Hello Friend — Will Dean

Bethany Rutter
Jul 27, 2017 · 38 min read

Bethany Rutter: Hello friends and welcome to Hello Friend.

My name is Bethany Rutter and today’s friend is Will

Dean. This is episode 10, the final episode of the

first season of Hello Friend, and I thought Will would

be the perfect last guest before I take a long break.

He’s an author and I love talking to authors, but

I particularly wanted to talk to Will for three reasons:

one, he wrote the kind of book I love to read, a crime

novel; two, a year ago neither of us had an agent or

a book deal and now we both do; three, he lives in

a forest in the middle of nowhere in Sweden, but more on

that later.

First of all how do we know each other?

Will Dean: Well, we met on Twitter.com.

BR: Yeah, we did.

WD: I think about three years ago. It was when I was

doing parental leave for my little boy and I was hiking

through the woods. I remember the exact day that

I first interacted with you.

BR: Oh my God, that’s so cool! Yeah, tell me more.

WD: I had him on some kind of rucksack on me, and in

Sweden parental leave is normally split 50/50, so

I think my wife had just done eight months and I was

just starting my eight months. So I had him on my back,

it was November, and you tweeted a photo with an amazing

hat with a veil.

BR: [Laughs] That really does sound like something

I would do.

WD: You did! And I tweeted, “Really nice hat, I like

your hat”, and you were like, “Thank you very much!” and

that was the beginning of everything. And, honestly,

Twitter before, I loved Twitter before but from that

moment onwards Twitter kind of came alive for me.

BR: Because I have so many cool lady friends?

WD: Yeah, exactly. It was like Twitter was great

black-and-white until then and then suddenly it became

technicolour.

BR: Like the Wizard of Oz but through the internet?

WD: [Laughs] Exactly.

BR: Will you tell me about your book, please?

WD: Okay. My book is called Dark Pines and it’s kind of

a cross between Twin Peaks and Broadchurch.

BR: Cool.

WD: So it’s like a quirky crime story set in an isolated

small claustrophobic town in the centre of Sweden during

two weeks in autumn, and at the beginning it’s the start

of the elk hunting season and a body is found deep in

the woods, basically.

BR: Cool!

WD: And my heroine, Tuva Moodyson, is a deaf journalist

working on a small newspaper in this small town and

she’s very ambitious, very focused and very confused all

at the same time and she kind of goes out to try and

investigate this crime.

BR: Cool, and when did you write it? Okay, I thought it

would be more interesting to talk to you as an author

who is in the middle of the long road to publication,

that process —

WD: Yes.

BR: — than talking to someone who is really distant

from the first time they ever had to go through it and

can’t really remember all of the process, the

conflicting emotions, all of that kind of stuff. So

talk me through the timeline of you thinking about

writing it, writing it, doing all that stuff, and then

to the present day.

WD: Okay. So I wrote the first draft, like, six months

after our first Twitter interaction that I just talked

about.

BR: Okay.

WD: So May 2015, I think it is.

BR: Yeah.

WD: And I was putting it off, I had this book in my

head, it was kind of playing on the inside of my eyelids

every night, the whole thing, so I really wanted to

write it but I was just finishing my parental leave and

then my parental leave got extended because Alfie, my

little boy, wasn’t quite ready for nursery, so then

I thought: okay, I’m just going to have to write it in

his naps. So I wrote it in — this sounds kind of weird

but I wrote it in four weeks in his naps. So I wrote

one chapter in the morning in his two-and-a-half-hour

nap and one chapter in the afternoon in his

two-and-a-half-hour nap.

BR: It’s a good job Alfie loves naps!

WD: I should dedicate the book to him, honestly, and his

sleeping.

BR: And his sleeping skills.

WD: Yeah, because he doesn’t sleep like that anymore, so

I was very lucky back then. So, yeah, the book came out

of his naps, and actually I’ve written two books since

then, first drafts, and I copy the same routine even

though he’s no longer napping at home. So I still do

a morning chapter in his nap time and an afternoon

chapter in his nap time.

BR: That’s a very nice way to structure your writing.

