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What I've Learnt - Ella Ward · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what does the world feel like when it's ending for you and no one else?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: What does life feel like when you're running away from it?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is a story that begins in a way you expect and ends very far from there.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story of creaking English hallways and vast Australian skies, of hands that feel like warm sandpaper, circadas that sing so loudly they drown out the grief, of white wine and an old piano and children who want their parents back from the dead.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It is a magical tale of travel and mystery, and a very human tale of sex and loss and seawater.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Ella Ward has worked in advertising for many years.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This means she has a proclivity for profanity and needs help with punctuation.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Her words have been published in places like Frankie Marie Claire and the Sydney Morning Herald, and it's her memoir 27 Letters to My Daughter, which was published in Australia in 22 and the US in 23, that propelled her into the public sphere.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So her new book, The Cicada House, is her first novel.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a Melbourne girl who moved to London and came home with a penchant for pork pies, Percy Pigs, and a husband, an English husband, which we will discuss.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2018, she was hit with the cancer stick, as she refers to it, which we will also discuss, which, apart from being rather frightening, also encouraged a foray into oversharing on Insta.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we've all done that, and we all get it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So on that note, Ella, welcome to the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to our chat.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, your story is really interesting.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about where this all started.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: You were in advertising in Australia.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was in advertising in Australia, but basically like an embryo in advertising in Australia.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was sort of sort of flailing around in the corner.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I started um my work life very, very early.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh I was 22, 21, 22 when I moved to London.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I've always been an Anglophile, um, had no interest in moving anywhere else apart from London.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did that in 2003.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, worked, worked hard to get a job in a wonderful advertising agency and and did that and fell hook, line, and sinker for the for the industry.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And for the London lifestyle, which clearly, yes, is.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's interesting.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know lots of people that have done that recently and they love it and thrive, and it's quite, it's just such a massive pull, isn't it, to jump into?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think that when I mean it's it's such, I think it's almost ingrained in us as Australians to, you know, leave our shores and and spread our wings.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but particularly in 2003, when it was sort of, you know, still rural Britannia and cool Britannia, it was a pretty uh, it was a pretty um enticing prospect to to head over to the UK.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely um fell in love with the city.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something else you fell in love with there.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I believe you met your now husband there.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just a bit of a bonus.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You brought back a little Englishman.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um done, you.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: You I was you know, I was reading about you your your your first book, The Memoir.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about that because I found that really well, first of all, it did very well, as I understand.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about 27 Letters to My Daughter.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful title.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: 27 Letters to My Daughter was one of those books or one of those things that um was right on in front of my nose, it was right in front of my face, but I didn't see it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so uh sometimes I think that with um, you know, creative pursuits, you need someone else to come in and point something out to you that's blatantly obvious to them, but but certainly not to you.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what was happening with me.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I um have been in advertising for many years, um, but I've always harboured this sort of dream to write a book.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And in lockdown uh in Melbourne, as you know, we were locked down for longer than most.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Long time.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was playing around with this idea of um, I found some beautiful old letters that my great-grandfather had written from um the front in World War I.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: He fought for the um for the United States, and I was I was actually starting to almost serialize them on Instagram and share them because they were just so beautiful.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was also playing around with this idea of um writing letters to my daughter, which I had started to do um in not so lovely circumstances in 2018 when um I was diagnosed with cancer, and I wanted to do what all parents want to do when they are sort of faced with their mortality.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I wanted to leave some memories for her.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't really see that how these two things could be connected, and you'd think that everyone could, but I certainly couldn't.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then um the lovely and very, very clever Catherine Milne from HarperCollins actually got in touch with me because I'd had a couple of pieces published in the paper, and she said, I think there's a book here where you combine the letters that you're writing for your daughter, but also the letters that, you know, other people in your family have written.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like a big cartoon bell went off over my head.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, of course, of course.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's um how 27 Letters came about.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a, I refer to it as a time traveling memoir.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it is a family of um, we're a family of storytellers, and and the book is um is all of those stories woven together.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful concept.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's wonderful because you've tapped into history, your family history, but also so just elaborate a little bit for us on you were diagnosed with cancer, which I gather was quite a serious diagnosis because you obviously felt that you were your mortality was threatened at that time.