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#107 - Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin/Sam Blake
463 Plays2 years ago
Bestselling crime and YA novelist, and influential publishing professional, Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin aka Sam Blake is on this week's episode of the podcast talking about writing, the craft, working in publishing and the layers of thinking that go into a successful pen name.
Signing up to the Patreon will give you access to the Discord server, where you'll be able to interact directly with Jamie as well as many of the previous agents, authors and editors who have been on the show. You'll also be able to see who the upcoming guests are and put forward questions for Jamie to ask them.
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The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes
Jamie, Melissa and Noami talk about the best and the worst writing tropes!
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Transcript
Introduction and New Patreon Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, Jamie here.
00:00:01
Speaker
If you've been enjoying the podcast and want to show your support, I have a brand new Patreon page, and signing up will grant you access to the Right and Wrong Discord server, where you can interact directly with many of the authors, agents, and editors who have been guests on the show.
00:00:14
Speaker
You can also interact with me and see what guests are coming up, so you could maybe suggest questions that I could ask them.
00:00:20
Speaker
Thanks again for listening, and I really do appreciate any and all support that you guys give me for the podcast.
00:00:25
Speaker
Let's get back to it.
Meet Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin aka Sam Blake
00:00:26
Speaker
So our podcast is called Right and Wrong.
00:00:27
Speaker
Are these your notes?
00:00:29
Speaker
These are your notes about what we're going to say.
00:00:32
Speaker
Anything.
00:00:32
Speaker
Nailed it.
00:00:32
Speaker
It's a short answer.
00:00:34
Speaker
So how many novels did you not finish?
00:00:36
Speaker
Oh my God, so many.
00:00:38
Speaker
It was perfect.
00:00:40
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:00:41
Speaker
This is not a difference.
00:00:43
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:45
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:46
Speaker
This is it, guys.
00:00:47
Speaker
The big secret to getting published is you have to write a good book.
00:00:51
Speaker
You had it here first.
00:00:53
Speaker
We're going to
00:00:55
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:58
Speaker
In this week's episode, I'm very lucky to be joined by Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin, who is the founder of writing.ie, the Inkwell Group, a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts and a board member of the Society of Authors.
00:01:15
Speaker
But many people will also know her as number one bestselling crime author, Sam Blake.
00:01:22
Speaker
Hi Vanessa, welcome to the podcast.
00:01:25
Speaker
Hi, Jamie.
00:01:25
Speaker
Thank you so
Exploring 'The Mystery of Four'
00:01:26
Speaker
much for having me.
00:01:27
Speaker
It's my absolute pleasure.
00:01:30
Speaker
There's so many things that you've done.
00:01:32
Speaker
Just doing my research, in preparation for you to come on, I was a little bit mind boggled by the amount of things that you are doing, have done, and probably will do.
00:01:42
Speaker
So let's start with something simple.
00:01:47
Speaker
Some recent news, which is your newest novel, The Mystery of Four, came out 5th of January.
00:01:56
Speaker
How's your elevator pitch for it?
00:01:59
Speaker
How's my elevator pitch?
00:02:00
Speaker
Well, it's a country house mystery set in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.
00:02:05
Speaker
And it features a girl called Tess Morgan who buys a house called Kilfenora.
00:02:10
Speaker
This is going to be a long elevator pitch.
00:02:13
Speaker
I talk to authors all the time about trying to get their one line together in case they get in the lift with Stephen King.
00:02:19
Speaker
But yeah, so basically it's a book set in the Wicklow Mountains.
00:02:22
Speaker
Tess buys this country house called Kilfenora.
00:02:25
Speaker
And she spent two years restoring it.
00:02:28
Speaker
And we meet her on the Monday before the grand opening weekend.
00:02:32
Speaker
So we've got the week to go.
00:02:33
Speaker
She's got one week left.
00:02:35
Speaker
She's planning all sorts of things.
00:02:37
Speaker
And the first thing that happens to her is a journalist gets in touch to tell her that he thinks her body has been hidden on her property.
00:02:44
Speaker
So that's the first thing that goes wrong.
00:02:46
Speaker
But really it goes downhill from there because bodies start popping up all over the place.
00:02:50
Speaker
Oh gosh, it's not what you want.
00:02:52
Speaker
No, exactly.
00:02:53
Speaker
It's not quite what she planned.
00:02:54
Speaker
She was looking forward to sort of a vintage car rally in a craft market and children running up to the ice cream van to get their ice creams and
00:03:03
Speaker
She's more worried now that she's going to have guarded crime scene tape and TV cameras all over the place.
00:03:09
Speaker
Amazing.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, a great setup for a novel.
Venturing into Young Adult Fiction
00:03:13
Speaker
And it hit the number one spot on the Easton's Top 100, right?
00:03:19
Speaker
It did.
00:03:20
Speaker
And it got to number one.
00:03:21
Speaker
Actually, I managed to outsell Prince Harry in one shot.
00:03:23
Speaker
Oh, nice.
00:03:24
Speaker
Dun Laoghaire.
