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#206 - Amanda Prowse
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International best-selling fiction and non-fiction author Amanda Prowse is on the podcast this week to chat about all her novels, keeping up a writing schedule of two books a year and how personal tragedy lead to a life-changing non-fiction book.
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Transcript
The Art of Writing and Plot Fixing
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. I love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? Like, you could've... can fix plot holes, but if the writing... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of... it's kind of a gamble.
Introduction to Amanda Prowse
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello! and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. On today's episode, I am joined by an international best-selling author of fiction and nonfiction, novels and short stories, historical, contemporary, comedy and thriller, such a versatile writer. It's Amanda Prowse. Hello.
00:00:31
Speaker
Gosh, that was a bit... I thought that was overblown, Jamie. now his wife i mean you know No wonder I'm tired with all that going on. Well, exactly. You're definitely right across a ah big range of different things. um Thanks so much for coming on. Let's start...
'This One Life': Plot and Themes
00:00:48
Speaker
ah Where I always like to start is whatever the kind of latest publication, your latest works, and We are recording this ah ahead of the new year, but your upcoming novel, This One Life, is coming out January 7th, so it will be out by the time this airs. Tell us a little bit about This One Life. Oh, This One Life is a little bit different for me. I try to make sure, I publish two books a year, so I always try to make sure that each novel is fresh and looking at the world from a slightly different perspective. I don't really want my readers to pick it up and almost know what they're going to get.
00:01:23
Speaker
um if that makes any sense it's always very obviously one of my books but I think it's important to try and look at it from different angles just to keep it a bit fresh and interesting and this one life certainly is that it's um it's a day in the life of Madeline and Madeline discovers that she is eight months pregnant. and We start from the moment she wakes up um feeling a bit grim and a bit tricky. and We learn about her life, where she lives, where she works, her ambitions, her plans, dip back into her childhood, all that kind of thing. And it ends on this absolute you know bombshell when she discovers she's eight months pregnant and this is happening. you know This isn't just an idea that she may be becoming a mother. This is absolutely happening.
00:02:09
Speaker
um And concurrently running with that is Madeline's story in the present day, which is when she is in her mid 30s, very early 30s actually. um And it kind of is a sort of a book that looks at what it's like to reach a crossroads in your life.
00:02:27
Speaker
where you are trying to decide whether the choices you made in the past were the right ones, whether it's ever too late to go back and change those choices, how we live with the consequences of all the decisions we made, but very much how we are products of our upbringing. And so it doesn't really matter sometimes, you can have the most amazing aspirational dreams and desires But if you don't know how to get out the blocks, life is really tough. And I write a lot about that from my own personal experience. So it's a bit different. It's Madeline's life. It's Madeline's journey. It's about these life-changing moments that happen to us all when the rules get pulled from under you and you have to pretty much figure out how you're going to go onwards.
00:03:06
Speaker
Okay, that sounds really
Amanda's Writing Process and Character Development
00:03:08
Speaker
interesting. And you're saying that you like to, you're putting out two books a year, you like to make sure that you're not just sort of retreading the same ground. And you've written over 30 novels at this point. Like, how do you how cognizant are you of like, Oh, no, I did something similar to that in a previous novel while you're writing?
00:03:30
Speaker
Well, i'm I'm very conscious that for me it would be boring to write a similar book. So if I was writing something and I'd already written maybe three years, I've only been writing for just over 10 years. So if I was writing, it's all very fresh and new and I'm still learning my craft very much. But I think if I was writing something or you know parroting something I'd done previously, I wouldn't find it fun to write. it would be I get bored very, very quickly.
00:03:52
Speaker
And I'm very curious about finding new and different ways to approach things and look at things. So I think that must be the same for a reader. So I'm very, very, you know, I'm very aware of making it different, but also my stories arrive in a very different way to me. um And I've tried from the perspective of the person whose story I'm telling. And so therefore it's easy to make them different and distinct because obviously every character is different and distinct. You know, if you're 20 or if you're 94 as one of my characters is,
00:04:21
Speaker
your views on life, your world experience, um your take on things are extremely different. So just the sort of essence and the flavour and tone I suppose of the prose is very different because it's coming from those different women. Okay, so you're putting yourself in someone else's shoes and then trying to view the world how they view it. Yeah, definitely.