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was I was 36 in um when I was diagnosed with very young, very, very sexily named anal cancer.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the rarest cancers um very rare out there.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so it was a big surprise to everybody that um otherwise healthy 36-year-old was diagnosed with stage three cancer, let alone anal cancer.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: But um that's what happened, and uh it was uh um a very swift diagnosis, and I jumped straight into treatment with chemo and and radiation.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um literally from one month to the next, my daughter had started PrEP and I was um getting ready to start a new job and life was rolling on the way it normally does.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then suddenly the next month I was um attending uh 30 sessions of radiation and um a bit of chemo chucked in there for good measure.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a big shock.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And even though the doctors were um certainly always um very open about their optimism for my prognosis, uh, I think that anyone who's um diagnosed with cancer and has had it move into the lymph nodes, as had happened to me, um, there's always a very big, scary what if um question.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what if the treatment doesn't work, what if it's spread further than they think it has, um, what if it comes back?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where those um, you know, feelings of mortality come from.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting, isn't it?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, you were young, you had your daughter starting prep.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's interesting how if you're a creative, the the first thing you tap into, which is an extraordinary resource, and I think that we're very blessed to be able to access that, is the creative spirit and how can that, as I always say, you can use your pain for for fuel, or you can use it to destroy yourself, or you could use it to create something.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what you did in that circumstance was very much deep dive and find something that really is an extraordinary.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I love the notion that you came up with.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So just elaborate a little bit on how that creative process of that first book came to light.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you talked about using the historical photos, uh, the sorry, the historical letters and using the the letters or the concept of writing to your daughter.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: When during your, was this during your treatment that you wrote this?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I I love the way that you talk about um using creativity for fuel, um, because I certainly did fuel a lot of creativity.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I was not uh cool, calm, and measured and sitting in the corner of a garden with a vintage typewriter thinking of beautiful things.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was more sort of unhinged, quite mad um sort of posts on Instagram.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So certainly during my treatment, I didn't really have the um, I guess the emotional strength to genuinely write um the letters in a way that I thought that they might be read, which is by my by my daughter um after my death.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I played around with ideas, but it wasn't until probably two years after my treatment had finished, um, which was about 2020, when I almost felt like there was enough distance between myself and that process.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I still wasn't in um remission, um, but I felt like there'd at least been enough time in between that initial pain and shock to really start to play around with those letters to her, but also um really start to dig around with other letters from my family.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: So not only my great-grandfather, but I've also had letters and diaries from my grandma, my mother, and my great-grandmother.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um the creative process was really me printing them all out or getting them scanned in um and then laying them all out on the floor of my office, and then just sort of staring at them and thinking, well, what's going to happen next?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just think that is amazing.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, the fact that you've had all those letters and also the I'm a great believer in I'm a documentarian, as are you clearly, and I really believe in the um the value of that process, but also in writing letters to one to family, which you've just shown how important that is.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of something that I think people with social media and everything being so quick and fast, and and I've actually done a beautiful book for my mother.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've done, I really believe I publish books for a lot of families, which are legacy books, as you, you know, which are basically that concept.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I really resonate what you've done and why that was so important.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get this wonderful lineage of history.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Did your daughter how old's your daughter now, might I ask?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's 12.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So um, when the book came out, she um was uh, you know, old enough to know that the book was for her, um, but not really old enough to read all of the letters.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I made sure that I actually read it to her, which was um a smart move on two counts.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think that if I hid it away from her, then she would have been much more interested in it because it was um hidden and secret.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and the other good thing about me reading it to her is I could sort of edit it on the fly.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So there are a couple of chapters that we, you know, accidentally skipped as as you're a mum.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: You you remember doing that?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean that that's sort of great that it's there, but you're absolutely right about the capturing of history and family and tales.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I spoke to a lot of people about this book when when it came out, and one of the overwhelming questions or comments that I got from readers and you know, people out there was, oh, it's so wonderful, but I could never do that.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I could never tell a story like that.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't, and I just feel like saying to them, the stories that you're telling now are going to feel so important in 50 years' time.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So just write it down, you know, even if it's I went to the supermarket and I bought these five ingredients because it's uh coming up to pancake day and I want to make this special recipe for my kids.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the sort of thing that in the time you might feel it's really benign and and boring and pedestrian.