Caz Frear: The Odyssey of a Writer, From Inspiration to Industry

In 2017 Caz Frear won the Richard and Judy 'Search for a Bestseller' competition.  Her debut novel, Sweet  Little Lies was followed by Stone Cold Heart. Embarking on the creation of a second novel often feels like navigating through a darker, more complex sequel to the joyous tale of writing a debut.  Caz Frear and I  peel back the curtain on the pressures and pleasures that accompany of being a writer. Listen as we dissect the emotional rollercoaster Caz's breakthrough experiences post-writing competition triumph, all while battling the ever-present imposter syndrome, the shifting landscapes of the literary world and her new novel, Five Bad Deeds.

Five Bad Deeds
Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling non-stop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job-hunting, to finally renovating her dream home, the Meadowhouse. Amidst the chaos, an ominous note arrives in the mail declaring:

SOONER OR LATER EVERYONE SITS DOWN TO A BANQUET OF CONSEQUENCES.

Why would someone send her this note? Ellen has no clue. She's no angel - a white lie here and there, an occasional sharp tongue - but nothing to incur the wrath of an anonymous enemy.
Everyone around Ellen - her husband, her teenage daughter, her sister, her best friend, her neighbours - can guess why, though.  They all know from bitter experience that while Ellen’s intentions are always good, this ultimately counts for very little when you’ve (unintentionally?) blown up someone’s life.  Could the five bad deeds that come to haunt Ellen explain why things have gone so horribly wrong?

As she races to discover who’s set on destroying her life, Ellen receives more anonymous messages, each one more threatening than the last . . . and each hitting closer and closer to home and everything she cherishes.

Follow Caz Frear

30% off The Kill List
You can get 30% off my brand new book The Kill List on harpercollins.co.uk for a limited time.  Add code TKL30 at checkout.  harpercollins.co.uk

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's tricky, because I think your second book is so tricky to write. Yeah, your debut. You're writing with no real expectation of anything happening with it, so it's kind of quite a joyful experience and then, oh my God, someone wants to buy it. It's all just happy, happy, happy, whereas your second book I mean, I'm only speaking from personal experience, but I find it really hard to write.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Conversation Podcast with your host, best-selling author, nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well. I hope that you've had a good week and I really hope that you've been making the most of the sunshine, because it's been quite a while. It's been quite a while since we had sun-filled days, so I hope that you're making the most of it. So can I tell you a little bit about me? So last week saw the release of the third novel in the Detective Inspector Angelica Henley series, my book called the Kill List. It came out on Thursday, the day before.

Speaker 2: 1:01

I appeared on Women's Hour talking about the Kill List and I'm so excited that it's finally out in the world and it's been receiving amazing reviews from the readers and I'm just, I'm just so proud of it and I really hope that you enjoy it. I really hope that you get a thrill out of it. I hope that it keeps you up at night. I hope that you're thinking about it during the day. These are all the things you want as a crime writer, and if you haven't got a copy yet, then I have some news for you. I have some very exciting news for you. You can get 30% off my brand new book, the Kill List, on harpercollinscouk for a very limited time. You just need to add code TKL30 at the checkout. So that's TKL30 at checkout at harpercollinscouk and you can get 30% of my new book, the Kill List. The code TKL30 will also be in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 2:01

Now let's get on with the show. This week, I'm in conversation with writer Kaz Frey and in our conversation we talk about winning the Richard and Judy Search World Bestseller Writing Competition that launched Kaz Frey's career, what it really means to be told that you're only a debut once and writing that tricky second novel. Now, as always, sit, we'll go for a walk and enjoy the Conversation. Casper, welcome to the Conversation. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. You're welcome, right, my first question for you, because, before we started officially recording the interview, I was talking about when I first met you and I said even though you probably won't remember, it's when you appeared on a panel at City University and I think, was trying to work out the date, so it could have been 2018 maybe and you were saying that was your first. Was it like your first event when your debut novel came out?

Speaker 1: 2:55

Yeah, so I think it would have been 2017, because I think the book had just come out. I'd certainly never done a panel, even if the book had been out a couple of months. It was my first sort of um, yeah, kind of public speaking thing. And yeah, I just remember I met my editor. She said, oh, we'll meet in the pub with the other panelists beforehand. I was like, okay, that sounds nice.

Speaker 1: 3:16

And then I got there and and Cleaves was there and you know, when you just have that sort of like, you kind of almost just want to burst out laughing. So you're like, what am I doing here? What am I, what am I doing here? And it was, it was a really, really nice event actually. And I think I found that with any panel that I've done ever since I get I get quite nervous about them and then once, once you're doing it, they're always fine. But I was, yeah, I was proper rabbit in the, the headlights, just like looking at all these people and sort of thinking, you know when you're it's weird because it probably went by in a blur, because you're constantly thinking, right, I'm going to be the next to speak, what am I going to say? That sort of thing, rather than just properly taking it in. But, um, yeah, at least you don't sort of like remember oh, you're that gibbering idiot.

Speaker 2: 4:05

No, I was. I was saying to you because I got a copy of your book and I got it signed and I completely forgot about Anne Cleaves being there, which is only because you mentioned it. I was like, oh yeah, she was there, but you didn't come across. Yeah, you didn't come across as rabbit in the headlights. You came across as I probably would have been thinking, oh my god, she did it. She did it, she made it, she's published and now she's yeah, now she's here in front of us talking to us like we can make it too.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Probably a month later would have been my first haircut, so that was again like the like proper rabbit in the headlights. I was at an event and Anne Cleaves walked in and she I mean, obviously she's Anne Cleaves and she knows lots of people, but she was sort of like hanging back a little bit and then, because I'd been on the panel with her, I sort of gave her that smile, thinking oh, she won't remember me or anything. And we ended up talking and she was saying like, oh, the imposter syndrome will never go. She said I walk in here thinking like is anyone?

Speaker 2: 5:08

going to talk to me. I'm going to say the wrong thing.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Or you know, there's part of me that just wants to run away and hide in my hotel room and you're like, but you're unclean you just reminded me as well, I think me and we had breakfast together.

Speaker 2: 5:24

I can't remember what which um festival I'd been at and I'd appeared on a panel and she was, I think either. She was there. No, I think I was sitting down first having breakfast and you just think well, no one's gonna come talk to me, I'm just gonna sit on my breakfast on my own, do you mind? I was like no, of course I don't mind, you're on keys. Come, let's have breakfast together. Let's talk about our full English breakfast. Yeah, she's lovely, she is. So you know Sweet Little Lies. And it won. You entered it for the Richard and Judy search for bestseller competition. Was that the first competition you'd ever entered, or had you been trying before?

Speaker 1: 6:04

well I'd, so I'd written a book maybe three years before that had got me. It completely wasn't crime, it was something completely different. Um, and that got me an agent, um, but weirdly so, I've never I hadn't gone through the whole sort of beauty parade thing of agents, of sending out on sub. I was a consultant in the city and I was working with a candidate and I was talking about how I was right, I liked writing, and he just happened to say, oh, I know this agent. She's like a sister of a friend of a friend. I don't know her, know her, but she knows me well enough that, if you say that I recommended you and I was just like, oh, ok, then, so I did and basically, yeah, I ended up with her and, but the book didn't sell.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Unfortunately, we sent out the same week that Fifty Shades of Grey went mental. So it was just. It was a really weird kind of two or three weeks of like editors, publishers, just we just want filth, we just want filth. That's all we want. Were you writing filth? No, I actually said I can go back and write more filth into it, because it was actually.

