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#79 - Julie Cohen
420 Plays2 years ago
Julie Cohen has pubilshed almost thirty books, sold over a million, taught and lectured creative writing across the world and is currently vice president of the Romantic Novelist Association to name but a few of the incredible things she's done. We talk all about her new book 'Summer People' as well as her amazing journey and experience over twenty years of writing and publishing. She tells us all about what's changed and what has stayed the same like the "suckage" point, which she hits with every book she writes. An amazing episode for any aspiring writers looking to hear about the behind the scenes of it all.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi guys, quick one before we get into the episode.
00:00:02
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by Zencaster, which is the production suite that I've used from the very beginning of this podcast.
00:00:06
Speaker
And if you're interested in starting your own podcast, hang around at the end of the episode for our 30% discount referral code.
00:00:12
Speaker
Thanks.
Podcast Title and Secrets to Publishing
00:00:13
Speaker
So our podcast is called Right and Wrong.
00:00:15
Speaker
Are these your notes?
00:00:16
Speaker
Are these your notes about what we're going to say?
00:00:19
Speaker
Anything.
00:00:19
Speaker
It's a short answer.
00:00:21
Speaker
So how many novels did you not finish?
00:00:24
Speaker
Oh my God, so many.
00:00:26
Speaker
It was perfect.
00:00:27
Speaker
What's she talking about?
00:00:28
Speaker
This is not a difficult one.
00:00:30
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:32
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:33
Speaker
This is it, guys.
00:00:34
Speaker
The big secret to getting published is you have to write a good book.
00:00:38
Speaker
You heard it here first.
Meet Julie Cohen
00:00:42
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:45
Speaker
I'm Jamie and I'm very lucky to be joined today by a million copy best-selling author and vice president of the Romantic Novelists Association, the one and only Julie Cohen.
00:00:58
Speaker
Hi, Jamie.
00:00:59
Speaker
Hi.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to the show.
00:01:00
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:01
Speaker
I'm very happy to be here.
00:01:02
Speaker
And it's nice of you to call me the one and only.
00:01:05
Speaker
There are a few other Julie Cohens around, notably an Oscar-nominated film producer who did a film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which is extraordinary.
00:01:19
Speaker
Oh, it's nice that you are researching other famous Julies, Julie Cohens.
00:01:24
Speaker
I get her emails sometimes.
00:01:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:01:28
Speaker
I like to keep up to date with her work, but her work is fantastic.
00:01:31
Speaker
So do check her out too.
00:01:33
Speaker
Oh, that's great.
00:01:34
Speaker
Nice little plug for a fellow Julie Cohen.
00:01:38
Speaker
We're all great.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like it.
00:01:40
Speaker
Let's focus
Julie Cohen on 'Summer People'
00:01:41
Speaker
on you.
00:01:41
Speaker
Let's talk about you.
00:01:43
Speaker
You've been, I mean, you've been writing professionally for a long time now.
00:01:47
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:48
Speaker
Two dozen books out at this point around that number.
00:01:52
Speaker
And the new one coming out August 4th.
00:01:55
Speaker
Tell us about Summer People.
00:01:58
Speaker
So Summer People is out in hardback on the 4th of August and also audiobook and ebook.
00:02:04
Speaker
And it is set on a remote island off the coast of Maine, which I'm from Maine, as you can tell from my accent.
00:02:13
Speaker
It's set on a remote island off the coast of Maine called Unity, where there are no cars and where the core community is about 60 people year round.
00:02:23
Speaker
But every summer, there's an influx of rich, well-off summer people who really drive the economy of the island.
00:02:31
Speaker
And the story is a love story.
00:02:34
Speaker
between two women who fall passionately and madly in love with each other when they meet on the island.
00:02:42
Speaker
One of them is a current resident of the island and one of them is a former resident of the island who's come back as a summer person.
00:02:50
Speaker
But the problem is that they're both married to other people.
00:02:54
Speaker
That is an issue.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
And you're a member, an advocate of the LGBTQ plus community.
00:03:04
Speaker
So is there a sort of autobiographical element to some of this, the experience?
00:03:10
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:03:15
Speaker
I wrote this book soon after getting divorced.
00:03:19
Speaker
And this book is not just about an affair.
00:03:23
Speaker
It is also the story of two marriages and what goes wrong in those two marriages.
00:03:28
Speaker
So...
00:03:30
Speaker
In that aspect, I think there's some autobiography involved.
00:03:34
Speaker
That is, I was thinking about the lack of communication between married people, the things that can go wrong between two people who actually very much care about each other.
Personal Insights and LGBTQ+ Advocacy
00:03:44
Speaker
So I think that aspect is autobiographical.
00:03:48
Speaker
The affair itself is pure fantasy on my part.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:54
Speaker
Because I did not have an affair while I was married.
00:03:59
Speaker
That's good.
00:04:00
Speaker
But part of it is both of these women are coming out at later stages in their life.
00:04:06
Speaker
They're in their 30s, early 40s.
00:04:08
Speaker
And that did actually happen to me.
00:04:10
Speaker
I came out as bisexual publicly in my mid 40s.
