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#160 - Emily-Jane Clark
392 Plays1 year ago
Children's author and comedy writer, Emily-Jane Clark joins us to talk about "The Beasts of Knobbly Bottom", switching between children's adult writing and how she makes a similar process work across both.
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Transcript
Introduction and Ad-free Option
00:00:00
Speaker
To listen without ads, head over to patreon.com slash rightandwrong.
00:00:04
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:06
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:07
Speaker
Because the writing is sort of everything, right?
00:00:09
Speaker
You can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this.
00:00:15
Speaker
So it's kind of, it's kind of a gamble.
Meet Emily Jane Clark
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:21
Speaker
With me on this episode is author and comedy writer, Emily Jane Clark.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello, Emily.
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hi, thanks for having me.
00:00:30
Speaker
Thanks so much for being here.
Rise of the Zombie Pigs
00:00:32
Speaker
Let's start with the headlines.
00:00:33
Speaker
Latest children's book came out in January, the second of the Beasts of Nobbly Bottom series, Rise of the Zombie Pigs.
00:00:42
Speaker
That's a sentence I never thought I would say.
00:00:46
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about it.
00:00:48
Speaker
Well, it's set in Knobbly Bottom, which isn't a bum with knobbly bits on it.
00:00:54
Speaker
That would be a bit of a weird, that would be a different kind of book, I think.
00:00:57
Speaker
But it's actually a village called Knobbly Bottom and a girl called Maggie moves there in the first book, actually, with her mum and her sister.
The Quirky World of Knobbly Bottom
00:01:09
Speaker
And she thinks it's the most boring village in the world.
00:01:11
Speaker
There's like nothing there.
00:01:13
Speaker
And she's moved from a big city, so it's even more boring.
00:01:17
Speaker
There's just loads of grass and things made of green and farm animals and things like that.
00:01:23
Speaker
But anyway, she soon discovers that it's not as boring as it first seemed.
00:01:29
Speaker
Some weird things start happening.
00:01:31
Speaker
She meets some strange characters, including someone called Gary, the great and evil child eater.
00:01:37
Speaker
So it's getting pretty scary, although I have to say he is a vegan.
00:01:40
Speaker
So we're okay.
00:01:43
Speaker
And then, but the worst of all, she comes across some, in the first book, she comes across the vampire sheep.
Zombie Pigs and Waterstones Nomination
00:01:50
Speaker
She just thinks she's managed to get them out of the way when the pigs start acting weird.
00:01:55
Speaker
So in the second book,
00:01:58
Speaker
the pigs turn into zombies and all hell breaks loose again because they literally, whereas the vampire sheep, they were pretty bad.
00:02:05
Speaker
They wanted to take over the world, you know, classic baddie style.
00:02:09
Speaker
The zombie pigs, they just want to eat it.
00:02:12
Speaker
They want to eat the actual whole world and everything in it.
00:02:15
Speaker
They're just unstoppable eating machines.
00:02:18
Speaker
So she has to, in the latest book,
00:02:20
Speaker
Maggie and her friends, her friend Fred next door, they have to try and put a stop to all that and not get eaten.
00:02:28
Speaker
So that's it in a kind of nutshell.
00:02:32
Speaker
In a sort of insane whimsical nutshell.
00:02:37
Speaker
It sounds amazing.
00:02:38
Speaker
I assume most people listening might have devised that it is a children's book.
00:02:43
Speaker
Oh yes, I should have probably mentioned that, especially because, exciting, today it was announced it's on the shortlist for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize.
00:02:52
Speaker
So I was looking for a way to slip that in, Jamie.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
To be fair, they've made me keep it a secret for three months.
00:03:00
Speaker
So now I'm just walking around.
00:03:02
Speaker
I told the postman this morning, you know, anyone who will listen, it's coming out now.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, that's amazing.
00:03:10
Speaker
What an achievement.
Books for Young Readers and Humor
00:03:12
Speaker
What's the kind of age bracket that this is marketed towards?
00:03:17
Speaker
It's sort of younger readers.