Speaker 1: 7:19

It was a book about I mean it, it was a book about a couple who were in an open relationship and basically kind of the trials and tribulations of that. But it was more about the emotional thing that happens in that kind of relationship. So there was lots of sort of references to sex but there wasn't actual sex in it or hardly any wasn't actual in it, um, or hardly any. And I remember saying to the woman who was my agent at the time I was a bit like, do I just need to go back and filth this up a bit? But yeah, it didn't sell, unfortunately. It was a bit kind of like it's not filthy enough to be 50 shades but it's maybe a little bit edgy for our women's fiction, um, and you know how these things go.

Speaker 1: 8:04

So that happened and then I sort of went away and licked my wounds for about three years and um tried my hand at I. Always kind of I was obsessed with police procedurals, like since I was old enough to understand what they are. But I just thought, because I didn't have a background in the police or I didn't know any police or any of that, everything I kind of knew, I got off the telly and from reading um, but I just yeah, once I'd licked my wounds about the submission process. I just started to think, right, I'm gonna try crime, and yeah that. Then I saw the Richard and Judy um competition. Well, actually about 10 people emailed me about it, going oh you're writing a book, aren't you? Have you seen it? Yeah, and I did, and I was. I was kind of far enough into it that I thought I thought it was do you know what I'd never in a million years thought I'd win? Never in a million years. I think I was at the point where I thought I think this is.

Speaker 1: 9:04

I think I'm at least gonna get some sort of like email going no, but keep going, you've got something. I would have been like. I would have been like quite hurt if I'd just got a standard form rejection. I did sort of think this is quite good, you got feedback.

Speaker 1: 9:19

If you got feedback, you would have been happy with that yeah, and if I'd been shortlisted I would have been absolutely like off my head. And when I did get shortlisted, that was you know, it was a proper, proper. You know that scene in Home Alone when Macaulay Culkin runs around the house. So yeah, but I didn't. Yeah, I didn't't, didn't think in a million years that I would win it. I just wanted I thought you know what I wanted feedback. At that point I need somebody else to tell me I'm not wasting my time with this.

Speaker 2: 9:57

You need the validation. I think that's what you're seeking. You're not seeking the riches. At that point, you just need someone to tell you you know what Kaz you are going you're seeking. You're not seeking the riches. At that point. You just need someone to tell you you know what Kaz you are going. You're there, you're almost there. You're going on the right, you're on the right path. Just keep on going.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Yeah, and that you'd have been content with that yeah, yeah, definitely, but, um, yeah it, it, it happened, and it was all very, very bizarre what was that moment like?

Speaker 2: 10:23

was it an email saying congratulations, kasper you?

Speaker 1: 10:27

yeah, yeah, it was an email. Actually, weirdly, um, do you know, it seems so long ago now. Yeah, I think it was an email. Um, yeah, it was, and yeah, do you know what, though it's? It's really weird when I look back on it. Maybe it was just shock.

Speaker 1: 10:50

I remember just sort of getting the email and being in that stunned silence, whereas when I got a phone call to tell me I'd been shortlisted and it's strange, yeah, the other way around, yeah, because they had to phone 12 people, it would be easier to to, you know, send, but I don't know, maybe it was a case of they needed to check that. You, definitely still, because we'd only sent in I think it was 12 000 words and maybe they just wanted to check. You definitely have got the rest of the book in you by the end of the year, haven't you kind of thing with with some people? Um, so maybe that's why they, yeah, maybe that's why they did it. But, yeah, I was just in, I was just in, yeah, shock, shock.

Speaker 1: 11:31

And then suddenly because that was, I found out in the January and the book was on the shelves in June, which, as you know, is like that's crazy. That's so quick. Yeah, but there's sort of a built-in marketing campaign to it. So it is um, I mean, and when I? But that January, when I found out I still had, we still had to go through an editing process, um, and I think, I think it was March. By the time it was in the final um state and then, yeah, it came out in June. So so it was just insane, insane.

Speaker 2: 12:06

It's so insane because I think when you're a new writer and say, if I go back to when I was doing the course and we got writers coming in and the tutors were explaining to us how the publishing process works, and we're being told you won't see, if you're taken on by a publisher, it'll be two years for you before your book yeah and that's all you have in your head.

Speaker 2: 12:29

It's going to be two years. It's going to be two years. But listen to you and to say you know, you've told that you'll. You've run the competition in January and in in six months it's on the shelves, and not even just on the shelves.

Speaker 1: 12:41

It's part of this big marketing campaign, because it's Richard and Judy yeah, yeah it was, it was just and it just fell, I mean everything. Well, I'm sure there's been lots, lots of books. I know there's lots of books, the books that have been, you know, more successful, like S, even though it was really successful, but, um, it kind of felt like everything good that could happen happened to that book. Um, we got to a tv auction, I got a good US deal, um, all these kind of things, um, and it, I mean it was amazing.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Did it actually set me up for the reality of what a career in publishing would be? Probably not. I was just like this bell of the ball for a couple of months, um, which I mean it can be the case, I suppose, with any debut, but because of the time frame, it was sort of so intense, um, and it was amazing. And you do, I mean you look back and think, my god, if I, if I knew then what I'd like I did the Curtis Brown creative course, um, and we had, I think it was. Oh, my god, I can't remember her name, but she wrote Elizabeth is missing and she came in to talk to us. Oh, I've forgotten her name as well.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Emma.

Speaker 2: 14:03

Jackson played her as well in the TV series. Yeah, I can't remember. Come to me.

Speaker 1: 14:10

And then we had, like, various agents would come in and talk to us and I always remember them saying you know, you're only a debut once. Yeah, obviously, obviously that's an actual statement statement, but now I get what they mean totally well, because they don't explain to you what it actually means.

Speaker 2: 14:32

So they say to you the same thing that's probably said to me. You know you're only going to be a debut once, but what that actually means is that you're only going to have that high level of attention at you once. When it's your second book and your third book and your fourth book that all gets cut maybe to a third, you'll get maybe a quarter of the attention. That's what you're going to get. And then you'll be looking at all the other debuts coming out that same year and you're thinking, oh, I remember when it was like that and I would like to have a new thing once.

Speaker 2: 15:02

Yeah, you're a tiny new thing, you're like, you're like a toy at Christmas. They're fun to have, but then Boxing Day the batteries are dead. How long had you wanted it to be a writer? No, no, not only just to be a writer I think you're always a writer but to be an author to be published. How long had you wanted that?