00:03:25
Speaker
In Debray books in Dun Laoghaire, I outsold Prince Harry.
00:03:28
Speaker
So I have a picture to remind me of that forever.
00:03:32
Speaker
Well, very, very well done.
00:03:35
Speaker
And is that, this is your, am I right in thinking it's the eighth book that you've published?
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, this is the eighth one.
00:03:40
Speaker
It's the seventh one in print.
00:03:41
Speaker
I've got one that's just in digital, the one we mentioned actually before we came on, High Pressure, which is Kindle and audio only.
00:03:48
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay.
00:03:50
Speaker
So the eighth book out and two more on the way?
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:03:55
Speaker
I've got Something Terrible Happened Last Night, which is my YA debut coming in May.
00:04:01
Speaker
And that's going to be, that's very exciting.
00:04:03
Speaker
And then my 2024 book is done and dusted and hasn't been edited yet, but it's written.
00:04:10
Speaker
And that's about a facial reconstruction expert.
00:04:13
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:04:14
Speaker
That's a new take.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, a bit more forensic, a bit more backed in.
00:04:18
Speaker
It's not procedural in the same way that the first three books were procedurals, but it's a new character, lots of lovely forensic stuff.
00:04:25
Speaker
I'm really interested in forensics.
00:04:27
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:04:29
Speaker
Like you said, very exciting.
00:04:30
Speaker
Your first young adult novel.
00:04:32
Speaker
Can you tell us anything about it?
00:04:33
Speaker
Yes, I can indeed.
00:04:34
Speaker
It's called Something Terrible Happened Last Night.
00:04:37
Speaker
And it's set in an elite girls boarding school in Ireland.
00:04:42
Speaker
It's a day and boarding school.
00:04:44
Speaker
So there's people coming and going.
00:04:46
Speaker
And basically, there's a party.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's Katie's 17th birthday party.
00:04:50
Speaker
Her parents have gone away for the weekend, which is never a good thing.
00:04:54
Speaker
And the party gets out of control.
00:04:56
Speaker
There's a huge fight.
00:04:57
Speaker
between rival rugby teams from two different schools.
00:05:01
Speaker
When Katie's friends come back, when the house is cleared and they get rid of everybody, and when Katie's friends come back to help her clear up, they discover that there's a body behind the sofa.
00:05:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:16
Speaker
First, YA, but it feels like you are leaning into the strengths that you have from all of the crime novels that you've written previously.
00:05:26
Speaker
Very much so, yeah.
00:05:26
Speaker
No, it's definitely still in crime.
00:05:28
Speaker
And I've got a couple of 16 – the characters in it are 16, sort of 17, and I have a couple of 16-year-old characters in previous books.
00:05:35
Speaker
So Remember My Name features a great girl called Emily Jane, and she has quite a big part in that book.
00:05:42
Speaker
And then previously I had in one of the Cat Connolly books there was a 16-year-old as well.
00:05:46
Speaker
So it was an age group.
00:05:48
Speaker
I felt very comfortable writing and really enjoyed writing.
00:05:51
Speaker
And, yeah, I absolutely loved doing it.
00:05:52
Speaker
It's a whole different – a lot of different –
00:05:55
Speaker
sort of ways of doing things much much bigger cast so the mystery of four has quite a big cast it's got a big cast and some of the other books i've written because it's set in a village and it has an amateur dramatic society theme going through it so there's quite a lot of people in it um but when you're writing ya and it's a school you need to give that sense of you know the school i suppose environment so you're you're yeah it's a lot more characters
00:06:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:19
Speaker
So
Evolving Writing Styles and Processes
00:06:20
Speaker
you, it sounds like you've kind of been leaning towards maybe doing something YA for a while now, uh, with your previous books.
00:06:28
Speaker
Do you think you'll do some more YA after this one?
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm actually literally writing the next one now.
00:06:33
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it's two book contracts.
00:06:34
Speaker
So, um, yeah, the next one's coming up.
00:06:37
Speaker
Um, and it's about, um, the same similar characters, um,
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, same three, core three, but from one of slightly different points of view.
00:06:46
Speaker
So yeah, I love it.
00:06:47
Speaker
It's good.
00:06:47
Speaker
It's nice.
00:06:48
Speaker
It's nice to write.
00:06:48
Speaker
There are a bunch of girls who are feisty and sort of see themselves being a detective.
00:06:53
Speaker
So that's really what it's all about.
00:06:56
Speaker
Okay, sounds great.
00:06:58
Speaker
So that'll be book nine and then book 10 in 2024.
00:07:06
Speaker
It's called Three Little Birds.
00:07:08
Speaker
So it's got a title.
00:07:09
Speaker
Oh, very good.
00:07:10
Speaker
That's a facial reconstruction one.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, I did that.
00:07:12
Speaker
It's like Bob Marley.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, been doing loads of research on that to try and make sure that right.
00:07:17
Speaker
Again, another one I enjoyed writing.
00:07:19
Speaker
I think it's, I really enjoy stretching myself with each book and trying to do something a bit different.