00:04:15
Speaker
So I think that wrestling with that aspect of yourself that maybe you didn't have the time or the space or the ability to...
00:04:23
Speaker
express and confront when you're a younger person and then coming to it later in life when you everybody thinks you should be settled that is uh quite autobiographical and something that i have experienced myself yeah well i mean write what you know so very um it's very authentic and compelling the way the way you tell it thank you
00:04:45
Speaker
And I mentioned that you are an advocate for the community.
00:04:50
Speaker
As part of your involvement with the RNA, you founded the Rainbow Chapter.
00:04:56
Speaker
What is that?
00:04:57
Speaker
So the RNA is the Romantic Novelist Association, and we're a professional organization of people who write relationship fiction.
00:05:06
Speaker
It's not necessarily romance fiction.
00:05:08
Speaker
My story, Summer People, is not a romance novel.
00:05:11
Speaker
It's a love story, but not a romance novel.
00:05:14
Speaker
And so it's about relationship fiction.
00:05:16
Speaker
And
00:05:18
Speaker
The Rainbow Chapter is a subgroup of the RNA about people who either identify as LGBTQIA+, or who write stories about people who identify that way.
00:05:32
Speaker
So it's a really nice, safe space within that community.
00:05:37
Speaker
The cliches of romantic fiction is that it's between a man and a woman.
00:05:43
Speaker
And there are so many more possibilities for romance and love in this world.
00:05:49
Speaker
And we wanted to make sure that we were representative of all our members and also of all the stories that are being told.
00:05:55
Speaker
That's great.
00:05:55
Speaker
That's a wonderful initiative.
00:05:58
Speaker
Thank you.
00:05:58
Speaker
We marched in Pride this year and then the one before that with under the banner, Love Stories Are For Everyone.
00:06:06
Speaker
And it was great because we were marching and people would go, what?
00:06:10
Speaker
Romantic Novelist Association?
00:06:12
Speaker
What the heck is that?
00:06:13
Speaker
And then they would see our banner saying Love Stories Are For Everyone.
00:06:16
Speaker
And you could actually see, you know, people in the crowd going, oh, yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:21
Speaker
Queer books.
00:06:22
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
00:06:25
Speaker
And it sounds like a lot of fun as well.
00:06:27
Speaker
It is.
00:06:27
Speaker
It's really, we have a really good time.
00:06:29
Speaker
I always say that our chapter is the most fun, but I'm sure, you know, I'm a little bit biased.
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah.
Understanding Romance Genres
00:06:35
Speaker
And I noticed that you were talking about the classifications of books just now.
00:06:41
Speaker
And you said it's a, it's a, some of people is a love story, not a romance story.
00:06:46
Speaker
What's the main distinction though?
00:06:49
Speaker
Well, a genre of romance story is usually between two people who are not generally married to other people.
00:06:56
Speaker
Generally, they're single or recently single.
00:07:02
Speaker
The reader expects a certain type of story and to have a certain type of ending.
00:07:10
Speaker
genre romance is a very specific genre and it has really strong reader expectations of what they want to read.
00:07:17
Speaker
And if you market your story as a romance and it doesn't have those expectations met, your reader will be very disappointed.
00:07:26
Speaker
So I like to make a distinction between romance fiction and romantic fiction or relationship fiction or a love story, because a love story can have any type of ending.
00:07:36
Speaker
There can be a tragic ending or happy ending or the
00:07:40
Speaker
characters or three characters or however many might not end up together.
00:07:44
Speaker
A love story can be between more than two people.
00:07:48
Speaker
Or there can be complications.
00:07:49
Speaker
There can be several love stories within it, which I think some are people has.
00:07:53
Speaker
It's also the story of two marriages as well as the story of a new love.
00:08:00
Speaker
And also the story of the past relationships too.
00:08:02
Speaker
So
00:08:04
Speaker
Love story is much broader than romantic fiction and romantic fiction is much broader than genre romance, which has very specific criteria.
00:08:14
Speaker
So like a cozy mystery would have very specific criteria or a spy thriller would have very specific criteria.
Beginning in Publishing with Mills and Boone
00:08:23
Speaker
It's a genre within itself with reader expectations.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker
No, that, that makes perfect sense.
00:08:28
Speaker
You don't want to be reading your, um, spy thriller and then suddenly aliens invade.
00:08:34
Speaker
Exactly.
00:08:35
Speaker
Exactly.
00:08:35
Speaker
The reader would be really annoyed with that and throw the book against the wall.
00:08:39
Speaker
And that's something we like to avoid as authors.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
Don't set people up with the wrong expectation.
00:08:46
Speaker
That's very wise words.
00:08:48
Speaker
And Summer of People is out August 4th.
00:08:51
Speaker
You can pre-order it right now.
00:08:53
Speaker
Let's dial it back a bit to when you were, I mean, it's a while ago now, 2006, which I think is the year that you published your very first novel.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah, but it's even farther back than that because I sold my first novel in 2004.
00:09:07
Speaker
Oh, and it wasn't published till 2006?
00:09:11
Speaker
And it wasn't published until 2006.