00:03:18
Speaker
So I'd say it's suitable probably for like seven plus.
00:03:23
Speaker
So for younger kids, it's a nice one for parents to read to them.
00:03:29
Speaker
So I sneaked in a few jokes there sort of for parents because I've got two children and they always, you know, I always read to them at night with always like one more page, one more chapter.
00:03:41
Speaker
So I really wanted to write a book that parents would hopefully enjoy as well.
00:03:46
Speaker
That was my favorite thing.
00:03:47
Speaker
If I could read them a book I liked, everyone's a winner.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, so that's – so I'd say – but I've had, yeah, anything up 7 to 11 really reading them or being read to.
00:04:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely something and there's a real skill to it.
00:04:06
Speaker
I remember a lot of the older Disney stuff, even some of the new stuff, they're like movies and they always have the jokes in there which are for the adults alongside the ones for the kids.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's quite nice, isn't it?
00:04:17
Speaker
And also another thing.
00:04:19
Speaker
reading to children if there's opportunities to do funny voices like you know with big funny characters that can make it more fun to read out loud as well so yeah I used to love reading anything that had character like I loved reading my children the Mr. Gum books because I had lots of funny voices and it's like finally my drama degree got got a bit of use when I had children's bedtimes so yeah so it's all good
00:04:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:47
Speaker
So as you mentioned, this is book number two of the piece of the knobbly bottom.
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Speaker
You also have a book called sleepers for the week.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah.
Writing for Parents and Viral Success
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Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
Which is nonfiction and it's a sort of humorous how to kind of book.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
It's quite, I wrote it after, during the dark days of sleep deprivation, deprivation, can't even say it now.
00:05:14
Speaker
I had two children that didn't ever sleep when they were babies and toddlers.
00:05:18
Speaker
So, yeah, so I kind of wrote a survival guide for parents on how to survive on no sleep called Sleeps for the Week.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, quite a while back.
00:05:29
Speaker
But it had a bit of swearing in it, you see.
00:05:32
Speaker
So I promised my children I would write something without swearing in it, especially after I caught one trying to take it into show and tell once.
00:05:40
Speaker
I was like, no, bring it back.
00:05:43
Speaker
I got part of the teachers thinking you've got a potty mouth mother.
00:05:47
Speaker
But you know, sleep deprivation in my defense does make you quite sweary.
00:05:51
Speaker
So, you know.
00:05:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:53
Speaker
I get that.
00:05:54
Speaker
And, uh, and I, I've also seen some of your other work, particularly the sketch that you wrote that's kind of went quite viral performed by Eddie Taylor.
00:06:03
Speaker
Women tell everyone to F off.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, I was in a bit of a bad mood when I wrote that.
00:06:08
Speaker
Didn't expect it to go.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was just one of those things that many women probably relate to where you just feel like you can't get anything right according to everyone else.
00:06:18
Speaker
So, yeah, so I kind of wrote it in a bit of a temper.
00:06:22
Speaker
And then next thing I know, it's, yeah, Madonna's sharing it and things like that.
00:06:27
Speaker
I was like, wow, I should be in a bad mood more often.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:31
Speaker
But Ellie Taylor was brilliant.
00:06:32
Speaker
She really kind of made it her own and she was fantastic.
00:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, it was a great sketch.
00:06:38
Speaker
Thank you.
00:06:39
Speaker
Obviously, the Sleepers for the Week came presumably quite a while before you started the Nobbly Bottom series.
00:06:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:47
Speaker
There's quite a big gap in between.
00:06:49
Speaker
Do you, and I know that you still do like comedy and things like that.
00:06:53
Speaker
Do you, is it quite a specific headspace that you need to like put yourself in when, when you're moving between writing those kind of younger children's books and the sort of more sweary adult stuff?
Balancing Children's and Adult Writing
00:07:05
Speaker
Yes, I do.
00:07:07
Speaker
I, um, yeah, I do have to remind myself I can't put sweat, I can't swear or even slightly swear.
00:07:12
Speaker
I couldn't even, you can't even get away with sort of crap or anything like that.
