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Rachel Allord: Culture Shock and (Pre-)Teen Fiction || SLP561 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well, hello and thank you so much for downloading the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: Today we have something a little different for you from Nate Morganlock and the Reform Mythologist YouTube channel, which is kind of under the umbrella of Speak Life.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_04: You should uh totally check it out on YouTube if you get a moment.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_04: And this is an interview that he did with Rachel Allord, who is an author.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_04: And this is about her book The Girl on the Tube, a realistic contemporary novel for teens from a biblical worldview.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: So in this conversation, Nate and Rachel get into creativity and storytelling from a Christian perspective, teen fiction, and the culture shock for a young person moving from the US to the UK across the Atlantic.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: There's a little endorsement of the book here from Ed Drew, who is the director of Faith in Kids.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: He's featured on the Speak Life podcast actually, episode 313, if you want to check it out.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: Here's how he describes Rachel Allord's book.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: This gripping story speaks of the common teenage experience of searching for deep friendships and real belonging.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: I was cheering for Addy the whole way through, just like I cheer for my daughter.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: The gospel is in there.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: So I hope you enjoy this conversation.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_04: You will be able to watch it on the Reformed Mythologist YouTube channel when it goes out.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: That will go out next week.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_04: You can go to youtube.com forward slash at Reformed Mythologist.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: But without further ado, I will hand straight over to Nate and Rachel.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Reformed Mythologist Nate Morganlock here with an interview with Rachel Allord, the author of this book published in 2024, The Girl on the Tube.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Rachel, hello.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm great.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be here.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, where is here for you at the moment?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Here currently is cold, snowy Wisconsin in the US.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I believe my husband just said we are at negative 22 centigrade.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it is cold.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're currently in Wisconsin, you ordinarily live in the UK.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: We have lived in London for six years.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Cards on the table.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've also been a bit of a transatlantic voyager.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we as a family lived in Philadelphia for four years.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we can get into chips and football and pants and biscuits and all that sort of stuff later on.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the important ones, yeah, right away.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: The important conversations.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about getting into writing because you're over here as a missionary, is that right?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're with a mission organization in the UK and you're at home for leave.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So ordinarily it's mission work.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is right.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Which um sometimes includes writing.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I I have written um quite a bit of curriculum for when our team does we partner with churches and do kids' clubs and kids' camps.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I end up doing a lot of curriculum writing and drama writing for the leaders and the kids.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it definitely writing and ministry definitely intersect, which is a really lovely thing because I do enjoy it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, writing is uh it's hard to, you know, when you're in ministry, it's hard to find the dividing line between this is life, this is ministry, because obviously we're all we're supposed to do everything to the glory of God, and that definitely includes writing, and um, yeah, so it's been it's been a joy.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of writing sort of substantial length stuff, this isn't your first book though, is it?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You've written a couple before.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have um two other novels, and they are targeted for um adults, more uh women's fiction.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um one is called Mother of My Son, and the other is called The Ground Beneath Us.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, that started when my son was born, which was decades ago.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he's 25 now, and I I really was was glad that I stayed home with him um in that season.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I felt like I was just kind of dying creatively um as a stay-at-home mom.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was really thankful to do it, but I also just felt that I wasn't having I wasn't experiencing any creative outlet.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Although bizarre, you you you had actually just created someone.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of in a strange way.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: You'd been your most creative, but yeah, in a literary output maybe was a bit dry, but yeah.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Carrion.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, in that season, I that would have been a good reminder.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so I I I had an idea for a story, and I kept bugging my husband about it and saying, Well, if I were to write a book, I would write this.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my background is in English education, so I I liked to read, and I actually during that early season of motherhood, I when I was basically home and nursing, I was reading a lot of novels and just um yeah, finding enjoyment in that.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so finally my husband said, Well, maybe you should just write it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it began on somewhat of a whim, um, which isn't the best way to write a novel, but it only took you know 10 years to write it and to find a pub, a publisher.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um, with a lot of stops and starts, it was not a straightforward journey.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of them being in the mista that we adopted our daughter from China in the middle of that, and the story is kind of based around a birth mother and an adoptive mother meeting and just not realizing each other's identity, and then that comes to light.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you do with that?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because the baby was abandoned.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And chapter one, this young college student denies that denies that she's pregnant and abandons the baby.