00:04:41
Speaker
do do you do a lot of research into that kind of thing like for example for a 94 year old character are you going to do a lot of research into sort of what things were like when they were young and and etc etc that's a good question i tend to do research more about the period or the fact that I'm
Historical Research and Personal Stories
00:04:59
Speaker
writing about. So, for example, one of my books, Another Love, is about a woman whose life is absolutely destroyed because she suffers with alcoholism, a terrible illness, and it takes away everything that she holds dear, ah career her career, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I knew what it's like to be sloshed. I know what it's like to have a hangover. I know what it's like to be obsessed over something. I know what it's like to have addiction. But that particular illness, I thought, no, I don't know enough about it. And the devil is always in the small detail. Do you think you could write about it? But actually, I needed to talk to people who do suffer with it. And there are always so many wonderful people who very generously are willing to share their stories. um And I learnt so much. and and And it's those small things, I think, that make the books.
00:05:44
Speaker
um, real, but also very relatable. Uh, you know, it wasn't about, you know, for example, on another love, it wasn't so much about the way it felt for her the day after she'd been on drinking binge or what it was like to choose a bottle of vodka over her daughter, for example, or even to sell her body, uh, sexual favors in exchange for a drink. You know, that wasn't really the things that gripped people. It was that moment where she was hiding a bottle.
00:06:11
Speaker
in her car and hiding a bottle in a bin and people have said oh I did that with chocolate or I've done that with you know I think it's those little details that I think gave people sort of an insight into what it was like to live that life so I do an awful lot of research into that but when I wrote Molly's story, Molly's story is a book called An Ordinary Life, Molly starts at the age of 94 and it sort of works backwards through her life really. and It was very much about understanding what it was like for her to be a young ah woman, you know, just setting out in the first steps of her career and her love life at the start of the war. um And what that meant and the restriction she had placed on her, not only because of the time and period that the country was in, you know, we were going to enter into a world war, but also because she was a woman at a time when actually if you were a working class woman, then your opportunities were very much ah zero, you know, it was stay at home, make a home, have a baby, get married.
00:07:05
Speaker
if you were very lucky, or look after ailing parents, but certainly not go out and set the world on fire. That was for other people. So the research, you learn about the character through the kind of environment that they that they find themselves in.
00:07:18
Speaker
I do. And also I have an incredible memory. I've always had, um I'm rubbish at everything, Jamie, to be honest. I've i've had more jobs than you can think. I've been fired from everything, but um I do have an incredible memory. And I have always been, in fact, my family are avid storytellers. So I would always quiz my grandma on what it was like during the war, you know, what her experience were ah growing up in the East end of London.
00:07:41
Speaker
and being there during the blitz and going out to work for the first time and all those things. And so I can really sort of reproduce those memories you know via my characters. And that certainly helps, that sort of firsthand, those lovely accounts. For example, she told me once about when she was working in um a munitions factory that actually is where the Barbican now is in London. And she lived in East London. And she said there was an air raid and there was bombing. And her and her, well, actually my great aunt, as it turned out, she married her brother.
00:08:09
Speaker
um She said, we came up after the sirens had stopped and we looked out and there wasn't a single landmark by which they used to navigate home. Nothing. Everything was flat. Everything was burning. Everything was rubble. And I remember putting that in the book and it really struck a chord with me when I was trying to sort of imagine it and rewrite it. I thought, my gosh, you know, it's that's the life changing stuff that I love to love to talk about and write about.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like your research for your fiction stuff actually is you kind of do a sort of journalism approach to it, where you're, you're getting these like accounts and first hand descriptions of places and things that happened in events. That's absolutely right. It's exactly what I do. And it's the only way I know how to do it. So and it sort of works for me. But yeah, it's exactly what I do. Yeah.
Prolific Writing and Story Visualization
00:08:58
Speaker
Going back to, so you do two books a year. How long have you been on a schedule of writing and publishing two books a year? I started off doing three, I think. Wow. Yeah. I've done something like 38 books altogether um in just over 10 years. It's a lot.
00:09:16
Speaker
I write very quick yeah um i write very very quickly because I don't really think about what I'm writing because it arrives in my head fully formed. So beginning, middle, end, twist, turns, everything. It's like someone downloads a story into my head in about 30 seconds, 40 seconds. So I don't have to think about it, which I think saves an awful lot of time.