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But in decades' time, someone's gonna read that and they're gonna feel so connected to you.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's that's I'm glad that you're a documentarian.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you're doing it for the rest of your family.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that many other people do that too.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I really value it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's wonderful what you've done, and I love the way you've done it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's really very inspirational.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, from that perspective, did you find that the resonances you've talked about, there were people that were a bit anxious and like, I could never do that.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: What did you learn from that experience about your capacity to go back into history and to also then look forward?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was that did you think that was going to be, was it more challenging than you experienced, or was it easier than you experienced?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good question because um, as I like to say, I come from a long line of people who quite living quite like giving speeches at dinner parties.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we are not a family of people who are backwards and coming forwards.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: We love talking about ourselves.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um which, you know, is a blessing and a curse.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it I can answer your question in two halves.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I loved going back over all the old letters and books and photographs.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was brilliant.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I did find a lot of things that I was surprised to discover.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I found a lot of you know, really amazing coincidences and, you know, sort of overlapping of stories and things like that.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So now can you give me one example of that?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Have you got each or two members?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy things like um my mum wrote a book all about um uh her life and she's an illustrator, and she included this scent of um old spice that her um that her father used to sort of wear.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I found myself reading a story from my great-grandfather where he talks about a scent of old spice.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And even though they were two different things, they just overlapped.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I lived, or basically, Deb, for the first nine months of this book, I basically lived in a constant state of goosebumps.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't believe that there was constant overlapping of history.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, it was it was a really magical process on that side.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that I probably was maybe um naively um surprised by how some of the chapters personally uh to write about.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: So for instance, my diagnosis, um, what it felt like to go through treatment, even things like, you know, having my heart broken for the first time, it was um it, you know, it was a it was more difficult than um some people might find, and other people might find it even harder.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, going backwards on your own story is a lot harder than going backwards on someone else's.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's so true that the courage it takes is and you know it really is a new frontier that you have to be you have to go forth bravely.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure, you know, I I would find that similarly.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I get that.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So your next book, tell us a little bit about what was the time gap between 27 letters and this one?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was it how long was it between?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they're also very different types of books.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: They sure are.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um the my next book is my first novel.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's called The Cicada House.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I started writing it um almost the month that 27 Letters came out into the into the world.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So um I've been working on it really for sort of nearly three years now.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it is a warm, funny, nostalgic, uh, slightly mysterious um story of a of a woman who um whose husband walks out on her uh after her 40th birthday.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so she decides, she makes this snap decision to head to Australia.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and this English woman sets off on a trip that's sort of equal parts escape, but also reckoning.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it is a very different feel of a book, and of course it's a novel, and and the process to write it was so different.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: But there are also definitely some themes and um some feelings that I definitely feel um have carried over from one book to the other.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what were those particularly?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, was it inspired by some sort of obviously many things are?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Are we are we talking, is there an element of faction here?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is there well, the book definitely has a rather unreal, um, almost magical, a little story.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: What I've seen, yeah, on top of it, which is um sort of uh, I guess comes from the first book, which is uh sometimes, you know, the most normal pedestrian stories can have some some sort of magical coincidence or or maybe even something more to it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of it's also um where it's set.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's set um in a you know southern Victorian beachside town.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um in the Cicada House, it's a fictional town, but um my book, 27 Letters, uh, talks a lot about um a coastal town called Point Lunsdale, which is where my grandparents um moved in the 70s, and I've sort of spent a lot of time growing up in.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of just that connection to space and to place and to homes and to buildings and what that means.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's called so relate to that.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love and I love the title of it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's very and and just I mean, I was reading here, you know, cicadas that sing so loudly that they drown out the grief of white wine and an old piano and children who want their parents back from the dead.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a very powerful image.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because we've all grown up with that Victorian summer, you know, with the cicadas down on the Mornington Peninsula down the coast.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like I relate to that a lot.