00:07:24
Speaker
So Mystery of Four is very much playing into the golden age.
00:07:28
Speaker
And I was really interested in Agatha Christie and lock room mysteries and trying to get a sense of maybe something a bit more cosy.
00:07:36
Speaker
Remember My Name, which is the previous book, is very urban and gritty and it's about cyber security and blackmail and all sorts of exciting things.
00:07:45
Speaker
So The Mystery of Four is a complete contrast from that.
00:07:48
Speaker
And then the YA is a contrast again and then
00:07:51
Speaker
we move on to the forensics girl, Carla Steele, Dr. Carla Steele.
00:07:55
Speaker
And yeah, so each one is different, but it's, what I'm trying to do is I suppose grow as a writer.
00:08:00
Speaker
So hopefully I can, the voice is the same and the twists are the same.
00:08:04
Speaker
And so my readership will hopefully come with me, but I can, you know, really enjoy each one.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:09
Speaker
I was going to say, does that really sort of inspire you while you're writing it by having a sort of new place or a new sort of area of stuff to research?
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:08:21
Speaker
I think, and standalones are interesting.
00:08:23
Speaker
When you write a series, my first three books were a police procedural series featuring a guard called Cat Connolly.
00:08:30
Speaker
And when you write a series, it's like, I suppose, going down to the pub with a bunch of friends because you know everybody really well.
00:08:36
Speaker
And each of those characters has to have obviously their own character arc and each story has its arc.
00:08:41
Speaker
And then the trilogy has an arc as well.
00:08:44
Speaker
But what you're really doing is you do really know everybody.
00:08:47
Speaker
So you're sort of applying plot each time and trying to ramp up with that.
00:08:51
Speaker
But with the standalones, everything's totally different.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yes, a different location, new characters, new story.
00:08:57
Speaker
And trying to be original, trying to make sure that each one is absolutely different, that they are different stories.
00:09:05
Speaker
It's quite, I suppose, not easy, but you can fall into a trap of things being a bit too similar.
00:09:11
Speaker
Especially, I have a lot of female characters in my books and they tend to be all quite strong women.
00:09:16
Speaker
So Mystery of Four features Clarissa Westmacott, who is a much more mature lady than I've written before.
00:09:22
Speaker
So yeah, you're trying to make things a bit different each time.
00:09:26
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:09:26
Speaker
And that keeps it interesting for you, keeps it interesting for the readers.
00:09:30
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:32
Speaker
And you mentioned that you're always trying to grow with each book.
00:09:37
Speaker
You're kind of trying to go slightly out of your comfort zone to learn something new, I imagine.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:43
Speaker
Do you feel, looking back to when you wrote your first books, the procedurals, do you feel like the way that you approach the writing, the way that the kind of books come out has changed a lot since then?
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, it has actually.
00:09:58
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:09:59
Speaker
Because when I first started writing, I'm quite one of these organized people who I used to really like plotting and planning a lot.
00:10:06
Speaker
And so Little Bones, which was the first book, was plotted in a really, really detailed way.
00:10:12
Speaker
I've sort of developed a way of plotting.
00:10:15
Speaker
I have this sort of grid system, which is in columns and each chapter is a column.
00:10:20
Speaker
And there's sort of six, six, six, usually around 30 when I start out.
00:10:25
Speaker
which is mad because I never have 30 chapters in any book.
00:10:28
Speaker
It's usually about 75, but at least it gives me the structure, basic structure.
00:10:32
Speaker
So I'd start off with that.
00:10:34
Speaker
If the chapters are columns, what are the rows?
00:10:38
Speaker
Oh, they're just chapter one and then underneath is just a blurb as to what goes into each chapter.
00:10:43
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:10:44
Speaker
Gotcha, gotcha.
00:10:45
Speaker
So it's not really a grid system as such, but as I say, they grow.
00:10:49
Speaker
So I start off like that and little bones would have been a very, very detailed one with
00:10:53
Speaker
you know, different colours for different characters so I could see the flow and who came in where and who went out where and all that type of thing.
00:10:59
Speaker
And as I've progressed, I think I'm plotting less.
00:11:03
Speaker
I need to know what happens so I know what the reveals are and I know what the big issues are.
00:11:08
Speaker
But I suppose I'm writing much more instinctively.
00:11:11
Speaker
I think I've probably learned that I can write instinctively, if you like, and I can trust the process.
00:11:16
Speaker
And so I have a much briefer outline and I might outline the first, say, 10 chapters to see where I'm going.
00:11:24
Speaker
If I'm not sure about a book and I'm not sure about a story, then I'll do a lot more detail planning and I'll try and get the 30 chapters down because I've had a couple where I did have one in this.
00:11:32
Speaker
Before I actually wrote Mystery of Four, I started a book
00:11:35
Speaker
And I had it plotted out, but it wasn't really a whole book.
00:11:39
Speaker
It was a good idea, but it needed a bit more to make it work.
00:11:42
Speaker
And it really, I didn't feel it was working.