00:09:38
Speaker
um And then the only thing a really useful thing I think I learned at school, I was made to learn 150 years ago. I was made to learn to touch type. And I remember thinking, I'm never going to use that. I wanted you to do metalwork and make a fish slice. I was desperate to make a fish slice, Jamie, but they wouldn't let me. And so they said, no, you've got to learn to touch type, which I did. And it honestly, it's I always say ah it saved my life because now I can write without looking at the keyboard. I look above the screen. I write on a teeny tiny laptop.
00:10:08
Speaker
And I see my book as though it's a movie. And it's like someone says, you know, um the scene in Dirty Dancing, obviously the best film ever made, where he has to lift her yeah over his head in the water, write that scene, describe it. So it's like I am writing what I'm seeing for the first time. So I don't i stop writing and I don't read what I've written until I've finished it. And the first time I see the completed book is when I print it out at the end and I read it through and think, oh, that's great. Oh, I don't like that bit. all you know, Sophia's become Sophie halfway through, or I've lost track of chapter numbers, all that happens. But essentially, that's pretty much it. it um I make a few tweaks, then it goes off for edit. And then we go through the editorial process. But I think that's why I'm able to write so quickly, because I don't have to worry what's happening next. I know exactly what's going to happen next.
00:10:56
Speaker
Okay. so you It sounds like you don't make a sort of physical plan, but in your head, it's all planned out. It's all mapped out. I couldn't bear it. I'm so impatient. I couldn't bear to write a note. I don't have a book. I don't write a post-it. I don't do a timeline. I don't do anything. I literally just get it set in my head so I can see it clearly. And um and then I start writing. And I write usually write two books at the same time, and they're both in my head.
00:11:22
Speaker
And at one point I wrote a trilogy, and which is a sort of intertwined love story between three characters and it's the whole of their lives, I love it, called Anna, Theo and Kitty. And it's just, it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. um And I had those all set in my head and I was writing all three at the same time and I would sort of dip and dive between the three when something felt relevant to include it in one of the other books. So that's pretty much how I do it. I know it's quite odd.
00:11:47
Speaker
um But when I see people and they say, Oh, I've done a plan, and I'm, I'm just doing notes, I'm thinking, God, I just honestly Jamie, I'm, I ah couldn't bear it. I have to just start. And I'm impatient. And the best book I've ever written is the one I'm about to write. So I'm always extremely excited to get on with that. So I think that spurs me on as well to keep going. so Yeah, two a year, I think is actually I'm doing three at the moment, but um yeah, about two a year, and because that means I've got time to actually occasionally look up and go for a walk and get fresh air and clean the kitchen and feed people and dogs and animals and stuff. So I'm trying to get better at that work-life balance, but I'm not very good at it really.
00:12:25
Speaker
Okay, so to kind of maintain that, I mean, you you write very fast anyway, as you said, but to maintain that kind of output to hit your deadlines, do you have like a regimented schedule where you're just like, I need to write between this time and this time on these days? I do, but to me, it's not like a schedule. For me, it's like an obsession. So I didn't start rational. I was in my in my sort of mid 40s. I'm 56 now.
00:12:53
Speaker
And I think it's almost like someone has given me permission to do this incredible thing. And it's the thing I love most, and it's my happiest place. And so I get up every morning really early. I start work at about six o'clock. I get up at five, I wake up naturally. Mind you, I go to bed at eight. So I'm going to pause my plug at eight o'clock. You know, I have to will catch up.
00:13:18
Speaker
um But I start writing early and I just write all day and I mean today for example it's you know it's it's clocking on for sort of nearly lunchtime. I'm still in my PJs, I haven't brushed my hair, I think I've had breakfast, I'm not sure, um but I've just been in another world completely lost to it and it feels like such a privilege.
00:13:38
Speaker
I can't quite believe I get to do it every day. So even though I do it every single day, in fact, I haven't had a day off, as you would say, I haven't not written um ever since I started. So nearly a decade, there hasn't been one day where I don't write. Even on Christmas day or birthdays or anniversaries, I will get up super early to make sure I can get a couple of hours writing in. And generally, whatever I'm doing, I'm always mentally itching to get back to the keyboard.
00:14:04
Speaker
Is that sad? I think it might be actually having said it loud.
00:14:10
Speaker
Well, that's, um I've heard Brandon Sanderson talk about how he feels about writing and in a very similar way. So you are at least in good company um yeah with that approach to it.
00:14:22
Speaker
And also I think, you know, I've done some horrible jobs. And so I think I know what it's like to do a horrible job or or a job that doesn't make you fulfilled or happy or satisfied. And I never thought this would be my life. So I, you know, without sounding too um evangelical, I am extremely thankful every day to the universe for this chance.