WD: Yeah, it works, and that’s way the first draft came

about. And then because I write it so fast it’s a rough

monster, so I have to wrestle with it and fight with it

and polish it. So I did that the summer of that year

and then I started submitting to agents, I think it

was August, July/August, something like that. So it’s

quite a fast process.

BR: Of 2015?

WD: I think so, yeah.

BR: And then what happened?

WD: Then I sent it off to … maybe it was 2016.

BR: Yeah, I was gonna say, because this was all last

year, right?

WD: All my years are wrong.

BR: Yeah.

WD: It’s 2016, and I sent it off to 20 agents, I think

it was, which is more than people recommend but I just

wanted to get it out there at that point.

BR: Why do people recommend fewer and how will the

agents know that you’ve sent it to fewer or more other

people?

WD: They don’t really know, but I think it’s just easier

to manage the process if you send it to five and then

you wait and then you send it to another five.

BR: Oh yeah, I guess, yeah.

WD: That’s often what they say, but I just was like: I’m

going to send it to 20 and I got 10 who requested the

full manuscript, which I was really happy about, and

then I had three offer representation and two more who

kind of were going to but then they ran out of time. So

that was how that came about.

Then I had this extremely weird, intense day where

I was feeding Alfie, my wife was away for a week, and

I was e-mailing all the agents saying, “I want to come

and meet you”, and they were saying, “Come, chat with

us, have a drink”, and a woman turned up at my door —

and I should say at this point that I live in the middle

of a huge forest in Sweden with no neighbours whatsoever

and I never get anybody turning up at the front door

just knock-knock-knock. So I was like, “What the hell

is this?” I was feeding him, I was e-mailing, I was

booking flights. I opened the door and a woman was

there and she was dehydrated. She was in a really bad

way. She had two huge bags of mushrooms, wild

mushrooms. This is a plot twist. What is this?

BR: [Laughs] I was going to say, this sounds like a lie!

WD: I know! And I said, “Are you okay, can I give you

a glass of water?” and she said, “I’m lost, I can’t get

back to my truck”, and I said, “I can give you

directions so you can get back”, and she was like, “No,

I’m not going back out there”.

BR: “I will never go into the forest!”

WD: “Can you please take me back?” So I was like, okay,

so I said to all these agents, “Hold on an hour”, put my

son in my truck and I drove and it took two hours to get

to her truck and back. But she was so grateful, and

she’s a professional mushroom consultant, which is

a pretty cool job!

BR: [Laughs]

WD: So she gave me her card and she was like, “I talk to

restaurants and I can identify mushrooms and I do

lectures, so if in future you need a mushroom fact for

a book, just e-mail me”.

BR: So the third book is called Dark Mushrooms.

WD: [Laughs] It’s a mushroom thriller, yeah.

BR: So that was the day that you had to … the mushroom

lady day was …

WD: Yes mushroom lady day was like three days before

I actually flew in, met with these agents, which was

extremely stressful and so difficult because they were

all great and it was really difficult to pick between

them and ask the right questions.

BR: Yeah.

WD: Because I knew this might be a relationship I have

for 30 or 40 years so I want to make the right choice.

So it was really stressful. But I actually went with

the first agent who offered me representation and she’s

fantastic and super passionate and lovely and kind and

wonderful, so …

BR: It’s one of those things where before you’ve done it

you don’t know what’s the right questions are, you don’t

know what’s important until you’re quite far into the

process.

WD: So true, exactly.

BR: Yeah. And if you were doing it now you might know

stuff to ask.

WD: Maybe.

BR: But at the time you’re like, “Mm-mm?”

WD: I had to ask other authors, like, “What should

I ask”, and that was really helpful.

BR: Yeah, do you know what, I really think that

a supportive community goes a long way.

WD: It really does.

BR: Having people to ask about stuff.

WD: I was so grateful, because most of them said, “Go

with your gut instinct.”

BR: Who do you like the most, because that’s who you’re

going to be hanging out with at different things.

That’s quite important.

WD: Exactly. Yeah, who do you want to sit next to on

a plane for eight hours.

BR: And that’s your lady.