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So after we had adopted our daughter, I was able to go back to that manuscript and just see some areas that were not ringing true for me to kind of rework that.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that took, like I said, that took a long time to it took a long time to learn how to write a novel and to uh yeah, just to understand that particular art form.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then obviously finding a publisher was another long drawn-out thing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of this book, the the girl on the tube, so it's age range you're sort of 12 to 16.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is that sort of what you're talking about?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the age of the protagonist.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, she's 12.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I've had a couple of 10 and 11-year-olds really enjoy the story.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've also had some 60-year-olds enjoy the story, but yes, that sweet spot age would probably be around 12, 13, 14.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this this 40 soon to be 42-year-old enjoyed the story too.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, I I've enjoyed it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, yes, I have a 12-year-old who, when I got hold of this, I put it straight in front of her and I said, I'm gonna be interviewing Rachel, and I'd love to know what you think about the book.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: She hasn't yet finished it.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was I only gave it to her a very short time ago.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: The two things she said to me before she came out, she said the first three words got me.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was hooked, grey pleated skirt.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: She was like, Oh, what's that going on?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then she also talked, and this is obviously a huge theme within the book, about having herself moved from place to place, and particularly moving across the Atlantic, and just that experience of kind of same language, but it's cross-cultural.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so she found that fascinating.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So think about this book then.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you live in London, you're from the states.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: How old were your own children when you first moved over to the UK?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Our daughter was 13, and our son was actually he had just started his first um year in university, so he stayed in the States when we moved.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um very backwards thing to do at that age.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Usually it's your kid leaving you, and we essentially left him.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, our daughter, uh, that was a as you know, as a parent, that can be a really complicated, tricky age.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they comes with a quite a bit of raw emotion as it is.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um throwing an international move into the mix uh was it was hard.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was really hard.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I have promised my daughter, I said, this book is not about you in terms of the story.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing in the in the story um mirrors her life at all.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she's 19, almost 20 now.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: But for all of us, obviously the emotional truth is there that just feeling like I I mean I personally felt like an awkward 12-year-old.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I am out of my depths in terms of it's just the nuance of friendship and the nuance of knowing how to um start a conversation or introduce yourself or have you know, present yourself at a dinner party.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or um, I mean, I just found that the nuance of conversation starting in London was so different than our smaller town in Wisconsin where people say hello and you chat with you chat with strangers pretty easily.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I tried to do it once at a bus stop in London, and um that did not didn't go as as I thought it would.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it was it was definitely based on uh our experience.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my daughter probably the closest, just because she was in that in that age group, but we all felt like awkward preteen.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is interesting because London is such a peculiar place just in terms of the UK.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm from Stoke on Trent originally, and so when I moved down to London as a student, you're sort of looking at the tube and going, Why is no one talking to each other?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're so close.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been this physically proximate to another person before, and not at least sort of said hello.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: London's a peculiar place, not least if you're kind of coming from the US as well.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of those initial emotional struggles, I mean one of the things about this book is it made me think about the emotional life of a preteen girl is quite exhausting.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just just do people really think like this?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the amount of stuff that's going on inside someone's head at any particular time?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you're writing from both your own experience growing up, but also then this novel experience in the UK.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: How raw was that for you in those first few months being in the UK?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the perfect word.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was very, very raw.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I mean we knew we knew that we were switching cultures, we knew kind of what we were getting into.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um but like anything, until you go through it, you don't you don't you don't recognize how hard it is until you're in it.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, one of the hardest things was realizing that the people that we were now with our church are are people who are now our friends six years later.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, you have no history and people have no context of who your family is and um what you've been through.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you know, I just remember even being in settings where people were talking about past memories of camping together, and and our London church was wonderful at reaching out.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: We had so many dinners, people were doing all that they could, but there's no way to rush that process of getting to know and making friends, whether you're a teen or an adult.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's just gonna be a slow, hard process of getting to know people.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and we just yeah, I mourned the shared history that I had um in our community where we are now.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: We were in this community since we were uni students, so it had been you know over 20 years.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we were deeply rooted to the people and the places here, and to have that uprooted just you feel like where do I belong and who am I?