00:07:15
Speaker
Um, but not, yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
And not, I think actually the going from when I've been right in the thick of working on the children's books and then.
00:07:23
Speaker
I go have to write something for grownups.
00:07:25
Speaker
That's, that's almost more difficult because I write in the voice of the main character who's like a young girl.
00:07:33
Speaker
I find myself even replying to like work emails sounding like a nine year old child.
00:07:39
Speaker
um i'm like oh my god that is super cool i'm like oh god this is like um yeah trying to sound all grown up so actually yeah you have to get in a specific yeah i have to get myself in the out of the zone of writing like a child almost so
00:07:55
Speaker
so it's you find it harder going that way around yeah the other way around yeah I think I maybe whether it's um also to do with because you know obviously when you're working on a book it's so intensely just that um for hours and hours a day so you get you do you're sort of living it um whereas if you do if I'm doing pieces of work for various places um
00:08:18
Speaker
it's not you know you're not living it for months and months um really so so it's probably that just the intensity of working on a book because even once you finish it you get it back so many times for like the edits and then you've got to read it again for the um just sort of you check it for proofs and check the like all the illustrations so you've seen it so so much um by the time it comes out you almost yeah you just get caught up in that world
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:08:46
Speaker
Because the other stuff that you write across the different mediums, you do television scripts, sketches, features, articles, that kind of stuff.
00:08:54
Speaker
So I guess with those, like you say, you're kind of doing that for a week or two weeks.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:08:59
Speaker
And then it's done.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:01
Speaker
So you can then just slip back out of it and get back into children's, get back into bum jokes.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:10
Speaker
Do you ever use, um, as a sort of replacement for more adult language and swear words, do you ever do like, like they do it in fantasy novels a lot where they have, they, they are swearing, but it's like the in-world fantasy swear word.
00:09:23
Speaker
So to us, it's not rude.
00:09:24
Speaker
Did you ever do that in the children's books?
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:27
Speaker
I, I, but you can't, they're quite strict on it.
00:09:30
Speaker
If they even have a sniff that it might be a replacement swear word.
00:09:34
Speaker
Cause my, like, um,
00:09:37
Speaker
I think she was, the mum once said fudge cake instead of something else that sounds quite similar to that.
00:09:44
Speaker
And I wouldn't, I wasn't going to get away with that, unfortunately.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:09:50
Speaker
But so, and, but I even like my, the main character, she says, heckity doodah a lot, which obviously that is quite tame, isn't it?
00:09:58
Speaker
But they even had a meeting about what, you know, just to check that there wasn't, that that was allowed.
00:10:03
Speaker
It had to get the, had to get the go ahead.
00:10:06
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, you have
Language Rules in Children's Books
00:10:08
Speaker
to be quite careful.
00:10:08
Speaker
You can't get away with a lot.
00:10:11
Speaker
I didn't realize I used the word stupid so much.
00:10:14
Speaker
I put stupid so many times and I had to go over and think of a different word to replace it with.
00:10:20
Speaker
Because, yeah, so when you're writing for young children, you get used to it as you go along.
00:10:27
Speaker
But the good thing is, I think it's made me swear less because I'm in that mindset.
00:10:32
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I tend to just say fudge cake or heckity doodle now.
00:10:37
Speaker
Um, are you allowed to use a sort of, if you do have a replacement, um, for, for, for any word, um, like if you said something like bobbles or something and you, if you repeated it lots of times, would that be in, would that be flagged as an issue because it was, because it's clearly a replacement.
00:10:57
Speaker
Probably, yeah.
00:10:58
Speaker
You have to be sneaky about these things to get them through, I think.
00:11:03
Speaker
So you have to kind of, let's say you're replacing all the times you've written stupid.
00:11:08
Speaker
Do you have to replace them with different words?
00:11:11
Speaker
I did actually in this case.
00:11:13
Speaker
But also, yeah, because I think stupid is quite a broad one.
00:11:16
Speaker
I was getting away with quite a lot.
00:11:18
Speaker
But when I had to narrow it down, there wasn't quite a word that would cover every
00:11:23
Speaker
everything I needed it for.
