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#137 - Kathryn Foxfield
430 Plays1 year ago
Young adult, horror/thriller author, Kathryn Foxfield is here this week telling us all about her latest AI inspired novel 'Getting Away With Murder', being a part of the 'A Taste of Darkness' Anthology and her writing process.
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Transcript
Writing as a Gamble
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:02
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:02
Speaker
Because the writing is sort of everything, right?
00:00:04
Speaker
Like you can fix plot holes, but if the writing... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this.
00:00:11
Speaker
So it's kind of, it's kind of a gamble.
Introduction to Catherine Foxfield
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:17
Speaker
This week I'm joined by a young adult author who writes dark books about strange things.
00:00:25
Speaker
It's Catherine Foxfield.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hi.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hiya.
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome to the show.
00:00:29
Speaker
Such a pleasure to have you.
00:00:31
Speaker
Let's begin, as we often do, with your latest news, your latest publication, Getting Away With Murder, which came out in July.
00:00:39
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about it.
Overview of 'Getting Away With Murder'
00:00:41
Speaker
Okay, well, it's a murderous YA thriller about a rogue AI who traps a group of friends in a high-tech escape room to determine which teenage stereotype will survive the longest in what's basically a literal game of life or death.
00:00:57
Speaker
But unfortunately for the teenagers, one of them is prepared to resort to murder in order to ensure their own survival.
00:01:03
Speaker
So not only do the survivors have to find a way to win the escape room's games and puzzles, but they have to work out which one of them is a killer if they want to make it out alive.
00:01:13
Speaker
Wow, that's such a good pitch.
00:01:15
Speaker
You hit so many notes where it's like, it's going to be funny.
00:01:18
Speaker
It's going to be a murder mystery.
00:01:19
Speaker
It's going to be dramatic.
00:01:20
Speaker
It's going to be like, whodunit.
00:01:22
Speaker
That's so cool.
00:01:23
Speaker
Your books in general, like the kind of creepy, dark thing, that's very much a style of your books.
Influences and Writing Style
00:01:30
Speaker
I mean, if we just read the titles of your books, Good Girls Die First, it's behind you.
00:01:34
Speaker
Tag, you're dead.
00:01:35
Speaker
Come out, come out wherever you are.
00:01:36
Speaker
It's pretty clear what people are getting into when they grab your book.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:43
Speaker
what is it about that kind of dark creepiness that inspires your stories?
00:01:47
Speaker
I've always loved horror and thrillers.
00:01:49
Speaker
I think it's such a fun genre to write in because anything's possible and you get to really find out what your characters are made of because I mean, no one can pretend to be someone they're not when they're,
00:02:00
Speaker
facing a life or death situation.
00:02:02
Speaker
They have to actually show their true self.
00:02:04
Speaker
And I just find that really interesting.
00:02:07
Speaker
And it's just a lot of fun, really.
00:02:10
Speaker
I mean, I think since COVID came along, I've really leant into writing books that are just a bit of escapist fun.
00:02:17
Speaker
I mean, there is a more sort of a deeper message to them, but a lot of them is just over the top characters and slightly silly, ridiculous scenarios and
00:02:27
Speaker
Just something that you can kind of escape into for a few hours and kind of forget about the rest of the world.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, like you were saying just with your latest book, there's an element of you're not taking this too seriously.
Tropes and Humor in YA
00:02:39
Speaker
You've put the most stereotypical teenagers in a room to be sorted, basically.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, I love all of the kind of YA tropes and the kind of sort of John Hughes style film stereotypes.
00:02:54
Speaker
And I like playing with that sort of thing and poking a bit of good natured sort of fun at it.
00:02:59
Speaker
And yeah.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:01
Speaker
Not taking myself too seriously.
00:03:03
Speaker
Whilst of course, also like threatening their lives and like, uh, the lives of people around them.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:10
Speaker
There's a lot of death.
00:03:11
Speaker
There's a big body count.