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And who am I with a group of people that aren't acting or responding like I do from a cultural standpoint made it really complicated.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: You use the word mourned there, you're mourning for the people you've left behind.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: When we interestingly, when we moved f back to the UK from the US, we drove out from our street, and you know, lots of the neighbors were because it was a a street with lots of young children, so a lot of time spent playing in the street together.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're out there, there's people waving.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a video of us, and we're waving to everyone, and just everyone in the car is just bawling their eyes out, and there's everyone's crying on the Because it's not so easy to just pop back and you know say hi to everyone.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are mourning the loss of this whole community and the loss of these relationships, even though it starts off pretty difficult after a short period of time, you really do find friends and you find family and you find you know relationships within the church, which in a way, because we're Christians and we talk openly about these things, I think they can go quite deep quite quickly, even if they can take a little bit of time just to get your head around what the differences are.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's so true.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And now um we're you know, we're currently in the States, uh, we're returning to London, but when we come back to the States to this home, so it is very much like having two homes.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: There are things about this culture that surprises me now that that seems odd and different.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um and again, even like the there there are friendships that definitely have endured, but even in terms of conversation and and how much to share, when to share it, when to ask questions, um, Americans, I think generally, at least in in my in my region, tend to be we go um to the emotional stuff a lot quicker, where my experience with um Londoners that they're a little bit more reticent to to go there, and which sometimes can be an advantage being an American in London that um I can kind of maybe play that card, like well, I'm just so I'm gonna ask this question that's probably too deep at the moment, but yeah, we can talk.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there is an open door sometimes, particularly with internationals who are also feeling displaced within the city.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but here, you know, I've been in settings where uh we just Americans tend to talk over each other a lot more frequent frequently.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more um immediate feedback.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm meeting with a friend, there's a lot more, uh-huh.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh-huh.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Where in in London culture, I I I I picked up um that that was seen more as an interruption when someone was speaking to maybe just hold back.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, little nuanced things like that.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've I'm noticing now from reverse, where I've appreciated some of the ways that my London friends communicate.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I miss that now.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Where there are some things with my American friends, you know, I miss that piece of the culture.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things we found, and maybe you found the converse, as an American in the UK, you're maybe given a level of emotional intelligence that you might have, you might not have.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly found that a British accent in the US apparently gave me a lot more intelligence than I deserved.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just because the accent comes in and people immediately lean in and go, Oh wow, you're so you're just so refined.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you think, no, not at all.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But somehow, because of the way that we we construct these stereotypes and we we just have ideas about our brother-sister nations, you feel like you have to represent the entire nation every time you're in a conversation, yeah.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yes.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, we we we think you're when we first moved there, we thought, man, even the three-year-olds are so intelligent, they're so much more intelligent than it just how they sounded, so sweet.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Have your accents changed much?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed some of your terminology changes because you did say uni students rather than college students.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, good.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I found that in terms of my accent, I didn't want it to change very much, but because it was just a little bit exhausting to say rubbish and be corrected to trash can or football and soccer and stuff, you just find it easier just to use the American word rather than the British one.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Did you find the same thing over here?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and I think in terms of an accent, um I've noticed that when I'm with my British friends talking with them, you just naturally kind of match your voice to whoever you're talking to.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: But as soon as we honestly, as soon as we get on the plane coming back to the States, I I I all of that little if there's any tiny hint of British accent, it's completely gone as soon as I'm talking with fellow Americans.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure I've I've adopted now the the northern um Midwest Northern accent.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: But the words have changed, yeah.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I one of the things I love about British culture, especially as a writer, is I feel like generally speaking, um, Brits have a much greater arsenal of words at their disposal that you use more words than than the typical American, where we tend to um in our speech, not so much in our writing, but in our speech, we tend to recycle, you know, cool, awesome, great, neat.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like Brits have uh yeah, just a wider range to choose from.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was I was teaching um Sunday school, and there's this little, I think she was probably four, this little girl, and I held up this picture and I asked the kids, you know, what do you what do you think this girl is feeling?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she looked sad.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: The girl looked sad in the picture.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And this little four-year-old said, Oh, she's dismayed.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, I mean, that is beautiful.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: No American four-year-old would ever use that word ever.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um, it is a culture that I appreciate in terms of the the word you said usage.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: On the flip side, there are times when I feel like Brits use, you know, 50 words when they could use five and communicate the same thing.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that comes there are pros and cons to that.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: How many words do Eskimos have for snow?