Latest / The Book Deal / Angie Faye Martin on writing layered stories, Indigenous representation and how to prepare for publicity and book promos

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Angie Faye Martin on writing layered stories, Indigenous representation and how to prepare for publicity and book promos · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  Tina Strachan: This is the Book Deal podcast where you will discover the inspiring stories behind your favorite books.
• 0:15
  Tina Strachan: We interview seasoned and debut authors, as well as publishing industry professionals to bring you the best tips and advice on how to get that elusive book deal.
• 0:25
  Tina Strachan: So no matter what stage of writing you're at, we've got you covered.
• 0:29
  Tina Strachan: I'm Tina Strachan.
• 0:30
  Tina Strachan: I'm Madeleine Cleary.
• 0:32
  Tina Strachan: And I'm Natasha Rai.
• 0:34
  Tina Strachan: And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors one deal at a time.
• 0:43
  Tina Strachan: The Book Deal podcast acknowledges the traditional owners, the land and waters, which it's recorded on.
• 0:48
  Tina Strachan: And pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
• 0:56
  Natasha Rai: Angie Faye Martin is a writer and editor of Kooma, Kamilaroi and European Heritage with a Bachelor of Public Health from the Queensland University of Technology and a master's of Anthropology from the Australian National University.
• 1:11
  Natasha Rai: Angie has spent many years working in policy roles in state and federal government before launching Versed Writings in 2019.
• 1:20
  Natasha Rai: Her work has been published in Meanjin, Garland, The Saltbush Review and The Rocks Remain.
• 1:28
  Natasha Rai: She is a member of the First Nations Australia Writers Network and accredited with the Institute of Professional Editors.
• 1:39
  Natasha Rai: Good morning, Angie.
• 1:40
  Natasha Rai: Faye Martin.
• 1:41
  Natasha Rai: Welcome to the book Dear podcast.
• 1:44
  Angie Faye Martin: Thank you so much for having me, Natasha.
• 1:45
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm delighted to be here.
• 1:47
  Natasha Rai: It's great to have you.
• 1:48
  Natasha Rai: So, um, we're here to talk a little bit about your debut novel Melaleuca, as well as your publishing journey.
• 1:55
  Natasha Rai: Um, so is it okay if we start with you giving us a bit of an elevator pitch from Melaleuca?
• 2:03
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, sure thing.
• 2:07
  Angie Faye Martin: Melaleuca is about, uh, detective Renee Taylor, who is working down in Brisbane.
• 2:13
  Angie Faye Martin: She's got an amazing career.
• 2:15
  Angie Faye Martin: Uh, she's worked hard to get where she is.
• 2:18
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, she's quite determined, quite fierce.
• 2:21
  Angie Faye Martin: She's aboriginal and she's struggled against certain things, um, in her life to get where she is.
• 2:27
  Angie Faye Martin: And then she gets a call from her mom, and her mom is.
• 2:34
  Angie Faye Martin: Uh, suffering from debilitating arthritis in her hands.
• 2:38
  Angie Faye Martin: And they're struggling.
• 2:39
  Angie Faye Martin: She's struggling to get by.
• 2:41
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, and they, her mom lives in the country town where, um, Renee grew up.
• 2:45
  Angie Faye Martin: It was just the two of them.
• 2:48
  Angie Faye Martin: And, uh, her mom can't find a carer, and so she asked Renee to come home and.
• 2:55
  Angie Faye Martin: And help take care of things around the home.
• 2:57
  Angie Faye Martin: Renee being the dutiful daughter that she is reluctantly agrees and arranges a secondment with work.
• 3:06
  Angie Faye Martin: So she's um, kind of demoted, I suppose, from a detective back to being a comfortable, and she goes back to Garga, the little country town where she grew up.
• 3:18
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, it opens on day two and Renee's.
• 3:24
  Angie Faye Martin: Kind of bored, a bit frustrated.
• 3:25
  Angie Faye Martin: She's helped her mom all weekend around the house and she gets to the office early and then she gets a call from a resident.
• 3:34
  Angie Faye Martin: A resident has been down walking by the creek and has found the body of a woman.
• 3:41
  Angie Faye Martin: And Renee, um, fires into action, goes down.
• 3:45
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, and Renee, uh, nobody knows who this young aboriginal woman is.
• 3:50
  Angie Faye Martin: Renee's assigned to the investigation and, um.
• 3:54
  Angie Faye Martin: Ask around town who, who knows her.
• 3:57
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, no one has reported her missing.
• 4:00
  Angie Faye Martin: And so it becomes quite a perplexing case.
• 4:03
  Angie Faye Martin: Renee is assigned to it.
• 4:04
  Angie Faye Martin: And then as she digs deeper into what may have happened to this, um, young woman, she discovers a link to the past.
• 4:16
  Angie Faye Martin: And so Melaleuca is based on dual timelines set in.
• 4:21
  Angie Faye Martin: The year 2000 and then 1965 where, um, two women went missing.
• 4:29
  Angie Faye Martin: And yeah, obviously the cases are linked.
• 4:32
  Angie Faye Martin: So that's Melaleuca in a nutshell.
• 4:35
  Natasha Rai: Thank you.
• 4:36
  Natasha Rai: So having read it, um, I absolutely loved it and I found myself.
• 4:42
  Natasha Rai: Flying through it, um, because it was so gripping and, um, I don't read a lot of crime on fiction and this just grabbed me and what really struck me was there are so many different elements and I'm gonna be very careful'cause I don't wanna give anything away'cause there are a few twists and turns in it.
• 5:03
  Natasha Rai: Um, but I was just curious about how they all kind of came together for you in the writing.
• 5:10
  Natasha Rai: I guess the first thing I want to ask about is, this is a story about Aboriginal women and, and I know in your author's note you've talked about, you know, violence against aboriginal women and violence in indigenous communities sometimes and how it's portrayed.
• 5:29
  Natasha Rai: What was your starting point?
• 5:30
  Natasha Rai: Was that, was that your starting point or did you, did that come into the mix as you started writing?
• 5:35
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, great question.
• 5:36
  Angie Faye Martin: So maybe I'll go back a little bit.
• 5:38
  Angie Faye Martin: So.
• 5:40
  Angie Faye Martin: Starting point.
• 5:41
  Angie Faye Martin: Very good question.
• 5:42
  Angie Faye Martin: I actually started writing Melaleuca about 10 years ago.
• 5:45
  Angie Faye Martin: A lot was happening for me.
• 5:47
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, and I mean, quite a few readers say there is a lot going on in it, and that's probably where I was at in life 10 years ago.
• 5:56
  Angie Faye Martin: I was in my early thirties.
• 5:57
  Angie Faye Martin: I was living in Melbourne, um, and.
• 6:02
  Angie Faye Martin: I was working for the public service and I had followed, you know, my parents' directions and got a sensible job, and I was enjoying it to a certain degree.
• 6:11
  Angie Faye Martin: I'd studied public health and then I did my master's in anthropology and development studies.
• 6:17
  Angie Faye Martin: I really wanted to serve the community and I, um, I love the intellectual side of things as well, writing briefs and analyzing policy, but I found that it wasn't enough for me.
• 6:28
  Angie Faye Martin: I felt like there was just something bursting inside me.
• 6:31
  Angie Faye Martin: And I remember going for long walks with my husband and probably driving him crazy.
• 6:36
  Angie Faye Martin: Just, um, a bit of a chatter box and thinking through all these things.
• 6:41
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I was also reading crime at the time.
• 6:43
  Angie Faye Martin: I was reading a few crime thrillers.
