Words Against Mental Illness Part 7 - Kids Books, Romance and Suspense - Having the Best of All Worlds With Pauline Tait

Transcript

Obviously it’s mental illness. So I’m here with Pauline. Pauline, tell us about yourself. Hi, thank you for having me. I am a multi-award-winning and best-selling children’s picture book author and romantic suspense novelist. I also mentor children’s authors. I take them right through from perfecting their manuscript all the way through to publication. And I’m the editorial manager for Writers’ Narrative and online magazine for writers. That’s quite a roster of things. The thing that jumped out straight to me there was romantic suspense. I have literally no idea what I can guess what that means, but I’ve never heard of that before. Well, it falls under the crime genre. So a romantic suspense novel has got to be 50% romance, 50% suspense. So I can’t just write a romance. I can’t do that. I have, for some reason, to give my characters something harder that they have to overcome. So I don’t make their life easy, but then it all comes right in the end. So a romantic suspense novel has to be suspenseful, so it falls under the crime, but there has to be a romantic resolution at the end, as well as the challenge that they’re overcoming. The suspense part has to be a resolution at the end as well. And so if I go into a book shop, where am I finding your books? Okay. Yeah, I don’t read a lot of romance. Funny enough, there’s an earlier podcast episode, because I got obsessed by Barbara Cartland, because of just how many books she wrote, and actually got me reading some romance, and the whole thing just screwed with my brain. I read science fiction, but it was a really fun digression for me. So I’m amazed at all the genres that exist now, actually, and I think it’s partly to do with how much easier it is to get stuff out there right now. How did you come to become a published author? Well, I started out with my children’s books that were out first. I wrote the first story, The Fairy and the Kettle, for my daughter, when she was very young. She’s now 28, so we’re coming back a long time. But it wasn’t until I was in my mid-40s that I was actually brave enough to sort of try to get published, and my background was in pharmacy for 22 years, and then we moved house, and I just thought I’m having a change, and I retrained to work with children who needed extra control or support in literacy. So all about getting a lot of readers reading, all about enhancing literacy skills. So it was when working with them that I thought, you know, I’ve got to be brave and have a goal to get published. And yes, so The Fairy and the Kettle came out in 2016, and there’s maybe two picture books in, and I also moved on to write the romantic suspense novels. So I’m now both self and traditionally published, depending on the genre and depending on what it is that I’m writing. So I’m quite lucky in that regard. That I want where I’m self-published, but I’ve also got what every author hopes to get with the traditional deals that I’ve got. And so you had illustrated children’s books. Yes. And who did the illustrations? I have a new illustrator now. She’s Madeline Pinkerton. She’s absolutely brilliant. She’s young and just starting out, and we are working on the layout of the next picture book, which will be out next year. Well, you’ve expressed yourself through authoring a story for children. How do you match yourself to someone then to bring that alive as a visual thing? With the picture books, it’s really crucial that you find the right illustrator because there are so many different sort of styles, but also it’s crucial that that style matches your story. For instance, The Fairy and the Kettle trilogy, who was illustrated by Debbie Bellaby, is, you know, they’re light and they’re hispy. You know, you’ve maybe got other books about dinosaurs or tractors or trucks and they’re bold and they’re sort of sharper colours. So I was quite fortunate that at the time that The Fairy and the Kettle has been put together, I was given six illustrators to choose from through the publisher. They sent me samples of six illustrators, all variant styles, but Debbie’s illustrations just jumped out at me instantly. They were light, they were whimsical, they were exactly what I wanted for a book about fairies. So picking your illustrator is crucial to the book’s success. It’s a front cover. It’s what children are drawn to. They don’t care about the words at that point. They’re looking at the characters on the cover, but also having a good working relationship with them, you know, a good rapport back and forward. And, you know, if you’ve got a friendly relationship going, then it’s much easier to sort of work through the process and it’s more fun. I mean, you do it methodically, work through the publishing process methodically, then you can enjoy it. It’s what it’s all about. How do you write? What is the process like for you? For me, I’m not one of those authors who can just grab half an hour here and there, you know, do something at lunchtime and walk away from it and come back and do 20 minutes later on. I can’t do that. I shut myself in my writing room and I would ideally will spend three days a week in there. One after the other. And I’m out of there. I’m probably at quarter to eight in the morning and the brain sort of switches off about two o’clock and then I’ve got to go and do something different. But I need quiet. I’ve got the writing room at the bottom of the garden. So I leave the house. I go out there. There’s no distractions. And it’s just me and the laptop. And I just get lost in the world. It’s quite chaotic. It’s