00:03:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:14
Speaker
Um, so this is, this will be, is this the fifth novel now?
00:03:18
Speaker
Uh, the fourth.
00:03:19
Speaker
The fourth novel.
00:03:20
Speaker
Okay.
Publishing Journey
00:03:21
Speaker
And am I right in thinking your, the, your debut was 2020?
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:03:27
Speaker
So 2020 and then I've had one out every year since then.
00:03:30
Speaker
So it's been a bit of a roller coaster really.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:33
Speaker
I mean, that's, wait, isn't that four novels?
00:03:35
Speaker
Isn't that, you're over three years, no?
00:03:38
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:39
Speaker
Four books in three years?
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:41
Speaker
So one a year.
00:03:41
Speaker
So yeah, three and a bit years.
00:03:43
Speaker
Three and a bit.
00:03:45
Speaker
True.
00:03:46
Speaker
It's quite a sort of regular pace, especially for the, the release rate of books is often tied to the genre and style of the book.
00:03:53
Speaker
And like one a year is kind of the,
00:03:56
Speaker
path of the course, I would say for, for, for sort of YA thrillers like you, right?
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Speaker
Yep.
00:04:00
Speaker
Do you have like a pretty regimented schedule to like keep you on track?
00:04:04
Speaker
No, I don't actually.
00:04:06
Speaker
So I got my book deal the week I found out I was pregnant with my second child.
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Speaker
And so, and so, yeah, it was all quite, um, so it's just the past three years or so have just been a bit hectic and it's all gone by in a blur.
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Speaker
And so I sort of write in the gaps between
00:04:24
Speaker
taking kids to school and dropping children at nursery and during nap times.
00:04:29
Speaker
So yeah, I don't really have a nice structured work life, which I would love.
Finding an Agent
00:04:36
Speaker
maybe when they're a bit older yeah okay yeah children make make that kind of structure much more difficult but speaking of getting signed speaking of where you were at you your literary agent is the the fabulous chloe seager yes presumably that partnership came about before you signed on for your for your debut publication how how did you you and chloe find each other
00:04:59
Speaker
So I've been querying probably for about 10 years.
00:05:02
Speaker
So it's been a long process for me.
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Speaker
And I just wasn't really getting anywhere.
00:05:07
Speaker
And so at the beginning of 2019, I think it was, or 2018, I can't remember now, I decided I was going to try something different.
00:05:14
Speaker
And I started entering some competitions.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I entered the Right Mentor Children's Novel Award and got the sort of the final shortlist.
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Speaker
And Chloe was a judge.
00:05:24
Speaker
So she picked my book as a runner-up.
00:05:27
Speaker
And then kind of a few days later,
00:05:29
Speaker
wanted to talk to me about representing me.
00:05:31
Speaker
So yeah, it all sort of came out of that competition.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:36
Speaker
That's, I mean, I feel like that's such a great, that's one of the great things about those kinds of competitions.
00:05:41
Speaker
And, uh, I've, I've chatted with Stuart and Melissa loads on the podcast.
00:05:45
Speaker
Um, right.
00:05:46
Speaker
Mental does loads of great stuff like that, but that's such an interesting way of like having your book reach an agent where submitting had not worked for you, but then them seeing it in that context for some reason did work.
00:05:57
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:05:58
Speaker
I know.
00:05:58
Speaker
I think there's such a lot of luck involved in finding the right agent.
00:06:01
Speaker
And I was lucky that Chloe was just moving agencies.
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Speaker
So she wanted to sign a lot of people.
00:06:06
Speaker
And she represents the sort of book that I write.
00:06:10
Speaker
And it can be so difficult to get
00:06:12
Speaker
the agent that you want to actually sit down and read your book.
00:06:16
Speaker
So yeah, use any opportunity, I suppose.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
So you have to enter a large competition and get to the final round.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:24
Speaker
And that's how you get it in front of them.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:25
Speaker
That's how to do it.
00:06:26
Speaker
Easy.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah.
