantastical too fairy like. And I was like, the Faye have got a bit more substance to them and a bit more grit.
[00:31:54] Maddy: So that's why I veered a bit more towards Al Maori because yeah, it's just, it just sounds and feels the way I wanted that language to sound and feel added bonus that all my in-laws, my family are Marty. So I had a really awesome support network to help me use the language in the correct way and use it as inspiration and not be appropriating it.
[00:32:18] Maddy: So that was really helpful and really important to me as well. I've spent countless hours chewing off the ears of my sisters and cousins and sometimes my hubby as well to fine tune everything and get everything right. But basing the fail language on a real language to me helps it felt cohesive and like a language instead of just being gibberish.
[00:32:39] Jo: Yeah, I mean there are actually people online who specialize in fantasy language development for movies and books. So I was thinking, oh maybe Maddie's done that, but then I'm like, nah, she's just got, it's gotta be based, the Mari stuff that she's been surrounded by with Yeah. With her husband and family.
[00:32:58] Jo: Yeah. And I think it's great. I think it's brilliant because it, you are an antipodean fantasy writer, you're like, this is your area of the world. So I think it's great that you've used that. And it suits the Faye as well.
[00:33:10] Jo: It doesn't, yeah. Going back to the fight, fight scenes and fight and violence. 'cause, love those things myself. There's a lot of them in my books too. How do you go about it? Are you influenced by movies or, I know that again, there are experts online who specialize in helping movies and fantasy writers and script writers navigate fight scenes.
[00:33:34] Jo: How do you personally go about a good fight?
[00:33:36] Maddy: I am a fantasy reader and a fantasy watcher. Lord of The Rings is such a perfect example pirates of Caribbean as well. I really love, I love that the fight scenes are choreographed to the music in Pirates Caribbean.
[00:33:47] Maddy: But it just plays like a movie in my head. I'm definitely one of those people that when I'm writing and I'm seeing this fight scene I put all these people in place and it's, I feel like I'm writing a movie script sometimes rather than a book. It just, every now and then specifically when they're one-on-one fight scenes, when they're big battle scenes, you whoosh through it.
[00:34:08] Maddy: Because that's how a big fight like that works. You're not paying attention to every single detail. You just like stab stab, stab and carry on. But when it's a lot of one-on-one fight scene, sometimes I commander my husband and force him to help just to get the way a body moves, I was like if I punch you like this, then what is a logical counter move? Especially with height differences, because telly is just a regular gal. She's not super tall, she's not super short or anything like that. But a lot of the Faye are a lot bigger and stronger than her.
[00:34:37] Maddy: And lucky for me, Joe's a lot bigger and stronger than me. So even, things where if people are having, a bit of a tussle or they're grabbing things. It just helped me get my head around, okay, if someone that big grabs my wrist, their fingers wrap all the way around my wrist, or they can get their hands all the way around my arm.
[00:34:54] Maddy: So sometimes I, yeah, I bully my poor husband into helping, but for the most part it's, yeah, just like a movie scene. And I am just frantically typing to try to keep up and my brain's skipped way ahead. I'm like, hang on one second. I can't time that fast.
[00:35:10] Jo: So you have recruited your husband into like the logistics?
[00:35:13] Jo: Yeah. Because you have a bit of a dance background yourself, don't you?
[00:35:18] Maddy: Yeah. I used to dance with a dance crew a little while ago. My younger years I'm not particularly good, I don't think, but I do enjoy dancing very much. Oh I think I remember you striking a few memes at supernova one time.
[00:35:31] Maddy: That's still on the Supernova group chat. I was like, they're never gonna invite me back again. Maddie's teaching all these professional authors to Crip walk.
[00:35:40] Jo: That must help in the choreography because it does seem your fight scenes are very fluid and do seem, like quite choreographed and Yeah.
[00:35:47] Jo: And cinematic. So it must have helped at some point.