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Brits have that many words for sadness.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why that four-year-old knew dismayed, because you know, we're all just so familiar.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you, you know, you respond, you don't say, 'How are you?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm awesome,' you say not bad.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's you're always it could be could be worse.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: All things considered, yeah, not doing too bad, really.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, quite as well, is a wonderful word that in Britain can slip around and mean all sorts of different things, which is good fun.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I did like that in terms of your British characters, Lillian particularly lives in the same block of flats as Addie and her dad.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: She had some very particular British quirks, fondness for tea.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Using a tea cozy, particularly.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed you've got a drink there.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are you drinking?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm drinking tea.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: I am slowly converting, which is shocking to me.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I'm tea.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: I still drink coffee, but I reach for tea so much more.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I never drank tea before we moved to London.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like seriously, like the character, only when I was not feeling well.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And now I have daily.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you're doing the great thing that I think of all literary people doing, holding it with both hands, you know, as a kind of warming mechanism.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's cold here if I haven't said that yet.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you some questions about the realism of this.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the things that I've been really excited to see in the last few months and years, is a revival of Christians interested in literature and the power of literature and the appreciation for the literary arts.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it struck me that there is such an overwhelming balance towards fantasy, and that fantasy writing, because we're looking to Tolkien and Lewis and we're all kind of thinking about these imaginary magical worlds, that that then sort of becomes the default.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you want to be a Christian writer who's putting Christian things into your book, you need fantasy to allow you to do that.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: You've obviously not written a fantasy, you've written a very real book that's grounded in the real world.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that has some benefits that fantasy doesn't have?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or how much of a conscious decision was that for you to make?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's just naturally my sweet spot, and I'm sure it's because uh that's what I was drawn to as a kid and a teen and a tween.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so for me, and and even realistic fiction just speaks to me in a way that fantasy does not.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not that I don't like fantasy, um, but even like I love A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline Langle, which is fantasy.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: But the reason why I love it is because I completely identified with her main character, Meg.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um Meg has a little brother and she's very protective, protective of her little brother.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had a brother who's 10 years younger than myself, and so I identified with that.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was captured by that story because I was captured by the character.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then once once I'm captured by a character, you can take me anywhere.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like I, you know, I'm invested in this character.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm rooting for her.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see what's gonna happen.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that story took me to huge fantasy.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I don't even remember all the details of the fantasy.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just remember wanting to know what's gonna happen to Meg and her brother Charles, Charles Wallace.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I mean, naturally, it wasn't, you know, I didn't sit and think, oh, should I write fantasy or f or realism?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um because fantasy just it's not, it's it doesn't come naturally for me, where I I love watching characters and experiencing characters dealing with the things that are in my real life, you know, when they're in places that I've been or they're experiencing um loss or grief or joys that have to do with what's happening here on earth.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I feel for me the value of the story is.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And fantasy sure surely does that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you take a character and they're they're experiencing it as a as we as a human, but they're just in a different reality.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm just more drawn to, you know, give me the give me the real story.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: As a young person, give me a friend that is in my world that I can connect with, that I can relate to, that I I'm leaving my own reality in a sense because I'm joining this other world, but her her world is my world and it's it's real and I can I can see it and I can taste it and I feel it and I've been there.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think of like even the parables that Jesus told, and I know as fiction writers, we love to talk about the parables, but they're they're grounded in reality as Jesus is telling these stories.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's he's bringing characters to life that have who are farming or who have sheep or who have you know all the things that his audience immediately understood.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, he he was bringing the things of God, the kingdom of God stories into the everyday stuff of the dirt and the plants and the farms and the olive trees and the sheep and the goats.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was it was completely down to earth as he's talking to them about the kingdom of God.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the best stories, whether they're written from a Christian perspective or even not, because I think even obviously even um any writer, any person is made in God's image, so they have that God-given soul, that God-given longing to uncover the greater truths of of life.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think the best of our stories are the ones that are um retelling in a little tiny way the greatest story.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're talking about redemption, they're talking about forgiveness or home or fitting in, or those are you know, those are the things of of the Bible.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so when we present them in small pieces in realistic story, it's really hopefully pointing to a bigger story.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think that's that's essential.