• 6:46
  Angie Faye Martin: And struggling to process a lot of my thoughts.
• 6:49
  Angie Faye Martin: And I thought as I was walking around Carnegie Dunn in Melbourne, I was picking off Melaleuca bark, paper bark and starting to think about personalities and complexity and the layers of things.
• 7:03
  Angie Faye Martin: And I think I just said to my husband, maybe I could put all of this in a, in a crime story.
• 7:08
  Angie Faye Martin: That would be so awesome.
• 7:10
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, like maybe that could be my canvas just to explore.
• 7:15
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, the complexities around some of those themes that you talked about being.
• 7:21
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, political determination and sovereignty and, um, violence against Aboriginal women.
• 7:28
  Angie Faye Martin: And there's a bit of addiction in here as well, like helping family members through addiction and mental health struggles.
• 7:34
  Angie Faye Martin: I mean, in my early thirties, I felt like I had a lot weighing on me and when the idea of, you know, the paper bark in Melaleuca came to me, I thought, yeah, I'm gonna do that.
• 7:44
  Angie Faye Martin: And I went home and, um, started jotting down ideas and feeling.
• 7:50
  Angie Faye Martin: Just an amazing sense of relief come over me.
• 7:54
  Angie Faye Martin: I actually was a smoker back then, and I remember feeling like for the first time in ages, I don't feel like I need to have a cigarette.
• 8:00
  Angie Faye Martin: Like this is just giving me so, such a wonderful sense of relief.
• 8:03
  Angie Faye Martin: And then I got obsessed with the plot.
• 8:05
  Angie Faye Martin: And the plot is a little bit inspired by, I've talked about this previously.
• 8:10
  Angie Faye Martin: This is probably the, like if I had to pinpoint.
• 8:13
  Angie Faye Martin: An inspiration.
• 8:14
  Angie Faye Martin: It is, um, the abandonment of that my father felt when he reached out to his biological, um, grandfather.
• 8:24
  Angie Faye Martin: And I didn't realize that that was something that had stayed with me.
• 8:29
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I found out when, when I was about eight years old, I watched my dad be rejected by his.
• 8:35
  Angie Faye Martin: Biological grandfather when he reached out to him, um, in a moment of, you know, bit of loneliness, I think he reached out to his biological grandfather who was a wealthy white man down in, in Brisbane.
• 8:49
  Angie Faye Martin: And to see him get rejected made an impression on me at the age of eight.
• 8:54
  Angie Faye Martin: And I wondered why did that, you know, man, not wanna know our family.
• 8:59
  Angie Faye Martin: Why did he not wanna help dad out?
• 9:00
  Angie Faye Martin: And I guess as I went through life, you know, this idea of.
• 9:05
  Angie Faye Martin: Uh, men abandoning their children or just having children that they don't want to, to, um, acknowledge, um, stayed with me.
• 9:15
  Angie Faye Martin: So that kind of was the, the central kind of element to the plot.
• 9:20
  Angie Faye Martin: And then I went from there just grabbing all the themes that I was wrestling with in life identity, especially, uh, which shows up a lot in Renee's struggles just as a character.
• 9:31
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 9:31
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 9:33
  Natasha Rai: And that struck me.
• 9:34
  Natasha Rai: Um, and you know, my other job in addition to being a writer is a counsellor.
• 9:39
  Natasha Rai: So I work a lot with people experiencing grief, and that was something that came through in Melaleuca as well.
• 9:46
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 9:46
  Natasha Rai: The kind of the imprints that we get through our families.
• 9:49
  Natasha Rai: Um, and it just struck me just now when you were talking about your dad, um, that imprint of, you know, being pushed aside or unacknowledged.
• 10:00
  Natasha Rai: And that's something that I, it feels to me personally as that we hold as a country this unacknowledged violence that was perpetrated on indigenous and aboriginal peoples.
• 10:10
  Natasha Rai: Like there is that kind of echo in this, in these women's lives.
• 10:14
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:16
  Angie Faye Martin: I think, you know, we often.
• 10:18
  Angie Faye Martin: We're starting to refer to it more as intergenerational trauma.
• 10:22
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, but I think some people in the aboriginal community don't relate so much to those words.
• 10:27
  Angie Faye Martin: I think it is a profound sense of grief and also just a bit of a.
• 10:32
  Angie Faye Martin: Uh, overwhelming confusion.
• 10:34
  Angie Faye Martin: It's like, why are these feelings coming up for me?
• 10:36
  Angie Faye Martin: But it's interesting that you mentioned grief as well, because, um, I don't think I've talked about this before, but I did start writing Melaleuca around the time that my grandmother passed away and that, um, it was quite sudden she lived a very rich and fulfilling life, but she did pass away suddenly from a heart attack and, um.
• 10:54
  Angie Faye Martin: The character of Josh is actually based a little bit on that and Josh loses his mom.
• 10:59
  Angie Faye Martin: This isn't a spoiler.
• 11:00
  Angie Faye Martin: That happens quite early.
• 11:01
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, in, in the story and I was also wrestling with, um, you'll see in Josh's character, he.
• 11:11
  Angie Faye Martin: Feels like he's not processing the grief of his, his mother.
• 11:16
  Angie Faye Martin: And at the time I felt like I couldn't fully process the grief of losing my grandmother because I was wrestling with all of these other things going on.
• 11:25
  Angie Faye Martin: And I felt even a little bit of guilt about that in the early drafts.
• 11:29
  Angie Faye Martin: Josh was a much bigger character.
• 11:31
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, but slowly as I delved more into Renee, Renee became more central.
• 11:36
  Angie Faye Martin: But I had many more chapters on Josh in the first few drafts.
• 11:40
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, and definitely, yeah.
• 11:42
  Natasha Rai: And also there's the, this echo of grief.
• 11:44
  Natasha Rai: Um, and I'm gonna choose my words carefully so I don't give anything away, but in the past, in the 1965 timeline, what really, uh, what really spoke to me and touched me was the deep sense of love in, in those families.
• 11:57
  Natasha Rai: Even, even when we're describing one of the girls, is a bit wild.
• 12:02
  Natasha Rai: It, it just spoke to me of youthful exuberance and, and, and wanting to have fun.
• 12:08
  Natasha Rai: Wanting to experience this life that's feels small and, and the way we judge that, especially putting on this lens of indigenous kind of population or, I don't know, there's something around you have to be a certain way, but there was just so much love in these families and so much acceptance that just really spoke to me.
• 12:32
  Angie Faye Martin: That was really important for me.
• 12:34
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, when I was drafting Melaleuca often we're hit with just overwhelming poverty porn and you know, uh, when you read some accounts of Aboriginal history, it is violent, it is awful, and there is a place for that.
• 12:50
  Angie Faye Martin: But when I grew up, there was always an effort amongst my Aboriginal family to.
• 12:57
  Angie Faye Martin: Have fun joke around.
• 12:59
  Angie Faye Martin: Some of our humor can be pretty dark, but I guess that's just the way we deal with things coming together and yawning and, um, growing up you are aware that people see Aboriginal people as being full of despair and at times we definitely are.
• 13:15
  Angie Faye Martin: 'cause of what we've experienced.
• 13:16
  Angie Faye Martin: But we do also have a, you know, fun times, a lot of good times and, um.
• 13:23
  Angie Faye Martin: When, so the 1960s timeline, which is really where you see the community coming together, that's based on my dad's experience of growing up on the Yuba, which is a fringe camp in was a fringe camp back then.
• 13:37
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, and.