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so that nuance is quite beautiful, the way you've referenced that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean I just I love the peninsula so much.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love both me too on Mornington Hallerine.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I spent I've spent so much time there.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like, you know, having been lucky enough to travel to lots of beaches all around the world, as I know you have as well, there's just something about a body beach, particularly a southern Australian beach.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit brutal, it's a little bit rough and ready and a bit scary, but also um so refreshing and cleansing.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I just I almost feel like the beach um in this book is is another character.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um I loved writing Caitlin.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: She's a, as I said, she's a 40-year-old woman with you know some skeletons in her closet, and she's certainly not perfect.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love the idea of a slightly broken protagonist because we're all slightly broken.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, perfect.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Perfectly imperfect.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we like.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um I just I just loved writing this book, Deb.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say, like it was the best way I can describe it is it was like walking along a path of stones where I was just throwing one stone after the other.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And just every time I sat down at my computer, I thought, bloody hell, I hope there's another stone to step on.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and sure enough, there would be, and I didn't know where it was coming from.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, it was it was a really fun process and and one that I'm um just feel so lucky to have been able to go through.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you say it took three years, obviously on and off, but how how difficult was that process, that writing process, and how supportive was your publisher and and how how much of the role did the editor play in that?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or were you, you know, did you have your did you map out your because you know, just from the the previous book was obviously slightly different structurally, well a lot different.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just curious how structurally this played out for you and whether you were guided by your editor or whether you felt organically you could cross that bridge yourself.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, uh it was definitely Catherine um who encouraged me to uh go for go for it when it when it came to a novel.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I kept saying, I can't write a novel.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Oh, for God's sake, of course you can.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so she was very, very encouraging.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I spoke to her quite early on in the process and gave her the you know, back of a match book summary of what I was thinking.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Great, go for it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, it's a bit wacky.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's sort of a bit of a weird left of center thing that happens, and she said, I love it, you know.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that certainly gave me a lot of confidence to start.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm a real planner when it comes to writing or really doing anything.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I literally planned out every single chapter.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And once I'd done that and really worked out the structure of the story, then actually writing it happened quite quickly.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I probably wrote the book in um, you know, sort of eight months, which um was just nights and weekends because I still work in advertising.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and then I, you know, the the edit almost came back through Catherine, um, and she was extremely helpful and very involved in in how to sort of refine the the process.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I also had my lovely agent, um, Pippa, uh, who was also very helpful.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I certainly felt like I was part of a team, which um it makes a difference.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so how do you find the writing process of writing a novel versus advertising, which is completely, I mean, how many how many elements like I know, for example, journalism, you know, we're I mean, it's not dissimilar in some ways in that, you know, make sure you've got the hook line, make sure you've got the lead so that people read the first two paras, that sort of thing.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is did you find that the advertising skill set helped you or hindered you?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, it's another, I mean you're bloody good.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's another great.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I think that sometimes the team at HarperCollins or Curtis Brown would sometimes roll their eyes at me because I feel like the what advertising has taught me, and my my role in advertising is not a creative role.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm in accounts, client service, yeah.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a project manager basically.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what it has given me is a real um lack of uh sentimentality and a real brutality when it comes to an idea, you know.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and they say um when it comes to writing stories, kill your darlings, you know, it's about slash and burn, don't get too frustrated on one thing.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that with the editing process, you know, the editors would sort of come to me almost tiptoeing, saying, um, we think maybe we might have to.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yep, cool, let's do it, you know, because this was different.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: The first book was My Heart and My Soul, and it was very important to me.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And HarperCollins were extremely sensitive to that.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they were very um light, light touch when it came to the editing process.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas this was obviously a novel, and and they um they really got stuck in up to their elbows.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I felt like I was there side by side with them, ready to sort of break stuff apart, put it back together again, move it around.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that was definitely something that, you know, much like journalism, I'm writing a book to for people to devour and to read lying on a beach or a sun lounger.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I want them to have a great experience.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I killed.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Lot of darlings.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that's actually what you're describing makes a lot of sense because the the skills of being in the advertising world on whatever side, even if it's not the creative side, it teaches you to manage that expectation.