WD: That’s my lady, yes.

BR: Is she called Kate …

WD: She’s called Kate Burke. She’s great!

BR: At Diane Banks?

WD: Yeah.

BR: Cool. And you would recommend being represented by

them to anyone listening?

WD: I would, yeah.

BR: Good!

WD: She’s superb.

BR: So she got your manuscript and she was like, “Yes,

this is some good shit!” Then what happened?

WD: She did, and then she wanted to get it ready for

Frankfurt Book Fair to pitch it there, and she was

an editor for ten years at three different big

publishing houses, so the editorial work she did was

amazing. I’d never been through a process like that and

it kind of tore my heart out when I read her comments

because it looked like so much work and so much

deconstruction and then rebuilding. But actually it

wasn’t and all her comments were great.

So it only took me a week and a half. I just raced

through it all and sent it back to her and we had one

more back-and-forth and then she put it out on

submission, I think, a week or ten days before Frankfurt

and then it sold at Frankfurt.

BR: When’s Frankfurt?

WD: It’s in October, I think, mid-October.

BR: So it was late August that you had decided to go

with her?

WD: Exactly, yes.

BR: I remember, I was on holiday in Budapest and

I remember being very happy for you.

WD: Thank you!

BR: So that was a pretty quick turnaround, and then …

WD: That was pretty quick, yeah.

BR: And then in October it was like, cool, it’s gone to

Frankfurt and now it’s going to be published?

WD: Yes, which is wild. I thought it might take me five

books or something. This is my second book. I have

another book that is locked in a drawer that will never

see the light of day.

BR: But your wife thinks it’s good, so … [Laughs]

WD: But she’s my wife! She’s very nice, but it’s not

good. It’s better than it used to be but it will never

be seen, I don’t think, so …

BR: Maybe it will be seen.

WD: Maybe. Maybe I’ll work on it as a script one day.

BR: Yes, it can be your weird little extra thing.

WD: But, honestly, I can’t even look at it right now.

It’s too ugly.

BR: It’s just too embarrassing?

WD: Yeah, it’s just too bad, so I’m glad it’s locked

away.

BR: And I’m glad that you’re not so arrogant to think

that it’s good … I don’t know, I think it’s sometimes

good when people are like: I did this thing and I know

it’s good but I’ve done this thing which I know is not

so good; it’s not like everything I do is perfect and

I’m a genius.

WD: Yeah, and that’s why I think when I wrote the first

draft of my second book, which is my book, I was so

relieved that it kind of came out naturally and I could

see that it was better, and I think of my first book

that’s locked away as kind of my creative writing course

for free because I worked on it so much. I kind of

stripped it back from 95,000 words down to 30, back up

again, back down again, back up again, like a lot of

hours of work, and it was never going to be a good book,

but I learned a lot from that process, like what to

avoid in the second book.

BR: It was like shit you had to do in order to become

a better writer.

WD: Honestly Bethany it was a nightmare book because

it’s got, like, seven points of view, it’s written over

a period of two years in seven different countries.

I mean you can hear, it’s a mess! [Laughter]

Whereas when I sat down for my second one, which is

my first one, I kind of realised, okay, this is going to

be one person's point of view during two weeks in one

town.

BR: Keep it small, yeah.

WD: Exactly, simple as can be. So no tangling. Let the

writing speak for itself.

BR: Yeah, and I feel like that's maybe something that

has been slightly lost in a lot of, like, thriller-ish

writing. There's almost like a formula where it has to

have multiple time lines and different perspectives and

stuff like that. So I really find it a relief when

I read something that's quite contained. So I'm looking

forward to reading it.

WD: I know what you mean. Some of them get tangled and,

yeah, as a writer I like the simplicity of it. It was

quite liberating, so I could just focus on the story and

the people.

BR: Yeah, like the real shit, rather than having to

start again with each new perspective. I don't know.

WD: Exactly, and I was lucky, I didn't have to have

a huge post-it note wall chart thing. It was quite

simple.

BR: And would you say it's a thriller? I don't know,

I'm always quite confused about genres.