Exploring Anthologies and Genres
00:06:29
Speaker
So very exciting that you've had a book out already this year, but that is not...
00:06:35
Speaker
the only publication which will be featuring your, your writing for this year, as you were part of, um, the very exciting anthology, a taste of darkness, which comes out on the 14th of September.
00:06:48
Speaker
How did you get involved with that?
00:06:50
Speaker
Uh, it was Amy McCaw who I sort of know through the YA world.
00:06:54
Speaker
She wrote the wonderful Mina and the undead books.
00:06:58
Speaker
And so I chatted to her at lots of sort of, um, writing conferences and that sort of thing.
00:07:04
Speaker
And so she just asked me if I'd be willing to submit a pitch for the book.
00:07:08
Speaker
And obviously I said yes, because it sounds brilliant.
00:07:11
Speaker
And it's got so many great authors.
00:07:13
Speaker
So I'm really looking forward to that one coming out and seeing what people think of it.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yes, very, very exciting that.
00:07:20
Speaker
And I know with anthologies, it's kind of interesting.
00:07:24
Speaker
So I'm interested to hear that you kind of pitched what is going to be like a short story for that anthology.
00:07:31
Speaker
And I know with especially fantasy anthologies, authors take them as an opportunity to often expand on a part of their setting or give more background to a certain character in their kind of pre-existing universe.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:45
Speaker
Was there kind of, were there a few things that you kind of already wanted to do that you had in mind when you kind of went to pitch some ideas to Amy?
00:07:53
Speaker
So I kind of used it as an opportunity to write something a little bit different.
00:07:58
Speaker
It's still obviously horror because that's what I love.
00:08:02
Speaker
But I would say it's a bit darker and a bit more atmospheric than my normal books.
00:08:07
Speaker
It doesn't have the same sort of humour that my novels have.
00:08:11
Speaker
It's
00:08:11
Speaker
It's a bit more serious, I suppose.
00:08:13
Speaker
And I just wanted an opportunity to sort of get to write outside of my little brand that I've built up over the past few years with my novels.
00:08:22
Speaker
I hope people aren't too surprised by how different it is.
00:08:26
Speaker
We'll see.
00:08:28
Speaker
I guess my next question is, having written that, having sort of flexed some writing muscles that you hadn't explored that much yet, would you want to do that for like a full length novel, like one of your own?
00:08:40
Speaker
Is there kind of other things that you want to explore?
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely think so.
00:08:45
Speaker
I mean, I always used to write fantasy novels.
00:08:48
Speaker
when I was a sort of struggling unpublished writer and I ended up being a horror writer a bit by mistake.
00:08:54
Speaker
I'd written this horror book for a laugh just because I wasn't having any luck with my fantasy and I really enjoyed it and it was a lot of fun and it had all sorts of a bit of humor in it, which I hadn't had in any of my fantasies.
00:09:05
Speaker
And then obviously that was the one that was picked up by Chloe.
00:09:08
Speaker
And so I've now ended up writing more books like that, which is brilliant.
00:09:12
Speaker
But there are a lot of sort of other genres I'd like to write in.
00:09:16
Speaker
I'd like to go back to fantasy.
00:09:17
Speaker
I'd like to write some sort of proper scary monsters, which I sort of focus more on the human monsters in my current books.
00:09:25
Speaker
I'd like to write something really terrifying.
00:09:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:29
Speaker
Would you ever do like a fantasy horror movie?
00:09:33
Speaker
Yes, I hope to.
00:09:35
Speaker
I'm actually not writing anything contracted for the next sort of four or five months.
00:09:40
Speaker
So I get to write whatever I want just for fun.
00:09:43
Speaker
And so for the past few years, I've just been sort of churning out books on contract.
00:09:48
Speaker
And it's quite nice to just have a little bit of a break and I can just write something for fun and see how it goes.
00:09:55
Speaker
When you do things like that, obviously on contracts, I'm imagining you have an editor at Scholastic who you will bounce ideas off.