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what you're saying you applied.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I resonate that I could completely get, even though I'm not in advertising, I imagine it's not a dissimilar experience where you know you don't you don't get too precious.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have, I imagine, you know, you work with a deadline, you have a certain amount of words.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Deliverables, yeah.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's like put your sleeves up and let's go.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and yeah, there are a couple of moments of which I said, oh, I think I'd probably prefer to leave that in.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, really on the whole, it felt like a very collaborative and very open process.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm, you know, not shy and saying, I have no bloody idea what I'm doing.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not an author, I'm in advertising.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I you're an author now.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: You are definitely an author as well.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I fell into it and and I just want to ask questions all the time and and and I'm always up for um advice and guidance.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's been a it's been a really fun process in in that respect.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my copy is actually just landed uh only a few days ago.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I haven't read the whole thing, but what I've read so far looks really great.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can't wait to take it to the beach and have a read and indulge because it resonates.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I also the themes are really interesting, I think.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you drew on anything in real life or a friend or somebody that you'd experienced, you know, um, who had been through because to be honest, it's not an uncommon little journey that you've outlined, you know, the 40-year-old who thinks it's all sorted and then it's really not.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all have people in our lives that we know.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually um, you know, I have this great little micro community of of um like-minded legends on Instagram, and they're, you know, 99.9% women of my age, and and you know, they're so good when it comes to writing, because I'll often sort of almost crowdsource experiences and I'll say, you know, if you because I wanted to know, is it is it realistic for literally a husband to walk in out of the blue and go, I'm leaving?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know that's what happened to my mother, but you know, that was 35 years ago.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but that's important actually.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: You just threw that little gem in there.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you could actually just elaborate.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's what happened to your mother.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: She had how many children?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she had my brother and myself, and um, I was eight and my brother was four, and that's when my dad left.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I talk about that in great detail um in 27 Letters and what it's like to be a child of divorce and a child of, you know, a marriage that is no longer, and um, you know, with the blessing of both my parents, um, you know, with whom I'm still really close and love dearly, you know, their their marriage lasted for 10 years and then it stopped.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: It did end in quite a dramatic way, but I wanted to know whether that was um an isolated experience that I was familiar with because it was my experience.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it really wasn't.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I checked the temperature with with that group of um women on Instagram, and bloody hell, I got some cracking stories.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, none of them actually made it to the book, but it gave me the confidence and the certainty to know that I was writing something that was not untrue and not unheard of.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and actually, you know, they always say that the truth is stranger than fiction.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I totally agree.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I always say fact is stranger than fiction.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And constantly that theme sort of being able to come to me and and say to me, you know, oh my gosh, that really does happen.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that gave me the, you know, the, as I say, the confidence to to sort of back myself in with with this, with that element of the story.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then something else that I really um relied on my mum actually for was part of the the I guess subplot in this book is Caitlin.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um Caitlin's mother dies when she's very, very young.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she's sort of a she was a young mother herself.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And she sort of lives in the share house musician 1970s, 80s world.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and my mum was, you know, part of that that world.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to sort of, I think I say in the acknowledgments, you know, um, thanks to my mum for many things, but including me telling me what a share house in Melbourne in the 70s smelt like.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's great in that way.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's definitely sounds very cool, your mother.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: She is very cool.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's uh she's she's an inspiration um and mad as a box of frogs, um, and and with me every step of the way.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, there's there's definitely um lots of little kernels of truth in in what is basically a fictional novel.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd like to say thank you so much.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've loved this interview.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love meeting you and love hearing your story and can't wait to finish the book.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um hopefully we'll see more from your creative spirit because you certainly um yeah, you just have a great energy and joie de vive.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to um hopefully seeing you soon.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you, and thank you for such kind and um clever questions.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate them.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and we will um hopefully have a beautiful Christmas and beautiful new year, and look forward.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you some feedback on the book.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: More feedback when I finish it.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Ella.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my what I've learned Instagram for updates.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Love Dev.