• 13:39
  Angie Faye Martin: When I hear stories based on dad's childhood experience growing up on the fringe camp, they are full of poverty and hunger, but heaps of games, childhood games playing by the creek and Yabby.
• 13:52
  Angie Faye Martin: And I wanted to shine a light just on the humanity that existed in those communities, how much they loved each other and cared for each other fiercely.
• 14:00
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, and that's how we've remained, uh, resilient.
• 14:04
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, people.
• 14:05
  Angie Faye Martin: That's how we're still here today.
• 14:06
  Angie Faye Martin: We just fiercely care for each other.
• 14:08
  Natasha Rai: Hmm.
• 14:08
  Natasha Rai: And that came through so strongly for me, but, you know, I'm, it's such an interest, like all these beautiful layers that you've, that you've written into your novel and I'm, and, and crime is the vehicle that you've used to kind of highlight all of that, was it more than kind of, you said you earlier that you were reading a lot of crime at the time.
• 14:29
  Natasha Rai: How, how did that vehicle come about?
• 14:31
  Angie Faye Martin: Like is it because you're, honestly, I didn't crime reader or, uh, look, I was reading a lot of crime at the time, but I don't think I read everything right.
• 14:39
  Angie Faye Martin: It was just, that was what I was reading.
• 14:41
  Angie Faye Martin: I was reading Gillian Flynn and I liked the suspenseful kind of page turning genre, and I wanted to write a story that I enjoyed reading, but I don't think I set out too deliberately to write crime.
• 14:54
  Angie Faye Martin: I feel like.
• 14:56
  Angie Faye Martin: It became a crime novel, um, because of, you know, I had a detective, I had a crime, and it became a vehicle for me to explore these issues.
• 15:06
  Angie Faye Martin: And over time I did play into that genre.
• 15:08
  Angie Faye Martin: 'cause I realized it worked better.
• 15:10
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, it was what readers expected, and I used those conventional kind of cliffs.
• 15:17
  Angie Faye Martin: What, no, what do you call it, cliff hangers and hooks that I was reading about in my craft books.
• 15:22
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 15:23
  Angie Faye Martin: But I do feel like Melaleuca is not strictly in the crime genre.
• 15:27
  Angie Faye Martin: I think it could be general fiction or historical fiction.
• 15:31
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, it's, and, and all books are, you know, like all books kind of, um, overlap into other genres that that's true.
• 15:39
  Natasha Rai: And at the same time, you've managed something quite extraordinary with yours in that there are all these flesh tight characters and I really like the pacing of the story in the two thousands.
• 15:49
  Natasha Rai: Like it's only set over a few days once the investigation gets going.
• 15:52
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 15:52
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 15:53
  Natasha Rai: And I, it felt both fast and also, um, really this lovely unfolding of the links or potential connection between the past.
• 16:03
  Natasha Rai: And I was just, I was full of admiration of how you navigated that and how you wrote that so beautifully.
• 16:11
  Angie Faye Martin: I think I have to thank my mentor a little bit.
• 16:13
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I often found those slow bits actually really easy and enjoyable to write.
• 16:19
  Angie Faye Martin: So a lot of the slow bits I think are to do with Renee and her mom, just domestic scenes where they're just talking, you know, nonsense in the house and or Renee collecting eggs out the back.
• 16:31
  Angie Faye Martin: My mentor said, no, this is really good.
• 16:34
  Angie Faye Martin: Like, I'm enjoying these things.
• 16:35
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm like, I feel like I'm just playing around.
• 16:38
  Angie Faye Martin: Like I don't feel like this is serious writing.
• 16:40
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, but she encouraged me to keep pursuing it.
• 16:44
  Angie Faye Martin: And so I did.
• 16:44
  Angie Faye Martin: And then over time when I read it back to myself, I realized that there was a nice flow happening between the, the intensity of the investigation, um, and also some of the heavier themes where.
• 16:59
  Angie Faye Martin: Quite confronting things happen and then you just, uh, return to this domestic, not tranquility, but like playfulness.
• 17:08
  Angie Faye Martin: And I thought for the reader it was a nice ebb and flow.
• 17:12
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, definitely.
• 17:13
  Angie Faye Martin: And it was also just fun.
• 17:14
  Angie Faye Martin: I just liked writing.
• 17:16
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, Renee and how she gets along with her colleagues at the station.
• 17:19
  Angie Faye Martin: And I think it's also how country folk just banter a little bit.
• 17:23
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, you just, that's how you get by and like you just talk a bit of nonsense, talk a bit of crap, and, you know, pass the time.
• 17:30
  Angie Faye Martin: And I wanted to bring that out and yeah, in the story as well.
• 17:34
  Natasha Rai: So you've mentioned a mentor, so let's, um, go into your publishing journey.
• 17:39
  Natasha Rai: So 10 years ago you had this idea.
• 17:42
  Natasha Rai: And you started writing something, was that your first foray into creative writing?
• 17:47
  Angie Faye Martin: It was for a long time.
• 17:48
  Angie Faye Martin: Like I used to muck around when I was a kid and stuff.
• 17:51
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, and then I kept reading, um, always reading a lot, but I was just doing academic writing.
• 17:59
  Angie Faye Martin: And then, so this burst of an idea came through, uh, it was called the Paper Bark Trees at first, 10 years ago.
• 18:05
  Angie Faye Martin: And then.
• 18:06
  Angie Faye Martin: I kept going with it just on the side.
• 18:08
  Angie Faye Martin: I was quite obsessed with it, but I didn't have much time'cause I was working full time.
• 18:13
  Angie Faye Martin: And so I just read craft books, play around with a few paragraphs, share it with a few close friends.
• 18:20
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, my husband and they, they told me later they were relieved that they could tell me it was okay and it wasn't complete crap.
• 18:27
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, because they would've told me if it was crap too.
• 18:29
  Angie Faye Martin: They're, they're good friends.
• 18:30
  Angie Faye Martin: I trust them.
• 18:31
  Angie Faye Martin: And so they get, like, they said, yeah, go on, keep going with this, you know.
• 18:36
  Angie Faye Martin: And I did.
• 18:37
  Angie Faye Martin: And then I, um, looked at a few competitions.
• 18:41
  Angie Faye Martin: 'cause I thought, I can't really do this just by myself.
• 18:44
  Angie Faye Martin: It would be cool if I could win one of these competitions where you get a mentor for a little bit.
• 18:49
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 18:49
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, so I looked into those.
• 18:52
  Angie Faye Martin: I did, um, I did get rejected from a few, but they, they were great, um, competitions in that they still gave me a recommendation for how I could improve it.
• 19:04
  Natasha Rai: Okay, so it's a short letter, and I know it's a while ago now, but do you remember what they were and if you had to submit the full manuscript or did you, was it excerpts?
• 19:15
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, so I think it was just excerpts.
• 19:19
  Angie Faye Martin: I think I submitted two.
• 19:20
  Angie Faye Martin: Two, yeah.
• 19:22
  Angie Faye Martin: But I don't wanna say which ones that were, they were Australian.
• 19:26
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 19:26
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 19:27
  Natasha Rai: But were they specifically kind of crime related or just general adult?
• 19:32
  Angie Faye Martin: Just general adult fiction.
• 19:33
  Angie Faye Martin: Okay.
• 19:34
  Angie Faye Martin: But I remember I got like a two page summary report with a little bit of a prompt where I could take it.
• 19:40
  Angie Faye Martin: And so it was still helpful.
• 19:42
  Angie Faye Martin: It was excellent.
• 19:43
  Angie Faye Martin: It was like a disappointing, I was heartbroken at the time, but then I was like, no, I'll keep going with it.