quite therapeutic. I just get lost. And even if I’m writing the suspenseful side of the novels, it’s still therapeutic. You know, the words are just pulling out of you. You’re in the zone. In the zone. That’s exactly right. And do you manage to do more than three days a week? Yeah, I’ll sometimes grab a Sunday morning. I’m quite often in the morning house on a Sunday morning. So I’ll simply grab then. And I will take an extra evening or two if I can get it. But I’m really quite kind to myself about making sure I get those three days. I’m a member of Sisters in Crime, which is a worldwide organisation. I’m part of the UK EU chapter. And they do an early bird’s writing session every morning, which goes from seven till sort of nine thirty. I make it for quarter to eight. But that’s me just switched on. You’re on Zoom. You’ve got your writing friends on there. But we’re all on silent. We’re all on mute. But we’re all writing. But then we’ll have a chat halfway through. We’ll just stop and have a chat. You’re in the zone. You’re chatting to other authors. We’re all writing crime of some degree, you know, even crime itself as a genre. But there are so many sub-genres within crime. And that is me in author’s zone. When you said that, like immediately in my brain, surely that’s antithetical to writing, being round other people and doing it. But you find it actually helps you? It actually helps me. I mean, we’re all getting together to go to a writing retreat in Wales just next week. You know, so we all we follow each other through the journey. If we’re having a bad writing day, if the words aren’t flown or whatever, we have a joke and a chat about it and we just enjoy each other on. We encourage. We celebrate. You know, the author’s achievement. So, yeah, it doesn’t have to be a lonely existence. You know, you picture authors sitting at a desk alone in a room day after day after day. It doesn’t have to be lonely. Zoom is there. Teams is there. You know, it’s a small world. I think that’s one thing that’s come through today with the interviews that I’ve done, is that writing is both a solitary and a very social enterprise. And, you know, how do you get into writing? Well, the first piece of advice you get given is go find, you know, first start writing. Second, go find a writer’s group, right? Go and talk to people about what you do. And so you coach children’s authors. Yes, I do. I do. I am fortunate because of the work I did with Primary Stage Children to know what engages children visually and through Word. So I pull that to my books. I pull that to my manuscripts. And it’s all about it doesn’t matter whether you’re self-publishing or traditionally publishing. Even if you’re self-publishing, you still have to write and to produce a book to traditionally publish standards to get on the shelves of Waterstones. And all my books are available in Waterstones and other major retailers. But that is because even the self-published ones have been produced and written to standard. So I coach authors, children’s authors, mainly picture book authors, because there’s a lot of techy specs involved in the internal layout and the covers and things. And I take them right through from making sure that they’ve nailed their manuscript right through to publication and beyond. And just helping them on that journey. A lot of author, you know, we all come to this as a first-time author. We all come to this not knowing the publishing world. And unfortunately, some people do stumble along the way. But my goal is to nurture these authors through so that they get to the end product. It’s to traditionally publish standards and they have enjoyed that process. They haven’t hit a roadblock. They have enjoyed the process and they’ve methodically known the steps that they are going to take. And so who is it? Who are these people you’re coaching? Are they starting from scratch? Some of them are starting from scratch. Some of them are brand new. And it’s so exciting for them. Others are children’s authors who have dabbled but haven’t succeeded to get anywhere within the business. And it’s usually because they’re needing to elevate their manuscript and their product to bring up to traditionally published standards. Other authors are writing in other genres and are deciding that they’re going to try the children’s books as well. So I have clients from all walks of life and from all stages and I have clients from all around the world. The publishing world is very small. And that’s what’s lovely about it. So I have an illustrator for the picture books. I have a cover designer for my novels. She’s in Serbia. So the publishing world is very small and it’s a friendly world. The publishing world is a friendly place to be. At one side you’ve got children’s books which are not heavy on the words and the other side you’ve got novels which depending on the type of novel issue are can be quite big. Part of me thinks that the children’s book bit would be easier because there’s less words. But I think from what you’re saying, yeah, it is. When you’re writing a novel, you know, I’m an adult writing for adults. So I am sitting at the laptop, I’m tinkling around the keys and I’m writing in the language that I use. When you write a picture book, you’ve got to pull it right back. You’ve got to take your language right back to, you know, are you writing for three to fives or are you writing for five to sevens? You’ve got to hit your vocabulary. You’ve also got to get your whole story told in up to 850 words. You’ve got to sort of follow the arc. You’ve got to get character development in there. You’ve got to get your story in there. You’ve got to get your happy