00:14:41
Speaker
Was there a sort of moment when, ah presumably after you'd released a couple of books, was there ever a moment when you sort of thought to yourself, oh, this isn't real. Like, yeah I am
Autobiographical Insights and Personal Challenges
00:14:52
Speaker
an author, I'm doing it.
00:14:54
Speaker
No, I still don't feel like that, Jamie. And I still, and this is u yeah this is really, I suppose, I don't know how I feel about this, but i if anyone says, what do you do for a living? That terrible question that we used to always get asked in the 80s and 90s, I think hopefully people don't do that anymore. What do you do? um i I still say, oh, I'm an army wife.
00:15:14
Speaker
And I'm a mum to two boys in their thirties. I'm a granny in waiting. um You know, I live on a farm and sort of the last thing I will say is, oh, and I write books because I think two things. First of all, coming from my background, it always felt like a very lofty ambition.
00:15:31
Speaker
and maybe wasn't something that someone like me would ever achieve or do, you know, write a book. We didn't have any books in our in our flat growing up. and My parents, you know, we did didn didn't have books, they were just working and busy, and I don't think I ever really saw them reading, um only on holiday maybe. But it wasn't a world I was familiar with, so it felt like it was so far from my horizon. It felt like something that wasn't for me. And secondly, I'm very aware that I get very well paid to sit in my pyjamas and not brush my hair while there are people in hospital wards and driving ambulances or p placing the streets or, you know, soldiering and all the other things that people do. And I feel guilty. I think a little bit that that is my life.
00:16:15
Speaker
Oh, I see. Yeah. It's and it's so interesting. like You are an international bestseller. You've almost published 40 novels. The idea that you don't think of yourself first as an author is is just mind-blowing.
00:16:29
Speaker
When I meet an author, so I occasionally, so um occasionally I'll go and do sort of a, you know, a festival or a literary event or an evening with all those things that I love, because meeting readers is my best thing, second best thing after writing. And and when I meet an author, I get really tongue tied and I'm like, oh,
00:16:48
Speaker
You've written a book, and ah especially if they've written a book that I've read, I go all completely unnecessary. It's ridiculous. I mean, I can can't tell you the number of times I just stand there and go, oh my gosh, it's so, and I think, you know, wow. And then, because I don't feel, I don't feel like that's me, you know, I feel like that's, that's amazing. I mean, all of those people, I don't put myself in that bracket. I don't think I ever will probably.
00:17:10
Speaker
Are you still sort of, if you go into a bookshop and you see your your book there, or if you see someone reading ah one of your books, does that still kind of blow your mind? It's, I remember people often talk about what's the best thing that's ever happened in your career. What's the moment that, you know, in your writing career, what defines it as this incredible thing? And I remember the first time I ever saw someone reading one of my books who wasn't a relative, I should add that caveat in. Because obviously, you know, my family read them first. It's not that marvelous, it might not have been. But I was on the tube on the district line.
00:17:46
Speaker
traveling out to Upminster. You don't need to know that, but I was traveling to Upminster. And I looked over and there was a lady reading Poppy Day, which was my first book. And she was absolutely engrossed in it. And she was sort of, she had a finger up by her mouth and she was turning the pages. And I don't know anything about her. I don't know her name. I don't know, you know, her details, but I can tell you that she was lost in the way that I get lost. And it was, I mean, I still feel very emotional when I think about it.
00:18:15
Speaker
two reasons. One, because I always thought if ever I could make someone feel like that, then that would be the most incredible feeling in the world because I remember books that made me still do make me feel like that. But secondly, I used to travel the district line with my granddad. He worked in the docks all his life and occasionally had to go up to Villiers Street for a meeting. We'd travel, I live with my grandparents and we'd travel back together.
00:18:37
Speaker
And he passed away just before my first book got published, but I i knew that had he been with me, I felt he was with me, he would undoubtedly have said, oh, hello. She wrote that book, I know. And I felt this overwhelming sense of sort of, I don't know, it was just lovely. And so it does blow my mind. I want to meet people and they say, oh, I've read your books or I love this or this character.
00:19:01
Speaker
It's the closest thing to magic, something that popped into my head in 20 seconds and I, you know, bash down onto the keyboard and then they've read it and it's meant something to them. That connection, very often woman to woman is just, it's it's magic Jamie, it really is, it's incredible. I love it so much.