[00:35:50] Maddy: I've never thought of that. Maybe, yeah, maybe it's watching so many dance videos and what can work out where all the bodies move.
[00:35:58] Jo: I wanna go back to talking about writing a series because I think a lot of people are really curious about that.
[00:36:07] Jo: Not just fantasy writers, but other writers who are writing series in their genre. I wanna approach it first from a romance point of view, because yes, I think it's one of the challenges of when you're first planning out your series and thinking about the romantic elements, how do you maintain that tension?
[00:36:26] Jo: Yes. When you've got to go through the peaks and troughs of a romantic arc, a romantic narrative arc. Is that something you gave a lot of thought to, or did you wing it? I don't have good answers to, I just winged it. Yeah, that's okay. I think it's refreshing when people say that.
[00:36:42] Maddy: I think I did wing it in a way subconsciously. I think I knew this is where they started and this is where they will end. And I don't know if I thought so much about the arc as opposed to what I wanted them to bring to the relationship. Telly's love interest, we'll say to not spoil things.
[00:37:01] Maddy: Yeah. What he brings to the relationship and does for her is more like what I had in mind, because I wish for everyone to have a love as patient and steady and enduring as that because, it's I love the concept of loving someone through different stages of their life.
[00:37:21] Maddy: I've been with my husband for 10 years, I'm not the same person that he met and neither is he. And that's, there's something so beautiful about that. 'cause you just are falling in love again and again with different people. Arc, a lot of that became a second edit. I know with the second book, I went too hard too fast and my editor had to go whoa, pull it back.
[00:37:40] Maddy: You are, you're giving us too much too soon. And it was nearly ruining the pacing because like you said, the tension wasn't there. And then in the third book I did the complete opposite and I was like, starving my readers, my editor was like, please, you gotta give us something like it's definitely still something that I'm working on.
[00:37:57] Maddy: I haven't perfected it yet, apparently, but yeah, I just, it helped me to break down different arcs in the book. Me and my editor literally sat down and we went, okay, this is EM'S on her own, her character growth arc, and then this is her revenge arc and this is the romance arc. There's arcs within arcs of the story and how they project or they can go up or they can go down.
[00:38:21] Maddy: But nothing should be plateauing, so pulling the romance factor, like aside and examining it in and of itself probably helps a little bit, but. I think it comes to a point where, beta readers and feedback are so invaluable for that because sometimes you're just too close to the story and you're like, I feel like this tension is perfect.
[00:38:41] Maddy: And then someone else is gonna read it and be like, nothing happens, or something like that. But I definitely have had a couple of readers tell me that I blue balled them all through book two.
[00:38:50] Jo: Just slightly tiny raising my hand here. For those people only listening and not seeing the video,
[00:38:56] Maddy: it pays off.
[00:38:58] Jo: Okay. Yes, it does. It does. You have to
[00:39:00] Maddy: work this hard
[00:39:02] Jo: for
[00:39:02] Maddy: it,
[00:39:02] Maddy: Be
[00:39:03] Jo: patient. Patient.
[00:39:04] Maddy: It's a slow slope.
[00:39:06] Jo: Yeah.
[00:39:07] Maddy: Words by the book, free pH. I was writing some scenes and looking over my shoulder to make sure I was alone.
[00:39:14] Jo: That's so good. That, but that is, you can't please all the people all the time. That's the thing. And that different romance readers have different expectations and different levels of patience and what one person would consider slow burn another person doesn't they think that's perfect P pacing.
[00:39:32] Jo: Yeah. So it, it is a little bit geared that way. I know that had varied responses with the branded season about the, that kind of slow burn thing, and I'm like, I actually think it was that slow burn. But yeah, you can't please all the people all the time. And I think sometimes it has to serve the plot as well.
[00:39:48] Maddy: Yes. Oh, absolutely.
[00:39:49] Maddy: I would hope even if the romance. Didn't hit the spot for some people that the other elements of the story would carry them through regardless, hopefully. Yeah,
[00:39:58] Jo: no, I think definitely the romance is great, but you've gotta see it as the trilogy. Yes. Which is what you're writing for them to read the third book, so Absolutely.