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that really is the sort of the heartbeat of the reform mythologist whole thing is just we want to say that the stories that we engage with on a day-to-day basis are all kind of fractals or shards of a greater story that somehow this kind of beginning, middle, and end, or you know, rising tension, climax, resolution, whatever story structure you've got, it has its origin in the story that God's telling.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so whenever we enjoy a good story, even if it doesn't have explicit references to God, when it connects, it's connecting because we're made in the image of God and because we're living in his story.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's so encouraging to sort of hear.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I have a slightly controversial suggestion that I want to put to you, and I'd love to get your thought on this, which is on the realism fantasy kind of thing.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that girls are more prone to enjoy realism and the boys are more prone to enjoy fantasy slash sci-fi?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is that an outrageous thing to say?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: I have a son and a daughter, and I would say that that doesn't hold true, but I I I don't know.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe for I mean, maybe because fantasy, most of the stories have to do with conquering something that's you know evil, it's very clear.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: The good and the evil stories probably clearer in fantasy that might be more attractive to most boys, that there is a definite, like um huge, huge consequence if this you know evil person is not thwarted.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe that you know the swords and the and the weapons and the and the that might be more attractive to boys, whereas the internal conflict and oh this friend used to like me and doesn't like me anymore, the realism might might fit with a girl's world a little bit more.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I should say though, and your daughter, if she hasn't gotten to the end of the book, she hasn't won't spoil this, she hasn't gotten to this part, but there is a there is an element of fantasy that runs throughout the story um with the lady in the green hat.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm wearing my green hat specifically.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm honored to be here today.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So not quite how I pictured her, but it's yeah, not.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I've I sincerely hope she didn't look at a thing like me.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: That would be an awful for everyone.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on with the lady in the green hat?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or would you rather not say and leave it to the the reader's imagination?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um both.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you a little bit what's going on, but yes, it is it is it is left to the reader's imagination.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, however, there is, I am working on a sequel, so that will that will carry on and you will find more.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think readers who that's the question I get most often.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Who is the lady in the green hat?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, that might be resolved a little bit more in the second book.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: But um in one sense, I really just loved this idea of having a character who looked so other than the London commuters when Addy's getting on the train to go to school and everyone's grumpy and then you know, gray and black and navy and brown, and no one's looking at each other.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: That there's this this this pop of color, this different woman who shows up who um yeah, I won't spoil anything for the reader who hasn't read, but there's definitely a connection between her and Addie, the main character.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I liked just that idea that she was just this figure that showed up kind of unexpectedly.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And as the story progressed, and how it was really um, I realized it was it was actually about grief and it was actually about loss, not just um Addy grieving her home country, but some other things that have happened in her past that come to light in the story of a person that she's deeply grieving.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a recent, it's a well, it's not a completely recent wound, um, but it's it's a it's a loss that will she will hold her entire life.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna go away, it's never gonna be completely healed.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um there will be healing, but it won't it won't be healed over.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so the lady in the green hat turned into a symbolism of of grief and what it means to you to have to face it, to have to deal with it, where you can try to suppress your grief and your loss, and you can decide that you're not gonna look at it, you're not gonna face it and deal with it, but it will always pop up and it might pop up in some really unexpected ways.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's going to surface over and over again.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's it demands attention.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And grief and loss, they demand our attention, just like this this lady in the green hat was kind of um very gently, very quietly, but always present, especially when Addy was struggling the most.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a way kind of to to play with that theme of grief and um what it means to deal with the loss when it's when when it's you know a year later, two years later, three years later.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean when it when that loss is deep enough where it's it's just gonna be with you throughout your life?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a depressing book.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I haven't heard I don't I don't think anybody walked away um depressed because I wouldn't say to a 12-year-old, this is a book about grief, because who you know, who's gonna want to read that?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's woven into the her everyday life where she's laughing one minute and she's she's her she's thinking through her her loss um the next, and that's that in itself is realism, you know, that we we can be grieving and enjoying life at the same time, it's not and or it's it's both together.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that is what comes through very strongly in the book is it's actually a very joyful book, and particularly where it ends, you know, just the sense of yeah, new family, new friends, celebration and thanksgiving is you know, it's a wonderful way for a book which starts off with kind of so much anxiety and uh nerves around how to engage, how to just go about an ordinary day suddenly becomes quite difficult when everything's new and everyone's different from what you used to.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely right, and and such a good way, I think, of taking on an issue like grief rather than saying this is about grief to say within this context someone is processing something, and that is a grief, and that is a kind of mourning.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: She's certainly assisted by this mysterious lady on the tube with the green hat.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: What inspired you in terms of writing what books really made you want to be a writer?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: What motivated you in writing uh at all?