Speaker 1: 15:26

I mean, I'd always like, I suppose if you spoke to any writer, I'd always was an avid reader and I always wrote until probably I got to my late teens and then I just stopped because life took over and kind of education and boys and blah, blah, blah. I just didn't really. I was always sort of scribbling but I didn't write intensively and I just, even though I did write, I just didn't consider it as a career path. So I can't sort of say that I had this kind of burning desire, um, since I was a child, because it just genuinely didn't occur to me that that was something I could do. And it's ridiculous now when you, when you are an author, you meet so many different people from so many different walks of life. But at the time it's just not. You know, I sort of grew up in a working class house in Coventry. It's just not something that I ever thought was open to me really. So it was just, and then I just was stayed being an avid, avid reader and I just remember I was reading I think it was a Michael Conley book on the way back from the airport, um, the way back on a plane from a holiday, and I don't I don't actually know what it was, but I just remember having this sort of do you know, I think I could have a stab at this, not a you know, I'm, I'm gonna actually try. Um, and as I explained, I ended up going down a bit more of a women's fiction route to begin with, but um, yeah, I just sort of had this. I'm good, I'm, I'm gonna give it a go. And it was.

Speaker 1: 17:00

I was working in the city in quite a high pressure sales job At the time. I thought I was happy, but when I look back on that now, I don't think I was. And then writing became the thing that I could. You know, I just want to get home and write and disappear into this fictional world that I've created. So I mean, I didn't, I didn't really start writing, writing in earnest in like my early 30s. But, as I say, it wasn't because it wasn't from a lack of love of reading or writing. It was just it. It just never occurred to me.

Speaker 2: 17:40

But yeah, I've said it like, discussed it loads of times on the podcast with different authors it's that you know, when you're in school, no one presents it as an option, even though you may be visibly. You know they can see that. You know when you're in school, no one presents it as an option, even though you may be visibly. You know they can see that you love books. You may be if you're really good at English, literature and language, but no one says to you in those careers meetings that, oh, you know this is.

Speaker 2: 17:57

You seem to be really good at this, kaz, so you could be an author. This could be a career path for you. It's only when you get like you're working your way through the world and then you start looking at yourself and what you're doing, you think actually there's other things I want to do, but what I'm doing is not enough. I think when you get to that point, then you're like actually, no, I can do this, I want to do this, let me see what happens and that's what I love, um, I've gone into quite a few local schools and it's so lovely, um, especially with the quite young kids they do.

Speaker 1: 18:31

They sort of look at you like you know, a mermaid has come, an author, and you can sort of see on their faces they're a bit like oh my god, um, and they're hanging off your every word. Not all of them. Some are like look like, they're a bit like oh my god, um, and they're hanging off your every word. Not all of them. Some are like look like they're about to fall asleep because that's writing isn't their thing, um, but you do always get the few that you can just see. Oh my god, I might actually walk out of here and there might be a couple kids going. I could be an author. Yeah, that's a lovely feeling.

Speaker 2: 19:02

That's what you want. I did an event at a school and it was like one of these after school events they were doing with different, with, like local people who were authors, different people, like people who were in the creative arts. Like coming to the school and you know, talking to the students and showing, probably like, oh, she had a display of my books and I remember speaking to this one kid and he ran off halfway. Where's he gone? Fine, clearly he's not interested. And he literally came back dragging his mum and dad to come and meet me and he's like she's an author, these are her books oh, so cute, but it is.

Speaker 1: 19:41

It's really. It's really lovely to feel like you. You're actually inspiring them to think maybe I could do that. I did have a moment in a school I was doing some voluntary reading, though and this girl came up to me and she was all excited and she went my mum's got your books at home, which means you're tech, which means you're technically famous, so I've met. And then the girl next to her went yeah, well, I've met the Saturdays.

Speaker 2: 20:09

Okay, fair enough try to burst your bubble yeah, yeah so you know when. So when, um, the first book comes out, when Sweet Little Lies comes out, and you've had that whole day. It's not even just, it's not even a normal debut. No experience, it's not, it's an out of this world. You've won this amazing competition. You're out there. You know, you're doing panels for the first time in a period. Harrigan, what was it? How did you then cope with the whole second book, the second book seems right yeah, I don't want to say, come down.

Speaker 1: 20:43

But yeah, I think. So there was probably about 18 months between my first and second book, for lots of different reasons, and in that time I'd got to know quite a lot of other authors quite well. So I think in that sense I had been kind of, I had a bit of a sense of you know it's, it's not going to be the same and you need to just kind of enjoy the wins and um, yeah, just just, your second book is never going to be the the glamour of your first. So I think, yeah, I had good advice from people around me what to expect, um, but still it is.

Speaker 1: 21:22

It's tricky, because I think your second book is so tricky to write. Yeah, debut you're, you're writing with no real expectation of anything happening with it, so it's kind of quite a joyful experience and then, oh, my god, someone wants to buy it. It's all just happy, happy, happy, um, whereas your second book I mean, I'm only speaking from personal experience, but you know it's quite hard. It is hard. I found it really hard to write and I doubted myself so much and all of that that you think, but it will be fine because there'll be this like excitement at the end of it and then there isn't really. I mean, there was, you know, nice things happened with the book, but it wasn't. It was really really different.

Speaker 1: 22:07

And I think as well and you'll know yourself from writing a series it can feel a little bit it's, it's, it's, I think it's probably in terms of the attention. I wonder, if you're writing standalones, if you do still get that slightly extra kick of new shiny book that's new characters, a new hook, rather than just like this is the second in the series. I mean, series are great because you can bring characters, you can bring your audience from your last book, but yeah, it doesn't necessarily have the shiny new thing that maybe you're standing on and you feel like I mean, this is how I felt when writing, writing the second, one, third one, the one I'm writing now the fourth one.

Speaker 2: 22:54

You're like I don't want to feel like I'm repeating myself. Yeah, especially for police procedural, I say there's always going to be, there's always going to be a crime, there's always going to be an arrest at some point. There's going to be. For me, there's going to be interview scenes. So there's going to be these things that like markers, that are going to be present in every single book that I write in the series and when I get to those parts, I'm like I feel like I'm.

Speaker 1: 23:15

You know, I'm just repeating what I said in the last book, so I think that's always, the challenge is creating this original story around things that are the same yeah, that makes sense and kind of making it that somebody can pick up your third book, yeah, and just be fine with it and sort of get the general gist of who the characters are and perhaps what's happened with their backstory. Um, you know, I always remember my editor saying that it is a series, but each book needs to sort of stand alone by itself, because I've so many series that you know, I've dipped into halfway through and then I've loved and then I've gone back to the beginning. But it is, it's it's kind of knowing how to do that, um, kind of summarizing the first book in one paragraph. Yeah, that's easy to do.

Speaker 2: 24:03

It's like it's like an american soap opera. Previously in the last episode I was gonna say sunset beach. I don't know why I've got sunset beach in my house those who don't know about sunset beach. It'd be like that previously on the last episode of sunset beach, jake killed alexandra god, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 24:24

It's like that. I raised it from my memory. Jake killed Alexandra. It's like I raised it from my memory for about 20 years and now I'm just like I remember the characters.

Speaker 2: 24:33

They had the twins, the evil twin and Annie with the long red hair, and there was someone with a really bad face condition, which was like a curse or something.

Speaker 1: 24:44

Oh my God, I can't believe, I remember this.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Yeah, I need to explain those who know. Sunset Beach was a really bad really, but it was so bad it was good, probably like El Dorado I'm just bringing up all these. It was so bad, it was good. They got cancelled after I don't know one season, or two seasons, I don't know back in the 90s yeah, el Dorado definitely was one season.

