New Episode - Quiet Achievers Series: Nancy Cunningham on writing rural romance with a historical setting
Nancy Cunningham on writing rural romance with a historical setting.
Episode notes
Get ready to journey into the world of historical fiction writing with our guest, author Nancy Cunningham. Listen in as Nancy talks about her upcoming novel CROSSING THE BRIDGE set for release on January 1st. We talk about her writing process, how she developed the characters for her book, and the meticulous research that goes into crafting a compelling historical fiction. Not only do we discuss Nancy's journey, but we also give updates on our own writing projects, including a novella and a new book in the Black Wattle Lake series.
In this engaging chat, Nancy Cunningham opens up about her writing journey, from her early days of writing plays in primary school to her successful career as a novelist. Discover how her love for storytelling evolved over time, her involvement in the Romance Writers of Australia community, and the lessons she learned from being part of a manuscript incubator course. We also discuss the challenges faced by writers in honing their craft and finding their unique voice.
As we explore Nancy's novel CROSSING THE BRIDGE we discuss the characters and themes of the book, making it a must-read for historical fiction fans. We also touch on Nancy's next project, and her love for cover design. Lastly, we discuss how to support women's rights through our podcast, the importance of reviews and ratings, and ways to connect with us through various social media platforms. Join us for this fascinating discussion that offers insight into the writing process and the journey of an author.
Episode Chapters
(00:00) - Pamela’s Intro and Writing Updates
(06:15) - Nancy Cunningham
(18:06) - Writing Journey and Anthology Experience
(23:28) - Writing Process and Overcoming Challenges
(33:21) - Crossing the Bridge
(38:01) - Character Planning for Historical Fiction
(48:16) - Design, Launch, and Future Projects
(54:15) - Women's Rights Support Podcast and Information
In the Intro
In the latest episode of the Writes4Women Podcast, host Pamela Cook reflects on the rapid passing of the year. She shares updates on her own writing, including finishing a revised version of OUT OF THE ASHES, a novella in the A COUNTRY VET CHRISTMAS ANTHOLOGY and plans for future projects, including a writing retreat and another round of her writing course, Turn Up the Tension. Pamela also expresses gratitude for Patreon supporters and encourages listeners to leave reviews to help grow the podcast's audience.
Transcript
07:00 -Pamela Cook (Guest)
Nancy Cunningham is a writer from Adelaide, south Australia, who has always loved storytelling in all its forms, from writing plays at primary school and original stories at high school, influenced by Abbott and Costello movies and Archie comics loved those back in the day to a career in agriculture, telling scientific stories and rural beating heart to life changing personal events that placed her back on the path to a more creative journey.
Novels, short stories, tv movies, video games, songs and poetry have all inspired her to write stories in genres from historical to romance, crime and science fiction to short literary fiction. But the 20th century historical fiction is where her writing heart really lies, especially stories involving stoic heroines of the past overcoming adversity.
Nancy lives in the Adelaide suburbs with her tech savvy partner, always good to have one of those, and real life hero, her book obsessed gorgeous curly-haired daughter and Molly, the retired grey hound. When not writing fiction, Nancy works as a research scientist in entomology and has such a fascinating job.
Nancy's debut CROSSING THE BRIDGE has been a winner and finalist in several awards, including the prestigious Valerie Palfe Award, the West Houston Emmolings, and was long-listed for the Romance Writers of Australia Emerald Award in 2020 and the Sapphire in 2021. In 2020, on the CYA All Stars Conference unpublished adult manuscript prize and it's going to be out on the first of January. As I said, it's Nancy's first published full-length novel, but she has been in loads of anthologies with novellas and shorter length fiction, so it's going to be great to chat to Nancy all about that. So, Nancy Cunningham, welcome to the Writes4Women Convo Couch.
08:04 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Thanks for having me on, Pam. Yeah, it was a long time, wasn't it? First time callers.
08:11 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It's so good to have you on and, Nancy, you are a Patreon supporter of the podcast, which is fabulous, and I really appreciate that, and all the Patreon supporters out there, and it's really lovely to have it feels like bringing a family member on to the convo couch. It's really nice. So congratulations on CROSSING THE BRIDGE, which is coming out on the first of January.
We're going to talk all about that, but before we get on to that, it's been so interesting to watch your career over the last few years, Nancy, because I think we first met maybe back at an RWA conference or an online thing or something, a few years ago.
08:48 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, I think it was that I joined RWA in 2018, and I remember going to my first conference and I remember arriving on the first day and I had a tree. I look up to this lady in the street and we were talking. She said, oh, you're going to the conference. I said I'm going to the conference and we got talking about writing and all that sort of stuff. And then we got to the hotel and we were at the bottom of the stairs and I looked at her and I said you're Valerie Pav and I had not met Valerie before, and she said, yes, I am.
And I was just like I was a little bit gobsmacked because I was like, oh my gosh, this is the most amazing romance writer in Australia really. She actually wrote about it in her memoir like how we had met and we were just two writers talking, until this bubble of magic just afterwards, when I found out who she was.