00:19:21
Speaker
that's the thing I think most authors are chasing is that like meeting someone and for them to say, oh, you your book reached me on like a really impactful level. and It's such a compliment. And I get messages, I think because I write very emotive books and my books are, it always says, you know, you'll need tissues or, you know, this will make you cry or this will, it's got all the feels, I think as the kids say nowadays, got all the feels. They often get messages from people and they say, oh, you know,
00:19:50
Speaker
I've sobbed my my flight all the way over to Lanzarote, I've cried all the way, or I'm sitting by the pool with sunglasses on and I'm absolutely distraught. And I always feel kind of delighted that I've brought them that level of distress, because not because I'm wicked, but because it shows that it's worked. you know putting it That's how it made me feel when I read it back. That's how I feel when I write it. And so I've managed to do that. And that feels a lot like success for me. It's wonderful.
00:20:20
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, it's like most art forms, it's about like eliciting an emotion, right? So if people are reacting like that, but you know, that you've you've done something right. um Before we head over to the desert island, I'd love to ask about your nonfiction, which I believe you have written but and co-written two books in nonfiction. What brought those about?
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, I've written two. So the first one is called Women Like Us. And it's basically my life story, which no one listening needs to read because you just heard it more or less. um But it's essential. I mean, I was born in in the East End of London in Stepney in the East End maternity hospital. Don't worry, Jamie, I'm not going to go through the whole book. This isn't me starting at the beginning and coming up to the present day. But um I was born to very, very young parents who were in their teens. And we lived in a council flat in the East End and had no money and a very, very you know, horizon was very near to us. Everything was within touching distance. And you either worked in the docks or you're all at my dad. You worked at Dagenham's at the Ford factory, or like my mum, you were a hairdresser, or you worked in a shoe shop, or my nan, who was a stay-at-home hypochondriac. You know, this was what people around me did. And I was raised by this army of incredible, you know, rotten-toothed
00:21:40
Speaker
ah rolling pin wielding women who had my back and in one way they told me i could do anything but in the other way it was the best not to have ideas above your station which is most terrible for a haze bike remember that you know it was best not to be disappointed and therefore to do something within the boundary that we all felt was safe and comfortable and within reach. And so for me to say, I would like to write a book, it was comical really. um And even at school where ambition among staff and pupils was very low, it was very much like, well, you know, write a book, what what have you got to write about?
00:22:17
Speaker
And I thought, yeah, they're right. What have I got to write about? I've never even been to Mallorca, Jamie, which was the height of, you know, glamour for me going to Mallorca. Okay. We went to North Devon, stayed in a caravan where it rained on the roof and we ate chips. Turns out they were the best holidays ever in the world. Now I'm old, but actually at the time I got on the plane and go to Mallorca. I didn't think I had anything to write about. And so I thought, you know, I didn't have any idea how to get out the blocks.
00:22:42
Speaker
I didn't know anyone whose father was going to put in a good word or, you know, I wasn't able to afford to be an intern in publishing where, you know, my parents could pay for my rent in Central, in none of that. It was all about finding your own opportunities. And so I thought, you know what? It's probably easier not to bother.
00:22:58
Speaker
So I did every job you can think of. It was, you know, I worked in a market store. um I worked in wine bars. I cleaned offices of a night in the city. I worked in call centres. I was a waitress, which is a job I love the most. But I did all sorts of things because it all felt it was beyond me.
00:23:16
Speaker
And I thought, you know, there's got to be lots of women who feel that these things are beyond them. And it isn't. It's all about that mindset, about trusting the process, about changing the way you look at the world, about having a little bit of self-belief. And believe me, it was only a very little bit.
00:23:31
Speaker
And actually, magical things can happen. And it did. So I thought, I'm going to write this down. um And running alongside that, I've had you know very or various sort of health health and issues, as we all have. you know Cancer touches all of us, touches all our families. um I've had terrible infertility problems. you know I've had seven, eight, nine miscarriages, some of them very, very late. And things that just shaped me.
00:23:58
Speaker
But it's all of our lives and it's only when you write it down and say it's happened to me and it's okay. And I do lead a good happy life even though these things have happened and you will too. I kind of thought it was reassuring and I never even thought up until the point we published whether I might actually still publish it or whether it was just a, you know, for me.
00:24:17
Speaker
um But I did publish it and I think it's great for women to have this as sort of a a resource to say, you know what, a I've done it. I've sold millions of books in 23 countries all over the world. I'm only just getting started. I'm in my mid 50s. I didn't start till I was in my late 40s and you can do it too. And so that was sort of the idea behind that one.