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me it's usually it's usually wrestling through a question or a struggle or something that I I just want to spend some time diving into and exploring.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for my my first novel, it was are all sins forgivable?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like what about terrible, terrible sins?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: A mother leaving her baby at a dumpster.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is that forgivable?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I yeah, I usually have like the beginning and the end.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I I'm not sure exactly how I'm gonna get from here to there, but that's kind of what drives me to write.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of it comes organically.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like I might have I might have a sense of the middle too, like like a turning point.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um pivot, but I don't have the story, I don't have it organized at all in in my mind or on paper.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I mean, for the the girl in the tube, it was it was so cathartic to write.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was an opportunity to process my last at that point, my last five years in London, in a way that felt very free to tell it from a 12-year-old's point of view, where she can be unfiltered and uncensored and say and do things that I can't as an adult.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she can.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was a really, it was a godsend, really, to be able to write the book and to process and to think about and to and to grieve, you know, some of my losses through a fictional story.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of freedom with that.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: So for that, the inspiration was yeah, my real life, my fascination with uh the underground system of London.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it's just amazing and crazy to think that there's this whole world going on underneath the city.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um invisible if unless you go, unless you travel down to the tube, you don't know it exists.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have friends, American friends who've visited London and they haven't taken the tube.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you must take the tube.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's this whole world, you know, at your below your feet.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think it's endlessly fascinating.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: So some of it just came from that very concrete the experience of writing the tube.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, usually it starts with a question like, what if?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: What if okay, what if there was this mysterious woman?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: What if there's there's this girl that was grieving um more than just um her home?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: What would that look like?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, it's it's I mean, writing is I don't think I'm alone in this in that it's somewhat therapy for the writer.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: It starts as kind of a self-absorbed act activity.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: It can, um, but that's where it has to start because we're we're taking whatever we have, whatever experiences we have, whatever um things, people, events God has given us, and we're, you know, that's all we can bring is what we have um with us with with God's help.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then it becomes a a service to the reader because it's a shared human human experience.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, your daughter has had her own experience about what it means to move countries, so then it becomes the reader's experience, but it does start from what we know or what we're wondering or what we're trying to sort out.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: What were the best pieces of sort of advice and things that you would have taken on board, you know, not necessarily whilst you're writing it, but just you're just aware that the work of a writer, you know, such as it is, is is peculiar and has its own challenges.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what were the things that really helped you get through that?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I um I like to say right where the fire is, um right where you just feel the the the the heat to to to describe a scene if it's fiction, to describe a scene where you just can't get the scene out of your mind.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it works for nonfiction as well, to to tackle the question or the the thing that makes you angry or the thing that keeps you up at night.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um tackle that with your words.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, it was I I was drawn to the relationship between the daughter and the father, who the father's he's a loving father, he's a great guy, but he is somewhat depressed.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, that doesn't, that's not stated clearly in the book, but you pick up that he is struggling as well.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was drawn to this idea of the 12-year-old um feeling like it was her job to make things better for him.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: And what what did that look like?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the first scene I I wrote takes place, I don't know, probably a third of the way through the book.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's this little scene before they go out to pizza and they have this little dialogue, and um, she sees her father and he's at his computer and he's staring into space and she says something like, That's my dad's sad trance, and it's my it's my job to break it.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, yeah, that's a piece that I want to explore.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote that scene first because I wanted to get a sense of what is this relationship like because I felt like if I could get that relationship right, everything else hinged on it.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I would say for writers to don't feel like you have to write in a linear fashion.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like write pieces that you feel like this is this is important to this story.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna write this scene first.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then I jumped around and wrote um some of the scenes with the lady in the green hat because I wanted to explore can I can I do this?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Will this work?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you didn't write the ending scene with her until um way at the end because I wasn't sure exactly where it was gonna land um until the very, very end.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you don't have to write in a linear fashion.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's actually helpful not to um to write the scenes that are most important to you and then to worry about how they connect later.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously you're gonna have to fill in how they connect from A to B and how they get there and um somewhat of a if it's non-fiction and intro, if it's fiction, like a here's the character, you need to meet her right away.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: But that's been helpful for me to write where the fire is.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love how writing is actually part of the resolution of the story.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: For Addie to I mean, it doesn't sound like the most exciting story in the world if you say, Oh yeah, it all builds up to this big essay.