• 19:48
  Angie Faye Martin: And then, um, I got my long service, leave three months and.
• 19:54
  Angie Faye Martin: Was excited'cause I could devote a lot more time to it.
• 19:56
  Angie Faye Martin: And then I found the Harper Collins First Nations commercial fiction fellowship, which required a 70,000 word draft.
• 20:04
  Angie Faye Martin: So I set my goals on that was like, I'm gonna, you know, get this story into shape, get it to 70,000 words.
• 20:12
  Angie Faye Martin: That was back in 2019 and I was successful in that competition.
• 20:17
  Angie Faye Martin: And as part of the award, I was assigned a mentor for 12 months.
• 20:22
  Angie Faye Martin: And just as I was assigned that, um, I went over to Adelaide and met my mentor Amy Matthews over there at Adelaide Writer's Week.
• 20:31
  Angie Faye Martin: And then, um, the COVID lockdown started so lucky I got in that quick trip over there, I could meet her in person and then came home and was able to work.
• 20:42
  Angie Faye Martin: Under her kind of tutelage for 12 months.
• 20:46
  Angie Faye Martin: It was, I was also closely connected to the publisher at Harper Collins, Joe Mackay, who I've continued to work with now.
• 20:54
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, and so that process was incredible.
• 20:57
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 20:57
  Natasha Rai: And can I just ask something about that?
• 20:59
  Natasha Rai: So with your mentorship, were you working on different elements like structure, um, characterization, like those kind of broad strokes to get it into a tighter form?
• 21:09
  Angie Faye Martin: Everything.
• 21:10
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 21:11
  Angie Faye Martin: So she would do like a full um, read through.
• 21:15
  Angie Faye Martin: And then provide me with like a bit of a manuscript assessment of how I could improve it overall.
• 21:21
  Angie Faye Martin: She also did point out what I was doing well, which I found, you know, encouraging.
• 21:25
  Angie Faye Martin: So she was always like, yeah, your dialogue is great.
• 21:27
  Angie Faye Martin: Oh, thanks.
• 21:28
  Angie Faye Martin: Never even really studied that.
• 21:29
  Angie Faye Martin: That was just something that came naturally.
• 21:31
  Angie Faye Martin: Point of view I struggled with, and so I had to do a few extra courses on point of view.
• 21:37
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I was head hopping, so getting in too many characters heads and so that was the weakness for me.
• 21:44
  Angie Faye Martin: Um.
• 21:46
  Angie Faye Martin: Pacing was something that I was okay at, but I really needed to improve given the crime genre.
• 21:52
  Angie Faye Martin: So I read lots of suspense craft books and um, hooks and cliffhangers and, you know, entered the scene late and leave early, that kind of thing.
• 22:02
  Angie Faye Martin: Um.
• 22:03
  Angie Faye Martin: But Amy really met me where I was at in my journey, because I already had pretty decent vocab and everything.
• 22:09
  Angie Faye Martin: I've, you know, had a master's in academic writing, but there was some real basics, like point of view that I just didn't get at all.
• 22:15
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 22:16
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, so it was yeah, tailored to what I needed.
• 22:21
  Angie Faye Martin: So Amy, um, read a few drafts, gave me feedback on how I could improve it, and then after that year, I was, um, brought over to Joe Joe mackay at Harper Collins and given more in depth kind of manuscript, um, manuscript assessments From there.
• 22:39
  Angie Faye Martin: Finally got the contract in, sorry, go on.
• 22:41
  Natasha Rai: I was just gonna say this would've been what, 2021, right?
• 22:44
  Angie Faye Martin: 2021.
• 22:45
  Angie Faye Martin: Yep.
• 22:47
  Angie Faye Martin: Kept, kept working at it.
• 22:49
  Angie Faye Martin: Um.
• 22:51
  Angie Faye Martin: I got the contract and that was 2023 I think.
• 22:56
  Angie Faye Martin: What are we up to now?
• 22:57
  Angie Faye Martin: 2025.
• 22:58
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, 2023.
• 22:59
  Angie Faye Martin: And then it was pretty much, it was all done for a long time, to be honest.
• 23:03
  Angie Faye Martin: Like, and then it's a matter of, um, choosing the right publishing window.
• 23:09
  Angie Faye Martin: So the publishers put a lot of thought into when to release the book.
• 23:13
  Angie Faye Martin: Um.
• 23:14
  Natasha Rai: Yes, I understand that because I had the same, I signed my contract in 2023 and mine came out 2025, so I know, yeah, yeah.
• 23:22
  Natasha Rai: That sense of time.
• 23:23
  Natasha Rai: But when you won the uh, prize.
• 23:26
  Natasha Rai: Was the publication like an option or was it a guaranteed thing, like you do a year's mentorship and then...
• 23:32
  Angie Faye Martin: No.
• 23:33
  Angie Faye Martin: Okay.
• 23:33
  Angie Faye Martin: It wasn't, and I was naive, like probably now in hindsight, I probably look, would look around for an award.
• 23:41
  Angie Faye Martin: That guaranteed publication.
• 23:42
  Angie Faye Martin: No, I basically just hustled.
• 23:44
  Angie Faye Martin: I kept hustling.
• 23:45
  Angie Faye Martin: I didn't even really understand the publishing world.
• 23:48
  Angie Faye Martin: I just thought, oh yeah, they seem like, uh, really.
• 23:52
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, professional people, like experts in their field.
• 23:55
  Angie Faye Martin: I wanted to work with the best.
• 23:56
  Angie Faye Martin: So I looked up both their profiles and I was like, yeah, these people know what they're doing.
• 24:00
  Angie Faye Martin: I didn't really look into the ins and outs of whether the award involved a contract.
• 24:04
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I don't regret it, but it did become a little bit of a hustle towards the end.
• 24:09
  Angie Faye Martin: It was like, you know, when do I get a contract?
• 24:11
  Angie Faye Martin: When can I put the book out?
• 24:12
  Angie Faye Martin: That became a little bit hard at the end.
• 24:15
  Natasha Rai: So you sounds like you had a lot of confidence in Melaleuca at by that point to kind of.
• 24:22
  Natasha Rai: Uh, well, yeah, you said hustle, but you know, to be had that confidence to keep going because I know what I was like back then.
• 24:29
  Natasha Rai: I was terrified of everyone.
• 24:30
  Natasha Rai: I don't know why, but, um, and a lot of emerging writers, you know, they, they get really nervous about pushing, pushing themselves forward or asking for things.
• 24:41
  Angie Faye Martin: I guess it was probably my pathway into it because I had, you know, won this 2019 fellowship and then it was like, okay, so what now?
• 24:51
  Angie Faye Martin: Like I've put in seven years or so at that point of time into this manuscript.
• 24:56
  Natasha Rai: Um, yeah.
• 24:59
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 24:59
  Natasha Rai: Does that fellowship still exist?
• 25:02
  Angie Faye Martin: No, I think they only ran it once.
• 25:04
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 25:04
  Natasha Rai: Oh, wow.
• 25:05
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 25:05
  Natasha Rai: Well, you were right time, right place.
• 25:07
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:13
  Kasey Whitelaw: Hello, listeners.
• 25:14
  Kasey Whitelaw: I'm Kasey Whitelaw.
• 25:16
  Kasey Whitelaw: I'm the author of Flute and my new picture book, the Great Shark Egg Case Hunt.
• 25:22
  Kasey Whitelaw: I'm a debut author and a marine biologist.
• 25:25
  Kasey Whitelaw: I'm so thrilled to tell you about my new book, the Great Shark Egged Case Hunt, which is inspired by a real life citizen science project.