[00:40:08] Jo: Yeah. And you can't, what I hate about certain books is when they switch on a bit of romance just to satisfy that craving. Yes. For a bit of spice and I know we've spoken about this at Supernova, where you've had your editor who said, can you b bring a bit more spice
[00:40:24] Jo (2): Yeah.
[00:40:25] Jo: To the to the novel. And it's I can't just switch it on because yout just like suddenly throw them into bed.
[00:40:32] Maddy: Yeah, because, I've got some characters that I'm like like, oh yeah, they could be the sort to jump in bed with everyone, but it has to be a part.
[00:40:40] Maddy: If you do it to the wrong character, they're gonna be like this. It'll pull you outta the story. So this is so unbelievable. The character changes is too great
[00:40:47] Jo: yeah. But what I like about your exploration with Tum is that you do make her a real woman in that she explores her sexuality a lot in the book.
[00:40:56] Jo: Yes. Especially in the first book. And I think that's great and I think that's so liberating and Absolutely. I don't want any of this prudishness around what women are and aren't allowed to do in terms of satisfying that itch. So I liked that mad. I think that was great. And I think it's brave as well, because some people shy away from it.
[00:41:17] Maddy: Oh, yeah. And that was something that I, as a reader will be reading things and it's if it's a very young character, like 18 to 20, and then they just go off and have the most mind blowing sex, I'm like, no, you didn't like, and in my brain I will just be like she's actually 28 and she's had two boyfriends.
[00:41:35] Maddy: Or I just make up a lie to not pull me out of the story, because I'm like, this is just so unrealistic for me because No, you didn't have the best sex of your life at 18. And like you said, that confidence of exploring things and wanting what you want comes with I.
[00:41:51] Maddy: Practice doesn't it? And age like yeah. So it was never my intention to write her as like a young virgin, even prior to when the story starts, it's understood or implied that she had relations before as like the first guy that she slept with. Because yeah, I mean I know there's a few of us that end up with their high school sweethearts, but not many of us.
[00:42:12] Jo: Yeah. I think it's refreshing. I think it's refreshing for readers and like you said, going back to you can't please all the people all the time, so there will be some people who prefer your main characters to be, A one trick pony, A one
[00:42:25] Jo: Alright. So I want you to just tell me a little bit about as a writer managing all these words, going back to writing a series and what you did to survive that. Because you put out a book a year here and one of those books was over 200,000 words. So how the hell do you manage it and also have a job?
[00:42:47] Maddy: I
[00:42:48] Jo: please, I
[00:42:49] Maddy: honestly
[00:42:50] Jo: dunno.
[00:42:51] Maddy: And I get asked this quite a lot, like, how do I juggle it? And I just do, I don't know. I just do because that's what I want. I suppose at the end of the day what I want is to be an author and that is now where my passion lies. And the dream is that one day I'll be a full-time author and be able to quit nursing.
[00:43:10] Maddy: And I know that I won't be able to do that if I can only get a book out every five years. Financially that's just not sustainable. Not to say that money is my driving factor, but. We've all mortgage doesn't get paid on nothing. So I don't know. I just wanted it so it got prioritized.
[00:43:26] Maddy: And especially in the early days of, especially the assassin thief from when I sat down and started writing to when it got published, I was very strict with myself. I I wrote and edited on weekends and on my days off and after work,, I feel like there was never a point from when I sat down and started writing that I went weeks without working on the book in some way, shape, or form.
[00:43:47] Maddy: And that may not work for everyone. That's just my writing style. I am very much a creature of habit. So if I fall out of habits, it's very hard for me to get back into them. Yeah, I just, it would be my day off and I'd be like, okay , I'm going to do X amount of hours or write x amount of words today.