00:10:04
Speaker
Do you also bounce ideas off Chloe?
Pitching and Writing Process
00:10:07
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:10:07
Speaker
So I'll sort of send them a little pitch and just see whether they think it's something that could sell just based on the pitch.
00:10:14
Speaker
I think my books are quite hooky in that they sort of grab you just by the sort of, oh, an escape room being controlled by an AI.
00:10:22
Speaker
So I need to know whether that is something that they think they can sell before I've even written anything.
00:10:27
Speaker
So I'll show them the pitch and every now and again, they'll say, yeah, write that one.
00:10:31
Speaker
There are lots of others, lots of other ideas that they say, no, don't do that.
00:10:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:37
Speaker
What's the like, what's the initial origin for most of your ideas?
00:10:42
Speaker
Are you the kind of writer that goes for, you kind of come up with a character first and then put them in a situation or do you come up with the situation or the setting first?
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah, I tend to come up with either a setting.
00:10:53
Speaker
I mean, I love settings.
00:10:54
Speaker
So a lot of my books have been inspired by sort of creepy tourist attractions, basically like caves or piers that look a bit haunted from a distance.
00:11:04
Speaker
So I tend to come up with a premise or a setting and then try to work out who would be the worst person to put in that setting.
00:11:13
Speaker
Spend a whole book trapped with this person.
00:11:16
Speaker
So what will give us the most conflict and what will make it the most exciting?
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:21
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:11:22
Speaker
That's a very fantasy writer approach as well, to be like, build up this setting first and then put the characters in.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah, I just love the atmosphere and the world building and sort of creating a whole world.
00:11:33
Speaker
Do all of your books have like sort of supernatural fantastical elements in them?
00:11:37
Speaker
Or obviously the new one is more sort of pseudo-technology based?
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:43
Speaker
So my first one, Good Girls Die First, had a supernatural baddie in it, which was brilliant to write.
00:11:49
Speaker
And then the next two had a hint of a sort of a suggested supernatural element that turned out to mostly be human.
00:11:58
Speaker
So no, at the moment, there isn't really much of a supernatural element to my writing, but I hope to get back to it at some point.
00:12:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:07
Speaker
More of like a supernatural wink as sort of like, yeah, that could be.
Learning and Editing
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, it could be.
00:12:11
Speaker
Is this a ghost that's stalking us or is it just a really angry teenager?
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:18
Speaker
And four books in now, you've sort of, you've done this several times over.
00:12:24
Speaker
How, how different is the kind of experience of publishing and like going through all of those various motions this time around versus the first time you did it?
00:12:37
Speaker
It does get a bit easier as I go along.
00:12:41
Speaker
It's sort of not quite, it's quite a steep learning curve, I'd say, publishing.
00:12:47
Speaker
So sort of writing my second book and having an editor involved and an agent involved in sort of helping me decide what the plot's going to be.
00:12:54
Speaker
It was quite difficult to start off with.
00:12:57
Speaker
And now I'm beginning to feel like I'm getting the hang of it.
00:13:00
Speaker
But I mean, every book has its own challenges.
00:13:03
Speaker
So I still don't exactly find it easy.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, true.
00:13:07
Speaker
I guess at least, you know, the more times you do this, you know what to expect, you know, four books and you kind of know how it's all going to go, like what's going to happen when and what you're going to need to do at what part of the process.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, because there's very sort of specific editing stages that a book goes through.
00:13:24
Speaker
So you've got your structural edits and your line edits and your copy edits and your proofreads.
00:13:27
Speaker
So I've got used to
00:13:30
Speaker
sort of knowing what's expected at every stage now and knowing what I can do at every stage.
00:13:33
Speaker
So I'm not sort of emailing them at the proofread stage and saying, Hey, could we just change this chapter a little bit?