WD: Me too! [Laughter] I really am, because when

I sent it to Kate, I didn't know what it was. I was

like, "What is this?" and I asked that to all of those

agents, "What is this?", and they all came up with,

like, "It's kind of crime", but it's difficult to know.

So literary crime is kind of what people are calling it.

It's kind of crime, it's crime-thriller/crime.

BR: What is it closest to in terms of things that you

know I have read?

WD: Okay ... I think it's a little bit ...

BR: Don't worry, I won't think that, like, you are

saying that your book is as good as whatever you ...

[Laughs].

WD: Thank you! It's a little bit Gillian Flynn's Sharp

Objects meets Stephen King's Needful Things, which

I don't think you've read.

BR: I haven't read.

WD: But that's the small town element.

BR: Okay, cool. I understand what it is now. Not that

I really need to know because I am going to read it this

week.

WD: [Whispers] Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

BR: Are there things that you wish you had known about,

like, the world of publishing or what was going to

happen to you before you embarked upon it?

WD: That's a really good question. I don't know.

I think the thing I've seen is that it's really

important to be a good person, just like in life itself,

to be kind and generous and understanding and patient

with other people. Patience, actually, maybe is

a thing.

BR: Yeah! [Laughs]

WD: Because, as you know -- congratulations on your

announcement by the way, it's amazing -- things take

a long time. So I guess that I've learnt, which

I didn't quite realise.

BR: Yeah.

WD: And also how collaborative the whole process is,

like how many people are involved. I guess I didn't

realise how important my cover designer would be,

because he's done a really good job, I think, and how

important every little piece of the puzzle is. So it's

really a team project.

BR: Obviously I will edit this out if you don't want to

talk about it, but do you want to talk about the fact

that your title completely changed and things like that?

WD: I'm happy to talk about that ... I think.

BR: Okay, cool, because I think that's really

interesting.

WD: Yeah, so it changed three times, actually.

BR: And obviously the title changing influenced the

cover design, which has now become something important

and nice for you.

WD: Yes, that's true. So my title I came up with is the

worst title ever conceived.

BR: Tell me!

WD: It's so bad I'm almost embarrassed to say it it's so

bad!

BR: I don't want to embarrass you on air, you don't have

to say it.

WD: No, I'm going to say it; I think it's important to

get it out there. So my title was Man Hunt.

BR: What's wrong with that? It's kind of like the

Silence of the Lambs/Thomas Harris thing, right?

WD: I know, well it's kind of what the book is, but when

I talked to agents they were like, "Well, this is like

some 1987 thriller in an airport with a gun on the cover

with blood dripping down".

BR: Is it like a Dean Koontz novel?

WD: Yeah ... It's just the wrong title.

BR: Okay. I don't think that's so bad! Don't beat

yourself up about that!

WD: Okay, I'm glad you say that.

BR: It's not the best title but it's not like the worst

one.

WD: Okay, but the second one that I came up with was

Sweet Rot.

BR: Yes, which I really like.

WD: Thank you.

BR: And I know that my good friend and Hello Friend

guest, Alice Slater of @smokintofu also thinks that's a

good title.

WD: Alice is amazing, and the fact that she loves it and

you love it means that it's kind of difficult to give

up. But my publishers were great and said, "You can

keep it but maybe it's a little bit too much for a debut

and you can maybe use it in a later book", which is fine

with me. So they were like, "Do you want to use that or

do you want to come up with some alternatives?", so

I came up with Dark Pines, which now I love.

BR: Yeah!

WD: So thank goodness for that, because to give up

Sweet Rot was difficult but now I'm really happy I did

because I can use it in the future and because I really

like Dark Pines.

BR: And Dark Pines has given the opportunity for a good

cover design as well.

WD: Thank you.

BR: Which I really like.

WD: You do?

BR: And obviously because this is audio you can't see

it, but it's a very cool cover, it's like either

black-on-white or kind of grey ...

WD: Yeah.

BR: It's black-and-white.

WD: Yeah.

BR: And it is a white road going through a thick forest

and a car is parked at the side of the road and there's

a trail of blood going into the forest and it just says

"Dark Pines" on the cover and it just looks really good

and it is very cohesive and I really understand what it

is, where it's set and what it's about.