00:24:39
Speaker
wow that's um i would say very brave to do to put i mean it's it's scary enough just writing fiction and putting it out there because even if it's fictional in my experience there's so much of the author in that if it's like the decisions the characters make or just the way that they phrase everything but to do something that's so but It's essentially autobiography that it sounds like. that's yeah so Did you feel vulnerable putting that out into the world? Do you know I still do, Jamie? It's a weird one. um It also talks about my battle with my weight. um When I came up the other side of my sort of fertility, the my last ah baby loss was quite extreme and terrible and I think I broke down a little bit. um and I began to eat and food addiction completely gripped me.
00:25:31
Speaker
um ah My weight ballooned to 22 stone at my heaviest. I'm five foot five. I'm not extremely tall. I was really, really, I was morbidly obese, very, very overweight. um And I'd never been overweight. And it was just a complete shock to look in the mirror and see this person staring back at me who I didn't even recognize, didn't feel like me. And it affected everything, my mobility, my wider health, my mental state, my movement.
00:26:00
Speaker
ah my sleep, you know, my sex life, you name it, it affects every single aspect of your life. And I couldn't find a way to get out of it. um And then one day my husband, who is my great mate, he's absolutely wonderful, we sat down and he said, I just don't think you're going to be here next year if you don't to take control of this. And I know this is going to sound absolutely bizarre, but I kind of thought you hadn't noticed. I kind of thought maybe by putting on a wrap or a very flutey top,
00:26:29
Speaker
he might still think I was, you know, nine stone underneath. But of course, that's not the truth. It was just me again hiding from the real problems, which were actually nothing to do with food and everything to do with feeling completely empty, hollowed out, totally, totally lost grief that I wasn't even, um you know, recognizing, let alone trying to deal with.
00:26:51
Speaker
It's so incredible and I am so impressed that you were brave enough to to put all of that and be so open and honest and and put that on on paper. it's Yeah, I mean, it's everything, right? it's It's everything just putting it out there. But I imagine at the same time, there's ah there's probably a catharsis with cu with that comes from doing that, that is kind of freeing.
00:27:13
Speaker
hugely and never more so without my other work of non-fiction, which is a book I wrote with my son, Joshi.
Collaborative Writing on Mental Health
00:27:20
Speaker
Joshi is now 28, 29. I'm not sure. I stop counting when it's past months. You know, when you say, oh, that's months, 12 months, I think he's about 28. But Josh has suffered with poor mental health since, um I would say, his late teens.
00:27:36
Speaker
um And then Josh went off to university, always a straight A student, absolutely brilliant. The most gorgeous human being. I adore all my boys, but he Josh is, yeah, they're just lovely. um And his mental health just fell off a cliff to the point where Josh tried to take his own life when he was at university. And it doesn't matter how many times I say that, Jamie. it never sounds quite true in my ears and as I'm saying it I always speed up a little bit and I go a little bit breathless so I'm sure you can tell because it's um it's undoubtedly the worst thing that's ever happened give me anything over that anything over than my child not wanting to be on the planet
00:28:13
Speaker
because I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to deal with it. And Josh basically stopped talking. um After his first or second attempt, we bought him home. We made a nest and we said, University doesn't matter. Degrees don't matter. Job titles don't matter. Just keeping you here and keeping you safe, that's what matters. So essentially, we just built him a little fort.
00:28:34
Speaker
And we did our best just to keep him here every day. And, um, I sent him an email saying, look, I don't know what to do. I really would love to know what to do because I was in fix it mode, which I now know, you know, it's pretty impossible. But as a mum, that was my job to make everything better. And I wrote him an email saying, just help me out here. What do I do, Joshy? What do I say? What do I, and he replied and and he hadn't spoken for a long time. And he said, come into my room.
00:29:02
Speaker
and open my window and turn my pillow over and maybe draw the curtains and sit on the chair next to me and just sit with me for a bit. And I replied and said, oh, what? Like you were ill. And Josh sent me a reply and it said, I am ill mum. And it was the first time I'd understood that he wasn't lazy. He wasn't being difficult.
00:29:28
Speaker
He wasn't doing anything that was within his control. He was very, very ill. He just happened to have a mental illness and not a physical one. And it's so weird, isn't it? If you get cancer, people are lining up at your front door to bring you a casserole or a card or offer support or send love and hugs or whatever it is. But you say someone's got a bad mental illness and it's almost the opposite.