conclusion in there. You’ve got to get your positive models in there for modern day publishing. So I can rattle out a few thousand words of my novel in a day. But I’m going back and forward over a picture book because also with a picture book, you’re thinking of the illustrations, you’re thinking of the visuals, you’re thinking about page turns. You’re thinking about who reveals that on page turns. So the structure is completely different. So I’ve got the right words here for the kids book. And do you have like almost a shadow page with the notes for the drawing? Yeah, well, I plan it out almost like a picture board. So I have my sort of structured plan and then I have sort of the skeleton of the story and then it’s going back and it’s beefing it out, you know, adding the flesh to the skeleton. But making sure that you’re not text heavy on one page because that can put because as well with picture books, they’re going to be read to young children. But they’re also used by early readers and young readers to learn how to read. If you have a text heavy page, you’re putting them off. So it’s about making sure you’ve got a balance of text. If you’re going to have a double page, spreading the text is all on one page. Find that don’t have it as a big solid block. You know, do something with it. Play with your text and lay out to make it fun and engaging. Yeah. I can imagine that now you’re talking about this. It’s all just water falling in my head going, well, of course now in your novel, a few words can be a bit off, right? Because it’s just the overall point or setting or character you’re trying to get across. Whereas you can’t have a word out of place. You’ve got to nail it and you can’t waste words either. One of the first things I’ll say to authors is get rid of the little filler words. You don’t want so there ever really. You know, nothing’s really long. It’s tremendously long. Don’t use filler words. Every word is crucial. Be creative with every word. Every very, very comes into a picture book a lot. I have have it in one of my other picture book coming out next year, but it’s because of the phrase, the phrase of my very own. I get away with it there, but you don’t say, oh, I’m very tired. It was very long. You’ve got to use your words creatively. You’ve got to engage in it still. You are writing for an audience who can have a very short attention span. Yeah, it’s got to be terse. I never thought about that because people think of children’s books almost as a little bit disposable. I think that’s wrong. As an adult, you do. I don’t think children do, but it’s a thing. You’ve read it. It’s done. Maybe you’ll read it again. But it’s known the chicks to read again and again and again. Yeah, exactly. The kids demanding you’re reading that one rather than, you know, Judea Donaldson or something. I’m struggling here, but I’m a person. I’ve got two humans in my head and they’re always at war with each other. But you’ve got a children’s author and then your romantic stuff is most definitely for adults. I mean, do you need to switch modes? Do you have two humans there or are they just different sides of the same person? It’s different sides of the same person. I guess when I’m writing a picture of books, I just am back in school head. You know, I’m back. I had my specific children that I worked with. I took them out of class. I worked with them. I brought them back to class. So I would make up extracurricular plans for them because they needed this extra help and literacy. So it’s going back to the tricks to really engage children in literacy and in reading. So I go back into school mode. But when it’s with the novels, I’m just me letting the words fall. And I was speaking about this earlier. I had to really think before I went from children’s picture books to novels, because the one bit of advice that authors get when they’re starting out is stay in your lane, pick your genre and stay in your lane. Now, that is powerful because every reader you get, you want them to read your next book. Your readers need to know what is coming from you next. If you come out in a different genre, you can lose those readers because they’re now no longer interested in the second genre you’ve brought out. But I’ve actually really gotten away with it because it’s too different. They’re so different. But also, there’s no seven year old or three year old walking into a bookshop and buying my picture books. It’s the adults who read my novels. So my genre is actually cross cell. So if I have an event, I’ve just been finalised and I’m actually kicking off Book Week Scotland this year with an event in Watterson’s and Princess Street in Edinburgh. We were in discussing it. All of all my children’s books there will be doing the story time and arts and crafts. And they’re sitting on the table alongside will be my novels because parents are bringing these children to this event. And they sit and they look at them and the genre cross cells. That’s really very, very cool. Where can people find you? Well, I’m on all social media. I mean, look for me under Pauline Tate author or Pauline Tate author and writing mentor. I’m in all the usual places. I’m dabbling on TikTok where we’re supposed to be. Don’t judge me when you have a look, but I’m doing my best. I mean, I’ve got some horror shows out there, so I’m very sympathetic. So, yeah, you’ll find me across social media and my books are available worldwide everywhere. Watterson’s have been very good with me. So they’re on a lot of the Watterson’s shells as well. Amazing. Thank you so much. This has been really interesting. Thank you. Thank you for having me along. Yeah, been an absolute pleasure.