Speaker 1: 25:07

I think Sunset Beach might have had a bit more of a. I feel like I watched a ton of episodes of them, so so what did you?

Speaker 2: 25:17

what? How did you get through that second book and even the third book? Like how? How do you get through that, like emotionally, mentally, what do you tell yourself?

Speaker 1: 25:28

um, that I've got a deadline and I need money, I guess, and I mean I really I talk with my theories. I really this sounds ridiculous. I feel arrogant saying this, but I really loved my character but so I loved writing her. So I, yeah, I just really really enjoyed writing her and I had quite a lot of fun writing her. So that kind of got me through.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Um, but then I mean, I wrote my third and, as often happens kind of so, sweet Little Lies did incredibly well, stone Cold Heart did okay, you know okay, and then, shed no Tears, it came out in lockdown and it was the third of the series. Just, yeah, we'll gloss over it. So it was kind of for me was a bit do I? I really wanted to keep going. I could have written that character forever, but it was just that sort of like, right, okay, should and do, yeah, do a, do a standalone. But I actually I left my last one on a bit of a. I don't give it away for anybody who's going to read the book in the future but there was something at the end of it which kind of means that I could pick the series up a couple of years later. Um, because, yeah, my main, the main character, kat Kinsella, was sort of making a big decision about her life and it was sort of left on a not a cliffhanger, but just yeah her music, the door's open.

Speaker 2: 27:08

It's like when they kill us yeah, going back to safe poppers, when they don't really kill off a character, but they leave it open.

Speaker 1: 27:15

Yeah, like Dirty Jen, she'll come back in the shower like Bobby Ewing, um. So yeah, I kind of did leave it open, um, and I mean I don't know too much, as time has passed now, but I'm adapting it into a script, those three novels, which the script doesn't resemble the novels in terms of plot in any way, shape or form, but the characters and all the character dynamics. So I've still got her in. Well, I've still hugely got her in my life at the moment, because I'm sort of working a lot on that at the moment. Um, so that's been nice because it's quite, it is quite sad to write a character over a series of novels and then yeah, and say goodbye to them.

Speaker 2: 27:56

Yeah, I don't know how I'd feel about that with Henry, because I'm quite um, because I was talking about the fourth book that I'm writing in the series. I was talking about it with my editor and she made a suggestion about I ain't saying who killing someone off. And uh, see, see your face right now the reaction I had I was sitting on my sofa in my pajamas, I remember it clearly, and I was like no, because I had an idea anyway what I planned to do with something, with someone who knew who comes in, so not any of the existing characters, but when she said it, I was like no, these are like I know these people. Yeah, I know that. I feel like I know, like you've grown up with them since you were like three years old. Yeah, you know their parents, you know what the dog was called.

Speaker 1: 28:40

Yeah, and I don't go and kill them yeah, you carry them around in your head all the time they talk to you, you do, you carry them with you, you, you see them when you're standing there washing up.

Speaker 2: 28:53

I've been, god, I've been in this weird situation where I've been working through a scene in my head and I was making a cup of tea and when I looked down, I'd made two cups of tea. It was like one for me and one for love it. What am I doing?

Speaker 1: 29:15

I said to my husband the other morning I woke, wake up quite early anyway, but I woke up really really early on. I think it was Saturday and he was kind of like still half asleep. But he just kept saying to me just go back to sleep. And I said I can't just go back to sleep because the minute I'm awake the voices start, things you can say when you're a crime writer, and it's the only way.

Speaker 2: 29:41

I was looking at sledgehammers on Amazon yesterday and the reason why I'm looking at sledgehammers is not the reason why most people be looking at sledgehammers.

Speaker 1: 29:49

No, no, no, Someone's getting it. Someone did get it really badly.

Speaker 2: 29:57

It's just ridiculous why I'm on Amazon looking at sledgehammers yeah, not for any, not for actual construction, but none of the characters are getting it though no, no, no, I couldn't. No, I'd say even now I'm just like I can't do that. I can't take anyone out, not yet, maybe like in 10 years.

Speaker 1: 30:20

I mean, I sort of get the need to have a bit of a shock kind of shake up. Yeah, yes, but no, not yet not yet it's, it's too.

Speaker 2: 30:29

It's too early, I wouldn't be happy. So when you? So I'm gonna ask you this in two different ways. Yeah, first part of it. But then what was your expectations of publishing? Because you came into it kind of differently to say 90, 80 percent of the people coming I mean not to say there aren't competition, but there's loads of people in the competitions and get publishing deals but what was your expectation of publishing at that point?

Speaker 1: 30:55

um, what, literally as I was coming into it, yeah, again, as I, as I literally got published, I didn't really know any other writers because it all happened so quickly, so I think it was just that okay. Well, this is it. Now I'm an author, I'm gonna have this book and I'm gonna write books for the rest of my life, which I still very much hope will be the case. But now I kind of understand that it's a marathon, not a sprint, and the ups and downs of it, whereas you know, and I think every unpublished aspiring author thinks getting published is making it, and we all know that staying published or staying published certainly at you know, a level that you can sort of emotionally and financially sustain is the hard. It's the hard job, definitely. So, yeah, I just I just kind of thought, well, that's it then, that's my career now. And you know, 2017, seven years later, it still is. But I just, yeah, I didn't, I didn't, I don't think, I don't think I was prepared and there's no way I could have been prepared or anyone could be prepared for sort of the emotional ups and downs of it, because it is, it's a crazy way to make a living, in the sense that something amazing could, just, can just happen.

Speaker 1: 32:23

Um, and then, similarly, you know, there are. I don't think I've ever had a week of all disappointments or all good things happening since it started. There's always kind of like, oh my god, oh my god. Or the other way, you know. Or the other way around it's like oh great, I've got this, you know great Italian deal. But then, oh sorry, we didn't get supermarket. And for the next book, and there's just so, unless you're, you know, one of 20 authors who I'm going to say generally good, all good things happen to. I'm sure they have ups and downs, but there's always going to be. You've got to be resilient and I don't think I realised just quite how resilient I thought no, I'm the creative one. I just write and tell people my stories and people will love them. You soon find out that lots of people love them, but some people really don't and they have no issue in letting you know that they don't love them.

Speaker 2: 33:29

But but no one can. I don't think anyone can fully explain that to you in a way that will make you understand about that side of publishing and the emotional roller coaster of being a published author. I think in the very beginning, if someone sat down with you and told you exactly what you're telling me, exactly what I'm telling you, they'll be like uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, that's not gonna happen to me, that that's, that's not real. And yes, until you're in it, yeah, it has to be. I think that maybe, like, once you're past that first year of being published, then you're're in it. Yeah, it has to be. I think that maybe once you're past that first year of being published, then you're properly in it and then you realize, oh, because? No, because no one even tells you really that rejection is a constant thing throughout your career, that it's always hovering yeah above the surface yeah, because even you know even things like you know I was saying with Sweet Little Lies.