00:11:44
Speaker
So I think I wrote about 10,000 words of that and then gave up.
00:11:48
Speaker
And then I had the mystery of four.
00:11:50
Speaker
It was sort of burning at that point.
00:11:52
Speaker
So I went on to that one.
00:11:54
Speaker
So it's a good test to see whether something's actually going to work as a book.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:58
Speaker
But certainly in terms of, say, the kids' book now, I've plotted out the start of it.
00:12:03
Speaker
And the Carla Steele book was the facial reconstruction one was really the one where I really changed because I got to chapter five in that, having plotted it out and decided at chapter five that the woman I was going to kill, I really liked and I felt the reader would like and therefore she couldn't die.
00:12:19
Speaker
And therefore that made nonsense of everything else I'd written in my plan and
00:12:23
Speaker
And I didn't really want to go back in.
00:12:25
Speaker
This was an extra book I wrote in lockdown.
00:12:27
Speaker
So it wasn't under contract or anything.
00:12:28
Speaker
I was sort of testing myself, I suppose.
00:12:31
Speaker
And I didn't want to go back in and spend hours and hours plotting out again.
00:12:36
Speaker
So I just kept writing, really.
00:12:38
Speaker
And it worked.
00:12:39
Speaker
I mean, it did need more editing at the end and playing around and fixing bits.
00:12:44
Speaker
But I really enjoyed that part of the process.
00:12:47
Speaker
So as I say, yeah, it's growing with each one.
00:12:50
Speaker
I see.
00:12:50
Speaker
So do you think for the, is it very much dependent on a sort of story by story basis or do you think for the next one you will go much lighter on the planning and just kind of let it be more free?
00:13:03
Speaker
The next adult one, yeah, is less planned.
00:13:09
Speaker
I've got some detail.
00:13:11
Speaker
I want to really take that up a notch.
00:13:14
Speaker
So I'm going to, yeah, I will be planning it out a bit, I think.
00:13:18
Speaker
I'm not sure, actually.
00:13:19
Speaker
I'll have to wait to see until I get stuck into it.
00:13:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:26
Speaker
Talking about first to most recent novels, going back a bit further, is writing always something that you've wanted to do since you were younger?
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think I always knew I'd write a book.
00:13:38
Speaker
I didn't ever think that I couldn't or that I wouldn't.
00:13:42
Speaker
It was just something I thought I'd do, but I didn't really think about... It wasn't burning inside me or anything.
00:13:47
Speaker
It was just one of those things I would do at some point.
00:13:49
Speaker
I always loved creative writing in school.
00:13:51
Speaker
I was a massive, massive reader, and I'm very creative generally in lots of different ways.
00:13:57
Speaker
I did art school and all the rest of it.
00:13:59
Speaker
So...
00:14:00
Speaker
I think I always thought I would.
00:14:01
Speaker
And then what really happened was my husband went sailing across the Atlantic for eight weeks.
00:14:06
Speaker
I'd moved to Ireland and settled down here and it was November.
00:14:10
Speaker
And so I had some very, very long, dark evenings to fill.
00:14:14
Speaker
No kids then.
00:14:15
Speaker
So I was on my own here, me and the cats.
00:14:17
Speaker
And I had an idea and I just thought, well, now's the time to write it.
00:14:20
Speaker
So literally started writing that down.
00:14:23
Speaker
longhand at the time because I didn't even have a computer at home.
00:14:26
Speaker
And I was going into the office.
00:14:27
Speaker
I was working for an event management company then.
00:14:29
Speaker
I went into the office in the evenings and at weekends and stuff to type it up.
00:14:34
Speaker
And by the time he got back, like the bug had absolutely bitten and he bought me a laptop for Christmas and that was it.
00:14:40
Speaker
I think
The Writing Journey and Community Building
00:14:41
Speaker
it was pretty much the last he ever saw of me.
00:14:43
Speaker
Amazing.
00:14:44
Speaker
So did you kind of feel a moment during that where something kind of switched in you and you thought, you know, I'm actually really going to, I'm going to give this a go.
00:14:54
Speaker
I'm going to really try and take my writing to the next level and then maybe get published.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:58
Speaker
I mean, I think when I started off writing, I didn't know it was hard.
00:15:02
Speaker
I didn't know anything about publishing.
00:15:04
Speaker
I didn't know it was hard to get published.
00:15:05
Speaker
I thought you just wrote a book and then you sent it out and then people published it and that's how it works.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:11
Speaker
Most people do.
00:15:11
Speaker
I think a lot of people think that.
00:15:13
Speaker
So, you know, I made all the rookie mistakes, finished the first draft.
00:15:16
Speaker
I mean, it was a terrible book.
00:15:17
Speaker
I mean, the first half was definitely terrible.
00:15:19
Speaker
The second half, I know there was a point where it started to take off and come together and
00:15:24
Speaker
it was really, I think it definitely stepped up, but it was pretty terrible.
00:15:30
Speaker
So it, I mean, and definitely should never be published.