WD: Fantastic!

BR: And I think they've done a good job of the cover and

the title together. So congrats on that!

WD: Thank you very much, indeed, I really like it. I'm

really happy with it.

BR: And it's almost like you getting what you needed

rather than what you wanted.

WD: That's true, exactly, yeah.

BR: And I think something that I'm being forced to learn

is there is a reason that the people you are dealing

with do those jobs. They are the experts and if they're

saying to you, "We think this is a better idea", it

probably is. Like no one is out to make your life

difficult for no reason.

WD: Exactly, that was my thinking process, like, "Who

am I?"

BR: Yeah, "What the fuck do I know?"

WD: This weird dude from the woods, who am I to say,

"Actually I think you're wrong". Like, I've never done

this before so I kind of put my ego away and just said,

"Actually, I am going to go with your advice".

BR: Yeah, as annoying as it is.

WD: Yeah.

BR: Yeah, because there's this illustrator that I really

want for the cover of my novel, and my editor also

really wants that same illustrator but is concerned that

it is too cool.

WD: Okay. Too cool?

BR: Yeah, I don't know, that it would somehow be, like

... I don't know. I don't know. But I'm coming up with

a list of other potential illustrators.

WD: Okay, that's good.

BR: But it feels like we're on the same page about the

stuff that we want and that's nice.

WD: That's good. Your book is going to be so good.

BR: Maybe ...

WD: No, it is. It is. It really is.

BR: [Laughs] Yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to it

but it's a long way off, so ...

WD: Yeah, it is. It's a marathon.

BR: Not a sprint.

WD: It really is.

BR: Whereas I've been sprinting this whole process.

[Will laughs] I have just been, like, anything that

I can control I get done very quickly and that's

anything to do with my book or doing this podcast or

anything that is only up to me, I will just do. So I'll

write the book really quickly, and then as soon as it

becomes someone else's responsibility to deal with

I find that very difficult.

WD: Yes. I was so impressed with just how fast you went

through it. At the beginning you were like, "I'm going

to sit down and I'm going write a book", and then you

just wrote the book, and then you just got an agent.

BR: Yeah, and I feel like I did get an agent but there

are also agents that rejected me.

WD: Yeah.

BR: I feel like I don't want people to think that

everything was just really easy.

WD: Sure.

BR: Because, yeah, people didn't want to represent me.

People read the book and were like, "This is not for

me", or, "You're clearly very talented but I don't think

this is the right thing for me to do".

But, yeah, I did get through that whole thing quite

quickly, and now I'm paying for it by having to wait

a really long time for my book to actually come out.

But I guess it gives me time to make it good and then

maybe write another one.

WD: That's the thing, I think. That's probably the best

therapy you can have, is getting involved in another one

and going into that new world. I found that very

therapeutic.

BR: So you are focusing now on the other books around

this one rather than anything completely different; is

that right?

WD: Exactly. So I'm focused on the second Tuva Moodyson

book, which is called Red Snow.

BR: Yeah, that's so good!

WD: Thank you. That was a title they're happy with and

I'm happy with so that was really nice and simple. So

I'm wrestling with that now and, I was saying to you

earlier, it's kind of a sprawling beast of a thing and

I'm having to work a lot harder on it to get it into the

shape I want it in. So it will be fine but I need to

throw in a lot of hours this autumn. I mean, it will be

fine, but I am at a point where I'm kind of spinning

plates and I need to get working really hard on it.

BR: And then there's another one?

WD: Then there will be a third one and a fourth one and

a fifth one, I think. I hope!

BR: Woah, that's so many!

WD: Just because I love writing Tuva. Before this book,

writing was writing, but when I started writing the

first page of my first Tuva Moodyson book, Dark Pines,

it was like a huge relief. It was like I was high,

I was buzzing, it was like being possessed, you know,

and that's why the book came out so fast, I think. It

was so much fun to write her! It was so liberating.

I love writing Tuva so I don't want to stop, if

possible.

BR: Yeah, and it's not like it's unheard of for there to

be loads of book that revolve around the same person.