• 25:33
  Kasey Whitelaw: It's illustrated by Sylvia Morris and published by CSIRO Publishing.
• 25:38
  Kasey Whitelaw: Did you know some sharks and their close relatives lay eggs inside the case?
• 25:44
  Kasey Whitelaw: A baby shark grows until it's ready to wriggle its way out.
• 25:48
  Kasey Whitelaw: Leaving the empty egg case behind empty egg cases can wash up on beaches all year round.
• 25:53
  Kasey Whitelaw: So join our young citizen scientists as they search for shark egg cases.
• 25:58
  Kasey Whitelaw: Your journey around the world, stopping off in places like England.
• 26:02
  Kasey Whitelaw: Australia, South Africa and Icy Alaska.
• 26:05
  Kasey Whitelaw: But remember, look closely some shark eggs are easily camouflaged.
• 26:10
  Kasey Whitelaw: The great Shark egg case hunt brings science into children's everyday experiences, turning a fun day at the beach into a citizen science adventure.
• 26:19
  Kasey Whitelaw: It's a story, a field guide, and a fun extension activity all in one.
• 26:24
  Kasey Whitelaw: So come along, you can be an egg case hunter too.
• 26:27
  Kasey Whitelaw: The great shark.
• 26:28
  Kasey Whitelaw: A case hunt is available now.
• 26:35
  Natasha Rai: So how much, um, was the word, how much, uh, input did you have into the cover?
• 26:40
  Natasha Rai: 'cause the cover is stunning.
• 26:43
  Kasey Whitelaw: Um, so none.
• 26:45
  Kasey Whitelaw: Well, they asked me for a few ideas.
• 26:47
  Kasey Whitelaw: I sent through a few photos, um, and I thought.
• 26:50
  Kasey Whitelaw: It would be like a outback landscape, like silos or something.
• 26:54
  Kasey Whitelaw: But when I saw it, I was absolutely blown away.
• 26:59
  Kasey Whitelaw: Uh, I loved it.
• 27:00
  Kasey Whitelaw: I'm sure I could have, you know, asked for changes if they had given it to me, and I don't like it.
• 27:04
  Kasey Whitelaw: But I told them from the beginning, I trust that you're the experts in, um, cover design and yeah.
• 27:10
  Kasey Whitelaw: So when I saw the beautiful, um, blues and gr blues and greens was what I secretly wanted, but I didn't pass on that um.
• 27:19
  Kasey Whitelaw: Requirement or anything.
• 27:20
  Kasey Whitelaw: 'cause I thought it would be beautiful if it came back in Blues and greens and then it did.
• 27:25
  Kasey Whitelaw: And I thought, oh, this is serendipitous, it's meant to be.
• 27:28
  Kasey Whitelaw: Um, but yeah, Darren Holt, who did all of Trent Dalton's books, designed this one for me and it's actually the, um, crows and Nest, uh, waterfalls, which is just outside of Toowoomba, and that's what Crystal Ponds is based on in Melaleuca.
• 27:46
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 27:47
  Natasha Rai: Gorgeous.
• 27:47
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 27:48
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 27:48
  Natasha Rai: So you signed the contract.
• 27:50
  Natasha Rai: Um, how was that?
• 27:51
  Natasha Rai: That must have been, I dunno, a culmination of everything you've been working on.
• 27:56
  Angie Faye Martin: Right.
• 27:57
  Angie Faye Martin: It was a blur.
• 27:58
  Angie Faye Martin: I remember being in Spain actually, and.
• 28:01
  Angie Faye Martin: Because my husband's Spanish and you know, life is crazy.
• 28:05
  Angie Faye Martin: Ooh.
• 28:06
  Angie Faye Martin: I was thinking my mom came over for a visit and I got this contract and I remember thinking, whoa, this just got serious.
• 28:12
  Angie Faye Martin: This is awesome.
• 28:13
  Angie Faye Martin: This is great.
• 28:13
  Angie Faye Martin: This is what I wanted.
• 28:14
  Angie Faye Martin: But then also thinking there are so many words in this document that I do not understand.
• 28:19
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, so I got a lawyer to look at it.
• 28:22
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 28:23
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, paid for my own lawyer.
• 28:24
  Angie Faye Martin: I looked up.
• 28:26
  Angie Faye Martin: An expert in, um, what do they call it in the arts, like film and television, entertainment, law.
• 28:34
  Angie Faye Martin: And yeah, he looked over it to, for me, I did heap of research into all of the different royalties and everything, um, and signed it off and sent it away.
• 28:44
  Angie Faye Martin: And I think, yeah, it was, it was a nice experience, but I still felt like I, there was quite a bit of work ahead of me.
• 28:50
  Angie Faye Martin: I felt like it was just the beginning and it was true.
• 28:53
  Angie Faye Martin: Something in me was like, this is just.
• 28:55
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, the beginning of a very long journey, because next comes the, uh, the promotions and the, uh, publicity.
• 29:02
  Angie Faye Martin: So finding the contract was, that was actually quite nerve wracking, but finding the contract, I know people actually celebrate with champagne and everything.
• 29:10
  Angie Faye Martin: For me, it was like, this is serious.
• 29:13
  Angie Faye Martin: I felt like this is a new journey beginning.
• 29:16
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, for sure.
• 29:17
  Angie Faye Martin: Which is exciting.
• 29:18
  Angie Faye Martin: Exciting but scary.
• 29:19
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Natasha Rai: I get that.
• 29:21
  Natasha Rai: And also, um, you mentioned about promotions.
• 29:24
  Natasha Rai: So your book, so you signed in 2023 and Melaleuca came out in June.
• 29:29
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 29:29
  Natasha Rai: Beginning of June.
• 29:30
  Natasha Rai: So how has it been?
• 29:32
  Natasha Rai: How was it in the lead up?
• 29:35
  Natasha Rai: What was your experience like?
• 29:37
  Angie Faye Martin: I mean, I was pretty nervous leading up to the release of Melaleuca.
• 29:41
  Angie Faye Martin: Not so much about the quality of the book.
• 29:44
  Angie Faye Martin: 'cause I feel like I put enough work into it and I read enough to know, like I don't wanna.
• 29:49
  Angie Faye Martin: Sound like a big nole, but I kind of felt like it was a good book.
• 29:53
  Angie Faye Martin: It was more the public speaking and the publicity, and I don't really like that, you know, natural.
• 29:59
  Angie Faye Martin: I, I'm starting to enjoy it now that I've done enough, but I was so scared and so Ed by everything, I tried to make it as enjoyable as possible by doing the things that I like.
• 30:10
  Angie Faye Martin: So I bought new lipstick and new, new heels and new clothes and just tried to make it fun because I was like, this is gonna be a big part of my life now.
• 30:18
  Angie Faye Martin: So.
• 30:20
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I try to embrace it as much as possible, but yeah, I actually work with a performance coach and we, she helps me with, you know, that external facing things.
• 30:31
  Angie Faye Martin: So little techniques to, you know, I don't know if you notice, but whenever I do an event, I wear my headband.
• 30:40
  Angie Faye Martin: 'Cause that's kind of like my external per persona.
• 30:43
  Angie Faye Martin: And then when I come back into creative writing, I feel like I shift gears and I, I've talked to quite a few writers who are similar to that.
• 30:50
  Angie Faye Martin: You kind of have to put a lot of energy and even though it's fun getting out and talking about your book, for us writers, most writers, I think we enjoy our little caves and coming back and exploring and having that time to go into our own little worlds.
• 31:06
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, and that's.