00:15:32
Speaker
So I was, I sent it out everywhere, absolutely convinced it was going to be the next bestseller.
00:15:36
Speaker
And obviously it was rejected absolutely everywhere.
00:15:39
Speaker
But the thing was the bug had bitten at that point.
00:15:41
Speaker
And I think when you discover the magic of writing, you know, when you put your head down to start on something and,
00:15:47
Speaker
it's 12 o'clock and you look up and it's four o'clock in the afternoon and you've no idea where the time has gone um that you can't I think it becomes addictive you can't stop so I just kept going really um and I'm a positive thinker so obviously I decided I'd written a bestseller so it was going to happen um and it was just a case of just keeping going until it did happen um and
00:16:10
Speaker
But I mean, it took a long time.
00:16:11
Speaker
It took, what, 15 years, I think.
00:16:13
Speaker
And along the way, I had to learn the craft because I didn't realize there was all these techniques that I didn't know when I started out.
00:16:22
Speaker
And so I set up something called Inkwell, which was writer's workshops, actually, primarily to learn how to write myself.
00:16:28
Speaker
I wanted to hear from bestselling authors and there was nothing out there that suited me.
00:16:32
Speaker
So I started my own workshops and they were hugely useful because, I mean, even today,
00:16:37
Speaker
when I'm interviewing authors, I learn something new every single time I listen to somebody speak, you know, whether it's Joanne Harris or Linwood Barclay, or I was chatting to Lisa Jewel at Murder One, my festival there back in October.
00:16:49
Speaker
And you learn something every time and there's a little ping in your head and it's like, oh yes, that's really interesting.
00:16:55
Speaker
And then you're able to use those and develop your process.
00:16:59
Speaker
I think that's something else people don't explain when you start out that creativity is unique and, you
00:17:05
Speaker
I mean, that's why all our books are different and all our voices are different.
00:17:08
Speaker
But that means our process is going to be different too.
00:17:11
Speaker
And learning what works for you and sort of, I suppose, mining from all the others out there, the bits that work for them and that then will work for you and creating your own process is really important in that mix.
00:17:22
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:17:23
Speaker
It's all about finding the thing that works for you.
00:17:27
Speaker
I think George R. R. Martin describes it as architect writers and gardening writers, which is basically a fancy way of saying pantsers and plotters.
00:17:37
Speaker
Exactly.
00:17:38
Speaker
He's brilliant.
00:17:40
Speaker
I went to an interview with him and it was one of the best author interviews I've ever been at in my life.
00:17:45
Speaker
He's an amazing man.
00:17:47
Speaker
When was that?
00:17:48
Speaker
It was in, he won, he was awarded the International Recognition Award by the Irish Book Awards and they had a private event in the GPO, our General Post Office in O'Connell Street.
00:17:59
Speaker
And it was really interesting actually because it was, we're going back into Irish history here now, but at one point in Irish history in the 1920s, the
00:18:10
Speaker
was attacked by the British and there was a standoff in the post office.
00:18:14
Speaker
And I'm cutting Irish history.
00:18:16
Speaker
Anybody who's listening now who's Irish will be trying to shoot me down because obviously I'm British.
00:18:21
Speaker
I'm cutting Irish history really short.
00:18:22
Speaker
But, you know, George, the whole point of this is that George R.R.
00:18:25
Speaker
Martin described it as being like being in the Alamo, which was just amazing.
00:18:30
Speaker
So it was just, yeah, it's an incredible building and incredible interview.
00:18:33
Speaker
It was great.
00:18:34
Speaker
Oh, very cool.
00:18:35
Speaker
Well, getting back to you, we were talking about when you first got that bug and then you started throwing yourself into the publishing world by creating Inkwell and other things like that.
00:18:50
Speaker
At what point in that process did you end up signing with your agent, Simon Truen?
00:18:56
Speaker
So Simon, I met through an event.
00:19:00
Speaker
I basically set up Inkwell, set up writing.ie, I think at that point, and was working a lot with different agents and different publishers and scouting people.
00:19:12
Speaker
for the authors who were on my sort of network.
00:19:15
Speaker
And so I'd placed an awful lot of different books of different people and I really understood the business.
00:19:20
Speaker
So there was an event at the Mountains to Sea Festival in Dunleary and Simon was invited to come and speak at it and do like a one-to-one agent clinic and with another guy, Bill Swainson from Bloomsbury.
00:19:32
Speaker
And they realised while everybody was busy talking, they were doing sort of one-to-ones with everybody that,
00:19:38
Speaker
The rest of the group needed somebody to talk to.
00:19:39
Speaker
So that's when they brought me in to talk about the Irish publishing industry and how it all works from that end.
00:19:44
Speaker
And that's how I met Simon originally.
00:19:46
Speaker
So he met me sort of as a publishing professional as opposed to a writer.
00:19:50
Speaker
And it wasn't until...
00:19:53
Speaker
probably a couple of years later that we met for coffee in London and we were talking about scouting and different bits and pieces.
00:20:01
Speaker
And I had a copy of one of Alex Barkley's books on the coffee table.