Speaker 1: 34:24

it went to a tv auction it did between four production companies but 15 of them turned it down and yeah, you know, I didn't know the reasons for a lot of them, but for some of them I did and you're kind of you know, and, yes, if you've got people that are interested, it doesn't wound as much. But it's just like the point that you're making. It is constant rejection of some way shape or form. But waiting for that one, yes, I suppose, and yeah, that's something that I never. You just think I've written this book, oh, I've got this book deal because people want my books and people love it and people. And then you're like that editor loves it and this group of people love it, and but you know, there's, there's still. Yeah, you've got to be quite emotionally tough, I think, and that doesn't necessarily sit side by side with being a creative.

Speaker 2: 35:23

It doesn't. Was there anything in your previous career working in recruitment that you think gave you transferable skills, as they like to say?

Speaker 1: 35:35

Yeah, I mean I. So I worked, I did sort of quite niche recruitment. I did HR into investment banking. So I, in and over however long I was in it now I can't remember 14 years, 15, maybe you know I must have interviewed, I don't know, but 1000 people, probably more than that. If I actually worked it out, we had quite high targets.

Speaker 1: 36:02

So when you're interviewing that many people, you've got that many people in your head. You get to know quirks and um and things like you know the kind of things that makes everybody tick and the kind the kind of things that makes everybody want to quit their job and you start seeing sort of patterns and themes. So I think definitely that helped, um. But also I think and this isn't necessarily helped, but I think when in recruitment, in any sort of recruitment, it's a lot of that is giving bad news to people you know, for there's only one person that gets the job and you've had seven candidates going through the process. So yes, that's a lovely call to tell somebody they've got it, but then you've got to you know phone everybody else and go through that with them and I think that sometimes for me, because I had such a long career doing that I sometimes get with publishing a bit. Just tell me. Just tell me the truth. Don't try and dress it up. I'm a grown-up. They're not great figures, are they?

Speaker 2: 37:10

like that because you know being as being a solicitor, especially being a criminal solicitor, and you're advising someone, when I've gone through all the evidence and I can see you know sometimes you're looking at you'd, can see you know sometimes you're looking at you'd be like you know what they've got, prosecutions have got no case, like really you haven't got that much to worry about. But you always, but you know you're relying on 12 people to make a decision. So you know don't get all happy about it. But when the evidence is so strong, really strong, overwhelming and you've got someone who maybe never hasn't been, in fact just haven't been involved in the criminal court process before, and then you have to manage how you present that information to them. But also it's about being direct and getting straight to the point and not waffling. And then sometimes I think in publishing similar, I'll be like I don't need all the white noise around it, I just need the facts. Yeah, give me the facts. What do you have? What don't you have? How bad is it?

Speaker 1: 38:09

Yeah, and I think that would definitely be something that would be helpful for debuts to have some kind of some kind of it's almost like graduate program, but you know, for debuts coming into the industry to kind of understand a bit more about. You know it even comes down to we all know it now oh, they paid that much for your book, you're not getting that much marketing, yeah, kind of thing. Or they paid that much from your book, you're getting all all the marketing, but my God, it better sell, kind of thing. And I just don't. Those are the kind of things that I mean.

Speaker 1: 38:45

Your agent, to a degree, will discuss those kind of things with you, but often there they can only talk to the publisher about it and if they're getting the sort of no, it's all good, it's all fine, it's a really important book for us, and blah, blah, blah, if they they're getting that, then they can only really sort of read between the lines and relay that. So I think it would be helpful for um debuts to kind of have an understanding about there is a hierarchy. Yes, we, we bought your book because we absolutely love it, and you know that's important to say. Publishers don't buy books unless they feel incredibly passionate about them, but there's only so much to go around and this is where you are on the for now. Maybe you'll get there, but for now this is kind of the level of attention you're going to get, and love and marketing and all that kind of thing I think would be so helpful, because I had no clue about that no clue.

Speaker 2: 39:37

No, I was talking to um Callie Taylor, cl Taylor, yesterday for the podcast and we were talking about the same thing how she was saying she had no idea what a super lead title meant. Yeah, and then what? And then what a lead title meant. And then she goes and you've got everything else. Yeah, like I'm to the bottom. But you know, they will. You, you will hear, you will hear these terms, but unless someone sits down and explains to you minutely what each term means and then what you're going to get if you fall into those one of those three categories super lead, lead and everyone else underneath you know, you just have no idea and you just assume because they paid, I'm the same, because they paid 20 grand for your book. You're like, oh, they paid 20 grand, that means I'm going to get super leads level of marketing. Because you don't understand what that means.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Yeah, and what that actually equates to yeah, yeah, totally, and I get you know it's, it's not. It isn't a publisher's job to hold to handhold. You could argue that is more the agent's job. But I just yeah, slightly more direct communication, I think would be really helpful for everyone, because it's such a nice industry and that's lovely. But sometimes you do have that kind of like just tell me, I can take it.

Speaker 2: 40:58

I can handle it. Does that answer your the question um what would you change about the industry then?

Speaker 1: 41:04

yeah, yeah, I think so, I think so. Um, yeah, I mean, that was that's for debuts. What would I check? I mean it sort of goes up the chain really. I suppose what I would change now is just that I think increasingly it's probably always been this way and there are obviously business reasons for it that I totally understand. But I think increasingly it does kind of feel like your, your book is either mega successful or it's down here. There's not, I suppose it's that building careers and building mid list. That just doesn't. It's either you're a phenomenal success or it was a bit disappointing, bit quiet, I think the term is, and there isn't necessarily that appetite to kind of build people in the long term. I mean, I'm making sweeping generalisations here that obviously there are authors that have slowly built, but it's less so, I think, this year. At the moment I think there's probably more focus on the book rather than the career. And yeah, where I am now, I suppose that would be sort of more of the frustration of how do you get to that next level, because it's just it feels like you're here, yeah, and unless there's something crazy that happens, um, it's very hard to magically get to that next level. Um, because you have to.

Speaker 1: 42:44

You know, I think so many people reference it because she's so honest. But Sarah Pimbera um talked about it, where she basically said when Harper bought behind their eyes, it's like they literally just sat down and went we are going to make this a bestseller. That's what we're going to do, that's the plan, this is what we're doing, and so it was and they did, and it's almost. A decision was made that that book was going to be and that decision can be made. It's not necessarily. You know, books do through word of mouth, do really well and there's been great examples of that. But I think it has to. There's got to be that backing from the publisher to really make it fly, and I don't think there's enough transparency around that. We all, we, we all think our book is very, incredibly important to the publisher and it is like I say they don't buy books that they don't feel passionate about. But there is a hierarchy of important. Yeah, I've always said it in quite a flippant way.

Speaker 2: 43:48

I said I've always felt it in quite a flippant way. I said I've always felt like they. I don't know where this, I don't know where this committee takes place. I feel like there's a secret committee somewhere in the city and then they choose some. They choose to anoint not a person a book. This is how it goes in my head. They choose to anoint a book and then that book gets anointed and print a book and that book gets anointed and then that's the one that being decided. It's going to get everything and it's going to be number one.

Speaker 2: 44:15

And when you're outside looking in so where you are, you know they put you in that mid-list author category. Or you are someone who had a successful debut, but then your second book hasn't done that well. When you're then looking outwards, you're thinking, oh, why, why? Why that book? Why is it everywhere? Yeah, why are there billboards? Why are the magazines and the newspaper? Why is everyone talking about it? Yeah, you read it. And then you read it and think, oh, it's a bit meh, yeah, why, yeah, that happens a lot, but it is.