00:09:12
Speaker
And actually, I sold one novel in 2004 and then very quickly sold five more.
00:09:21
Speaker
So I had six novels published in 2006.
00:09:23
Speaker
Wow.
00:09:25
Speaker
Was it six?
00:09:26
Speaker
No, it was five.
00:09:27
Speaker
Sorry, five novels published in 2006.
00:09:30
Speaker
And I had a child.
00:09:32
Speaker
But that was two years and concurrent nine months in the making.
00:09:40
Speaker
Because I sold my first book in 2004, and then just right before that, I had signed with an agent.
00:09:47
Speaker
I actually sold my first six books to Mills and Boone.
00:09:51
Speaker
And those are genre romance novels, which is why I really talk about the difference between a romance and a love story.
00:09:58
Speaker
So I sold my first six books to Mills and Boone, but I...
00:10:02
Speaker
had signed with an agent before that for standalone romantic comedies.
00:10:06
Speaker
And I was writing those for headline.
00:10:09
Speaker
And because they were both the initial books in new imprints for both publishers, it took a little while to get those off the ground.
00:10:19
Speaker
So even though I sold my first book in 2004, I just kept on writing.
00:10:22
Speaker
I kept on writing.
00:10:23
Speaker
So I had a real backlog.
00:10:25
Speaker
They finally hit the shelves.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:27
Speaker
Wow.
00:10:28
Speaker
So you must be, you must be, do you sort of keep up that pace nowadays?
00:10:32
Speaker
Do you, are you always writing something?
00:10:35
Speaker
Oh my God, no.
00:10:36
Speaker
I'm middle-aged now.
00:10:37
Speaker
So yeah, no way.
00:10:40
Speaker
And I'm a mom.
00:10:41
Speaker
I did all of that.
00:10:42
Speaker
I mean, some of it I did when I was pregnant, but I did all of that before I was a, before I was a parent.
00:10:47
Speaker
I was working full-time as a teacher while I was doing all of that, but that left more emotional energy for writing than being a parent did.
00:10:56
Speaker
Sure.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, I can understand that.
00:10:59
Speaker
So you said you sold some books to Mills and Boone, but then after that, you signed with an agent to write a book for Headline.
00:11:10
Speaker
So was that a direct thing with Mills and Boone where you had pitched directly to them to publish the works?
00:11:16
Speaker
There was no agent involved?
00:11:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:18
Speaker
Well, I had been trying to write.
00:11:19
Speaker
So as a new writer, I was pretty stupid.
00:11:24
Speaker
And I see they always say write what you love to read.
00:11:28
Speaker
And I love to read everything.
00:11:31
Speaker
I really am very wide in my reading tastes.
00:11:35
Speaker
And so it was difficult for me to decide what it is that I should write.
00:11:39
Speaker
I knew that I wanted to write, but I didn't know what.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I
00:11:44
Speaker
So I decided to try to write for Mills and Boone because I used to read them because on holiday, I used to flip straight to the sex scenes, to be honest.
00:11:57
Speaker
And so I thought I would try to write for them because they are short.
00:12:00
Speaker
You didn't need an agent.
00:12:02
Speaker
They're only about 50,000 words.
00:12:03
Speaker
You didn't need an agent.
00:12:04
Speaker
The expectations are very clear.
00:12:06
Speaker
Some people say they're formulaic, but it's more that the expectations are very clear.
00:12:10
Speaker
You need a certain type of ending.
00:12:13
Speaker
You need a certain type of story.
00:12:14
Speaker
And they're very limited.
00:12:16
Speaker
There's only two people involved.
00:12:17
Speaker
They're very limited subplots and secondary characters.
00:12:21
Speaker
So I thought, gosh, that's got to be really easy to do.
00:12:25
Speaker
So I'm going to write one of those because it's going to be so easy.
00:12:28
Speaker
And then maybe I'll write some other stuff.
00:12:29
Speaker
But spoiler alert, it is really, really, really not easy to write for Mills and Boone.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:37
Speaker
It is very difficult because the reader expectations are so specific.
00:12:43
Speaker
And also because the readers of these novels don't just read one, they read a lot of them.
00:12:51
Speaker
So you have to be fresh and interesting and
00:12:55
Speaker
whilst still hitting all the correct beats and emotions and structural elements.
00:13:02
Speaker
So it's quite difficult to write a Mills and Boone novel.
00:13:06
Speaker
Very difficult to write a Mills and Boone novel.
00:13:08
Speaker
And so I had to write several of them before I even got close to that.
00:13:13
Speaker
So I was writing, I wrote five novels, manuscripts targeted at Mills and Boone, and they all failed except for the fourth, which was long-listed in a competition.
00:13:27
Speaker
And because I'd written five and they all failed, I was like, no, forget this.
00:13:31
Speaker
I'm going to try to write something else.
00:13:33
Speaker
So I wrote a standalone romantic comedy.
Transition to Full-Time Writing
00:13:37
Speaker
and pitch that to agents.
00:13:39
Speaker
And I actually signed with my agent pretty much exactly one month before I sold my first book to Mills & Boone.