WD: That's true, it has been done. [Laughs].

BR: It has literally been done lots of times.

WD: Yes.

BR: That's so cool. I'm very happy that you have

a plan.

WD: Thank you. Thank you. I hope it works out.

BR: Yeah. And you have just been having fun this

weekend?

WD: I've been in Harrogate at, like, this huge crime

writing festival.

BR: Yes, it felt like everyone I knew from the world of

books was there.

WD: A lot of people there, yeah. It was lovely, it was

like finding your people, just a big tent of writers and

readers and passionate book people drinking and playing

croquet and having fun, and it was really nice. It was

really good fun! A little bit intense. I need my

hermit time now; I need to go back to the woods and lock

myself away.

BR: You need to go back to the swamp.

WD: Yeah, but it was great. It was really fun.

BR: And you went as, like, a kind of future potential

person; right?

WD: Exactly!

BR: You were there in your capacity as "Will Dean:

author", rather than like "Will Dean: random man on the

internet"?

WD: I was kind of in the capacity of "Will Dean: unknown

author", which was quite nice, very low key. I was kind

of just mooching around in the corners just kind of

saying hi to writers that I've read and that I respect

and really like and wanted to say hi to, and just kind

of checking the place out for next year when the book

will be out.

BR: And you will be a real dude?

WD: Exactly. It's kind of a nerdy thing. When I used

to go for job interviews I always used to turn up at the

office the day before so I could completely do the

journey on the tube and walk up to the door of the

office and then go back home again.

BR: That's kind of weird, and I respect it!

WD: It is very weird and my wife used to laugh at it,

but it meant that I was more relaxed the day of the

interview because I knew my route, I knew which tube

exit and everything else.

BR: And you knew what it would look like and what it

would be like.

WD: Exactly, what it would smell like, what it would

feel like.

BR: Yeah.

WD: That was the same as going to Harrogate this year,

just so I'm relaxed next year.

BR: A practice run at being a real author?

WD: Yeah, that's it.

BR: So when is your book out?

WD: It's out January 4th.

BR: That's about as early in 2018 as a book can come

out!

WD: It is. It's like Christmas and then bang!

BR: I will pay money for one. I'll pre-order it,

because that's good, right?

WD: Wow, thank you very much!

BR: I've heard on the grapevine that pre-ordering shit

is really good, like it makes authors look good.

WD: I think so, yeah. Pre-ordering is good. Yeah.

BR: Okay, cool, I'll single-handedly enable the

pre-ordering campaign for Dark Pines.

WD: I'll do the same for you, then at least we have one

each. [Laughs]

BR: Thank you! Yeah, one book was pre-ordered by both

of us.

I feel like, I don't know, something we were talking

about on the way here. We took the boat here.

WD: We did.

BR: And we had to wait quite a long time for the boat to

come.

WD: We did a cruise.

BR: We cruised up the Thames. And we were kind of

talking about how, I don't know, maybe more for me that

because I didn't really talk about the book that I wrote

until I was able to announce that it was being

published, for weird superstitious reasons, and also

then once I did get a publishing contract I was told not

to talk about it until it was being officially announced

yesterday, that meant that I actually never really

talked much about writing on Twitter.

WD: Okay.

BR: I didn't really ... yeah, I was never really

explicit about what I was writing or that I was writing

fiction, and I think maybe I quite like that, that

I have not got into the habit of moaning about writing

on Twitter.

WD: Yes. Yeah.

BR: But I also think that for a long time I did not feel

like a real writer because it felt so much like being

a real writer meant complaining about writing and what

terrible agony it is, and I'm like, "Mate, if you're

inside and sitting down, especially if you are inside,

sitting down behind a laptop, what are you complaining

about?"

WD: So true!

BR: But, I don't know ... yeah.

WD: And for me I feel like there's maybe enough straight

white guys, writers, giving tips and giving this, that

and the other and just talking on Twitter about writing.

Whereas I kind of feel like I could just shut up and

listen.

BR: Yeah.