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: But just the way in which the writing of that can be it's the resolution of the story made manifest in a way.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it allows her as a character to have something tangible that can be appreciated and a way of expressing herself which can be recognized.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, she then gets the teacher's award uh or the teacher's uh commendation, which must have been fun for you to write as someone who'd been teaching.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's interesting.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I yeah, I think when you said sh it she's expressing what she's what she's feeling, what she needs, and that's kind of the the key to the whole story.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I for me, the scene that sums up the entire book, um, and I won't give away too much, but happens in the station at the end of the book with the lady in the green hat, and Addie blurts out a phrase um she blurts out what she really wants, and she she gives words to her grief for the first time in the story.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, that was the that's like the once I wrote that line, I thought, yeah, that is it.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the whole point of the story is for her to get to a point where she can say what she misses.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the essay at the end is kind of the um I'm I'm glad you enjoyed it because it hopefully it's not too on the nose, but it's it's her being able to actually express all the things that she was able unable to express and kind of pushing down and trying to be happy and trying to be funny.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: And she is happy and funny.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's it wasn't all, you know, it wasn't all fake, but also with that, she she also was sad and is sad, and so to be able to express that clearly, um bravely, yeah, is a key moment for her.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: And wonderful that you know she knows how to use a simile correctly and yeah, complex sentences and things, but really just that sense that she feels as a character, I think, a real sense of expectations.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's incredibly aware of the expectations that are on her, whether it's from her dad or from her friends at school or from the teachers or whatever it might be, uniform regulations, that sort of stuff.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: What is the right thing for me to do in this situation?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be conscientious, I want to get things right, and I'm running as fast as I can to make sure that I can keep everyone content, happy with me.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then the sense that actually I think I found in in the writing that exercise of writing for her becomes an opportunity for her to express herself, to say the things that she thought she wasn't supposed to say because of all these expectations.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then actually to be able to do that in a way that exceeds the expectations of the teacher.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in that sense, I think it did, you know, make me think of my own close female relationships, whether you know, wife, daughter, sisters, nieces, mother, just that sense of wanting to get things right, being very conscious of what is expected of you at this particular moment, and then just the sheer relief when someone says this is okay, and and or this is excellent, this is this is delight.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope I'm not sort of just pouring my my own sort of things onto it too much.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, well said.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh to be honest, I don't think I had um clocked that as the writer, you know, that that it is it is about expectations, and maybe because it's so ingrained in me, I I really struggle and have struggled in the past with expectations and feeling that pressure of um, yeah, what are people expecting of me?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up as a pastor's kid, and my parents were great.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: The expectations were not coming from my parents, but you do have that sense of living in a fishbowl, and there are unspoken expectations um or perceived expectations on my part.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um being a missionary that comes with expectations or perceived expectations being an American living in London.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I feel that um all the time.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the fact that you, you know, you pointed that out with Addie, uh, that's all true.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think I had really processed that she's actually in her essay, she's she has exceeded the expectations and what a why that would be so joyful for her.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is that all makes sense though.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder whether that's actually, you know, you're thinking about you've got your protagonist and they've got to go overcome the obstacles, and of course, you know, there's obstacles of cultural difference and you know, saying the wrong words.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't the character just say, actually, I hate this, I really I miss everything back home.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: This all really sucks.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's stopping them?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is the you know the thing that means that they can't just express themselves, which of course, throughout the book, she's going to come to that place where she can.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that's stopping her?
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is this isn't how I'm supposed to behave.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to be happy, I'm supposed to be enjoying these new things and having this wonderful London experience.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, isn't it so exciting?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not allowed to be sad in this situation or even dismayed, as we might say.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: In that way, I suppose the book has got quite a few similarities with the Pixar film Inside Out.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Were you conscious of that as you were sort of writing it?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I that did spark in my mind because I love that film.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love that film.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um so, yes, a little bit.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just the the the character girl moving, um, yeah, what is going on internally, how complicated it is, and how stifling it is to be new.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, they do the cheat where you you know she show the emotions of what's going on inside.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, talk about on the nose this character's called joy, and this character's called sadness.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: So guess what's going on?