00:11:25
Speaker
So yeah, so I just came up with lots of different ones, I think for that.
00:11:31
Speaker
I guess, yeah, I guess the theory is that you're not, you're not kind of teaching children, children to fixate on one word, which means a bad thing.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, maybe.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:11:42
Speaker
I have to point out, she wasn't calling people stupid in the book.
00:11:46
Speaker
Right.
00:11:47
Speaker
She's more like stupid, this stupid village and things like that.
00:11:51
Speaker
So, but yeah.
00:11:53
Speaker
Things.
00:11:53
Speaker
Exactly.
00:11:54
Speaker
Stupid, right?
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:56
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:11:58
Speaker
So let's get back onto, we mentioned you do write lots of different things, features, adult, children's sketches, all that stuff.
00:12:06
Speaker
Kind of like with, I was going to ask a similar question to do with adults versus children writing.
00:12:11
Speaker
When you're writing for those different disciplines, is it again, is it sort of another headspace if you're writing like a feature versus when you sit down to write children's books?
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think it depends.
00:12:21
Speaker
I mean, it all tends to be comedy, I do.
00:12:24
Speaker
And so actually there's similar ways of setting up the jokes and things like that.
00:12:29
Speaker
They would all kind of translate for each medium.
00:12:34
Speaker
So, yeah, so it's more, yeah, I definitely use the same techniques.
00:12:38
Speaker
Like when I'm writing for children, I use this technique like what?
00:12:43
Speaker
like I'll say what if this happened you know and get sillier and sillier like what if the these sheep turned into vampires but then they were gangsters um and actually I use that when I'm writing for adults as well so um yeah so actually even though I think adults unfortunately don't find bum jokes as funny as children you can use you can get yeah you can you can use sort of similar way it's a similar way of working I think for both
00:13:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:10
Speaker
That's really interesting.
00:13:11
Speaker
So it's more like you're using similar structures, but you're dressing it in a kind of different way.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly that.
00:13:18
Speaker
So I'm using the same techniques to come up with funny ideas, but yeah, just more X rated for the adults.
00:13:29
Speaker
So going back a bit, where, where, and when kind of did your, all of your kind of writing adventures begin?
From Motherhood to Publishing
00:13:38
Speaker
Well, I used to be a journalist before I had kids.
00:13:42
Speaker
Then I went into features.
00:13:45
Speaker
Then I had my children.
00:13:47
Speaker
And as I mentioned, they were...
00:13:50
Speaker
they wouldn't sleep.
00:13:51
Speaker
So I was so tired.
00:13:52
Speaker
So I'd originally like told, I was freelancing at that point.
00:13:55
Speaker
And I told like clients I was writing for, I was just like, you know, six months and then I'll be back to work.
00:14:01
Speaker
No problems.
00:14:02
Speaker
And how hard can a baby be?
00:14:05
Speaker
Six months in, I was still in my pajamas, um,
00:14:08
Speaker
So I had to like ring them and say, oh, sorry, I think it might be another, actually it wasn't six months, it was six weeks.
00:14:15
Speaker
That was it.
00:14:15
Speaker
Six weeks.
00:14:16
Speaker
I stupidly, I didn't know anyone with kids at this point.
00:14:19
Speaker
I was the first person out of everyone I knew.
00:14:22
Speaker
So yeah, I was so stupid.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:26
Speaker
Then six months came around, I was still in my pajamas.
00:14:30
Speaker
And it just, and then I got, I had got pregnant with my second daughter very soon after the first one.
00:14:38
Speaker
I ended up just having to, and then I got, I got quite ill with postnatal depression.
00:14:45
Speaker
So, um, and sleep deprivation probably as well.
00:14:47
Speaker
So I kind of ended up being forced to take a bit of time out and just, just, um, it was sort of a really tricky time.
00:14:53
Speaker
I was really, really skin, obviously wasn't working.
00:14:56
Speaker
I was tired.
00:14:57
Speaker
I felt horrendous.
00:14:58
Speaker
Um, and I think I was like, God, that's it now.