• 31:08
  Angie Faye Martin: What I'm, where I'm at now is trying to balance the two, so figure out the right portion of my weekly schedule that I can dedicate to the external stuff, the publicity and the promotion, and how much time I need to unwind, and then how much time I can actually write.
• 31:24
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm not one of those writers who can, um, well, for now I might change, but just right on the go, like in the, when they're dropping the kids off at school or I need.
• 31:36
  Angie Faye Martin: Like my office and focus, I don't even write very well on a cafe or anything.
• 31:40
  Angie Faye Martin: So I'm a bit of, I'm a bit boring like that.
• 31:42
  Angie Faye Martin: No, I, I'm.
• 31:43
  Natasha Rai: I'm, yeah.
• 31:44
  Natasha Rai: I don't, I can probably write in public places, but I can't do those quick things that people can do and say, I need some yeah.
• 31:51
  Natasha Rai: Blocks of time.
• 31:53
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 31:53
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 31:54
  Natasha Rai: So, so it sounds like your performance coach gave you some good tips around transitions, right?
• 31:58
  Natasha Rai: So you have this public facing thing, and then you can come out of that and go into your creative.
• 32:05
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:07
  Angie Faye Martin: She's been amazing.
• 32:08
  Angie Faye Martin: Big shout out to Helen.
• 32:10
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm not gonna give you her last name because then you'll inundate her and she's mine.
• 32:15
  Natasha Rai: So, I mean, you don't have to also give away anything she did for you for free, but I'm just curious if there was one or two things that you found the most helpful in terms of how you can help yourself when you're doing your promotions or events.
• 32:30
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, it's probably a little bit.
• 32:33
  Angie Faye Martin: Underrated or obvious, but breathing techniques is one of them.
• 32:36
  Angie Faye Martin: Like just slow breathing, breathing beforehand.
• 32:41
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, also I do just basic CBT stuff.
• 32:45
  Angie Faye Martin: So I've got these little sheets where I will write down all of my negative thinking and then in one, in one column, and then all of my positive thoughts in the other.
• 32:55
  Angie Faye Martin: So a few days before I do something that I'm scared about, I will just write.
• 33:00
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, like what, why am I scared?
• 33:01
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, because I'm going to, I don't know, say something stupid, for example.
• 33:06
  Angie Faye Martin: Like just anything that comes into my mind like, or I don't know.
• 33:12
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm gonna be late.
• 33:13
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm gonna completely stuff it up.
• 33:15
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm gonna forget to turn on my microphone, which I actually did in Sydney, and it's not that bad.
• 33:19
  Angie Faye Martin: So you write down all of the things that are contributing to the anxiety and this is classic CBT, right?
• 33:25
  Angie Faye Martin: And then in the positive column, like you do the counter belief to, to that thought.
• 33:31
  Angie Faye Martin: So I forget to turn on my microphone.
• 33:34
  Angie Faye Martin: And then the positive thing is, okay, big deal recorded again later, which is what's gonna happen with, um, one of the things I was on.
• 33:42
  Angie Faye Martin: Oh, that's a really good, that's a really good technique.
• 33:45
  Angie Faye Martin: I like that.
• 33:45
  Angie Faye Martin: And I, yeah, it's very simple and it's, yeah.
• 33:49
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 33:49
  Angie Faye Martin: And it's whatever works for you as well.
• 33:51
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, exactly.
• 33:52
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 33:52
  Natasha Rai: So what does your writing practice look like now?
• 33:55
  Natasha Rai: Three months since the book's been out?
• 33:58
  Natasha Rai: Do you have time or are you still really absorbed in Melaleuca?
• 34:02
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm slowly getting back into it.
• 34:05
  Angie Faye Martin: So I try to write in the morning.
• 34:07
  Angie Faye Martin: I feel like I'm at my best in the morning after I've just had my coffee.
• 34:11
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I have my own freelance editing business as well, so I do that in the afternoon.
• 34:16
  Angie Faye Martin: In the morning I feel a bit more creative.
• 34:18
  Angie Faye Martin: My mind's a bit more explorative, so I get up, I write, if I get stuck, I just do a little walk around the block or you know, just a 10 minute walk, even just literal walk around the block and.
• 34:31
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm probably averaging two or three hours a day writing.
• 34:37
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, that's great.
• 34:38
  Angie Faye Martin: And, and then in the afternoon, maybe three or four hours on my, on my business, I would like to in increase that a little bit over time, but.
• 34:49
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, Melaleuca the, um, events for that are still almost on a weekly basis and that obviously requires a bit of preparation as well.
• 34:58
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm, exactly.
• 34:59
  Natasha Rai: Um, and so are you, when you write, are you kind of sitting down for whatever it is and writing whatever is coming to mind?
• 35:07
  Natasha Rai: Or do, are you working on something specific or do you have a goal for yourself?
• 35:11
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm a real planner.
• 35:13
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm painfully boring planner.
• 35:14
  Angie Faye Martin: So I've finished the draft of my next novel and I'm going through that now.
• 35:20
  Natasha Rai: Congratulations.
• 35:21
  Natasha Rai: That's huge.
• 35:21
  Angie Faye Martin: Thank you.
• 35:22
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, it's uh, a sequel.
• 35:25
  Angie Faye Martin: So I've stayed in the character of Renee Taylor, an entirely new crime.
• 35:29
  Angie Faye Martin: Um.
• 35:31
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, so I've obviously, I planned all that out.
• 35:35
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm at the stage now of, well, I've got a, a rough draft.
• 35:39
  Angie Faye Martin: I still need to go back.
• 35:41
  Angie Faye Martin: And it's also a dual timeline and I feel like the present day timeline has got a lot more substance to it than the 1920s timeline.
• 35:48
  Angie Faye Martin: So I'm trying to breathe life into that.
• 35:51
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, when I say breathe life into what it's like, I've got the skeleton right of the story.
• 35:56
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm.
• 35:57
  Angie Faye Martin: Sometimes plotting is kind of, I feel like the plotting for this one was actually the easy part.
• 36:03
  Angie Faye Martin: Now I need to go in and really fill out the scenes and you wanna be in a hurry.
• 36:08
  Angie Faye Martin: You wanna like do it quickly, but you can tell when someone's doing it quickly.
• 36:13
  Angie Faye Martin: So you just have to sit.
• 36:14
  Angie Faye Martin: And I imagine the scene, I imagine the smells and the, you know, you really take yourself back there.
• 36:20
  Angie Faye Martin: When I was writing Melaleuca, actually what I would do is.
• 36:23
  Angie Faye Martin: I would imagine the scene the night before, before I would go to sleep and uh, that would save me a lot of time because I would then, when I'd sit down at my desk the next day, I had already been in the scene the night before.
• 36:36
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 36:37
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 36:38
  Angie Faye Martin: And just like the colours and what are people wearing and what are they saying?
• 36:41
  Angie Faye Martin: And because that part of the writing is what, it's not necessarily hard, it just takes time and discipline.
• 36:49
  Angie Faye Martin: So letting your mind be in that scene and imagining everything that's going on, what just happened five seconds before, what's going to happen later in the day, you know?
• 37:02
  Angie Faye Martin: Oh, for sure.
• 37:02
  Angie Faye Martin: You can't rush those things.
• 37:03
  Natasha Rai: You can't rush those things.
• 37:04
  Natasha Rai: No, you can't.
• 37:05
  Natasha Rai: And yeah.
• 37:06
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 37:06
  Natasha Rai: I really like that.
• 37:07
  Natasha Rai: I really like that.