Speaker 1: 44:50

I mean, I would, I'd love to, I'd love to sort of understand the and this isn't like being negative about anything in particular, but you do sometimes. You do sometimes read a book, that the anointed book, where you're kind of like it's all right, but just in the sense of like all those other books are. I think, you know, if I've ever read a book that I've had a strong negative reaction, like a really strong negative reaction, I'd almost understand that more, because there's something about it that's really kind of you know, I don't know, it might be quite divisive, quite controversial. There's something about it that really is with me, but there's something about it that's going to get people talking um, it's more when you sort of read the yeah it passed the time kind of book and you think what was it that got everyone so excited about this book? Because I'm just not seeing it. It's fine, but it's like magic.

Speaker 2: 45:58

You can't see the magic in it.

Speaker 1: 46:00

Yeah, I mean there have there's been books over the past couple of years, a couple of anointed books that I've. You know that I've read and kind of gone yeah, brilliant, it's fresh, it's's the writing's great, blah, blah, blah. Um, I totally get it. Um, I'm still not sure how it's going to repay that huge seven figure advance, because it's gonna. You know the number of books that you need to sell there, um, but I totally get why people got really excited about this. Um, but you yeah, you do read quite a few. We're a bit like no, no, no idea, no idea why it's a better book than these other 20 that I've read in the same sort of genre.

Speaker 2: 46:41

I think that's what makes it to me. I think that's what makes it a bit impossible to try and follow trends yeah, because the trends, can you know?

Speaker 2: 46:48

I'm just, I'm just using girl on the train as an example, not as a commentary on the book. But you know, girl on the train came out and then, all of a sudden, you had girls everywhere, yeah, girls on every form of every single form of transport. And then, you know, before we had new offers thinking this is what I need to write. But then the following year it's something I'm now just going to use. Richard Osman, I know it's a bit of time, it's a big time difference. But then we've got the cozy crime books, yeah, the ones that are successful. So what are you supposed to do? Pivot, yeah, run into crazy crime, because who knows what it's going to be this summer?

Speaker 1: 47:26

it could be completely different, but trends are so weird though, because I think I say probably for sweet little lies I got. I was probably the only time that I've been on trend. I think police procedurals were still pretty much when sweet little lies came out and then, and since we've just been through this kind of oh yeah, yeah, police procedurals aren't very kind, aren't that trendy at the moment? They're not this, that, but readers love them and so I don't. I don't really get trends. This is different because it's TV, but I was talking to a TV producer and they were talking about police procedurals on telly. Yeah, commissioners are really like sniffy about them, but audiences love them. You're like, so why are they sniffy about them? Surely you want to put shows on that people want to watch?

Speaker 2: 48:22

yeah, so you want to make money. Yeah, I think that's the aim at the end of the game. You want to make money, don't you? So give the people what they want.

Speaker 1: 48:30

Yeah, I just yeah. So the trend thing, and the trend thing is such an inward kind of publishing industry thing, isn't it? If I talk to a couple of my friends who are avid readers, they don't have a clue. If I start talking to them about trends, they're just like, well, I just go into Waterstones or WH Smith from at the airport, I just pick the book that catches my eye. They wouldn't really. And I read what I read.

Speaker 1: 49:00

And actually one of my best friends, who she's a huge, huge reader she reads more than I do, I think, and I remember like having a conversation with her about publishing and debunking some myths, and I was saying about this cult of the debut, which I think has died off a tiny little bit, and she was just like I don't get it. If I see a book and I don't recognise the name of the author, I'm a bit, oh, I don't know. I'm not investing my tenor on somebody I don't know that I've never heard of. I'm not investing my tenor on somebody I don't know that I've never heard of.

Speaker 1: 49:32

I'll go back to my you know whoever really, you know just big brand authors and she, she reads a lot of series but also, yeah, just to kind of. You know, she'll buy every Erin Kelly, she'll buy every Liz Nugent now and stuff, so she's, she was just like, oh, I don't get this kind of obsession with the debut I'm. I'm always a bit like, oh, I've never heard of them, where's Marion Keys kind of thing, whereas it's a very Whereas the debut, like I say, I get the feeling it's died off a little bit.

Speaker 2: 50:08

But the debut is everything in publishing. Yeah, but you can see it. I mean even if you look, say London for my recording.

Speaker 1: 50:15

It's London book fair was last week.

Speaker 2: 50:16

I think it was last week yeah, god, it was a quiet week. Oh yeah, it was so quiet with the books firing in you know if you're someone and you're looking at.

Speaker 2: 50:27

If you're like us, you know you're writers or you're a writer. Maybe you know your new writer is out on submission for the first time. And then you're sitting at home or sitting wherever at work and you're seeing all these bookseller emails flying through into your inbox announcing the newest debut, the latest um deal. I think all of that could make it'll be surprising if you didn't feel a way, if you're seeing all that noise around.

Speaker 1: 50:52

Yeah, baby yeah, and it's always and this is the same for any media, but it's always, you know, the sort of big, splashy deals that people hear about and I think, yeah, that's probably another thing that aspiring authors or people coming into the industry don't fully get, that there's lots and lots of books that go on to do really well that don't sell for that kind of money, um, but yeah, there is. You sort of get this feeling of the just six figure deals being splashed around everywhere. And then maybe you know, if you come into the industry and you get your deal, we now, who know how it works, might think, oh, actually that's not a bad deal. But if all you've been hearing is about, you know, sort of significant six-figure sum, you might be a bit like, oh, but? And you know, the other thing that you don't know is there's a huge, huge pressure that comes with. You know those enormous advances. You know wouldn't turn it down, but I get that there's the massive pressure yeah, I'm thinking I don't.

Speaker 2: 52:00

I wouldn't see, you know, if someone offered me a significant six figure oh, the magical seven figure deal I'm not gonna get on my high horse and say no, no, I couldn't possibly take it. I'll take it. I think of course I'll take the money, but I know myself I will be thinking I'll be. I'll be constantly calculating in my head, thinking, okay, I need to be selling this number of books in order to, in order for the publishers to get their money back, and then now for me to start making royalties from that. That's what I'll. That will constantly be going around in my head. And then it's like, okay, now I've got to write a second book. Is the second book going to get all the noise that the first book got? I think that's what I would be thinking of.

Speaker 1: 52:41

And you do. You sort of have a much more of a business head for it, don't you? Because you think there's loads of books that have sold for those massive figures. And then you go and see that they, you know they've they've gone to Sunday Times best top of Sunday Times bestseller for a couple of weeks and they, you know the numbers. I'd be like, oh my god, I'd die for those numbers. But actually they don't. Just because they're good numbers, they're not good enough to justify the advance. Yeah, that was paid them.

Speaker 1: 53:10

And then you're getting into that sort of like right, well, you're making a loss for your publisher, even though you're like, oh, 150,000, whatever, that's amazing, but maybe that's not. That's not enough. So, yeah, you sort of need to have that business head. Like I say, nobody turns them down, nobody would turn it down, would they. That business head, like I say, nobody turns them down, nobody would turn it down, would they. But it comes with its own. It comes with its own problems, unless you just want to be write one book and then go away and count your pennies for the rest of your life retire yeah, I'd be like, thank you.