09:39 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, I know, isn't that amazing.
09:43 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
But then I came up to the conference area and I think you were there. If somebody else I can't remember who it would be Lisa Ireland, I'm not sure.
09:53 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It's so funny when you arrive at one of those conferences, isn't it? Because people are like coming in and you're talking to one person you haven't seen for ages, and then somebody else arrives, and then another person, and it's just this whole weekend of a gab fest, which is great.
But, Nancy, what I've loved about watching your career over the last few years is how you really applied yourself to both sides of the business, really the craft side, in terms of continuing to write and get more and more material behind you, to enter contests, to put your work into anthologies. You've also really educated yourself about the business of writing, but I don't know how you first started to be a writer, so could you tell us a little bit about your origin story, in terms of where your writing came from?
10:39 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Sure, I listened to a lot of the podcasts where writers talked about where they started off and a lot of them say things like oh, I've been wanting to be a writer since I could hold a pen in my hand, kind of thing. I didn't start off like. I think where I started was I just loved storytelling and from when I was a kid I loved fairy stories and I love, you know, Enid Blyton and all of that sort of stuff. And then when I was older, it was more movies and TV and music. And then I was in my twenties and it was more music. Like, the more poetic or lyrical the music, the more I loved it, the storytelling aspect of songs.
And then in my thirties I met my partner and he was really into video games. He introduced me to the world of storytelling and video games. And then it was in my sort of forties, probably late thirties. I had a bit of a health crisis and I was working as a research scientist. I've always been creative. I was always looking for a creative outlook and then I thought, oh, maybe I could do some writing or whatever. And that's how it started really. So I met a friend online and she's through playing video games, and she said, oh, you shouldn't try NaNoWriMo and write an original piece of fiction? And I was like, oh, I guess I'll give that a try. So I did that.
I didn't really take it seriously at that time. I was half doing stuff and I did national novel writing and I got my 50,000 words at the end and I'd written a science fiction story, but I actually realised at the end of it all. I had 50,000 words, it was just something completely new for me.
12:29 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I love that you've drawn inspiration from so many different kinds of genres. You were saying about the video games and the music, and poetry and books and all those things. So it's really interesting, isn't it, that we can be so inspired by so many different forms of creativity, and then I think this comes up on the podcast quite a bit that work takes precedence, or jobs or a family or just life getting so busy, and we tend to forget about all those creative outlets. It's so great to tap back into them, isn't it, and to just really re-energise yourself.
13:05 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, so it basically took a bit of a health crisis for me to get through that. I was diagnosed in my late 30s with multiple sclerosis and I sat back and I thought, look, I need to expand on my sort of I guess creative side as well. And I'm still working as a research scientist and I still love doing that, but I just needed something extra to keep my mind busy and not focus on being your kind of thing.
And I had my baby in that time. The other thing was I had actually gone through MS and it had been a bit of a turmoil, essentially, and this was the last ditch effort, so that was in 2011. I thought I can't do this anymore. I have to basically think about my health and stuff like that. But we had one last go and on the whole I fell pregnant. I'm writing my first ever manuscript and having a baby at the same time.
14:02 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Maybe there's a link between your creative blossoming and your having a daughter.
14:06 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I had Jess and I didn't really do much after that, so I went through a bit later, understandably, and you want to be able to enjoy your daughter after having all that trouble, too.
14:20 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Now I know from your Instagram posts that you are currently doing NaNoWriMo, and you have been absolutely blitzing it. How has that been going?
14:27 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I tend to find I work really well in bits of creative energy, because I wouldn't be able to sustain something on that all year. But you know, and it is a really busy time of year, but I think as the consequence of that, you can really focus. You can go okay, I'm going to do this. I've got all these other things I have to do. I'll just for the mornings. For the next 30 days. I'm just going to write and I do all my planning beforehand. So I've got a structure to guide me through demands and then I just go for it.
It's essentially how I've worked in the past and then, at the end of that I have this incredibly messy first draft, like it's terrible. If you looked at it, there's squiggly lines. If you look at it in words, there's red lines and green lines everywhere.
15:12 - Pamela Cook (Host)
So lots of mistakes, that's all right. That's what first drafts meant to be.
15:21 - Pamela Cook (Host)
So you've already hit your 50,000,?
15:24 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah I hit it the other day. I've always finished the first draft, but I just wanted to, and I think this is the thing with any kind of planning you do, you can plan in something and I do. I plan an hour. I can't even write 35 chapters and in 2000 words roughly per chapter, or try and populate those chapters. But I got twisted at the point and I've done a few things in the lead up to it because I write chronologically, I don't jump the line in place and then I thought, ah, I'm going to have to change this around a little bit. So I've adjusted maybe the last three or four chapters to reflect some of the stuff I'd actually written earlier. In the moment it's flexible, the plans.