00:13:46
Speaker
And I remember calling my agent and saying, hi, I just got a contract with Mills & Boone.
00:13:50
Speaker
And she said, oh no, oh no.
00:13:54
Speaker
I'm trying to pitch you as a standalone writer.
00:13:56
Speaker
I was like, no, that's fine.
00:13:57
Speaker
That's fine.
00:13:57
Speaker
I can do both.
00:14:00
Speaker
At which I did for a while.
00:14:02
Speaker
I wrote both.
00:14:03
Speaker
But the great thing about writing for Mills and Boone, because I wrote so many so quickly, I
00:14:08
Speaker
was that I was able to make some money.
00:14:11
Speaker
It was better paid back then in the early 2000s.
00:14:14
Speaker
I was able to make enough money to give up my teaching job and write full time because I had six books published in one year.
00:14:23
Speaker
Or is it five books?
00:14:24
Speaker
God, I have to count.
00:14:25
Speaker
Sorry.
00:14:27
Speaker
It's six.
00:14:27
Speaker
It was my first five mils and boons and one with headline.
00:14:32
Speaker
So I was able to become a full time writer relatively quickly because I had so many published at once.
00:14:38
Speaker
Well, that's amazing.
00:14:39
Speaker
And then I only wrote one more book for Mills and Boone and then I concentrated more in my standalone career with my agent.
00:14:45
Speaker
Right.
00:14:46
Speaker
And is that the same agent that you are currently with?
00:14:48
Speaker
It is.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:49
Speaker
I've been with her since 2004.
00:14:50
Speaker
Wow.
00:14:51
Speaker
Well, that's great.
00:14:53
Speaker
It's nice to hear that, you know, you've obviously got a really good partnership going.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
It's outlasted my marriage.
00:15:01
Speaker
Well, there you go.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:05
Speaker
Communication and mutual respect, Jamie.
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:09
Speaker
That's, it's actually a funny thing.
00:15:10
Speaker
Cause I was, I've, I've had, um, a number of editors on the show and, um,
00:15:17
Speaker
even though most of the time the contact between an editor and author is not going to be as much as an author and an agent.
00:15:22
Speaker
But I have said that the relationship between an editor and author sort of goes very deep very quickly because you have to sort of jump straight away into a point where you're being very honest with each other, more so than in like most other relationships.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yep.
00:15:40
Speaker
And very vulnerable.
00:15:41
Speaker
You have to be very vulnerable with this person.
00:15:43
Speaker
It's slightly uneven because I do think that the author is more vulnerable than anybody else in this situation.
00:15:50
Speaker
But also, in an ideal world, they have the most power and control as well.
00:15:56
Speaker
In an ideal world.
00:15:57
Speaker
Theoretically, they do, yeah.
00:16:01
Speaker
Getting back to you.
00:16:02
Speaker
So 2004, you sold your first books.
Evolving Writing Process
00:16:08
Speaker
You've been writing a long, long time though.
00:16:10
Speaker
How much has your process and approach to writing changed since then?
00:16:15
Speaker
A lot.
00:16:16
Speaker
It really has changed a lot.
00:16:20
Speaker
I have evolved a lot of techniques.
00:16:24
Speaker
My books have changed substantially.
00:16:26
Speaker
The early books, the Mills and Boons, but also my early rom-coms were very straightforward.
00:16:33
Speaker
They had a very straightforward structure.
00:16:36
Speaker
I think fairly straightforward conflicts.
00:16:38
Speaker
They were mostly
00:16:40
Speaker
my stand standalone romantic comedies were mostly first person.
00:16:44
Speaker
So there was only really one protagonist.
00:16:47
Speaker
Um, and as I've gone on, my books have become much more complex structurally and also, uh, thematically.
00:16:55
Speaker
So, um,
00:16:58
Speaker
I will have – Summer People has four point of view characters, for example.
00:17:02
Speaker
I wrote a book called Together, which was told backwards.
00:17:06
Speaker
I wrote a book called The Two Lives of Louis and Louise, where it's set in two different universes with the same character, except the same character is a different gender in each universe.
00:17:16
Speaker
So they've become, and I've been looking at subjects, not just about romance, but, you know, I look at subjects such as marriage and grief and alcoholism and faith and gender and sexuality.
00:17:28
Speaker
And so the scope of them thematically and structurally is,
00:17:39
Speaker
in the craft has changed a lot from when I first started out, when I would just sort of sit down, design the characters and just go for it.
00:17:47
Speaker
Now I really have to plan in advance.
00:17:50
Speaker
I have to think a lot about the ups and downs of the narrative.
00:17:53
Speaker
I have to think a lot about the theme and their interrelation between plot and subplot.
00:18:00
Speaker
And again, it comes down to reader expectations, but sort of how my reader is going to react to certain ideas and certain concepts and certain like the endings and how the book is put together.
00:18:14
Speaker
So I think I've learned a huge amount of
00:18:18
Speaker
through writing, I've really sort of done my apprenticeship in public by just writing and, but trying to push myself with every single book I write to do something different.