00:13:39
Speaker
That doesn't go down well.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, I can, I can imagine how that, that would upset a few people, which is your, I know that people have kind of different parts of it that they struggle with, which is the most challenging part of those like, um, editing processes.
00:13:55
Speaker
So I really enjoy editing.
00:13:57
Speaker
So once I have a first draft down, I love the whole process.
00:14:01
Speaker
It's getting those initial words down on the page that I find difficult.
00:14:05
Speaker
Right.
00:14:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:08
Speaker
So I sort of have a few months where I'm just trying to sort of get blood out of a stone and kind of get this story out of my head onto the page.
00:14:15
Speaker
And I find that really difficult personally.
00:14:18
Speaker
I know writers who can just sort of sit at their computer and just type it all out.
00:14:21
Speaker
And I'm very jealous of that.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:24
Speaker
Are you someone that plans it then?
00:14:26
Speaker
Are you like a planner or are you a, let's just go for it.
00:14:29
Speaker
And then once it's down on the page, I'm going to kind of polish this into something.
00:14:33
Speaker
I try to plan and planning does make it much easier to write a book because you know where you're going.
00:14:38
Speaker
But I do find that I have to write it to sort of know what I'm trying to say with the book.
00:14:44
Speaker
So I'll tend to have a plan, I'll write it and then I'll rewrite everything once I know what the book is that I'm trying to write.
00:14:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
It's a bit chaotic, really.
00:14:54
Speaker
I'd like a nice sort of streamlined process, but I don't think my brain works that way.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
I mean, I get it.
00:15:01
Speaker
We all work in different ways.
00:15:02
Speaker
Um, there's also, you know, sometimes planning, I imagine this is kind of how you've like, if you over plan, sometimes that kind of takes a lot of the experience out as a writer, where it kind of, you're figuring it out as you, as you go.
00:15:15
Speaker
And then by planning it, you wouldn't have these kind of big emotional reactions sometimes when something happens that you hadn't anticipated, but you thought, oh no, this makes sense.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes you have to sort of be in it and immersed in it to really kind of feel what's going to happen next.
00:15:30
Speaker
And when you're just writing it out as a bullet point list of what's going to happen in a chapter, you lose some of that.
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, yeah, that's 100% I agree with that.
00:15:40
Speaker
I wonder if we could change tack a bit here.
00:15:46
Speaker
I had an interesting question, and you mentioned this earlier just before we started recording.
Social Media and Author Pressure
00:15:51
Speaker
But we talked a little bit about social media.
00:15:55
Speaker
BookTok has, over the last couple of years, made an absolutely huge splash in publishing.
00:16:02
Speaker
But even before that, I do think there was, there's a, I feel like from authors that I've spoken to and just kind of being on Twitter and things, there is a sort of pressure for authors to be active on social media and cultivate large followings.
00:16:18
Speaker
But I know that you're not someone who's sort of, you're not super active on social media.
00:16:23
Speaker
So like, do you think that's true?
00:16:25
Speaker
And like, do you think, do you think that actually having a big social media presence translates to book sales?
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
I think if you're good at it and it's something you love doing, then it can work brilliantly for you.
00:16:38
Speaker
I mean, last year we had 16 Souls by Rosie Talbot coming out.
00:16:42
Speaker
The big reason that that did well was because she's just absolutely brilliant at TikTok.
00:16:47
Speaker
And she was going to self-publish her book and then it was picked up by Scholastic because she did such a good job at promoting it herself in advance of its release.
00:16:56
Speaker
So if you're good at that and it's...
00:17:00
Speaker
Something that you can kind of, if you're good at sort of engaging with the people who are on TikTok and the readers on TikTok, then it can be brilliant.
00:17:06
Speaker
But I don't think you can just sort of manufacture that out of nowhere.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:11
Speaker
I find it a bit cringy, the idea of me going on TikTok and being like, hey, kids, I'm one of you, and trying to kind of sell my book that way.
00:17:20
Speaker
And a lot of TikTok is all about sort of readers telling other readers about books.