WD: I don't feel quite entitled enough to talk about it

yet because I'm so early in the process. So maybe in

ten years when someone is like, "What do you think about

this? What do you think about the characterisation?"

I'll talk. But right now I just think let other people

talk: let Sarah Waters talk, or Hilary Mantel talk.

BR: Yeah, someone who knows their shit.

WD: Yeah, exactly.

BR: But instead of complaining on Twitter about ...

I don't know, I tend to just e-mail you and be, like ...

WD: I love your e-mails!

BR: Okay, good, because I'm like, is it just dumb

questions about writing or dumb questions about the

publishing process where I'm like, "Ah, he doesn't know,

you can't just ask him anything just because he is

a year ahead of you, he won't know". But it does make

me feel better when I've got my edits and I don't want

to open the document because they might be bad, and

you're like, "That's normal, that's okay".

WD: It's totally healthy. Honestly, when I get

an e-mail from you in the woods I'm just delighted.

[Laughter]. Because I normally get e-mails and it's

going to entail some work or some kind of boring admin

tax thing. But when I get an e-mail from you with

poodles in the subject line and pine trees and a guy

with a moustache or whatever, I'm just like, "Yeah!

This is going to be fun, this is going to be

interesting!"

BR: Even if she is asking a silly question about

editing. Good.

But yeah, that's where I'm at now, is like my editor

sent through the first edits on my book last week and

I was kind of like, this is a whole thing that I hadn't

thought about, having to come back to this and do more

work on it. I hadn't thought about it because ... I'm

a silly baby.

WD: [Laughs] Have you opened the e-mail?

BR: I have opened the document because I had lunch with

her last Friday and I was like, I can't really go for

lunch with her without having read it she'll know that

I haven't.

WD: It's too weird if you don't open it.

BR: Yeah, but you saying that it's normal to feel

daunted by that task made me feel better.

WD: How do you feel now you've opened it?

BR: I don't know ... She's right, everything she's

telling me to do is right, but I'm also like: don't want

to do any work because I'm a lazy bitch.

WD: It's hard though, isn't it, because it's like that

thing that you have finished in a way and having to go

back in, and if you change something on page 27 it's

going to have knock-on effects, ripples all the way

through the book.

BR: Yeah.

WD: It is tough.

BR: And there's another thing I started writing a couple

of months ago and I only wrote 10,000 words of it, and

my editor was basically like, "Edit this stuff first and

then do that", do it in that order. And I was like,

"But doing new stuff is fun, doing old stuff is boring"!

[Laughs].

WD: I would kind of say if you want to do something new,

do it. I don't want to ...

BR: Rachel, if you are listening ... [Laughter]

WD: I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, but I kind of think if

there's something bursting out of you that you want to

write, just write it.

BR: Maybe I will. Maybe I can do both.

WD: Maybe. It's up to you; you know how much you can

juggle, but for me if I need to write something I'm just

going to write it and deal with it afterwards.

BR: Yeah. No, I think it would make me feel better if

I did the stuff I didn't want to do first,

psychologically.

WD: Okay, no, that's better. You should do that,

totally.

BR: Yeah. But, yeah, I hope that now it's a known fact

I wrote this book and it's coming out and blah blah

blah, I don't want to become one of those people that

whines about writing on Twitter, so I'll just decide not

to.

WD: Just e-mail me.

BR: Yeah, I'll just e-mail you instead.

WD: That would be a delightful thing!

BR: I don't know, and I think for a long time that made

me ... not doing that kind of performative writing thing

made me feel like I was not a real writer, but because

I had done it in like a speedy, businesslike fashion it

was not real, and it's only now I'm like, no, it's real,

I did it, I wrote a book so it's real.

WD: It's so real now. It's very real. You are

a writer, Bethany.

BR: Yeah, I guess.

WD: You really are. But it is a difficult thing to say,

because it sounds pretentious.

BR: Yeah ...

WD: It's like last weekend I said to somebody in

a sentence, "my publicist", and then I kind of stopped

myself and I was like, "You sound like such a wanker,

you can't say that."

BR: But you do have a publicist!

WD: I know, but you can't talk about it; it just seems

ridiculous, it seems so weird.