• 37:08
  Natasha Rai: Um, so what's different for you, um, in terms of coming into the second manuscript?
• 37:14
  Natasha Rai: Um, from writing Melaleuca?
• 37:16
  Angie Faye Martin: It's been lovely in that it hasn't taken me as long.
• 37:20
  Angie Faye Martin: 'cause I know some of the basics now.
• 37:22
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I feel like it was, yeah, it was much quicker to write.
• 37:29
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm really looking forward to starting another one actually, like now that I feel like I.
• 37:34
  Angie Faye Martin: I've got some of the craft principles, I've honed them.
• 37:37
  Angie Faye Martin: I know kind of how it works.
• 37:38
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I may do like, try pantsing, you know, like,'cause I'm such a plotter and planner.
• 37:43
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 37:44
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 37:44
  Angie Faye Martin: I wouldn mind just doing a few short stories.
• 37:46
  Angie Faye Martin: Just pantsing it.
• 37:47
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 37:48
  Angie Faye Martin: Not necessarily if the novel that seems daunting, like I probably waste 30 years of my life if I try to the novel.
• 37:54
  Angie Faye Martin: But I like the idea of just playing around with short stories.
• 37:58
  Angie Faye Martin: Next, I also imagine creative.
• 38:00
  Natasha Rai: I also imagine that pantsing.
• 38:02
  Natasha Rai: Something that needs kind of, you have to plot out or think about your twists and turns and your red herrings and all of those things that go into a crime or a thriller or that kind of, you know, edge of your seat stuff that I don't, I feel like if I, because I'm a pantser a little bit, but if I tried write like that type of story or that type of plot, I would just get lost immediately.
• 38:26
  Natasha Rai: Because half the time I'm writing stuff, I'm not really sure where it's going.
• 38:30
  Natasha Rai: Like I have an end point, but I dunno how I'm gonna get there.
• 38:33
  Natasha Rai: I just let it go.
• 38:35
  Angie Faye Martin: So, oh, I envy people like that.
• 38:37
  Angie Faye Martin: And I think, I also think the writing can be a little bit more beautiful, like, oh, I dunno, but maybe, maybe I'll get there.
• 38:44
  Angie Faye Martin: Maybe I'll get there eventually.
• 38:45
  Angie Faye Martin: But now I feel like it's a bit more of a practice for me, like to map it all.
• 38:50
  Angie Faye Martin: I kind of.
• 38:51
  Angie Faye Martin: Get a bit of satisfaction out of, it's like a puzzle that I'm putting together.
• 38:55
  Natasha Rai: Well, exactly.
• 38:55
  Natasha Rai: And see, I envy that bit because when I hear, when I hear writers talk about this puzzle putting together, I'm like, I want a puzzle to put together that's just all like flowing your chaos.
• 39:08
  Angie Faye Martin: Enjoy your beautiful chaos.
• 39:11
  Natasha Rai: So what's your plan in terms of what you'd like to do with this manuscript?
• 39:14
  Natasha Rai: Do you have an agent now?
• 39:16
  Natasha Rai: Are you.
• 39:16
  Natasha Rai: Interested in, or how does that work for you?
• 39:19
  Angie Faye Martin: I don't have an agent.
• 39:20
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm thinking about it.
• 39:21
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, so I've con I was contracted by HQ for the two books, so they've Okay.
• 39:29
  Angie Faye Martin: Got, um, maybe an agent for the third book, um, given that, you know, the ins and outs of all the public.
• 39:40
  Angie Faye Martin: Contractual stuff is not really my strong point.
• 39:44
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, I talked to a few people about pros and cons of having an agent and you know, obviously con is you gotta, you gotta share your profit, but the pros seem quite appealing as in they help you navigate, you know, this terrain of publicity and promotion and it might be worthwhile, you know, doing that.
• 40:05
  Angie Faye Martin: I think in the end, just so I can optimize my time a little bit more.
• 40:10
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 40:10
  Natasha Rai: And the advice that they have, the industry knowledge, like they get to see so many things that we don't have any insight into, like all the other deals and stuff.
• 40:19
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 40:19
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 40:20
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm not interested in that, to be honest, to navigate it myself.
• 40:23
  Angie Faye Martin: Like I, I basically do my writing and then show up and, you know, talk when I have to.
• 40:29
  Angie Faye Martin: But the rest of, and I do Instagram obviously, but I feel pretty clumsy in all the rest of it.
• 40:35
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 40:35
  Angie Faye Martin: So I'm like, maybe I do need an agent in Yeah.
• 40:38
  Angie Faye Martin: In the long run.
• 40:39
  Natasha Rai: So in terms of this book then, if you've got like a, a Harper Collins interested in your second, um, novel, does that mean you're on a deadline?
• 40:47
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, I've got until the October.
• 40:50
  Natasha Rai: Oh, wow.
• 40:51
  Natasha Rai: That's close.
• 40:54
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 40:55
  Angie Faye Martin: No.
• 40:55
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, but I've been working on it for a while, so.
• 40:59
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, about a year before Melaleuca even came out, I was working.
• 41:02
  Angie Faye Martin: Oh, okay.
• 41:03
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 41:03
  Natasha Rai: And does that also mean, and if you don't, if you can't say that's fine, but does that also mean there's a release date in mind for the second?
• 41:10
  Angie Faye Martin: Oh no.
• 41:11
  Angie Faye Martin: Okay.
• 41:11
  Angie Faye Martin: So yeah, could be next year, but I doubt it.
• 41:16
  Angie Faye Martin: It's probably gonna be 2027, but I don't know.
• 41:19
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah.
• 41:19
  Angie Faye Martin: I mean, I'm not too fussed to be honest.
• 41:22
  Angie Faye Martin: Uh, just once I hand it over.
• 41:24
  Angie Faye Martin: Like to make sure it's in as good equality as possible.
• 41:28
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm a bit overwhelmed or daunting sometimes.
• 41:30
  Angie Faye Martin: People tell me that they read Melaleuca in two days or in a single sitting.
• 41:33
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm like, oh, go back and read it again.
• 41:35
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm not doing it.
• 41:35
  Angie Faye Martin: And the next one can come and help for another year.
• 41:39
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, people start ask me when I do go around to the do these speaking events, like, oh, how's the second one going?
• 41:45
  Angie Faye Martin: We wanna know more about Renee.
• 41:46
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm like, oh Christ.
• 41:51
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 41:52
  Natasha Rai: And that also shows the love, right?
• 41:54
  Angie Faye Martin: Yeah, I'm not gonna, there's, yeah, I don't wanna rush it though.
• 41:59
  Angie Faye Martin: I mean, good things take time.
• 42:00
  Angie Faye Martin: Exactly.
• 42:01
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm a slow writer.
• 42:02
  Angie Faye Martin: I'm pretty slow.
• 42:03
  Natasha Rai: So, um, so in terms of like, we always like to, if possible, invite our guests to give a little tip or tips to, or top tip to our emerging writers who might be listening.
• 42:15
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 42:16
  Natasha Rai: Do you have one in terms of what you've, I don't know.
• 42:18
  Natasha Rai: Anything that you've gathered along the way?
• 42:20
  Angie Faye Martin: I mean patience, probably a lot of patience I think also maybe be a bit targeted.
• 42:28
  Angie Faye Martin: So there seems to be actually quite a lot of opportunities out there.
• 42:33
  Angie Faye Martin: But do your research, um, see who the people are behind various prizes and mentors.
• 42:39
  Angie Faye Martin: I do recommend that route as well.
• 42:43
  Angie Faye Martin: Uh, a lot of the big publishing houses now have these kind of programs or opportunities where you can go in, you win a prize, and, but research who, who are the people behind it, which mentor would you get?