00:18:30
Speaker
That's going to be interesting to me, not just in the characters, but also in the, um, in the execution and the concepts.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:41
Speaker
I've wrote a historical novel.
00:18:42
Speaker
My last novel was a historical novel set in the Victorian period called Spirited.
00:18:46
Speaker
So, um,
00:18:48
Speaker
They've all taken slightly different techniques of planning and techniques of research and techniques of putting them together.
00:18:58
Speaker
But I am much more systematic and thoughtful and...
00:19:06
Speaker
I plan a lot in advance before I even start, which I never used to do.
00:19:13
Speaker
And that is, that's partly because I am a lot older now and my memory is really, really bad.
00:19:22
Speaker
And then partly because it is just so much more complicated that I have to.
00:19:27
Speaker
Like I was planning out, I'm writing a book now, obviously I'm always writing a book.
00:19:33
Speaker
And I, I,
00:19:35
Speaker
I couldn't work out what was going to happen.
00:19:37
Speaker
I'm quite early in the book, but I couldn't work out what was going to happen in the chapter.
00:19:41
Speaker
And then I went away and came back.
00:19:44
Speaker
Four days later, I went to Harrogate Crime Writing Festival.
00:19:47
Speaker
When I came back, I was like, oh no, what was supposed to happen in this chapter?
00:19:50
Speaker
I've completely forgotten.
00:19:51
Speaker
But fortunately, I had put a line of Post-its on my wall in my office that told me exactly what was going to happen.
00:19:58
Speaker
So I was able to just sit down and go, oh yeah, that, and then carry on writing.
00:20:02
Speaker
Oh, perfect.
00:20:03
Speaker
So it sounds like you enjoy experimenting with different sort of styles and settings, but at the same time as time has gone by, even though you are changing some things, you've sort of developed a well-oiled machine in terms of the process.
00:20:21
Speaker
Well, you say well-oiled machine, and it might look like that from outside, but I think writers all know that
00:20:31
Speaker
you can stumble at any stage of the process.
00:20:36
Speaker
The reason why a process is such a good thing is so that it gives you something to do when things aren't going well.
00:20:43
Speaker
But then if things aren't really going well, you have to make up a whole new process.
00:20:47
Speaker
And the process for every book is slightly different.
00:20:50
Speaker
Sometimes I can, not often, but I have been able to just sit down and write.
00:20:54
Speaker
Sometimes a character appears that is so strong and they just lead the story.
00:20:59
Speaker
Other times it's been more about a concept that's leading the story or a plot element that's leading the story.
00:21:06
Speaker
So you have to reinvent yourself with every single book, not just in what you're writing about, but how you write it.
00:21:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's really a great way to approach it.
00:21:19
Speaker
You're sort of learning a whole new skill set with each story because every story is from scratch.
00:21:25
Speaker
It hasn't existed before.
00:21:26
Speaker
You are creating something brand new.
00:21:28
Speaker
And there are things that happen in the process of writing almost every single book.
00:21:34
Speaker
And they're sort of predictable.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:38
Speaker
there'll be a point between 40 to 60,000 words in when I am sure that the book is really, really, really, really bad and I should give it up and get a job.
00:21:49
Speaker
I'd quite like to get a job in John Lewis actually.
00:21:51
Speaker
So I mean, hi, and I want a nice place to work.
00:21:55
Speaker
I don't just want to, and that happens every time.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:59
Speaker
I think it's a very relatable experience for most authors.
00:22:05
Speaker
But it always takes me by surprise, you know?
00:22:08
Speaker
even after 20 plus books?
00:22:11
Speaker
Almost always.
00:22:12
Speaker
I have to, I go to my writers.
00:22:13
Speaker
This is why it's so good to have friends who are writers.
00:22:16
Speaker
Cause I go to my writer friends and they say, uh, Oh, you've reached that point, Julie.
00:22:21
Speaker
Oh, so it's coming along well then.
00:22:24
Speaker
Right on schedule.
00:22:26
Speaker
Or I'll go, I'll like be writing something.
00:22:28
Speaker
I'll be, Oh my God, I haven't reached the bad.
00:22:30
Speaker
I haven't, I call it the suckage point.
00:22:32
Speaker
I haven't reached the suckage point yet where my book really sucks.
00:22:36
Speaker
And, and,
00:22:37
Speaker
They're like, that's great.
00:22:38
Speaker
And I'm like, no, no, it's coming.
00:22:41
Speaker
What if I'm doing it wrong?
00:22:42
Speaker
Trying to speed it up.
00:22:45
Speaker
If I can get through it now, then it's fine.
00:22:49
Speaker
Well, the thing is, what if it doesn't come?
00:22:51
Speaker
That really makes me worry.
00:22:54
Speaker
That's like the Dunning-Kruger effect, right?
00:22:56
Speaker
What if it's so bad that I don't even realize that it's bad?
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:01
Speaker
Well, I guess it's reassuring for all of the aspiring writers and debut novelists out there to know that you, someone who has sold millions of books and has put almost 30 out into the world now, still gets that every single time.
00:23:17
Speaker
Every single time.
00:23:18
Speaker
Every single time without fail and in different ways.