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, discovering that place for grief, uh, or discovering that that role that sadness might be allowed to have.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: As I say, the really the thing I I took away from it was just thinking, oh, it is actually really it must be really hard work being inside the mind of you know, a pre adolescent or adolescent girl who's just all these concerns, all these things she's kind of gotta process and get used to, and just feels very kind of maybe burdened by that and yeah, that it was a great thing that there might be a woman in a green hat on the tube who can help.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean the two.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: itself is rather symbolic, somewhat of a metaphor that it's it's not a place that people live.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: People don't want to live on the two.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's getting them from point A to point B, but they have to Addy has to take it to go to school.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: She has to take it to go back home.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a necessary part of life but it it embodies transition.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's the transition of getting through something.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: She has to get through this transition in her life.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way around it.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a scene where she and Lillian get stuck on the tube.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the tube's is is Addie has not quite a panic attack, but she's she's pretty close and it and it's um it's just kind of what's happening with the situation on the tube is kind of mirroring what has happened in her life where she's just stuck in this in-between not fun place where um she's she doesn't fit in in London but she's not in America.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: She's in between homes she's in between friends.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: She's in between even herself you know being a 12 year old even though the book doesn't really I don't lean into that too hard about coming of age but she's in that transitionary point in her life as well that it it just lends itself really well to kind of encapsulate the this isn't where we want to be nobody wants to live in the tube but there's no way there's no other way to go.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah that is a very good point and obviously the reason for the the title of the book had you had you landed on the title for the book early on it was that a late thing was there any other options up there for you?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I I mean I had I I think I was calling it girl on the tube.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: My editor rightly suggested we needed a the in front of it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: We went through I don't know I probably wrote out about 30 different titles but then it all came back to this simple straightforward one yeah which I'm happy with if you were to give some advice to any aspiring writers or any viewers of the Reform Mythologist channel who um have been working on that novel for some time now what piece of advice would you give?
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so in addition to you don't have to write in a linear fashion write where your passion is right where the fire is this is nothing new but it is really valuable to have other eyes on it um we have to start from somewhere so what we what we produce on the page expect it to be pretty bad expect your first draft to be terrible maybe your second your third um but at some point you know it we need to be brave and extend extend your work beyond your spouse or your friend or your mom somebody who um can give you an honest but loving critique um the the first time I took my my first novel my manuscript to a a author who um had already had some novels published he looked at it and he said your story does not start until chapter three and I had you know just sweated and worked and slaved over the first two chapters and they were like I think they were actually beautifully written but they were not needed and he said I don't care about finding out about this the backstory of your protagonist.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to know what is going to happen to this baby who has been left um and so he was right you know I had to cut those chapters and um I'm sure probably wouldn't have been published had I not cut those those first two chapters.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to not be so precious about our words which is very very hard because they are precious to us but we need to we need to stand back and take a little bit more of an objective view of our work and that takes time we can't do that right away because it's usually coming from such an emotional place from us.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: So spacing the time between writing something and then as the longer you can leave it and then come back to it the better but even if it's a week that you know that's helpful.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we can look at it with fresh eyes and then trusting the people who um have our best interest and who know what they're saying, trusting their input and what to cut I think good writing is what has been not said.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean bad writing often is you've you have beaten this dead horse to the ground you've told me the point you've explained everything you've connected all the dots and I don't readers don't want the dots connected they want to connect them for themselves and to feel smart and and to be part of the story in that sense.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes um not saying things and editing out too much uh yeah detail is is helpful.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well I did I must say I found I was very very pleasantly surprised not just when I picked out the book and I saw it's got pink edges which I don't think I've ever seen a book with pink edges isn't that cool that was the editor's problem yeah that was very cool but then also just this is a great length for books.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is this is what's it 140 pages 139 it's quite short.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great length for a book we can get into a story we can enjoy it we can get to know the characters they're very vivid scenes I think you're just a very gifted writer.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in those places obviously because I know half of them anyway having lived in London for a few years but yeah you get us into those places we have the experiences we feel the emotions of Addie and I think then we move to the next scene and yeah I thought it was it was wonderful and will be peering over my whatever I'm reading on the sofa to see at what point my daughter gets to different parts of the book to see how she responds.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: I did have an experience of that the other day where she was breeding Animal Farm and I knew where she was getting to so I got my phone out and sneakily just made this little video.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very sweet because at one point her eyes just open up like this and she keeps reading and then just like a cinema you know like a film.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: A little single tear just like yes yay I was like guess who's dead anyway but uh yeah Rachel so good to chat to you thank you so much for um for agreeing to have a conversation I do recommend uh this book uh to lots and lots of people though you are under no obligation to read books uh with pink edges about the girl on the tube I do recommend this book quite thoroughly Rachel what else do we need to know from you where can people find you if people want to know more about this sort of stuff you can find me at rachelallard.com and that will have links to all the books um I'll I have I'll I'm working on a sequel and so that's coming out um not for another year but yeah all that information will be there.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well fabulous uh rachelallard com wasn't already taken so that's good to know um we can all remember it please do remember the media consumption is optional you are under an obligation to read any young adult fiction but I might recommend you read this one.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reform mythologist Nate Morgan Locke I'm glad you were here