[00:44:03] Maddy: Yeah. And that was it. It was going to be done come hell or high water. And if it was crap and it got deleted tomorrow, I still did it and I was still making a Ford shuffle if nothing else. But yeah, I guess you just find time for the things you love, don't you, and the things you want.
[00:44:19] Maddy: When I first got picked up by New Dawn Publishing I had actually just started a conservation course with tafe because that was going to be my out from vet nursing because I had just had enough of the industry. And in TAFE they give you two weeks from when you start your course to drop out and you get a full refund.
[00:44:37] Maddy: And I kid you not, I must have been a day or two past that two week mark and I got the email saying, you dawn, were going to pick me up. And I went I'm not dropping out of TAFE because I just, I'm not getting any money back and I'm not letting this opportunity go and I can't stop working 'cause I need money.
[00:44:52] Maddy: For six months, 'cause that's how long my full TAFE course was. I did TAFE full-time. I worked two jobs, part-time and I edited my book, dunno how I did itt, ask me how much coffee I drank. It was so unhealthy. May do.
[00:45:06] Jo: Yeah. It's just, when you're on a deadline, you have to Right.
[00:45:09] Jo: Because there's no choice. You don't have a choice, exactly. There are some sleepless nights, right? I'm sure you've had them. Yes. Yeah. It's not ideal, but it Yeah. Needs must sometimes.
[00:45:20] Jo (2): But yeah,
[00:45:21] Jo: I'm just been, I've just been at a writer's festival this weekend and Kate Sypher was there in Calwood, and we were talking about the consistency of the routine and, not having those, because I have had big chunks of time away from work, away from my writing life.
[00:45:36] Jo (2): Yeah.
[00:45:37] Jo: Just from necessity from other work and things that have gone on in my life. Yeah. And it does, it's so punishing to the work because it's like starting again. And Kate was saying it's like starting all over again.
[00:45:50] Jo (2): . It's like
[00:45:50] Jo: you've forgotten your world, you've. Your mind for it and it just sets you back
[00:45:56] Jo: a long time. Being in it every day, every, and when I'm in it, I'm, every single day like you are. There is no such thing as a weekend.
[00:46:05] Maddy: I know it's not because it just consumes your life, doesn't it? And I think a lot of people forget that writing in and of itself is still an art.
[00:46:14] Maddy: And if you are a painter or a sketcher and you had it picked up a paintbrush or your, charcoal in months, you're not gonna be as good as you were months ago. And I guess the same sort of applies to writing, but I think we forget that a little bit because writing isn't as much of a visual art, is it as being able to be like, here's this massive canvas, of stuff that I'm working on instead of it's here's the word document with 50,000 words on it.
[00:46:39] Jo: I also think it's because people think I speak, I write. Yes. So therefore I can write a novel and I can tell a story. Absolutely. Whereas not everybody picks up a pencil or paintbrush to draw a picture every day, but with writing and reading, we're all doing it every day. So it's naturally I can make that next jump into becoming a storyteller.
[00:46:58] Jo: Yes. And they, they forget there's an awful lot of craft to learn over many years. And each book is different. It's a diff you're wrangling a different beast with each
[00:47:07] Maddy: Oh, every time. Yeah.
[00:47:09] And what about, like mentally keeping your, were there things that you did to keep yourself, healthy or would you I know other writers have told me, actually no, my whole life fell apart and I was totally unhealthy in this space when I was writing this series.
[00:47:25] Jo: But have you got tips or tricks that you can share?
[00:47:28] Maddy: Maybe it's, 'cause I'm still quite early in my career and the rose colored glasses haven't come off. I'm not sure. But for me, the opposite is true because I work as a vet nurse during the day and it is a, and can be a, an extremely difficult job emotionally, mentally, physically.
[00:47:46] Maddy: And when I started writing the Assassin Thief was during Covid, but the vet industry especially we were essential service. We didn't get to close. And people were suddenly home with their animals all the time.