00:23:20
Speaker
I think one of the strengths of writers is finding creative ways to torture ourselves.
00:23:27
Speaker
That's what writing is, isn't it?
00:23:29
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:30
Speaker
To torture yourself and imaginary people.
00:23:33
Speaker
Exactly.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah.
Early Writing Inspirations
00:23:36
Speaker
I did just want to mention that I was on your website and I saw in your bio, you wrote your very first novel, age 11, which is absolutely incredible.
00:23:50
Speaker
It wasn't a published novel.
00:23:52
Speaker
Well, obviously it wasn't published, but I'm saying just to have the conviction at that age to finish a novel.
00:23:59
Speaker
I sometimes struggle with conviction, you know, as a grown man to finish a novel.
00:24:04
Speaker
Just to be able to have done that 11 is absolutely mind-blowing to me.
00:24:08
Speaker
But 11 is before you get scared.
00:24:11
Speaker
Fearless, that's what it was.
00:24:13
Speaker
Fearless.
00:24:14
Speaker
And this is another thing I say about writing is that the process of writing is finding ways of ignoring the fear.
00:24:24
Speaker
Every novelist, any writer who is...
00:24:29
Speaker
writing well has some fear of what they're doing, that they're going to get it wrong, that it's going to fail, that, that they've made a horrific mistake, that they suck suddenly.
00:24:40
Speaker
And I think we all have that fear.
00:24:42
Speaker
Most of us have this fear.
00:24:44
Speaker
Most good writers have this fear.
00:24:46
Speaker
And,
00:24:48
Speaker
When I was 11, I did not have that fear.
00:24:51
Speaker
I was like, yeah, no, I'm going to write this.
00:24:53
Speaker
I'm having a great time.
00:24:55
Speaker
I was writing it in a notebook in cursive and I was drawing all the little maps to go with it.
00:25:01
Speaker
Oh my God, it was terrible.
00:25:06
Speaker
It was like a gender flipped wizard versity, wasn't it?
00:25:12
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:12
Speaker
I love that.
00:25:13
Speaker
I love Ursula Le Guin.
00:25:14
Speaker
She's absolutely amazing.
00:25:16
Speaker
I still love Ursula Le Guin.
00:25:17
Speaker
And in fact, my novel, two novels ago, The Two Lives of Louis and Louise, was very much inspired by both Orlando, but also Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness.
00:25:29
Speaker
Oh, Left Hand of Darkness is just such... I was blown away.
00:25:33
Speaker
I read that book and afterwards, just for days, I was just thinking about it.
00:25:37
Speaker
And I was like, that was so ahead of its time.
00:25:39
Speaker
Right?
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
It feels like it's still ahead of, like, we're not ready for it now.
00:25:45
Speaker
We're still not ready for it.
00:25:47
Speaker
No, I know.
00:25:48
Speaker
It's so deeply human.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:52
Speaker
And at the same time, sort of like...
00:25:56
Speaker
I don't know how to describe the level of empathy that it triggered in me feeling other people's experiences, even though they are aliens who, you know, which would seem unrelatable.
00:26:05
Speaker
It just, she's, she was amazing.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:07
Speaker
Amazing.
Teaching and Community Contributions
00:26:09
Speaker
Getting back to you outside of your own writing, you also do teaching, you lecture, you do consultancy and you also run workshops.
00:26:20
Speaker
Is that all stuff that you've sort of just always done?
00:26:24
Speaker
I was a teacher before I was a writer.
00:26:26
Speaker
So when I left university with a degree in English, actually, I left university with two degrees in English because I really liked university.
00:26:39
Speaker
And I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know how.
00:26:41
Speaker
So it didn't occur to me for some reason at that point that you just had to sit down and write a book.
00:26:47
Speaker
So I decided to become a teacher and I was a secondary school teacher for 10 years, over 10 years in various schools, teaching English.
00:26:58
Speaker
In fact, one of my students moved in next door to me.
00:27:00
Speaker
That was funny.
00:27:03
Speaker
The house next door to me was for sale and someone bought it and they came out and said, hey, Ms.
00:27:08
Speaker
Cohen, how are you?
00:27:09
Speaker
I was like, oh my God, I taught to you back in the 90s.
00:27:14
Speaker
So teaching is something that
00:27:17
Speaker
really is in my blood.
00:27:19
Speaker
I love teaching.
00:27:21
Speaker
I really love being a teacher.
00:27:22
Speaker
And the only reason why I quit being a teacher was because I love being a writer more.
00:27:26
Speaker
So teaching creative writing is something that combines both of those with the added bonus that you very rarely have to give anyone detention.
00:27:39
Speaker
Rarely.
00:27:40
Speaker
I noticed you said rarely there.
00:27:41
Speaker
Rarely.
00:27:45
Speaker
So, yes.
00:27:46
Speaker
So, I have always taught.
00:27:48
Speaker
I was actually teaching creative writing before I was published, which seems a little bit cheeky, but I was given that opportunity to do that, which was fab.
00:27:57
Speaker
And now I do retreats.
00:28:00
Speaker
I lead workshops all over the world, which is great.