00:15:00
Speaker
I'm just probably never going to work again.
00:15:02
Speaker
I'm going to have to just, um,
00:15:04
Speaker
I don't, you know, just get any, whatever job I can take.
00:15:08
Speaker
I didn't think sort of the writing career would sort of take off again.
00:15:13
Speaker
But when the kids got a little bit older, I just started writing stuff for myself at home.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
about just about how being a mum and about my evil children.
00:15:23
Speaker
And that ended up leading to a publisher asking if I could write a book about it.
00:15:31
Speaker
So weirdly, from that sort of really tricky place came something good.
00:15:38
Speaker
And then I started writing for places like, you know, like Metro UK, just doing sort of columns for them.
00:15:44
Speaker
about various things and then I started working for the Daily Mash it was all off the back of writing a funny book I think you get more you get asked to do work that's sort of along those lines yeah and then sort of evolved and got the tv stuff so it all um it was all like a domino effect I think so um yeah so it's quite and then obviously did the
00:16:07
Speaker
did the children's books as well.
00:16:08
Speaker
So it was definitely very, it wasn't the path I intended to take.
00:16:15
Speaker
I always wanted to write comedy, but once you sort of in that career, I was sort of writing features for magazines and stuff.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
You sort of carry on doing that, don't you?
00:16:25
Speaker
Don't sort of branch out.
00:16:27
Speaker
So yeah.
00:16:27
Speaker
So it's a different path to what I would have expected to take, but I'm glad I did really.
00:16:32
Speaker
So yeah, it all worked out in the end.
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, in a weird way.
00:16:36
Speaker
I wouldn't have predicted it.
00:16:39
Speaker
So a publisher asked you to write Sleepers for the Week.
00:16:43
Speaker
How did that, like, how did you kind of get in contact with the publisher?
00:16:46
Speaker
How did that conversation begin?
00:16:48
Speaker
I managed to get an agent first, actually.
00:16:50
Speaker
So I got an agent and then, yeah, she did the usual sending out and got a publisher that way.
00:16:58
Speaker
Was that off like the, um, the, a pitch for something similar to sleepers for the week?
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:05
Speaker
I'd had, yeah.
00:17:05
Speaker
Cause I'd had, I, I had, I had it like I'd been writing a blog.
00:17:09
Speaker
I don't think people do that anymore.
00:17:11
Speaker
Um, but I've been writing a blog on WordPress about it.
00:17:14
Speaker
And a couple of those articles had sort of gone viral back in the day.
00:17:18
Speaker
It would have been on Facebook.
00:17:20
Speaker
Um, so, and I think along that, around that time, um,
00:17:26
Speaker
Not a lot of people had been writing about kind of the tricky aspects of motherhood either.
00:17:32
Speaker
So yeah, there wasn't a lot like it, I think.
00:17:34
Speaker
So it was quite a good time to get something out there, I think.
00:17:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:40
Speaker
And, and did agents contact you through the blog or did, did you actively look for agents with a submission?
00:17:47
Speaker
I think it was, yeah, it was, it was a bit of both.
00:17:49
Speaker
So, um, yeah, so that obviously it helped, but I had the blog and I had the following, uh, you know, to point them in the direction of that.
00:17:57
Speaker
So it definitely was a combination.
00:18:00
Speaker
But after having two children and them growing up a little bit, you decided you wanted to write something that they could read that you could kind of share with them.
Writing for Her Children
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
I thought that because I spent so long reading bedtime stories, as I said, I just, yeah, I thought it would be nice to have something to, obviously the process is so long.
00:18:23
Speaker
Like my eldest is 12 now and the books for younger children.
00:18:26
Speaker
I was like, Oh God.
00:18:28
Speaker
So yeah, now she was like, well, why can't you write something for my age?
00:18:30
Speaker
I was like, well, I did, but you stupid grew up.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:35
Speaker
So yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
So yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:38
Speaker
What are you kind of thinking about writing now?
00:18:41
Speaker
Are you, are you going to keep writing for sort of their age, knowing that they'll probably have outgrown it by the time it comes out?