[00:48:00] Maddy: So going to a vet became a novelty. And it, or they'd be like, 'cause they're sitting home with their dog 24 7, they suddenly realize that their teeth stink or they've got heaps of lumps, or they're limping or, whatever it was. And we actually worked on skeleton staff for quite a while because as during the early days of Covid, if someone in a workplace got covid, the whole workplace was shut down.
[00:48:22] Maddy: And at the time I worked at a 24 hour emergency vet, and you can't just, you can't just shut down. So we had split into two teams and worked opposing shifts. So if one team went down, the other team could fill in. So not only was I working in a hard industry, we were working in a industry that sort of felt busier on, on skeleton stuff.
[00:48:41] Maddy: So writing became an actually a really fantastic escape for me. Like it was really cathartic. It, I could it was like my form of escapism in the same way that reading was and is still, that way. Yes, there's long hours and I probably drink far more coffee than I should.
[00:48:56] Maddy: My posture sucks sometimes, but I, I don't particularly, I think if anything else it is probably, helped me and, my mental health, because the reason that I started conservation was because I needed an out, whether or not I took it, I needed to know that I had something if I stepped away from vet nursing to go do, because otherwise I just felt really trapped in this industry that unfortunately doesn't treat its work as well, doesn't pay us well, doesn't appreciate us.
[00:49:22] Maddy: So I needed an out and then now being an author has become that out, like the light at the end of the tunnel as dramatic as that sounds. Yeah, it's just, it's actually been really good for me mentally and emotionally I think. That was such a dark tale. Sorry.
[00:49:39] Jo: No, I mean it's, I think people really love hearing the reality of people's lives.
[00:49:42] Jo: At this festival at the weekend Shankar Chandran, who's the one of the Miles Franklin winners for her book was really candid about, what the difficulties of a writing life. It's not an easy life. Yeah. But for someone to actually come at it from that perspective is really interesting because it is something that we can't not do.
[00:50:00] Jo: Most of us, we have to e as much as it's hard, a lot of us just can't imagine life without actually writing. We feel very, we're very unhappy when we're away and have actually got words on the page. Yeah. So it's really interesting to hear that. Tell us what's next for you, Maddy? You are in Nola you've been with this series now for maybe three to five years.
[00:50:20] Jo: How long has it actually, 'cause you've had a book a year, but you've probably writing it a long time before that.
[00:50:24] Maddy: Yeah, so I, I started writing in 2019. So it'll be five years. That I have lived in this world and I don't have kids myself, but I feel like this is what it's like to send your kids to school.
[00:50:37] Maddy: Like I feel like this is the closest I'll ever get to that, that feeling of being like, bye, like you're not my baby anymore. So it's been really bizarre and I tell people when they laugh and I dunno if they think I'm joking, but Book three was actually the hardest of the series to write for me because I was self-sabotaging myself because I didn't want to finish.
[00:50:59] Maddy: Because I was so scared about what came next. Because this series has so exceeded my expectations in, how well it's done. I didn't think I was gonna be here in a million years. I hoped for it, but I was like, be realistic. Yeah, I spent weeks and I couldn't write anything.
[00:51:14] Maddy: Self-sabotaging myself so bad. And I cried over this book so much. It's not even funny. The amount of tears, that's why it's so thick. It's for my tears. But it was so funny because a couple of months ago when I was having a chat with my publisher about finalizing the cover for book three, he just mentioned in passing, he said, so how's your new whip going?
[00:51:36] Maddy: And I was like, what? New Whip? And he goes, what are you gonna work on after the Assassin Thief? And I was like I haven't started anything. And he said, what do you mean you haven't started any, if you haven't started anything, you're not gonna be finished in time to have a Bookout 2025. And I just went, oh my God, hang on.
[00:51:53] Maddy: And it just had a huge existential crisis about it because I guess logically I knew I understand the timeline now, right? Of when it takes to have a draft finished and the edits before a book's out. I just, I couldn't see beyond Yeah. Finishing the queen thief. Like I was just going so hard to this the finish line that I just couldn't see anything after that.