00:28:06
Speaker
And I occasionally work one-on-one with authors who have then gone on to be
00:28:13
Speaker
mega bestsellers, which is fantastic.
00:28:16
Speaker
It makes me feel great.
00:28:18
Speaker
When I was in Harrogate this past weekend,
00:28:20
Speaker
Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, two separate published authors came up to me and said, I was on your course before I got published and it really helped me, which is just the best feeling in the world.
00:28:32
Speaker
It's so great.
00:28:34
Speaker
Because when you're published yourself, you spend a lot of the time worrying about fear.
00:28:40
Speaker
You're worrying about your sales.
00:28:41
Speaker
You're worrying about your publishing.
00:28:42
Speaker
You're worrying about your reviews.
00:28:44
Speaker
You're
00:28:48
Speaker
But when one of your students gets published, that is just pure pride.
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:55
Speaker
That's great.
00:28:56
Speaker
All of these things, are they mostly online?
00:28:58
Speaker
Are they also in person?
00:28:59
Speaker
How does it work?
00:29:01
Speaker
It was mostly in person, but then with the pandemic, we moved to online.
00:29:05
Speaker
So I have been doing some online workshops.
00:29:07
Speaker
I'm doing one with the Romantic Novelist Association in November, which is...
00:29:13
Speaker
plotting the great romantic novel by analyzing the film The Princess Bride.
00:29:19
Speaker
I mean, 10 out of 10 film.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:23
Speaker
And I love it.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's so well-structured that I just love looking at it in terms of structure and not just the jokes.
00:29:30
Speaker
And I...
00:29:33
Speaker
also have an online school.
00:29:35
Speaker
I had this workshop called Transforming Your Writing with Post-it Notes or Plotting with Post-its or half a dozen uses for a post-it.
00:29:45
Speaker
I've called it different things, but it's about essentially brainstorming, planning, plotting, and revising your novels using post-it notes, which is what I do.
00:29:55
Speaker
I'm obsessed with them.
00:29:56
Speaker
They're all over my house everywhere.
00:29:59
Speaker
And
00:30:00
Speaker
I'm trying to become a brand ambassador, but Post-it have not yet been.
00:30:06
Speaker
But because that was so popular and I offered it online and I offered it in person, I taught it all over the place.
00:30:12
Speaker
It was so popular.
00:30:13
Speaker
I then recorded it as a series of lectures and workshops, exercises.
00:30:18
Speaker
And I have put that up in my online writing school.
00:30:21
Speaker
So that is sort of there all the time for anybody to access if they want to.
00:30:27
Speaker
Um, so I've been doing that as well, which is great, but also I've been teaching in person, which is so much fun.
00:30:33
Speaker
I'm going to, uh, Canada in October to teach at the Surrey writers conference, which will be fantastic.
00:30:41
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:30:43
Speaker
So, I mean, it must be nice just being back in, is it presumably big halls sort of lecture style?
00:30:49
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:51
Speaker
Sometimes it is.
00:30:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:53
Speaker
And I'm such a ham, you know, I love performing.
00:30:58
Speaker
And telling people what to do.
00:30:59
Speaker
I love telling people what to do.
00:31:02
Speaker
Amazing.
00:31:04
Speaker
And if anyone's interested in hearing more about the online workshops, you can head over to novelgazingwithjudycohen.teachable.com.
00:31:14
Speaker
And there are dashes between each of the words in that to find out more.
00:31:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:31:19
Speaker
Or just search novelgazing.
00:31:20
Speaker
It comes up as the first thing, I think.
00:31:22
Speaker
Novelgazing.
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah, just search Novel Gazing.
00:31:26
Speaker
You'll find it.
00:31:28
Speaker
Speaking of helping others, you are, as I mentioned, Vice President of the RNA, a wonderful organization who I've been lucky enough to work with on several occasions.
00:31:40
Speaker
And if all that wasn't enough, you're also patron of the ABC to Read charity, a lecturer at University of Reading, and a judge for the Wingate Literary Prize.
00:31:52
Speaker
Where do you find the time?
00:31:54
Speaker
I don't.
00:31:56
Speaker
How do you do this?
00:31:58
Speaker
I don't, I have to give up like really fun things like watching TV and having friends.
00:32:05
Speaker
That makes sense, I guess.
00:32:07
Speaker
I mean, it's just, you're so prolific, not only with all the books that you come out, but also just the work that you're doing within the industry.
00:32:13
Speaker
It's, it's really inspiring and it's great to see you doing your thing out there.
00:32:18
Speaker
Thank you.
00:32:19
Speaker
Well, you know, when I was starting out and since I've been starting out, other writers have been so generous to me with their time and their advice and their expertise.
00:32:29
Speaker
And that's the only way that you can pay it back really is to pay it forward to other people.
00:32:35
Speaker
And I know the people who helped me were helping me because someone else had helped them.
00:32:40
Speaker
I find that the writers community is just brilliant and so powerful.
00:32:47
Speaker
supportive and helpful.
00:32:50
Speaker
And it's made the huge difference to me, not just in my writing, but in my life.
00:32:55
Speaker
Wonderful to hear.