00:20:04
Speaker
And he said, oh, you know, you're reading Alex Barkley.
00:20:07
Speaker
And I said, oh, yeah, she's been very influential in my writing because...
00:20:09
Speaker
It was her grid system for plotting that I've stolen and adapted for myself.
00:20:14
Speaker
And he said, oh, do you write?
00:20:16
Speaker
And I said, yes.
00:20:18
Speaker
And I thought to myself, I've obviously, my communication skills are obviously extremely poor here that we haven't, I'm with, you know, sitting here with one of the biggest agents in London and I haven't managed to communicate the fact that I'm an aspiring writer too.
00:20:30
Speaker
But he asked me about the book and it was Cat Conley, it was Little Bones.
00:20:34
Speaker
It wasn't called Little Bones then, but yeah.
00:20:36
Speaker
I said to him, it's about a guard who finds the bones of a baby hidden in the hem of a wedding dress.
00:20:41
Speaker
And he said, oh, I'd like to see that.
00:20:43
Speaker
And I then was, oh, I thought, oh my goodness me, I'm going to have to send him this.
00:20:47
Speaker
I hadn't looked at it for a good while at that stage.
00:20:49
Speaker
I'd been busy doing other things.
00:20:51
Speaker
And it was a bit terrifying, to be honest.
00:20:54
Speaker
I thought if I send it to him and he hates it, is my entire credibility as a scout and everything else going to be blown out of the water?
00:21:01
Speaker
So yeah, I read it over.
00:21:03
Speaker
very hurriedly and he was texting me saying where is it where is it where is it and sent it over and he really liked it thank goodness um amazing i found a home for it uh mark smith and bonnier was he founded bonnier at that point it was in its early days um also loved it they had lunch together and it was sold by you know two o'clock in the afternoon so um i yeah so he found me a publisher it was great it's great oh wow
00:21:25
Speaker
What a lovely little story as well.
00:21:28
Speaker
Oh, it's mad, isn't it?
00:21:30
Speaker
And you've obviously known each other for a long time as well.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yes, a long, long time.
00:21:34
Speaker
Oh, that's so nice.
00:21:36
Speaker
And you and Simon do a Facebook Live series every week called Winning the Writing Game, Fridays at 12 for anyone listening.
00:21:47
Speaker
It's really, really, really, really interesting.
00:21:49
Speaker
You guys get a lot of amazing guests on there.
00:21:51
Speaker
I was watching the episode you did with Owen Colfer recently.
00:21:54
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's hilarious, isn't it?
00:21:56
Speaker
The postman calls at the door and runs off the computer.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah, we did
The Pen Name Strategy
00:21:59
Speaker
that during lockdown.
00:22:00
Speaker
So that's really something that we did when everybody was stuck at home.
00:22:04
Speaker
We haven't done one for ages.
00:22:05
Speaker
I have to do another one soon.
00:22:07
Speaker
But there's some great interviews on there.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:09
Speaker
You know, when I was talking about learning something new, you really do literally listen to people.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, Owen's hilarious.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yes, yeah, he's a very funny man.
00:22:19
Speaker
And Artemis Fowl was extremely influential on me when I was younger.
00:22:24
Speaker
I wasn't really into Harry Potter, but Artemis Fowl reached me in a way that other books didn't.
00:22:30
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:22:31
Speaker
No, he's an amazing writer.
00:22:32
Speaker
And he's a lovely, lovely person too.
00:22:34
Speaker
So yeah, just for anybody who's listening, basically we were doing the interview and Owen's postman called.
00:22:39
Speaker
And so he picked up his laptop because we were doing a Zoom and picked up the laptop and trotted off to the door and answered the door and was chatting to his postman while we were broadcasting.
00:22:48
Speaker
That was hilarious.
00:22:49
Speaker
It was very funny.
00:22:51
Speaker
these things happen.
00:22:52
Speaker
That's the, that's the wild lockdown life.
00:22:54
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:22:57
Speaker
I do want to ask because it's always interesting when people have, and it almost seems like something that's going out of fashion is having pen names.
00:23:05
Speaker
I think probably because we're all so used to the internet and just having all of our kind of information on the internet.
00:23:12
Speaker
But I did want to ask, why did you decide to write under a pen name?
00:23:19
Speaker
Why did I?
00:23:19
Speaker
That's another good question.
00:23:21
Speaker
When you, Jamie, I think are the first person I have met who's managed to pronounce Lachlan correctly, who does not have Irish, who's not coming from this island.
00:23:29
Speaker
So, yeah, one of the big issues is having a name that nobody can pronounce.
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker
Like it's fine here, but literally in the UK, people get to the O and then they freeze because they don't know how the GH works.
00:23:41
Speaker
And all sorts of things happen.
00:23:43
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker
And Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin is my full name.
00:23:45
Speaker
And it's because there's another Vanessa O'Loughlin here, just to confuse things, who's also a journalist.
00:23:50
Speaker
And obviously, if we're both in writing, it gets in a bit of a muddle.