00:17:26
Speaker
I mean, there isn't that much where it's authors telling readers about their books.
00:17:30
Speaker
And I kind of personally feel like I'm just going to leave them to it and not sort of trying to get involved.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:38
Speaker
But, and equally, you know, your books are also selling well.
00:17:42
Speaker
So it's, I guess it's, it's one of those things where it's a great option to have if you are in, into that kind of thing, if you're excited by that kind of thing.
00:17:53
Speaker
But yeah, I totally agree.
00:17:54
Speaker
You can see sometimes when someone isn't comfortable using those platforms and is sort of either being like pressured into using them or like they feel like they need to, so they're trying, but it's, it doesn't, it doesn't quite translate.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, when I got my first deal, I was a bit like, oh my goodness, I'm going to have to get on Twitter now and start actually talking about my books in public.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I did try, but I don't think platforms like Twitter or Instagram necessarily sell that many books.
00:18:22
Speaker
It's a great way to meet other authors and to meet people who love books.
00:18:27
Speaker
But I don't know whether there are that many books that have sold just because their authors are brilliant at social media.
00:18:33
Speaker
I think it's quite rare, to be honest.
00:18:35
Speaker
I think you can be successful without being on social media.
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:18:40
Speaker
I think that's, that's totally true.
00:18:42
Speaker
Um, I think you, you're right.
00:18:44
Speaker
It's, it's unlikely to translate to direct sales, um, your kind of popularity on a social media platform, but who knows in this day and age, it's not even called Twitter anymore.
00:18:55
Speaker
So no, that's true.
00:18:56
Speaker
But I refuse to, I refuse to change.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:19:01
Speaker
I won't change until all the big companies change.
00:19:03
Speaker
I go on any like website I go on, they still will have the Twitter thing.
00:19:06
Speaker
So I'm like, I'm not going to change until that changes on like everywhere.
00:19:10
Speaker
Because no one knows what you mean when you say, oh, follow me on X. And everyone's like, oh, just follow me on Twitter.
Advice for Aspiring Authors
00:19:20
Speaker
Before we get to the final and very difficult question of the episode, I'd love to ask about some advice as someone who not only have you published four books, you've been sort of an active author for some years now.
00:19:38
Speaker
You also, as you said, were on sub for about 10 years and kind of tried a lot of different things.
00:19:44
Speaker
um what advice would you give um authors who are looking to get their their work in front of agents or publishers trying to kind of break into the industry it's it's getting harder and harder actually to sort of find an agent at the moment i know people who are submitting and they're not even getting any sort of form rejections from agents like i used to get there just it's complete silence so i think
00:20:09
Speaker
My big bit of advice is to not sort of tie your self-worth to getting a book published and to just remember to try and write for the love of it because nothing's guaranteed.
00:20:19
Speaker
I think that sounds quite cynical and negative, but yeah, there's no guarantees in this industry.
00:20:26
Speaker
So you have to remember to just write the things you love and enjoy the process of writing them.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, I was actually reading that as a positive thing.
00:20:33
Speaker
I was thinking, hey, that's a very healthy.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:35
Speaker
Don't tie your self-worth to the success of, you know, one piece of writing that you've done.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:41
Speaker
Keep writing, keep enjoying it, keep putting out new stuff.
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah, just keep trying new things, really.
00:20:47
Speaker
Don't be scared to give up on one project and start something new.
00:20:50
Speaker
I think that's something I found hard in the past.
00:20:53
Speaker
When you put so much effort into one thing, you don't want to let it go.
00:20:56
Speaker
But sometimes you have to move on.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:58
Speaker
And I mean, look at your experience, for example, you predominantly wrote fantasy and then you moved into a sort of fun, horror, mystery genre.
00:21:08
Speaker
And here you are.
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:10
Speaker
You have to find your own voice, I suppose, and find what it is that you're good at.
00:21:14
Speaker
Exactly.