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, it'd be all right for their children.
00:18:49
Speaker
My grandchildren will enjoy these books.
00:18:51
Speaker
Um, well I hope to write some more knobbly bottoms.
00:18:53
Speaker
I think I'm really enjoying actually writing for children.
00:18:57
Speaker
Um, I'd like to write some, some of those or, and I've got a few more ideas.
00:19:01
Speaker
for other children's books, maybe for slightly older children.
00:19:07
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, but I also love the adult stuff as well.
00:19:10
Speaker
So I'm not sure what the future holds, but I think it's okay to want to do a bit of everything.
00:19:15
Speaker
And to, um, I think these days are quite lucky.
00:19:18
Speaker
You can't, you don't just get pigeonholed.
00:19:20
Speaker
You can write a variation of stuff.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:19:25
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:19:26
Speaker
I, would you do any more adults sort of in the vein of sleepers for the week?
00:19:31
Speaker
Do you have any ideas or plans to do anything more kind of like that?
00:19:34
Speaker
I haven't.
00:19:35
Speaker
I'd like, I think I wouldn't mind.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:38
Speaker
Sort of doing maybe an updated sort of version of sleepers for the week, which is, um, which actually I've, I've, um, my agents got at the moment.
00:19:47
Speaker
So we've sort of updated it, added a few more cause it was quite a while ago.
00:19:51
Speaker
It was out.
00:19:51
Speaker
Um, I think it was 2017 now.
00:19:54
Speaker
So, um, yeah, so I have done an updated version.
00:19:58
Speaker
I've got loads of new material in there and things like that.
00:20:01
Speaker
So, um, yeah, so we're looking, we're looking to, to do something with that, hopefully.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm writing a play as well.
00:20:09
Speaker
I still love script writing.
00:20:11
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker
Lots of fingers in many pies.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:19
Speaker
That's the thing, isn't it?
00:20:20
Speaker
You just have to keep things.
00:20:22
Speaker
It's so slow, like in the industry, isn't it?
00:20:24
Speaker
You can send some things off and then it could be, you could be waiting to hear for ages.
00:20:27
Speaker
So you might as well just get on with the next thing.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:20:31
Speaker
And a lot of those things, like, you know, you talk about writing a play or writing a script for, for, for television or film.
00:20:37
Speaker
And at a certain point you, even if that gets picked up and it does go into the kind of whatever the machine is, you
00:20:44
Speaker
you're kind of done at a certain point there, you know?
00:20:46
Speaker
Oh God.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:47
Speaker
And then, then you don't hear anything or you hand it all in and then it's obviously everything's happening at their end, but you're sort of, you're not, you're not really needed for a while.
00:20:58
Speaker
So, uh, yeah.
00:20:59
Speaker
But then because it is so unpredictable, uh,
00:21:02
Speaker
you do have to keep plugging away and coming up with different ideas because you could get to a point where you have nothing coming in for a while.
00:21:10
Speaker
I suppose it's a lot of actors can normally relate to this actually, you know, that period you think, oh, this is it now.
00:21:16
Speaker
There won't be anything.
00:21:17
Speaker
There won't be another part after this.
00:21:19
Speaker
There won't be another book after this.
00:21:20
Speaker
So you just keep on going, don't you?
00:21:24
Speaker
Hope for the best.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely noticed when we kind of came out of the kind of global lockdowns and stuff, there was a series of movies with actors that I would have thought were very high profile doing sort of like Hallmark style movies.
00:21:39
Speaker
And I was like, wow, you must have been worried.
00:21:42
Speaker
Exactly.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker
No, that's true.
00:21:44
Speaker
Actually, it was around lockdown.
00:21:45
Speaker
That must be why.
00:21:46
Speaker
They're just like, I'll just take anything.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:52
Speaker
Which is funny.
Mentoring Aspiring Writers
00:21:54
Speaker
I saw on your website that outside of writing all these different mediums for all these different people and places and things like that, you have done some mentoring.
00:22:04
Speaker
Are you still partnering with Jericho Writers?