Speaker 2: 53:42

Thank you very much. It's like Wembley good night. Yeah, that's all I've got. Kaz, I want to ask you about your last, your last book. It's not your last book, your latest book. Yeah, five bad deeds. Tell the listeners of the conversation about your new book yeah, um.

Speaker 1: 54:03

So five bad deeds is, um, I don't know what it is domestic, domestic suspense, I suppose I think is what we're calling it.

Speaker 1: 54:12

And it's about a woman called Ellen Walsh who is of the opinion that she's, like a good person. She is one of these people that you know would always be the first to offer someone a lift or lend somebody something. She's, you know, just kind of a good egg kind of person, or that's how she perceives herself. So when her life kind of starts falling down around her and she realises that somebody isn't of that opinion, she has to sort of kind of confront what she might have done in the past to incur this wrath of somebody. And the book's really about sort of kind of what does a good person mean? And also, where does intention come into it? Because the and I'm not really giving anything away here, I'm just giving a true flavor of the book the five bad deeds. They're not you're not going to find out she killed somebody in the past. They're all supposed to be, or hopefully they are kind of relatable things where she just made a bit of a bad decision or was a bit reluctant and it turned out. It's about sort of how the decisions we make unintentionally, so we wouldn't necessarily intentionally harm someone, but just maybe a quick, selfish decision we make has a catastrophic effect on someone's life. Um, and I got I got the um idea from it for it when, um, for the first time in my life I actually complained in a restaurant. I'm just has always been one of those people who you know whether it's the hairdressers or the restaurant when they go is everything okay? You go, yeah, it's fine, even though like it's inedible or whatever. Um, but yeah, we've had really bad service from a waitress, like really like rude, not just kind of incompetent, and I didn't put myself forward to complain. As we were walking out, the manager said was everything okay? And I just had this sort of split second of no, actually I'm going to be honest here, it wasn't.

Speaker 1: 56:20

And then that night I just got this real kind of and the reason I snapped was I was in a bad mood that day and I just had this kind of what if she had just had the worst day ever? What if her husband had left her that morning? What if her mum's sick? What if all these kind of things? And I've complained about her, and what if she gets fired now and and I was just having this and and and and it was kind of that. It was never my intention to get her into trouble. I just somebody asked me a question and I answered it honestly. I went back a few days later she hadn't been fired. It's all fine, but that's kind of what got me thinking about that sort of god you could just do something and absolutely wreck someone's life, or, you know, wreck someone's life for a time and you'd never really know about it. And that's kind of where Five Bad Deeds came. So the bad is sort of in inverted commas because they get a bit worse as they go along, but they're not out and out. Yeah, there was nothing. She didn't mean to do anybody any harm.

Speaker 2: 57:26

It's a response.

Speaker 1: 57:27

Yeah, yeah, she rubbed up the wrong person.

Speaker 2: 57:30

let's say you know you're talking about the complaining. I don't know how it happened, but I turned into the group of I don't even know how they even decided it was going to be me, but they decided I was going to be the one who would tell the staff if it was a bad service and I don't know what I think I think must be. One day we'd gone out for dinner and it was just poor service, like it was just slow, and they delivered the bill and you know the bill's got the service charge on it.

Speaker 1: 57:57

And.

Speaker 2: 57:57

I just said to her. I said I'm not paying that and they're like, why not? I said I'm not paying. I said I'm not paying it, I'm like, send it back. I honestly think it was one of those situations Maybe something could happen during the day earlier and I just thought, no, no, why did I nod my head and go, yeah, it was fine, it was lovely, thank you. I said no, I'm not paying for it. And then the second time it happened I remember the second time my brother, we'd gone out for my brother's birthday to this restaurant and it was a group it must have been about 12 of us, it was a massive group of us and the service was really, really bad and the bill came and my brother, two of them, they went up to the hill, I suppose, to um talk about the bill and the thing said they weren't going to pay and all of a sudden I heard my sister's a solicitor. You know, nadine, I was like what? What did you put someone?

Speaker 2: 58:50

in there because it's like they've called me out in the restaurant so I just sit there and hide. So I had to go up there and say explain why I'm not paying for this. We're not paying. It's awful, get all very like, put my lawyer hat on and my lawyer voice on.

Speaker 1: 59:08

It was probably the first example.

Speaker 1: 59:10

It was probably something happened in that day that somebody else, I think, hacked you off and you just and that was definitely me in the restaurant I'd had like a really, really bad day and that doesn't.

Speaker 1: 59:21

You know. I'm not I'm not saying I shouldn't have complained about it because it was I wouldn't. I wouldn't complain because because it was a bit incompetent, but she'd been really rude and just really dismissive and just um, but yeah, I remember that was everything okay with your meal and just having this kind of you know it almost yeah, everything's fine, thanks, no, well, actually, no, it wasn't okay, it wasn't. But then it really caught up with me later of just like, oh god, I hope I don't, I don't mind if she got told off, but I hope she doesn't, you don't want to lose her tired. Um, and yeah, and literally five bad deeds started growing out of that the idea that you, we all, just sort of you don't know where you might have. I think the jacket says you never know when you might leave a black mark on someone's life or something like that it's like it's called an idea.

Speaker 2: 1:00:15

You know, people ask you where your ideas come from, when you can actually give an answer yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it just popped into my head. But it's nice when you can bring it back.

Speaker 1: 1:00:25

You can, you can give it an origin story yeah, and it's the first time I've ever been able to do that Cause. Yeah, I remember being asked quite a lot about my series Where'd you get the ideas? And it's like I don't know, really like I can't. Yeah, there was never any kind of like light bulb, it was just, oh, I think, sort of do a thing maybe about wasn't a sort of yeah, there's no kind of personal background to it right.

Speaker 2: 1:00:55

So, kaz, I'll ask you some questions. Are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?

Speaker 1: 1:01:03

I'd say an introvert, and I would never have said that because I did. I talked to people for a living for so long. Yeah, but maybe a hybrid. But I think the whole thing is about kind of where you get your energy from, isn't it? And I can do people and I can. You know I'm, I'm socially confident and but I totally need my own space.

Speaker 1: 1:01:26

I remember being at Harrogate and for maybe three Harrogates in a row, it was almost like to me it was like my little secret because I'm a bit weird and no one else does this that I would just go back to my hotel room for two hours and then I was talking to people and they were like everyone does, or you know, most people do that, most people just. But I was like, yeah, but I literally just go back and eat the complimentary biscuits and watch the chase and I can hear I know the party's happening and I'm just like no, I just want to sit here and watch the chase and have a cup of tea and just be on my own for a bit and then I'll go out and and I thought I was being really weird and they're like no, we're writers, most of us are like that no, if you saw me, I'm pretty sure I just disappeared for about two, three hours.

Speaker 2: 1:02:12

I wasn't going to meet anyone. If I'm going back to the hotel room, I'm gonna watch four in the bed, which is what I did. I watched four in the bed. I might have ordered some of them.

Speaker 1: 1:02:20

I love room service and I got a thing about club sandwiches, no.