00:21:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:15
Speaker
Always good to experiment with new genres and styles and things like that, I think.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
Even if you don't stick with them, there's so much to learn by trying a different way of writing.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:21:27
Speaker
Have a bit of fun with it.
00:21:28
Speaker
And that brings us to the final question of the episode, which as always is a very difficult one to answer.
Desert Island Book Choice
00:21:36
Speaker
Catherine, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book would it be?
00:21:44
Speaker
So I've thought about this and it's a very difficult question, but I think at the moment my choice would be Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, just because I loved it so much when I first read it and I haven't read it for years.
00:21:57
Speaker
And then I've watched the TV series and I love them as well.
00:22:01
Speaker
So yeah, I'm going to go with Good Omens.
00:22:03
Speaker
I think that'll keep me going for a while.
00:22:05
Speaker
It's one of my favourites.
00:22:06
Speaker
Terry Pratchett's one of my all-time favourites.
00:22:07
Speaker
Also a big fan of Neil Gaiman.
00:22:09
Speaker
Good Omens is just, it's such a good, such a good book.
00:22:13
Speaker
It's great.
00:22:13
Speaker
It's two of the greats together because Neil Gaiman's always been one of my favourite authors.
00:22:17
Speaker
I love his kind of dark imagination.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:21
Speaker
And then Terry Pratchett's sort of nonsensical whimsy, which somehow... I know.
00:22:25
Speaker
It's just sort of, I don't know how he used to come up with his ideas.
00:22:28
Speaker
It's just brilliant.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:30
Speaker
And so wholesome as well.
00:22:31
Speaker
You know, even in the sort of darkest time, it's like there's always a wholesome angle to Terry Pratchett's work.
00:22:36
Speaker
And I recently watched the season two of the television series, which I was apprehensive about because as a big fan of the book, you're like, okay, well, the season one was book one.
00:22:46
Speaker
And then it's like, oh, they're doing season two.
00:22:48
Speaker
And I was like, oh, God.
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, it was different season two.
00:22:52
Speaker
I was quite sad, but I did love it.
00:22:55
Speaker
Because I knew that Neil Gaiman was heavily involved in the sort of writing and the production.
00:23:01
Speaker
I very much appreciated how, because I saw an interview with the two of them once where I think I read the interview as I read in the back.
00:23:09
Speaker
And they very much the sort of children's, just William stuff was all written by Terry Pratchett.
00:23:17
Speaker
And then all of the, all of the Crawley and Aziraphale stuff was mostly Neil Gaiman, but then they kind of, they swapped and edited their stuff and then gave it back.
00:23:29
Speaker
So I watching season two, I was like, oh, this makes sense because obviously you're not writing it with Terry Pratchett.
00:23:35
Speaker
So yeah, that's true.
00:23:36
Speaker
Actually, I do feel like it's sort of more focused on that side of things.
00:23:40
Speaker
I can see why now.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, which is the Neil Gaiman influence of it.
00:23:43
Speaker
But it was great.
00:23:44
Speaker
I loved it.
00:23:44
Speaker
I thought it was fantastic.
00:23:45
Speaker
And that's a great choice.
00:23:47
Speaker
I thoroughly approve of this edition to the library.
00:23:52
Speaker
Amazing.
00:23:52
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Catherine, for coming on the podcast, telling us about what you've been working on, what you are working on, and just kind of your experiences in publishing.
Conclusion and Social Media
00:24:03
Speaker
It's been really, really fun chatting with you.
00:24:05
Speaker
It's been brilliant.
00:24:06
Speaker
Thank you very much for having me.
00:24:08
Speaker
And for anyone listening, if you want to keep up with what Catherine is doing, you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at Catherine Foxfield.
00:24:16
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow along on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
00:24:21
Speaker
You can support the show on Patreon.
00:24:23
Speaker
And for more Bookish Chat, check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:24:27
Speaker
Thanks again to Catherine and thanks to everyone listening.
00:24:30
Speaker
We'll catch you on the next episode.