16:04 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, I think that's a great way to be with the planning. I think there's great merit in planning and obviously you've talked about this a lot on the podcast. Some people plan, some people don't, but I think that's the key, isn't it? If you're planning a bit flexible, and if something comes up that you hadn't planned for, maybe go with it and see where it takes you.
16:20 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, and I think this is where you might start observing things like plot holes and things like that. You just go. Oh, that's not going to work. I could probably fix it in the second draft, or you don't have to have anything refined. It's that bigger picture of things. Is it working? Are the beats in the right spot, that sort of thing, yeah, yeah.
16:39 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Now, Nancy, in the acknowledgments CROSSING THE BRIDGE, you mentioned a couple of mentors that you had, I think Victoria Perne was one of them. Could you talk a little bit about the role that those mentors have played in developing your writing and your career?
16:53 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, like I said, after I did that first novel, which was in 2011, I didn't really do anything until about 2015. And then I thought oh, I should go back and let me learn how to write a novel. So I did an organisation here in South Australia. It's called the Workers Education Association, the WA, and I had done lots of courses through them. You know I've made a kitchen table and a bookshelf.
I did life drawing and all that sort of stuff. And then I saw that they had a course in how to write your novel. I did that course and I learnt oh my gosh story structure. I didn't know that and that really appealed to me as a scientist in me. I thought, oh wow, this actually might be better for me to be able to structure something before I actually put pen to paper, because the first time I'd written it here, it was just freeform, completely freeform, and I don't think that worked for me.
So that was in 2015, and then in 2017 I wrote another novel, which is the very, very first version of CROSSING THE BRIDGE, and I did that a little bit before NaNo in 2017 and during NaNo..
And then, towards the end of 2017, I did a course through Writers Centre called Dynamic Dialogue and it was run by Victoria Perman, and Victoria said to me she goes, what have you written? And I told her what I'd written. She said, oh, you should join the Romance Writers of Australia. And I was just like, oh, okay all right all right, I'll give that a go. And so in 2018, I joined and I think for the first time I realized how little I actually did know about writing.
And I've actually been looking to people like Victoria Perman and other authors and thinking how do I do this? And I definitely need some sort of mentoring at that stage. But I found RWA and I found the aspiring group in particular, so they were fantastic to be associated with. And then there's a new line who runs that. She's pretty awesome at corraling us into discussion and about everything writing, so it's been really good. But I did with Victoria in particular. I did the manuscript incubator. It was in 2020. It was so let's run through this.
19:21 - Pamela Cook (Host)
So that's a course where you have a manuscript and then you run through it and you have monthly meetings and then you get access to lots of different courses and things like that.
19:21 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
For that, yeah, I wrote another novel which is tucked away…But at the end of it there was a group of us who said, oh, we'd really like to continue this. They did not in the same sort of format. So the following year, and this year as well, we've done this sort of small group mentorship with Victoria and she's been incredible, she's been amazing. My support is that we are going through this process of aspiring to be an emerging writer, so it's really been a big part of my writing journey.
19:55 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Oh, that's fantastic, and Victoria is such a great supporter, as you say, of other writers.
20:00 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Oh, she definitely is. So if anybody gets a chance to do, that course, because Victoria's running it again this year through. What is there saying Is that online, Nancy?
20:12 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, I think it's online. It was online for us when we did it.
20:16 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
And I think it is as well.
20:17 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Now, part of your kind of membership of RWA and things that you've been doing over the last few years has been entering competitions in RWA, hasn't it? Tell us a bit about that.
20:32 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I've been a bit of a competition junky. Pretty much from the moment I joined I was encouraged to actually enter competitions, and it has been probably one of the best things for me right at the start to enter these competitions. And I did it because I really was craving somebody, not just Pat LaBatte, and say oh, you're doing a great job.
20:57 - Pamela Cook (Host)
So RWA for anybody who doesn’t know has lots of competitions where you enter. It could be like a first kiss competition. It's a certain number of words and you enter a story or a part of a story that includes a first kiss or they have loads of others too that they need.
21:13 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, like Valerie Pav, when she was alive, she ran a mentoring competition as well. So the idea was you entered the first 10,000 words and you got through to the first round, or you were the sixth finalist and then she would pick somebody from that group of six to mentor over the next 12 months, and there's quite a lot of members within RWA who are now published authors who actually went through that process. I haven't entered twice, I think yes and final twice, and I've entered three times. Actually, I didn't get anywhere the first time I did it.
21:55 - Pamela Cook (Host)
So what are some of the anthologies that you've been in?
21:57 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Competitions that I entered that I didn't get anywhere or I didn't find or anything. I had enough feedback to take that story and do something else with. So I met a few people through RWA, so Claire Griffin and Ava January approached me and she said oh look, you're writing in the same sort of subgenre that I am. Are you interested in doing an anthology together? And I thought oh, I've never done this. So that was a good fun. I think you interviewed Claire about that process.
22:25 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I did, yeah, yeah, a few years ago.
22:28 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
That was during COVID, maybe.