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, I love Jericho writers.
00:22:08
Speaker
They're really good.
00:22:11
Speaker
It's really fun as well because you just get to be really nosy and read other people's work.
00:22:16
Speaker
So yeah, I do mentoring for them.
00:22:19
Speaker
So basically if someone's writing a book, they'll go to Jericho and say, you know, have you got anyone that could be suitable to help me with this genre?
00:22:29
Speaker
And then, yeah, they'll ask me whether I'm interested, send me a little extract.
00:22:33
Speaker
And then, yeah, and through, so through Jericho, I'll, I'll take them on if I think I can sort of help them.
00:22:40
Speaker
So yeah, so it's really, it's really, it's really fun.
00:22:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:44
Speaker
I've always found even in a more minor capacity than that, just doing things like, uh, giving feedback and critiquing, uh, other people's work, I think is, there's a sort of, um, eyeopening self-reflection in that.
00:22:58
Speaker
Oh God, definitely.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:23:00
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:23:02
Speaker
I think I've, I've learned a lot from the people I'm mentoring as well, really.
00:23:06
Speaker
So yeah.
00:23:06
Speaker
If there's a mistake that you have been making, it's hard to see it in your own writing.
00:23:10
Speaker
But if you see it in someone else's writing and then go back to yours and you think, oh, wow, I did the thing that I just told them was bad.
00:23:17
Speaker
Exactly.
00:23:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the same as, you know, like generally we can give sort of a friend really good advice about certain situations.
00:23:26
Speaker
But when you're in that situation, you don't do the thing.
00:23:28
Speaker
You've just advised someone to, you know.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:32
Speaker
But yeah, it's like...
00:23:33
Speaker
you see it from a different point of view, don't you?
00:23:35
Speaker
So it is really useful for that actually.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:38
Speaker
It's the do as I say, not as I do.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, precisely.
00:23:44
Speaker
And that brings us to what is the same question that we round up all of these episodes with.
Desert Island Book Choice
00:23:51
Speaker
And that is, Emily, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:24:00
Speaker
Well, that's quite an easy one.
00:24:02
Speaker
It would have to be, it would have to be a kind of how to survive on a desert island manual, really, wouldn't it?
00:24:10
Speaker
Because I would not have a clue otherwise.
00:24:14
Speaker
So yeah.
00:24:15
Speaker
So, you know, maybe some Bear Grylls kind of thing, something to help them.
00:24:22
Speaker
Maybe that could be your next adult book.
00:24:24
Speaker
Follow up for Sleepers for the Week, How to Survive on a Desert Island.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:27
Speaker
If I try and get a publisher to send me off to one so I can give real life experience, then that might help.
00:24:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:35
Speaker
I mean, very practical, very pragmatic, a smart choice.
00:24:40
Speaker
Can't argue with that.
Conclusion and Social Media
00:24:42
Speaker
And that brings us to the end of the regular episode and into the new extended cut section exclusive to Patreon subscribers.
00:24:49
Speaker
So anyone listening who hasn't yet joined the Patreon, please do think about doing it.
00:24:52
Speaker
It goes a long way towards covering the costs of running this podcast.
00:24:58
Speaker
Amazing.
00:24:58
Speaker
Well, that's awesome.
00:24:59
Speaker
It's been really, really fun chatting with you, Emily, and learning all about your writing and the books and everything that's going on with you.
00:25:06
Speaker
Thanks so much for coming on.
00:25:08
Speaker
Oh, thanks for having me.
00:25:09
Speaker
It's been really fun, Jamie.
00:25:11
Speaker
And for anyone wanting to keep up with what Emily is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at Emily Jane Clark, on Instagram at Emily Jane dot Clark, or on Facebook at sleepers for the week.
00:25:22
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow along on all socials.
00:25:25
Speaker
You can get the episodes a week early and ad free on Patreon.
00:25:28
Speaker
And for more bookish chat, check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:25:32
Speaker
Thanks again to Emily and thanks to everyone listening.
00:25:34
Speaker
We'll catch you on the next episode.