[00:52:15] Maddy: So I have stitched myself up in the fact that I will have notebooks out sadly in 2025 because I'm not organized, which is very me fashion anyway, so That's Okay. You can join the club 'cause I'm
[00:52:25] Jo: in the same boat as well. Good. See. We'll, I knew the timeline, but I was just not able to physically drop your head around it.
[00:52:32] Maddy: Yeah. But New Dawn have we've agreed that they will pick me up on a proposal. So instead of having to have a full draft finish of something, I can just give them the whole spoiler start to finish. Which is great because then I can be signed into starting something new. Prior to writing it.
[00:52:48] Maddy: Otherwise I could spend nine to 12 months writing something for them to be like, this just isn't marketable. Yeah. So I spent a couple of I don't know, maybe four to six weeks daydreaming, making up this new plot idea for a new book which was gonna be a very gritty sort of urban fantasy. Which I thought would be fun to write.
[00:53:05] Maddy: There'll be cars and guns and mobile phones and, those sorts of things. Normal thing, yes. Normal things, which I just, I, and I love the idea of a fantasy world existing in sort of the world we know now.
[00:53:18] Maddy: So I'd spent weeks going through this that I was getting already to sit down and write my proposal.
[00:53:22] Maddy: And I was driving home one night and my brain was like, have this other idea that's this witchy, cottage core academia. And I was like, this has nothing to do with what we're working on. So I ended up sending two proposals to New Dawn. Because I couldn't pick, so I wrote them both and I just dumped them in their email and was like, you sort it, you pick.
[00:53:45] Jo: Okay. Are we allowed to know which one or was that under wraps?
[00:53:49] Maddy: I don't know yet. I sent it to them a few weeks ago. And it was just around the time they were launching a mistress of Amber and Flame which is their new author's first book. So I sent it to them and they said it'll be a couple of weeks.
[00:54:02] Maddy: And I was like, that's fine. I have plenty to catch up on with reading and house renos and all that sort of stuff.
[00:54:10] Jo: So basically your, and you've got a big following on social media. You're gonna get people telling you now what they want.
[00:54:18] Maddy: Yeah, I think that was another reason I struggled with book three so much because the ex and you would know it's all well and good getting the first book out, but then the next, and the subsequent book says Expectations from your readers, and you just, it becomes suddenly very apparent that you have people that you would let down if you drop the ball.
[00:54:34] Maddy: And I was like, I can't cope with this at all. Yeah. Especially for a series. If you read a standalone and you hate it, I'm like, oh, that's fine. But you've put so much more time and effort into reading a series for the last book of the series to fall apart would just, oh, break my heart.
[00:54:52] Maddy: So don't ever go to Good Reads ever. Ever. Oh, my piece of advice. Oh
[00:54:57] Jo: no.
[00:54:58] Jo (2): Oh
[00:54:58] Jo: no. But the social media, now you are a bit of a social media guru and for me anyway. Including filming Tim Tam Slams, which was my, was one of my favorite moments in our road trip.
[00:55:10] Jo: Absolutely. On to Supernova. But yeah, one of the great things I think about social media is that you do get that direct communication with fans Yes. And with readers and most of them, they follow the etiquette of not tagging you if they haven't liked your book. Yeah. Which is very, I'm very grateful for.
[00:55:27] Jo: But those ones who do like it do give you some really useful feedback about your book. And and I think, yeah, that can be crippling a little bit when it comes to actually writing that final installment, but it can also be beautifully inspirational. It can be my publishers saying this, but actually my fans.
[00:55:45] Jo: I got my finger on the pulse a bit about what they want, what they like. Yeah. Just, yeah, just the odd comments that they make. You just know them. Yeah.
[00:55:55] Maddy: I'm guilty of, especially for the Queen Thief, like when I was really struggling, I went back through all my socials and found all the nice reviews people had sent me and went back and reread them all.