22:29 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Was that during COVID? Yeah, that's when I would come out and COVID. But it was a really interesting process.
22:35 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
It was lots of fun and it was so much fun we did it.
22:39 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yes, so you've done too.
22:40 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
EASTER PROMISES was the first one, and the second one was A SEASON IN PARIS. We both write historical fiction and it's a great combination of stories in those anthologies.
22:55 - Pamela Cook (Host)
What do you feel you got out of being part of an anthology like that, Nancy, in terms of maybe what you learn, and then about both sides the writing and the business side?
23:03 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, on the business side, I certainly learned how to do self-publishing. Essentially. I was a tech savvy one in the group so I was the one who set it up. I think we did it through Vellum and then I had to do it because I've got a PC. I don't have a Mac. I had to go through Mac in the cloud. I knew how to do all of that and files down and then just twiddle around with it, so it looked nice. I loved making covers as well. That's a bit of entertainment.
So I made not the first (not for EASTER PROMISES), but the second one A SEASON IN PARIS one I made the cover for that. I had to use Canva, find stock images. I love Canva.
All of that sort of stuff, the business side of things, the marketing I'm still getting the hang of. And then on the craft side of things, it was just really great to be able to share stories with friends who were writing in that same genre, because when I first joined RWA I had some critique partners, so the lovely Kristen Silk and Davina Stone, but they were both writing for temporary at the time, so they went mining in the same sort of genre as me, but I eventually found Claire and a few others and they'd been fantastic to be able to swap stories with and stop swap ideas with, like when I'm a bit stuck, and go, how can I get over this?
And they'll go. Maybe you should consider this. Or I'll have one chapter and I think I'm going to be sending it to Sarah and saying this chapter's just not working and I don't know what's wrong with it, and she just came back flat out and said this is what's wrong with it. Go away and change.
24:47 - Pamela Cook (Host)
But it’s good isn't it to have those people that will just tell you because that's your state. Yeah, that's what you want. It's no help to you, just it's lovely to get feedback like oh, this is so good, I couldn't put it down, or whatever, but you need that feedback for people saying this would be so much better if you did this, or this isn't working because I've always said how can you improve it?
25:06 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
That's right, I didn't start getting any feedback on my writing until I actually joined RWA. Prior to that, I've been in this sort of kind of silence thing and not having any feedback or any feedback. I had no sign of pretty good, but it just wasn't enough. I think of it in terms of my science career as well.
When I started out, there were things that I was doing wrong and I had really good mentors within the science community that I had who said, oh, maybe she do like this, maybe she do like that, and I was just looking for the same thing in the creative writing side and I think I found it.
25:41 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It's probably good that you had that time, too, where you just getting into the writing and finding your voice and working out what it was you liked and what you were into with your writing before you got much feedback, because I do think that sometimes it can be quite crushing getting feedback and if you get it too early, I think that can be a danger of putting your work out there too early or getting feedback too early on your writing path, that you then think, oh no, I'm not good at this, I'm not going to do it anymore.
So, it might have been good that you had that time, just so I started when I was thinking I didn't know what genre I wanted to write in.
26:15 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
And I read pretty wide. I read more different genres, but I'll write a science fiction novel.
And then the second manuscript I wrote, which was in 2015, was a crime novel. So I've got a crime novel in the bottom drawer or something. And then in 2017, I was reading a lot of historical fiction and I thought, oh, I'd really like to write an Australia historical. So I wrote in Australia historical. But I remember when I joined RWA I think I jumped a gun a bit and I did actually send my work off to an editor, and that was in 2018. And I was all quite excited about the idea of, oh, I'll get to pitch and I'm going to have this book and then we'll get published, kind of thing. And I think I was just a little bit too excited about that and I sent it off to an editor in Australia here and they came back to me and they said, oh look, I can't take your money if the book's not ready.
Yeah she gave me, like I guess, free edit and it was quite crushing, it was very crushing, and stopped me writing for a couple of months. I think I needed that. I needed someone to save me. Just hold your horses and slow down. It's a journey and you'll get there eventually, kind of thing.
27:30 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, and that's the thing, isn't? It looks like anything if there's that kind of old cliche that you have to do 10,000 hours of anything before you even start to be proficient at it, and but I think it's certainly true, and it's especially true, I think, with something like writing, because it takes you so long to find your voice and it's something that you continuously working on.
27:47 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Like you say, there's so much to learn.
27:49 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It's not just a matter of having all these ideas in your head and I put them on paper, then there's all the stuff about plotting and structure and weaving dialogue and showing emotion, and there's so much to learn that to expect yourself to do that in a short period of time is just unrealistic, really, I think.
28:06 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, it was a very steep learning curve for me, but I met an artist once.
She has part of native town on Tanger Island and she's an artist, so her name is Janine McIntosh and she does these incredibly amazingly large sort of mandalas of found objects, so things like galvanic oceanites and lake reefs, and they've got a property on the edge of the park in Tanger Island and she just used found objects. But we had this discussion about creativity once and she said to me she goes oh, some people think I just it just happens like that. She said that 10% of it is me thinking about the idea. But then 90% is me sitting there painstakingly sewing these skeletonized lake reefs onto these canvases and they're huge canvases that they're really stunningly beautiful.