00:29:53
Speaker
And ironically, they need the support. Josh needed support far more than I did when I had something physical, which had a million things they could do to make me feel better. um But there wasn't anything to offer Josh apart from, you know, medication and it was really hit and miss and time. And he needed that support and that love from the community, from peers, from family, from everybody, but it's not always forthcoming. And I understood that he was very ill and we started emailing.
00:30:22
Speaker
And who it was like um it was like ripping a band-aid off. Josh found his voice via this medium and was able to tell me that he didn't want to be here anymore, that his life meant nothing. And I would reply and say things like, I can't believe you're this sad. And he'd say, mum, I'm not sad. I'm nothing, numb. Sad would be an upgrade.
00:30:44
Speaker
And I learnt so much Jamie. I learnt so much about what it feels like to have that illness, which I've never suffered with, so it's really hard to understand. If you've never had depression, i haven't had I've had some rubbish things happen in my life. I've never had one minute of depression. I've been I've been tired, but never ever have I understood the the depths of despair that Josh had reached. And I learnt a lot, but mostly I learnt that my son and everybody like him who suffers with deep depression or mental illness are absolute heroes, they are warriors and they are the strongest people because if you're very lucky in your lifetime you may learn about yourself, you may have a brief insight into what goes on in your own brain and you may
00:31:31
Speaker
understand what makes you tick. If you suffer with something like Josh does, you do that every minute of every day. And not only is it exhausting, but it's a battle most people will never have to undertake or fight, let alone comprehend. So people with depression who get up and face the world, who put themselves out there, who go into a shop, who get on a bus or a train or ask for directions or say please or thank you, it takes more strength than most of us will ever have to find in our whole lives.
00:32:01
Speaker
these people are my absolute heroes. And was it your idea that you do the non-fiction book together? No, for me, it was just a way of us communicating. And we very quickly found that we had 20, 30,000 words, you know, this back and forth, this absolute forth. And one of my editors came out to the farm to talk about another project, actually. And she said, how's Joshi doing? And I said, oh, well not so good. I said, in fact, we've been writing to each other. She said, what do you mean? He's only upstairs. I said, no, we've been writing to each other.
00:32:33
Speaker
She said, can I read it? I said, well, I don't know. I'll ask Josh. And he said, oh, yeah, I'll read it. That's fine. And she called me and she said, it's the first time I've ever seen anything written from the perspective of someone who's suffering with severe depression who actually does not want to be here anymore.
00:32:49
Speaker
and someone trying desperately to stick plasters on it and find the solution and caring for them. So I think this could be really interesting. And I said, oh gosh, no, I don't know. This isn't for public consumption. And I don't want Josh to be that boy because that's his digital footprint for the rest of his life. He's that person. And I said this to Josh and he said, mum, I am that person.
00:33:10
Speaker
You know, I am, that is me. And I thought, yeah. And actually, i didn't I had nothing to reach for as a resource. At my lowest points, you know, when we were sort of sleeping in, um what do you call, you know, we were doing shifts, my husband and I, because we couldn't not be watching over Josh. So we slept with all the bedroom doors open, and pacing the corridors at night, just checking in on him and that blue light of his phone or whatever device.
00:33:33
Speaker
in the early hours because he didn't sleep. It was torturous for all of us and I just had to keep reminding myself that no matter how bad it was for us, it was a 10 times worse for Joshi. And I thought if I'd had that resource to reach for, I think it might have been a bit easier to know that A, we haven't done anything wrong. And I know that sounds very self-indulgent, but that was my biggest fear. What have we done? What did we do? At what point did we let him down? You know, at what point did did I not listen? Or did I miss the signs? Because I was really smug, Jamie, up until the point that Josh became ill.
00:34:06
Speaker
I was the mum and I am the mum who has all the kids in the house. I cook their meals. I welcome their friends. We go on holiday together. They text me when they arrive. I was doing everything right. And I would look at families who had this, you know, this sort of this deep a well of depression running through them and think, God, I feel sorry for those families. I wonder how they've become a family like that. Turns out we are a family like that.
00:34:34
Speaker
I just didn't know it. And, um, yeah, I'm happy. I, I, I, lots of people have, you know, obviously every day we get messages in Josh too. And Josh, if he helps one person, it's worth it. And ironically, the person that helped the most was him.