00:23:54
Speaker
Um, and yeah, so I'll just, people used to come up to me and they'd say, goodness me, I really enjoyed that article you wrote about kayaking down the Amazon.
00:24:03
Speaker
And I'd look at them thinking, do I look like somebody who kayaked down the Amazon?
00:24:07
Speaker
So anyway, that was the other Vanessa O'Loughlin.
00:24:08
Speaker
So we were always being mixed up, um, when I first got into the writing business and, um,
00:24:13
Speaker
apart from the name being unpronounceable and very long and not fitting on a cover.
00:24:17
Speaker
There were all of these reasons why a pen name seemed like a good idea.
00:24:21
Speaker
But one of the biggest ones is that there's this theory, which has been substantiated now, I think, with a bit of research, that men don't buy crime novels written by women.
00:24:33
Speaker
And so having an androgynous first name is a big advantage in this game.
00:24:38
Speaker
And yeah, with a name like mine, it seemed sensible for all of those reasons to come up with a pen name.
00:24:43
Speaker
So yeah, it took us a long time, but we came up with Sam Blake.
00:24:48
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:24:50
Speaker
I was wondering if it was a deliberate choice to have a name that was not gendered.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:56
Speaker
No, it totally is.
00:24:57
Speaker
And also then I think when you're coming up with your own name, I was speaking to a librarian last night actually in an interview and we were talking, I was saying the B is very handy because you're on your eye level on those bookshelves and at the start.
00:25:11
Speaker
And certainly in Ireland, I'm British, I can often be between say Binchy and Benjamin Black, which is a nice place to be too.
00:25:17
Speaker
So yeah,
00:25:21
Speaker
you know, you're thinking about everything when you're thinking about a pen name.
00:25:24
Speaker
And she was laughing because she said that when she's obviously a librarian, she was saying that if S is the thing, most people's surnames seem to start with S. So if you're an S, this is a good tip for anybody who's thinking of having a pen name.
00:25:38
Speaker
There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books in the S section.
00:25:40
Speaker
So it's very easy to get lost.
00:25:43
Speaker
So I thought that was really interesting.
00:25:45
Speaker
So yeah, you can pick it out and choose where you're going to be.
00:25:48
Speaker
wow, I'd not realized the layers that went behind pen names like that.
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm one of these people that overthinks everything.
00:25:59
Speaker
But yeah, no, it's interesting.
00:26:00
Speaker
And then obviously lots of Googling to make sure there's not somebody else with the same name or, you know, that you're not going to get confused with another author.
00:26:08
Speaker
So yeah, lots of checking.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's so interesting.
00:26:11
Speaker
I'd not even thought about choosing the first letter of your surname as a sort of gauge of where you'll be placed on the bookshelf.
00:26:21
Speaker
I imagine that there's some authors who just because of their name are often not placed in the best possible spot.
00:26:28
Speaker
Well, this is it.
00:26:29
Speaker
I mean, it does depend on the shelf, but certainly if I was a Z, I'd be fairly near the end on the floor.
00:26:35
Speaker
and not everybody gets down on their knees in a bookshop.
00:26:38
Speaker
So it's good to be, you know, if you do have the choice to be able to take all these things into account.
00:26:44
Speaker
We need someone
Advice for Aspiring Writers
00:26:45
Speaker
to go and do the data and take an average of all bookshelves in all bookshops and find out where the best letters are.
00:26:51
Speaker
Well, that's just what the thing about the S was so interesting from coming directly from a librarian who clearly had been shelving lots of books by authors whose names start with S. Fascinating.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah, that is so interesting.
00:27:03
Speaker
Amazing.
00:27:04
Speaker
Well, before we do get on to the final question, I always like to ask people who have been in publishing and writing for a long time, what advice do you have for any writers listening who are trying to break into the publishing industry for the first time?
00:27:25
Speaker
Well, the best advice I was ever given was on the writing side.
00:27:28
Speaker
And that was just keep writing.
00:27:30
Speaker
A friend of mine, Sarah Webb, who's written about 40 or 50 books at this stage, told me way back in the day, just keep writing.
00:27:36
Speaker
Because I think with every word you write, you get better, basically.
00:27:39
Speaker
It is a learning process.
00:27:41
Speaker
And once you get the writing right, and that's all working, then it's about the plot and about, you know, what happens in the book and making sure that it's the best that that can be as well.
00:27:52
Speaker
So that's really important.
00:27:53
Speaker
And then just don't give up.
00:27:55
Speaker
The thing about writing and publishing and finding an agent and finding a publisher and all those things is that books are really subjective.
00:28:03
Speaker
We all read books that we don't necessarily like that much.
00:28:06
Speaker
And
00:28:07
Speaker
same applies to the industry in terms of people buying books they need to love it they need to be that that person that loves it um in order for your book to land so um you know it's and it's not personal it's you know if you get do get rejected it's not something it's not you being rejected it's just the work and it can be rejected for hundreds of reasons that are to do with the market and to do with length and to do with you know trends and all sorts of things that you have no control over so just keep going that's the best advice
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
Uh, it's, it's something I hear a lot is just persevere, keep doing it.