This is her process. She said it's 10% sort of idea, 90% hard work and I think a lot of people who come to write us and say I'd love to write a book one day. So the thing that all they have to do is just have the idea, but it's really the layer behind it that actually creates and creates the book.
29:15 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, yeah, hard work and determination. Yeah, determination to stick the distance.
29:20 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
That's just I think really important.
29:22 - Pamela Cook (Host)
That kind of brings us to now, when you have a book coming out very soon, Nancy CROSSING THE BRIDGE. Can you tell me about writing it? You said you had an earlier version?
29:34 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah in 2017, I'd written like maybe 40,000 words before NaNo. Then I did NaNo got another 50,000. And then in early 2018, I polished it off. By the time I finished, I had 145,000 words.
Like I said that steep learning curve. I had to learn not to stuff back story, a lot of things just had to die and there was just a few things that were missing, I think, from the book. And I did picture it at the conference in 2018 and I did get asked to submit, but I did. I got not backs for that because I think it was just not. It just wasn't good enough. Really, I don't think it just wasn't enough to sell it to an editor or an agent or anything like that.
So, I put it away and said I'll come back to that and I started working on other things so that when I did the novellas and entered short story pop t-shirts and did lots of things like that, then it was always in the back of my mind I would go back to this book.
I think it must have been 2009,. About two years, a year and a half later I went back and I thought I have to rewrite this. So that's what I did. I started rewriting it then, then stopped and did the things and then came back to it again, and then I think it was the 2021 conference, which I think was on the Gold Coast. My intention was to go and do that then the COVID way, so you can get in, and so on.
I ended up not going but I had actually had to pitch because it was all online and I pitched it to the pub Collins and it was a completely different manuscript. So it wasn't this manuscript, it wasn't CROSSING THE BRIDGE.
And so they came back to me and I said, oh, the editor came back and she said, oh, look, I don't think this is a good fit for us. But I went onto your website and I see you have this other book that you've been talking about. That's been winning a few competitions. Why don't you send me that? And I was just like I went into a bit of a panic because I thought, oh, is that ready? Is that ready? And then so I said to her, so that was in late 20, yeah, 20, 21, and I said oh, can.
I send it to you next year, Cause I wanted to refine it and work on it. So I think in May following year, I sent CROSSING THE BRIDGE to the editor yeah, in 2021, no 2022, sorry and I was hoping to catch up with her at the conference. And then, when I got to the conference, I found out that she had left Harper Collins.
I was like, what’s the fate of my submission? Cause nobody did it, said anything to me, I couldn't see Denny, no thanks, kind of thing. And I ended up speaking to another editor and she said to me, oh, send it to me.
So I went okay, I'll send it to you. So I sent it to her and I still couldn't hear anything. And then I found out in late November that she had left as well. So I was just like oh, and still no word on anything. So I ended up contacting one of the senior editors there and she got back to me pretty much straight away.
She said oh, don't worry, we're in a bit of turmoil, we're just going to, don't worry, somebody will reply in the new year. I got a response from the editor who did Escape, and she said to me look, we're actually not looking to publish World War II fiction at the moment because it was popular. Maybe not in print anyway. She said would I be interested in an e-book or like digital version? And I went oh, of course, anything to skip on that.
And yeah, so soon after that she came back and she said I loved it and taken to acquisitions. And yeah, she came back with the answer, yes, I want it.
33:21 - Pamela Cook (Host)
And this is a really important thing for people out there who are listening to realise is that things do change in publishing houses and you had that manuscript in there with a number of different editors, but just along the way it fell through the cracks because people were leaving, and so it's not always the case that just that you don't hear, that means they definitely don't want to. Obviously you need to give some time before you're doing a follow up, but following up was a really good idea for you in that case so tell us about CROSSING THE BRIDGE, historical fiction.
33:55 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
And reading it now actually, and it's got all these different elements of obviously the war story.
34:00 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It's centred here in Australia in the effect that the war had on particularly on small towns and also particularly on women, and it's the way that women were pushed in a way into the line line. They had to step into the shoes that the men had left but weren't really given the respect or any recognition for the things that they were doing, and just the hardships that people went through. It's really an interesting tale. I think you can tell us about the book.
34:29 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
It focuses on Poppy, who's a widow and her husband died. He wasn't, he didn't go to war, he was like a fan almost. He was in a protected industry. He was encouraged to stay on the side and she grew up quite sheltered in the city and then she goes out onto the farm and learns how to be a farmer's wife essentially. But she's quite a timid sort of character, especially during her marriage. Essentially I would say that her husband was. He was like the man, he made the decisions, he did these sorts of things. Coming out of that act, when he dies, she has to find her feet in some way, like not realising that there's some things that her husband did in the past which is affecting her future and what her future is going to look like. And I just I guess I would put it in. I would say this is like a royal romance, but it's that you know, during World War II, essentially. It’s a rural romance. It's a woman trying to save the legacy of her husband's farm and the legacy for their son and her future.