• 42:56
  Angie Faye Martin: And, um, doesn't have to be matching genre.
• 42:59
  Angie Faye Martin: A similar style, like do you think you could work with them and open up about your vulnerabilities as well?
• 43:05
  Angie Faye Martin: Like, do you think you could share what your, you know, what your, what you think your weaknesses are in writing?
• 43:10
  Angie Faye Martin: Because that's how you're gonna improve?
• 43:13
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, yeah, so research, um, don't give up.
• 43:19
  Angie Faye Martin: Be patient.
• 43:21
  Angie Faye Martin: Uh, enjoy it.
• 43:22
  Angie Faye Martin: Don't lose the joy for it.
• 43:24
  Angie Faye Martin: Like, I'm lucky that my husband constantly reminds me of, you know.
• 43:29
  Angie Faye Martin: Enjoying the craft because sometimes I get frustrated and it's not good enough and, you know, it becomes a job and it literally is kind of my job now, but it's not gonna be good writing if you're not enjoying it.
• 43:41
  Angie Faye Martin: People can tell, like if you are slaving away at your computer all day and you're hating it, you writing's probably gonna be come out like that as well.
• 43:50
  Angie Faye Martin: So, and that's, that's not easy, but I think that's.
• 43:53
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, looking after your own wellbeing, like as in doing what you love and having a balanced life, you know?
• 44:01
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm-hmm.
• 44:01
  Angie Faye Martin: You looking after your health and walks and whatever and you know, catching up with friends.
• 44:06
  Angie Faye Martin: Like you can't write if you know well, if you're not in a good place yourself, I think.
• 44:12
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 44:12
  Natasha Rai: Beautiful.
• 44:12
  Natasha Rai: I love that.
• 44:13
  Natasha Rai: And I have a final question, even though you've already given me so many good tips.
• 44:18
  Natasha Rai: What have you learned about how to write such layered stories?
• 44:23
  Angie Faye Martin: That it takes time and a meditative type of practice.
• 44:28
  Angie Faye Martin: It's not easy.
• 44:30
  Angie Faye Martin: I think I enjoyed the puzzle.
• 44:33
  Angie Faye Martin: I enjoyed, I became a bit obsessed with it.
• 44:36
  Angie Faye Martin: I remember walking around the block and just, it was like an obsession to try and make it all fit together.
• 44:43
  Angie Faye Martin: Um.
• 44:45
  Angie Faye Martin: All these plot strings and you pull out one loose thread and then the whole thing falls and you've gotta put it back together again.
• 44:51
  Angie Faye Martin: But part of me enjoyed it as well.
• 44:53
  Angie Faye Martin: Mm.
• 44:53
  Angie Faye Martin: So don't beat yourself up, even though there definitely were times when I beat myself up.
• 44:58
  Angie Faye Martin: Try not to.
• 44:59
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, but yeah, the layers and the layers of the characters, that just takes time, time and, and love of, of the work.
• 45:11
  Angie Faye Martin: The layers in terms of the dual timelines.
• 45:14
  Angie Faye Martin: That just takes a lot of concentration and time.
• 45:18
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 45:19
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 45:19
  Natasha Rai: And you know, being so immersed as you were, do you remember if you took breaks when it all got too much, or if you needed to just to take a bit of distance and look at it from a different perspective, that's so important.
• 45:32
  Angie Faye Martin: Like absolutely.
• 45:34
  Angie Faye Martin: I would take small, like micro breaks during the day, as in just a walk around the block.
• 45:39
  Angie Faye Martin: And then I'd also have, um, goals where I would finish the draft or the chapter or whatever the timeline that I was working on by Friday.
• 45:49
  Angie Faye Martin: And then I would promise myself, I'm not gonna look at it for the next week.
• 45:53
  Angie Faye Martin: Like, I'm gonna make myself have a whole week off and just read or work on something else.
• 45:59
  Angie Faye Martin: Um, just to give your mind a bit of a break.
• 46:03
  Angie Faye Martin: I also needed my friends and family and my husband to tell me that as well about Angie, give it a break.
• 46:08
  Angie Faye Martin: You know, you get a bit of, because you can't, sometimes you just, there's an art to it, right?
• 46:14
  Angie Faye Martin: There's an art to, as much of it is a craft writing.
• 46:18
  Angie Faye Martin: There's also an art that you need sometimes the ideas to come to you.
• 46:22
  Angie Faye Martin: So I've actually been stuck in something on sandal with the sequel and in, when I was in Sydney, I remember just lying back on my bed at the hotel and just got.
• 46:32
  Angie Faye Martin: Kind of going into a bit of a meditation, I suppose.
• 46:35
  Angie Faye Martin: Just there was, there's one part that I haven't been able to, um, to pull together and it just came to me and I was like, that's the beauty of writing.
• 46:45
  Angie Faye Martin: Like, yeah, they just, this element kind of came to me.
• 46:50
  Natasha Rai: Oh, I love that.
• 46:52
  Natasha Rai: Well.
• 46:53
  Natasha Rai: Um, sadly we're out time.
• 46:55
  Natasha Rai: I could easily talk a couple of hours know.
• 47:00
  Natasha Rai: Um, thank you so much for being my guest on the book deal, um, Angie, and um, yeah, I love Melaleuca and I hope that it finds all the readers it deserves'cause it's, it's a really special book and I loved it.
• 47:13
  Angie Faye Martin: Thank you.
• 47:13
  Angie Faye Martin: Thank you for having me on your show.
• 47:15
  Angie Faye Martin: I have really enjoyed this chat.
• 47:18
  Natasha Rai: My pleasure.
• 47:18
  Natasha Rai: Thank you.
• 47:23
  Natasha Rai: I had a wonderful chat with Angie and reflecting on our conversation.
• 47:27
  Natasha Rai: What got me thinking was around the stories we tell and how we tell them.
• 47:34
  Natasha Rai: So the intention that I'm setting for the following few weeks or the next month.
• 47:39
  Natasha Rai: This as follows.
• 47:39
  Natasha Rai: So if you have a look at your manuscript, regardless of what genre you're writing in, have a look at the risks that you take with your storytelling.
• 47:48
  Natasha Rai: Are there layers that you are adding to your characters or to your plot?
• 47:53
  Natasha Rai: Like are there multiple motifs or themes that you're trying to explore in your writing?
• 47:59
  Natasha Rai: And if you are not and you want to tell a story, that's pretty straightforward.
• 48:03
  Natasha Rai: Have a look at what you are risking.
• 48:06
  Natasha Rai: Publishers these days are very interested in looking at people playing with form and the type of risks we might take when we are writing in a genre that has a lot of publications in it, for example, crime.
• 48:19
  Natasha Rai: So that is an invitation and the intention for you to go and have a look and see where you can maybe take a few risks.
• 48:26
  Natasha Rai: And of course, one of the Beau most beautiful things that Angie and I talked about was the time to really immerse yourself and imagine so.
• 48:35
  Natasha Rai: If you can take some time to daydream your way into thinking about risk taking, storytelling and layering.
• 48:43
  Natasha Rai: That is my invitation to you and that is the intention.
• 48:51
  Natasha Rai: Thank you to Di Taylor and Lindsay Bartels, our newest Patreon subscribers.
• 48:56
  Natasha Rai: Welcome to the Book Deal podcast community and thank you so much for your support.
• 49:06
  Tina Strachan: Thank you for listening to the Book Deal podcast.
• 49:08
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• 49:13
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• 49:21
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• 49:24
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