00:34:49
Speaker
Well, that's great. Yeah. So it was sort of an accident that it it was never intended to be a book or anything. it just sent it kind of the It was destined almost to be a book. it It was seen by the right person who decided it was a good idea and went on from there.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's a book I've practiced off, and it's the hardest book, without a doubt, because we decided if we were going to write it, then we couldn't sugarcoat anything. There was no point writing about it. And we all sailed off into the sunset and had a glass of champagne. It was all lovely. That hasn't happened. That probably won't happen. It was very important that we didn't that we didn't sanitize anything, and we haven't. um But it's that honesty that I think is most valuable.
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um We are a bit over time on this, ah but we're good, we're good. But it is the the time in the episode where I would to propose the hypothetical of if you were stranded on a desert island ah with a single book and unfortunately no champagne, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:35:55
Speaker
I would hope it would be, in fact I would make sure it was, a book by an author called Katie Hickman and it is called She Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen, British Women in India. And it is an absolutely and incredible collection of stories and tales about these groundbreaking women who went out to this you know unknown continent and country ah between 1600 and 1900 who often traveled alone on the most perilous journey and what they found and how they tried to assimilate and their lives in this completely unknown landscape
00:36:31
Speaker
um and what these people endured and the way that they fell in love with this but this place and the people and the colours and you know the food and everything and how it shaped them and not all survived and in fact the journey was probably the most perilous thing it took no nine months to get there on a on a rather creaky ship. But I'm absolutely lost of stories of these women and how they found the strength to sort of, I don't know, go fly in the face of all that was expected of them at that time and place um in England. It was just unheard of, you know, for men to even venture that far and do these amazing things. And the fact that a lot of these women did, I think it's um an incredible story.
00:37:13
Speaker
And then of course there's the other side of how it affected the people whose lives they touched. It looks at colonialism, it looks at the East India Company, it looks at all of that. um And I find it fascinating.
00:37:25
Speaker
Wow, yeah I mean it totally lines up with the image that I've got just just from talking to you about what really drives you in kind of writing and like the ends inspiration for writing and that's you just seem fascinated by people who have done extraordinary things and like why they did it and the kind of drive that put them through it. I think the reason for that Jamie is that everybody is extraordinary, but everyone considers their own exploits to be quite ordinary. And that I find the most amazing of all.
00:37:57
Speaker
Yes, like you not introducing yourself as an international bestselling author to people. No.
00:38:06
Speaker
um Next up, I've got some questions about ah more businessy kind of questions about Amanda's journey into publication, signing the deal for her debut novel and advice for aspiring authors. That will all be in the extended episode available on Patreon.
00:38:23
Speaker
Make that the beginning of your submission. Hook them in. Yeah. That's great advice. And then on on from that, I would also say publishing, especially for doing traditional publishing, it's a very slow industry. your You know, you sign your deal and that book's probably not getting published for at least a year. Yeah.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. And actually it's, but that's, you know, it's also, it's being aware of the book community, you know, vloggers and bloggers, and I'm not very good with all this stuff, but tick tockers and bookstagrammers. These are the people who want to read and you are providing, you've got the stuff they want to read. You know, send it to them, send them a sample, send them a chapter, let them lobby on your behalf, allow them to become your readership. What an amazing thing.
00:39:09
Speaker
And it's easy now digitally to get your work out there, get a little bit or shorty or a poem, whatever it is, get it into the hands of people who can spread the word about you and don't try and be the next JK, the next Pico, the next, you know, Cookson, whoever it is. Be the first you, trust your authentic author voice because you've got something you want to say and there will be people who want to read it.
00:39:32
Speaker
Absolutely great advice and a great way to to round off the episode. Thank you so much, Amanda, for coming on the podcast and telling us all about your experiences with writing and and and publishing and everything everything in between. It's been so interesting chatting with you.
00:39:46
Speaker
Thank you, Jamie. I've loved it, honestly. It's been really great. And apologies for all the animal noises in the background. That's quite all right. For anyone wanting to keep up with what Amanda is doing, you can follow her on a number of online spaces if you just Google her.
Connecting with Amanda on Social Media
00:40:01
Speaker
But if you want to find her on socials, go to her Instagram at MrsAmandaProwse. This one live, her new book is out January 7th. So by the time this airs,
00:40:11
Speaker
To support this podcast, like, follow and subscribe, join the Patreon for expanded ad-free episodes, and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Troves. Thanks again, Amanda, and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.