Speaker 2: 1:02:24

I see a club sandwich on the menu in a hotel, I'm like, oh, I'm having that. So I just ordered a club sandwich, laid on the bed and watched four in a bed yeah, a couple of hours.

Speaker 1: 1:02:34

And then I went back because it's a lot, yeah, and Harrogate, I mean I only ever. I don't think I've ever done three nights at Harrogate, maybe my first year I did. I only ever do two nights because I just I love it, but I find it quite a lot and so I think that's the thing. When, like I've said to friends, I've been asked similar question, I'm just like, oh no, I'm an introvert and they're like, no, you're not, and you think, no, I am, I could, I could live on a desert island and be perfectly happy for quite a long time. I guess eventually it's time to go but I could, I could.

Speaker 1: 1:03:13

I can be on my own an awful lot and be quite happy in that way, and I think that's probably quite introvert okay, so what challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most?

Speaker 1: 1:03:26

um, probably definitely more an experience than a challenge. But I remember the first. Well, I was going to say the first time I ever came to London. I'd been to London on like school trips to the theatre and stuff, but I was, I was 17. I was going out with this guy who's a little bit older than me. He had a car and then one night he'd lived in London and he said, oh, oh, let's just drive to London and just like go for coffee and stuff. He was quite like that, um, and I just remember it was a Saturday night, driving in and it was. I just had this like it's sort of, you know, the Alicia Keys, new York moment of just like just there's. Honestly, it was like something lit up and it was like I have to come and live in London. I have to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:04:13

Um, I literally like fell in love isn't an exaggeration. It was just like I just, yeah, I felt like a child on Christmas morning. I just thought this is the most amazing, magical place ever. And so I did move to London. I moved back to Coventry a few years ago, um, for you know lots of different reasons, but I love the fact that I have a job that means I did move to London. I moved back to Coventry a few years ago, um, for you know lots of different reasons, but I love the fact that I have a job. That means I still go to London quite a lot and I still, when I go to London now, get that sort of feeling this is New York, literally the soundtrack, um, and you know that that probably did. I was only 17 and it shaped me and it brought me to London and I stayed there for a long time and met amazing people and had amazing experiences and stuff. Um, so it's kind of the one experience that I can really I can feel how I felt even now.

Speaker 2: 1:05:07

So I think, yeah, that that that definitely shaped me okay so if you could go back to when you were 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Speaker 1: 1:05:18

oh god one, everything, do the opposite. If you think something's a good idea, do the opposite, don't do it. I think probably just it's it's kind of that live in the moment, but more kind of like Don't. I think I was always thinking about the future, and not that it's not good to have goals and, you know, have experiences that you want to have and blah, blah, blah. But I think, and probably till about five years ago really, I think it was always very focused on and then I will get to this place and then I will be happy because in this future everything will be perfect, and when everything is perfect, then I will give myself permission to kind of live life, if you know what I mean. Yeah, and nothing ever is perfect, ever. Everything's always just a mess, and you know it's. I'm quoting everyone, now it's that Alanis Morissette. Ironic, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 1:06:25

when everything just comes out of the blue and my makes you realize that life is good. And then, when everything's going good, something just comes and smacks you over the head with a sledgehammer, a metaphorical sledgehammer. So I think it's just that just just don't live your life as it is now and enjoy your life as it is now. Your life as it is now and enjoy your life as it is now. Don't keep thinking that this mythical, brilliant life is there, and you'll start living when you get there.

Speaker 2: 1:07:02

Yeah, I don't know if I explained that brilliantly. I think you did. I get, we understand, we understand. So finally, kasper, where can listeners of the Conversation Podcast find you online?

Speaker 1: 1:07:13

where can listeners of the conversation podcast find you online? Um. So I probably twitter and instagram, probably a bit more instagram, and I'm um at kazzy f writes so c-a-z-z-i-f. W-r-i-t-e-s. So. At kazzy fre prayer writes um. I'm sort of have a bit of an on-off relationship with twitter. Obviously, with the book coming out, I'm a bit more on than off at the moment this is the thing I have a buried.

Speaker 2: 1:07:40

It's not even a love hate, it's like a. I like you a little bit, so I've been off it for. So I'm on there, but I've been off it for so long, but my book's coming out, I need to go on there a bit more. But then, yeah, I have a love hate, yeah, a like hate relationship yeah, I'm the same I do again.

Speaker 1: 1:08:00

It's like that thing where I can go through a bit of oh no, I really don't like Twitter, I don't like Twitter. And then you sort of get engaged in something. You start chatting, yeah, you see something really funny, or you find out about something that you would never, and you think, no, it is really good. It is really good. But it's kind of um, yeah, I just, I don't know, I don't do you know? To be honest, it doesn't hugely bother me anymore because I don't particularly scroll it. Um, yeah, just sort of dip in and out.

Speaker 1: 1:08:28

I quite like, I like Instagram, I think I do. I think Instagram is a much kinder place, and I say that I'm sure you know, I'm sure it's not for teenage girls and like it's not necessarily there are huge issues with Instagram as well, but I just think it just feels like a bit more of a cheerful place to be than Twitter, and I know that's because everybody's putting their best front on. But you know, I quite like that. No, I like people being who they are, but I think Twitter is just. Yeah, I mean, I can literally go on and the first two tweets just make me want to go back to bed at the state of the world and yeah, I thought that way when I first put it back on my phone.

Speaker 2: 1:09:21

I took the app off and I put it back on. Not that long ago actually, I put it back on and then I scrolled and I was like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Yeah, what is this? Let me just go. Let me go. I'm going to go on Instagram. I prefer Instagram. Let me look at nice things.

Speaker 1: 1:09:38

Yeah, and I think I mean again, it's a sweeping generalization, but I think I find that people are a bit more who they are on Instagram. I kind of meet people that are on Twitter and when I meet them I think actually I quite like you, but you're like god, you're quite annoying on Twitter, but actually in person they're not annoying, they're, they're really nice or they're fine or whatever. Um, and I'm quite surprised because I'm like, oh my god, you never. Yeah, um, whereas I don't necessarily get that with Instagram, I've never been like really surprised by somebody when I've met them in the flesh, when they're on Insta. But Twitter I genuinely have and obviously it works both ways. But I think, yeah, I think more that I found, I found, yeah, I find someone a bit much on Twitter, and then when I meet them, you're like, oh, you're not really like that at all in real life.

Speaker 2: 1:10:37

It's a persona.

Speaker 1: 1:10:38

They put on a persona.

Speaker 2: 1:10:39

Yeah, Well, Casper, all that does is lead me to say thank you very much for being part of the conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:10:48

Thank you so much, it's been fun.

Speaker 2: 1:10:52

Lots of fun. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the conversation with Nadine Matheson podcast. I really hope that you enjoyed it. I'll be back next week with a new guest, so make sure that you subscribe and you'll never miss the next episode. And also, don't forget to like, share and leave a review. It really means a lot and it also helps the podcast. And you can also support the podcast on Patreon, where every new member will receive exclusive merchandise. Just head down to the show notes and click on the link, and if you'd like to be a guest on a future episode of the Conversation, all you have to do is email theconversation at nadinemathersoncom. Thank you and I'll see you next week.