00:28:40
Speaker
Remember that you're doing it because you love writing.
00:28:42
Speaker
That's it.
00:28:43
Speaker
You have to love it.
00:28:43
Speaker
I mean, that's the thing you spend so long doing it, so many hours doing it, that it's that it's the creating and it's the, the, you know, working out the story and putting the words on the page.
00:28:52
Speaker
That's the bit you need to really, really love it because yeah, it could take a while.
00:28:57
Speaker
It's always going to be a labor of love.
00:28:59
Speaker
Exactly.
00:29:00
Speaker
And like you mentioned, I mean, it takes years to become an overnight success.
00:29:05
Speaker
It really does.
00:29:09
Speaker
Amazing.
00:29:09
Speaker
Well, that brings us to the final question of the episode, which as always is, Vanessa, if you were stranded on a desert island, but could take a single book with you, which would it be?
00:29:22
Speaker
It would be Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's absolutely my favourite book and it's wonderful.
00:29:28
Speaker
It's multi-layered, it's a romance, it's a thriller, it's got clever twists, it's got absolutely everything.
00:29:34
Speaker
And it's one of those books where every time I go back and read it, I see more symbolism and imagery hidden in the text.
00:29:40
Speaker
I absolutely love it.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yes, I think Justin Myers also picked Rebecca and then didn't have good things to say about the film adaptation that came out recently.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, there's some interesting.
00:29:51
Speaker
I've been watching film adaptations.
00:29:53
Speaker
I watched, what was it?
00:29:54
Speaker
The Orient Express the other day.
00:29:56
Speaker
And that was quite an interesting take too.
00:29:58
Speaker
The new one.
00:30:00
Speaker
The Ken Branagh one.
00:30:00
Speaker
The Kenneth Branagh one, yes.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:03
Speaker
Yeah, it didn't really feel necessary to me because I loved the first one.
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:08
Speaker
The older one.
00:30:09
Speaker
I don't know what it was.
00:30:10
Speaker
I don't know if it was all done in one set and it felt like it was in a studio.
00:30:13
Speaker
I don't know.
00:30:14
Speaker
It was interesting.
00:30:15
Speaker
There were some fantastic people in it, but I felt like it missed a lot.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:21
Speaker
I feel like when you're someone who loves books though, if any book is ever made into a film, it's so rare that you wouldn't say, oh, but they missed so many details.
00:30:31
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:30:32
Speaker
It's not how I pictured it.
00:30:34
Speaker
It's never as good.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:35
Speaker
But it's, you know, how do you fit six hours into two?
00:30:38
Speaker
Well, indeed.
00:30:38
Speaker
Six hours reading and your imagination and then into Havalon.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:43
Speaker
And how can they compete with your own imagination?
00:30:46
Speaker
Well, that's it.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:47
Speaker
And, you know, when you're at home with a book and it's just in your head, it's a whole different thing.
00:30:53
Speaker
That's a really interesting point though as well, actually.
00:30:55
Speaker
Anne Cleaves talking about nuggets of gold from authors.
00:30:58
Speaker
When Anne Cleaves was here for Murder One, she was
00:31:00
Speaker
One of the things she, point she made about it was leave room for the reader.
00:31:04
Speaker
And I thought that's really interesting.
00:31:05
Speaker
And that is, you know, that's the thing you can't do in film.
00:31:07
Speaker
You don't leave any room for it.
00:31:08
Speaker
You have to have it.
00:31:09
Speaker
It's all there in front of you, but with, with writing, you have to leave room for the reader.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:13
Speaker
Cause it's, it's almost a collaboration at a certain point between the reader and the writer.
00:31:17
Speaker
It really is.
00:31:18
Speaker
It's, you know, cause you're playing on lots of things that you don't know what, who they are or what's going on in their head and they're, and they're drawing different strands from your story.
00:31:25
Speaker
So yeah, no, it is very, that's really good advice.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:29
Speaker
Amazing.
00:31:30
Speaker
Well, well, thank you so much, Vanessa,
Conclusion and Social Media Promotion
00:31:32
Speaker
for, for coming on and sharing all of your, your experiences as, as a writer and, and a sort of publishing professional and advocate of the written word.
00:31:42
Speaker
It's been really lovely chatting.
00:31:43
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me.
00:31:45
Speaker
And for anyone listening, if you want to keep up with all of the things that Vanessa is doing, you can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Sam Blake books.
00:31:57
Speaker
And definitely check out the award-winning writing resource, writing.ie and the other things happening over at Inkwell.
00:32:05
Speaker
Head over to Vanessa's website, samblakebooks.com, where you can get a free book just for signing up to the Reader's Club.
00:32:13
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
00:32:17
Speaker
And if you're after more bookish story discussion, then check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:32:23
Speaker
Thanks again, Vanessa.
00:32:24
Speaker
And thanks to everyone for listening.
00:32:26
Speaker
We'll catch you in the next episode.