35:33 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I thought it was really interesting that the land, the farm, passed to the son.
35:41 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, so it passes to him, but she's like a caretaker, so he she's been overlooked by her husband because he has very set ideas as to what a woman's life should be like essentially, and that's who passes through.
So in my current novel I'm going to print a sequel to CROSSING THE BRIDGE, and so that's Ronnie's story. So Ronnie is obviously his sister-in-law, so her husband's sister, and the legacy of what the male line was like in that family, in the Guilden family, is going to affect Ronnie as well, has Ronnie, and that's going to be a theme through that as well, through the next story as well.
She's very different from Poppy. Poppy's very restrained, whereas Ronnie says no, this is what I'm doing, this is how I'm doing it, and that's very part of the fair personality. And that was what her brother was like and it was like and initially when I wrote the story, I actually had Ronnie as a point of view. Well, I had three points of view initially and that was one of the feedback I had saying just have the two, just have the two.
So, I thought Ronnie deserves her own story and I'll do that later.
The hero, Joe Beck, he grew up on a mango farm up in Darwin in Northern Territory and he's had a bit of a rough life. He and his sister were living with their aunt and uncle on the family farm because their parents had passed away and uncle was abusive, so he wasn't a very nice character essentially, and so that has affected him and but he goes on to join up and goes to war, but before he had done that, he had fallen in love with another woman and he wanted to marry her but he was not seen as good enough for her, but not realising that he had.
Also, before he went to war, he had made her pregnant but he hadn't had a chance to marry her. And then you find out, probably giving too much away, but she dies. But she dies in the Darwin bombing. So his sister looks after their son and she takes him to Brisbane when Darwin is evacuated. So that's where the story starts for them.
38:01 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I love all the different threads you've got going on in the story now. So there's the backdrop of the overseas war, but very much the war as it affected Australia, and then obviously Poppy's situation where it's China hanging onto the farm, particularly for her son. There's another mystery surrounding her husband, and then you've also got the romance. You've got all these different elements which I think makes the story just really engaging. There were so many different things that I wanted to find out about and they had a real hate journey kind of experience.
38:29 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, I've just had this. I've had this real fascination for Australia during wartime, what it was like essentially, and you've got what happened up in Darwin, and then you've got Brisbane, and then all the troops coming over and they went to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. And then that aspect where Ronnie spends most of the war in Melbourne, and then you've got the aspect of returning soldiers as well, and returning soldiers not just because they're injured, but most soldiers were demobbed back into Australia to help with labour shortages, because it got really bad towards the end of the war.
Like JB, he's been injured, but he's not severely injured. He couldn't go back to war. But they said, no, go get a job, go help with labour. That's his character. When he's come back he's been injured. He's because of the trauma of his childhood and, I guess, a bit of war trauma. From his injury he's just thinking what am I doing? I'm lost and he's just trying to find peace within himself.
39:24 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, yeah.
39:25 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Two questions. First of all, like we were just talking about all the backdrop, but did you have to do a lot of research, Nancy? Or was it something that you already had that interest in, so you knew a lot about, and then you then had to add to that?
39:36 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I think I had a little bit of knowledge beforehand, but I'm one of those. I love research and I love looking at stuff, and one of my favourite websites is Trove. Oh yeah, which is all the old newspapers. So anything that I didn't know about I would go and look on Trove, and then I would find something else.
It would take me somewhere else. It would take you to another story, to another story, to another story. And then there's a lot of papers being written about war time and the effect of St Americans coming over here. And I have research because of my, through my work, I actually have research access to a lot of libraries too, so I can go and get a bit of a rabbit hole there if I need, but yeah it was just an interest with a little bit of knowledge, and then I just added to it where I needed to in the story.
But even then you can get things wrong. So even very late in the process you can think people would say oh, did this really happen back in 1944?
And even like little things, like I won't give too many spoilers, but towards the end where there's like a magistrate and a judge and I didn't really know the difference and it was one of the editors at Harper Collins to basically point it out to me. Oh, maybe you should just look that out before we finalise this.
40:57 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I think it can be something that somebody else picks up in an instant, but you don't have that ability to be objective about your writing. You're so close to it.
41:29 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I think yeah, what's the thing with historical fiction too, isn't it? There's just the general normal research that you do into things that you don't know about. That exists now, but then in historical times it can be so different or non-existent even.
41:41 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, that's right, I think it's really easy to fall into an anachronism having a modern speech where it didn't exist, for example, ok. He was like OK, it wasn't really commonplace until after the war and that was an American influence essentially.