00:32:56
Speaker
And I, you know, I think I've had a similar experience, even if it's just making lots of friends within the writing community, I think immersing yourself in that community is, especially if you want to improve your writing and sort of with a look to getting published, surrounding yourself with people that are willing to help and give feedback is always a good thing.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:20
Speaker
And willing to help and give feedback is the key thing because there are always people within any community who are very happy to tear you down.
00:33:28
Speaker
So it's important to find people who you utterly trust so that they can tell you that you suck when you do suck and also tell you that you're great when you are great.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, 100% true.
00:33:42
Speaker
Speaking of advice, I
00:33:44
Speaker
what advice would you give to aspiring authors who are looking to improve their writing and with an aim to getting published at some point?
00:33:53
Speaker
The obvious advice is to read a lot.
00:33:56
Speaker
But I think most writers who are serious about their craft are doing that anyway.
00:34:03
Speaker
But to read a lot.
00:34:05
Speaker
But I think
00:34:06
Speaker
The best advice, aside from reading a lot, which is obvious, is another piece of advice, which is just to write as much as humanly possible.
00:34:13
Speaker
And to write and write and write.
00:34:15
Speaker
And I never took – well, I hardly took any creative writing courses, which is ironic since I teach some now, but I didn't take many courses.
00:34:25
Speaker
when I was an aspiring author.
00:34:27
Speaker
What I did was just write every day, all the time.
00:34:31
Speaker
And I wrote crap.
00:34:34
Speaker
I wrote really badly for a long time.
00:34:38
Speaker
And I still write badly to this day on certain days.
00:34:42
Speaker
I think giving yourself permission to just write and write badly and then work out when you're writing badly and then make it better is
00:34:51
Speaker
is the most valuable thing that you can do.
00:34:54
Speaker
And some people, I think some aspiring authors think that they just have to write one great book and then that's going to be it.
00:35:00
Speaker
The thing is that even when you have your first book published, you're going to have to write another one and then another one and another one.
00:35:06
Speaker
And the more you write, the more you're going to know how to write.
00:35:11
Speaker
It's something you can... It's a craft rather than an art.
00:35:15
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:35:16
Speaker
It's a thing that you have to get your hands dirty doing.
00:35:19
Speaker
And that means you have to make...
00:35:21
Speaker
huge amounts of mistakes all the time.
00:35:24
Speaker
And it is necessary to make those mistakes.
00:35:27
Speaker
You can't sidestep that painful process.
00:35:31
Speaker
You just have to write and write and keep writing and get it wrong until you get it right and then get it wrong again.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
I mean, it's more akin to, I always think it's more akin to something like
00:35:44
Speaker
playing a musical instrument, you know, and even the greatest violinist in the world has to practice every day.
00:35:50
Speaker
They have to practice new pieces.
00:35:51
Speaker
And just with writing, you need to keep practicing to get better and better and better.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yes, that's a really good analogy.
00:35:58
Speaker
Like a musician or an athlete,
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:02
Speaker
And that, I think, brings us on to the final question, which is, as always, Julie, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book would you take with you?
00:36:15
Speaker
So, you know, my normal answer to this is the complete Sherlock Holmes, but I, because Sherlock Holmes changed my life, but actually, you know, I'm feeling really much more feminist today.
00:36:26
Speaker
And I think my book would be Middlemarch by George Eliot.
00:36:29
Speaker
I believe it's
00:36:31
Speaker
One of, if not the most accomplished works of fiction in the English language.
00:36:38
Speaker
Very high praise.
00:36:40
Speaker
I love that book.
00:36:41
Speaker
And beating out Sherlock Holmes.
00:36:43
Speaker
My God.
00:36:45
Speaker
That's a great choice.
00:36:46
Speaker
That's a really, really good choice.
00:36:48
Speaker
Also, it's really heavy and long.
00:36:52
Speaker
You know, if you're going to only have one book, you might as well really make it a nice hefty one.
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:57
Speaker
So that you can hit wildlife on the head with that.
00:37:00
Speaker
right?
00:37:00
Speaker
It's not only reading material, but also a tool.
00:37:04
Speaker
I think George Eliot would approve of that.
00:37:08
Speaker
Let's hope so.
00:37:08
Speaker
Let's hope so.
00:37:09
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Julie, for coming on the podcast and sharing your experience and just chatting with me.
00:37:15
Speaker
Thank you, Jamie.
00:37:16
Speaker
This has been really fun.
00:37:17
Speaker
It has.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's been great.
00:37:19
Speaker
And for anyone listening, if you want to keep up with everything that Julie is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at Julie underscore Cohen, or you can head over to her website, julie-cohen.com.
00:37:32
Speaker
Google novel gazing with Julie Cohen, and you will find her online workshops.
00:37:37
Speaker
And to make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow us on Twitter at RightAndWrongUK or on Instagram at RightAndWrongPodcast.
00:37:45
Speaker
Thanks again to Julie and thanks to everyone listening.
00:37:47
Speaker
We'll catch you in the next episode.
00:37:51
Speaker
Thanks again for supporting the show and we'll see you in the next episode.