[00:56:06] Maddy: 'cause it just reignited my love for the series. 'cause it's a bit like seeing it through fresh eyes as well because you do get a bit bored of your own, I certainly got a bit, not bored of it, when you read sake so many times you're like, have I just read this 500 times or does it suck?
[00:56:21] Jo: So I think you're getting bored of yourself as well. Yes. It's not so much the work. You're getting bored of being with yourself. Pouring over these words and your own reactions and moving bloody words here and there and full stops there. Yeah. So
[00:56:35] Maddy: I definitely have gone back through my socials and found like nice things people have tagged me in or, photos of cosplays or tattoos and been like, this is why I must finish.
[00:56:45] Jo: Have you got any fans with tats out there? The assassin thing? Three people. Oh my, that is, that's a big coup as a fantasy writer listeners, I can just tell you that the moment when a fan gets a tattoo of your book is one goalpost, isn't it? Definitely a goal.
[00:57:00] Jo: It's just,
[00:57:01] Maddy: yeah. And I, I still remember the first lady that did it. She got, 'cause Telly's got hetero chromia, she got telly's eyes like tattooed on her leg. I sobbed, I was like. What is happen. And I was, I'm like calling my husband over and he's like consoling me and patting me on the shoulder and I'm like, sobbing uncontrollably.
[00:57:21] Maddy: I'm like, people get tattoos. I'm like, Harry Potter, not this. And he's apparently they do. And I was like, I haven't even finished the series. What if she hates the last book? I'm gonna have to pay for a laser removal.
[00:57:34] Jo (2): That's hysterical.
[00:57:35] Maddy: But yeah. And another lady got jasmine flowers. 'cause that's what tell smells like with 10 breast kin on her wrist.
[00:57:41] Maddy: Yeah. And another lady got a dagger which the dagger was from some character art. And what she told me she was getting a dagger. I was like, how cute. Like thinking, like a little dagger or on your foot, Joe? It's her entire spine. Oh. It's like the length of my forearm or more. It goes from the base of her neck to the like three quarters.
[00:58:02] Maddy: And I was like, oh my gosh. That's massive.
[00:58:08] Jo: Oh, that's great. That's crazy. I love it though. I love it. I always, I'm always fascinated with all of Jake Christoph's fans getting their tattoos. Yeah. I don't, I'm a clean skin. I don't actually have any tattoos, but I do love tattoos and I just think that's a goalpost for me.
[00:58:24] Jo: Definitely a goalpost.
[00:58:25] Maddy: I still to this day can't fathom that someone liked the book enough or bookser to permanently that's not going away unless you laser it off permanently, forever. That's under a skin. Just blows me away still.
[00:58:41] Jo: Mad, it's been absolutely lovely catching up with you again and talking the series and I'm so proud of you for finishing this amazing trilogy.
[00:58:51] Jo: You deserve every success 'cause you're one of the most hardworking writers I know and this series is phenomenal and I can't recommend it highly enough. And I'm just so excited to see what you're gonna do next. Me too, honestly. 'cause I'm not really sure That's okay. We're allowed not to be sure we're allowed to go and play.
[00:59:08] Jo: You need to play. Alright, lovely to see you and I'm sure you could wait. Tell listeners where they can find you on socials. Oh
[00:59:17] Maddy: yeah. I'm just Madeline Fu first name. Surname is basically all of my social tags. So Instagram, Facebook. Twitter, which I don't, oh, what is it now?
[00:59:26] Maddy: X TikTok. Yeah. All those, that's where you can find me. I've got a website. You are mainly TikTok and Insta,
[00:59:31] Jo: aren't you? Yes.
[00:59:32] Maddy: Yeah. Probably TikTok even more than Instagram is my primary go-to source just because it's nice and chaotic over there. That just fits me.
[00:59:42] Jo: All right. Good luck with this series. And the final book is out on the 31st of October. Really easy to remember because it's Halloween and this series is dark. It's great. It's full of action, full of romance, full of world building and can't recommend it highly enough.