Before that people didn't really say OK, that much. So here's what you find out about it. I've actually got this great book. I haven't got it here. It's up to Steph S, but it's basically Australian slang dating back to World War I, so initially it was focused on World War I, but I do have other books which talk about Australian slang in particular and the etymology of it like when did it originate? Where was it first said? But you just had to Google things like when did Australian start first using OK as part of their everyday language? Just little things like that. There's a lot of websites that focus on the etymology of that, with any words that you may get, you can just go back and have a look and say mechanism and we're doing the right thing, just a pot of matches a few books that I've got lying around.
42:42 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, love Google. What would we be without it? Now you said you're a planner and you do like to plan things out, so I imagine it was the same with this book, and I know the book has been through numerous kind of iterations and has changed a lot from its original version. But when you're planning like that, how do you go about developing your characters? Do you plan a lot about the characters and their backstory and everything first, or is that something that you find out as you're writing? How does that work for you?
43:10 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Again, that's something. I've probably learned over the last few years because I just was fairly loose with how I did my characters when I first wrote the book, so I didn't really know what I was doing. But as it's gone on, I've started to focus more on the character development before I actually start writing.
So creating GMC - goals, motivation, conflict - for those characters and I think what really helped me was going through the whole process and trying to find out what their wounds were, what was the light? I think the one I really loved is and I was delighted to tell them and how does that result at the end and how does that cause conflict right throughout the book.
I like the sights now, especially for Korean characters because you can actually sit down and do this whole thing. So this is their emotional word. How's that can affect their behaviour and how's what's the line that you're telling yourselves and what do the behaviours associated with that line? How does that affect their interaction with other characters? And it's been really great to actually be able to draw this portrait of a character before you actually write them or write any interactions with any other characters.
44:21 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, look, I was doing exactly that yesterday. I've got to write a novella for next year's anthology Christmas anthology no idea where I was starting. So I thought I'll just start with the character and I went into that character builder on One Stop for Writers.
And the good thing, the thing I love about it too, is even if you don't use exactly what they have there it makes you think about the character that forces you into thinking oh no, that's what I need to know about her, or that's what's going to happen to her. It just pushes you and all the different suggestions that they have there. So many that, yeah, you can easily grab one.
45:06 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Really, I love dialogue, I love writing dialogue and I keep thinking have dialogue between two characters and I like to try and make it sound as natural as possible and I think you've got a character who's got certain personality traits, but they really say that in the conversation and it makes you think about that, like when you sit back and you're looking at, maybe, conflict between two characters and you have one character say something she would never say that, or he would never say that, not certainly out loud. They might think, but they certainly wouldn't say that about them.
It does make you think about every aspect of the character throughout the book or the story and how you're going to develop character over that period. So I think of as Natasha Lescter’s one of the first workshop sayable went through RWA was her plot and story, but she did the whole triangle the calamity of characters specifically for that like that. This is how they're acting now. What's changed here to make them go like?
46:06 - Pamela Cook (Host)
this. I think that's so important, thinking about who your character is at the beginning and then who they are at the end, and then, of course, your story is about how they get to that final place, isn't it? And of course all the stuff that you're doing, preparation for it, if you use one sort of writers or character profiles or whatever. And then you learn more about them once you put them on the page too, don't you?
46:24 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
They start to take on a lot of their own, and I think like I said, with the early draft for head, which needed a lot of work, I remember I had some feedback from someone I know who works for writers in SA and I sent her the first few chapters and she said to me.
She said Nancy, Poppy is coming across as a bit of a victim, like she doesn't seem to have much agency, especially early on in those chapters. You have to give her some agency, Otherwise her character is not going to carry through. People are not. People are going to go. No, I'm not interested in what happens to this character. So I had to do a lot of work on this, especially early on. They will. How am I going to make her? She's quite a passive character in lots of ways, but I needed to make her interesting and I needed to give her agency at some sort in order what the story took for people to stay interested.
47:15 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, and you do that right from the very beginning, because she's the one she's picking Ronnie up and then she's saying no, Ronnie, we're going here, we've got to do this. She's taking control of her life because she has to.
47:26 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
She's on her own.
47:28 - Pamela Cook (Host)
So I think you've done that very well, thank you. So, since you got that kind of yes from HQ Escape Publishing, how has that whole editing process been for you from that point on to the point where it's about to come out?
47:43 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Oh, it's really it was really good. Actually, I think I didn't need a developmental editor or structural editor, because I think I'd be wishing on a for so many years that it was sound, sound and structure. So the first I had was a copy editor and that was really good.
48:00 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It was really fantastic.
48:01 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Actually, the editor, through Harper Collins, was just like laying everything out and there was nothing that I could disagree with that she had put down. So it was really straightforward for me, nothing complicated at all.
48:16 - Pamela Cook (Host)
And as someone who loves to do cover design, I was actually on a Not So Solitary Scribe Zoom call with you, I think when your cover the CROSSING THE BRIDGE came through and I just remember looking at your face and you said I've just got the cover, and it was just like we're all waiting, we're all holding our breath.
48:35 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
And then you were like oh yeah, I looked. You know when that?
48:39 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I set the whole pile of ideas and because I'm like, I love Canva. But I resisted the urge to send in the mind version of what I think the cover should look like because I'm discouraged, because that can probably interfere with how the designers fit in with them. And I remember getting it and just thinking, wow, like that's amazing. And Suzanne, who's my editor, she came back and she said oh, do you love it? And I think I had a lot to say. This is the cover phew.. Love it as much as we do.
But it was, it was perfect. I think the only thing that I wanted to tweet was the haircut and I just locked it up and it was perfect, perfect job.
49:19 - Pamela Cook (Host)
And I added a little quote there from Victoria's and it's really nice, oh, perfect, and of course, just behind you, there your cabinet you've got the print copy there.
49:29 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
But I got the idea. I went to somebody else's launch and she had done something very similar, published with a skate. But it's just a cut, so it's the cover Okay. And then on the back of just the blurb, then there's a little QR code down the bottom. I'm having a launch in January a CWA style afternoon tea. Victoria's going to interview me, so that'd be really great, but I can take these cards and I can actually sign them. So instead of actually having the blog, I can sign the card. So I thought that was a really great idea. So, and the QR code takes you here to half the columns. So the half columns website has links to all the places you can buy digital, like if you've got a code or on Amazon or Google Play and Apple books as well.
50:18 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Yeah, that's such a great idea. I love that the QR code and the QR and good on you for having a launch. I was going to ask you about your launch, so that's really exciting, yeah, so.
50:28 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I haven't planned on doing it because it's on the 1st of January, of course, and I think it's going to be up on the 1st of January. I've lined up with my local library Painting Library and I expected them to do that. We'd love to host you here, and so they're doing all the marketing for us and they'll put on tea and coffee and Victoria's going to come to interview me and three of my friends said we're going to do all the catering. So catering is going to be eat scones and afternoon tea and purple wreaths and cake and things like that. I'm really I'm looking forward to it. It'll be lots of fun.
51:04 - Pamela Cook (Host)
That's exciting. You've got to celebrate it. It's such a big event to attend.
51:08 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Yeah, first, full-length book out there.
51:10 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
It's really exciting.
51:11 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Is that on the 1st of January?
51:14 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
No, that's on the 21st of January.
51:17 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Are you going to zoom that at all?
51:17 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I haven't thought about that, but I could probably do that because I had seen live-streamed. People have live-streamed their launches and stuff, so I made you that I just need to do a bit of theory first.
51:33 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I'm really excited for you, Nancy. It's a great story and you're a fantastic writer, thank you. My other way that you have just worked and worked at your craft and of course we continue to do that, but my final question for you is what do you think is at the heart of your writing?
51:50 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I think for me, at the heart of my writing is the journey, the journey for both the characters and myself as a writer. It's not the end point. Essentially it's that all the bits along the way, because I keep thinking about the storytelling aspect again. It's that great stories that I've loved, I've revisited in my head so many times and it's that journey of that story that has resonated with me and I hope that's come CROSSING THE BRIDGE and anything else that I write.
52:20 - Pamela Cook (Host)
I love that and those moments that make the journey art. Those memorable moments that you keep going back to in the story and thinking about the storytelling.
52:30 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I'm like what am I going to think about tonight? I'll think about that. It's a nice way to just sleep.
52:35 - Pamela Cook (Host)
Sometimes I just stop to sleep doing that. But sometimes your brain gets hooked on the story and you think, oh, this could happen, and then that could happen Definitely the nano story that I'm writing now I'm actually sick in hospital.
52:47 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
When I came up with the idea for this story, and that was a couple of years ago I had been in hospital and with MS. If you have an exacerbation, they give you steroids, but they give you a really massive dose of steroids and you become completely wide. You're like you can't sleep, and so I've been awake. On the second night I was in hospital and I actually dreamed up the whole story then. It's been sitting in the back of my brain for two years now. I've got to put this down at some point. I've got to put this down.
53:16 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It's a little silver lining. It's been ill at that moment.
53:20 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
But I'm so good that you're getting it out.
53:21 - Pamela Cook (Host)
So what's your plan next? Are you going to revise your NaNo, or have you got another novel that you're going back to?
53:26 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I've got another manuscript which is done really well in competitions. It did win the Pacific Hearts Competition and the Romance Writers of New Zealand and that story I did a picture that through the ASA and I've been asked for a full manuscript. So I just need to polish that a little bit. So that'll be my next project. Once nano is finished for the year, and then I think maybe February next year, I'll go back to my current story NaNo story and start working on the second draft and that.
53:59 - Pamela Cook (Host)
You've got a plan to keep your busy.
54:01 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
I do yes, thank you so much, Nancy.
54:05 - Pamela Cook (Host)
It's been such a pleasure chatting to you. I'm going to let you get back to your working day your other working day. And good luck with CROSSING THE BRIDGE. Can't wait for it to get out there and being read as hands.
54:15 - Nancy Cunningham (Guest)
Awesome Thanks, Pam. Thanks for having me on.