BR: Yeah.

WD: So I know exactly what you mean.

BR: But we're real people.

WD: We're getting there.

BR: You're way more of like a real person.

WD: No, absolutely not.

BR: Don't you just live in a swamp so that you can write

more?

WD: Yeah, but what's real about that? [Laughter]

BR: Do you find that it has made you more productive,

living in a swamp?

WD: It has, but I think you can be very unproductive in

a swamp as well.

BR: What's there to do?

WD: You find things to do.

BR: I guess you do have a small child.

WD: I do, and a massive cat. [Laughter] They keep me

busy.

BR: Yeah. So you could just hang out with them rather

than write.

WD: I think it's not so much writing time as reading

time that I have more of now, which is so precious. In

London, when I was working in London full-time I was

able to read maybe a book every two weeks or a little

more than that. Then when I moved to the swamp and

I was watching TV still I could read a book a week.

Then I quit TV completely, and radio for a while at

least, and I could read two or three books a week, and

that helped my writing so much.

BR: Interesting. Why?

WD: I just needed that intense period of reading good

shit, like lots and lots and lots of good books in one

year, and that gave me a little bit of a surge in: okay,

I can do this, I can break this rule, I can write this

length of thing.

BR: Yeah, I really think that's true in that reading

lots of good things -- lots of different good things has

made me feel more confident about my own writing. Like

I don't have to ... there isn't one right way of doing

stuff, or you are allowed to write something quite quiet

and low-key. It doesn't have to be very high-concept.

I don't know, I just remember at some point during

the writing of my book, No Big Deal, I read a book that

was so completely not like my book, it was polar

opposites and it was a book by Helen Dunmore, RIP, about

spies, and I can't remember what it was called and

I feel really bad about it because she is dead and

therefore I have to honour her more. But it was her

most recent book before she died. It was just so

low-key but amazing, and I was like, this is a really

quiet book and I like that, and it made me feel really

good about writing, and ... I don't know.

WD: That's lovely to hear.

BR: Yeah.

WD: I think often that's exactly how it goes. It's like

a weird book that's not in the genre that you're writing

in that's maybe old and it just has a thing that clicks

with you and you're like: okay, I could do that, or

I could not do that. Totally.

I read now three or four contemporary crime literary

books and then I'll go back and read an old romance book

or I'll read an old historical fiction book or something

like that, and I often find it's that book that's not in

my genre or not in my period that really helps me and

that gives me something.

BR: Yeah. Obviously this is not you stating forever

your favourite people in the whole world and if you

don't mention someone that means that you hate them, but

who do you like reading the most in your genre?

WD: In kind of older style books?

BR: Any.

WD: I love Cormac McCarthy, he's probably my favourite

writer.

BR: He's your boy?

WD: He is. I love the way he mixes nature writing with

things happening. I love how concise he is. I just

love the way he describes life.

Then I love Muriel Spark, Sarah Waters,

Shirley Jackson, Susan Hill. I like creepy stuff. My

genre is creepiness.

BR: Okay. [Laughs].

WD: It's like if you can write a story that makes me

feel uncomfortable, unnerved and unsettled, I'm going to

read all your books.

BR: That's what I want to read. That's definitely like

... I don't want to write it but I want to read it.

WD: I don't care about police procedurals too much.

I don't want too much gore. I want something that's

tense all the way through.

BR: Yeah. You want to be scared.

WD: I do, in a kind of low-key way, and I want a voice

which means that I'm fascinated by the pages where

nothing much is happening can pull me through.

BR: That's very like Sharp Objects, I thought, Gillian

Flynn, Sharp Objects.

WD: She's so good. I really want another book by

Gillian Flynn soon.

BR: Yes, I feel like -- to mention her again -- Alice

posted a picture of something recently that was Gillian

Flynn related. But maybe it wasn't. I don't know.

WD: The only photo I've seen her post recently was

F. Scott Fitzgerald's hair, which was a fantastic tweet.

BR: And then you abused her for being frivolous about

men's appearances. No, obviously that wasn't you. "No,

some dude is dead"?

WD: Okay, wow. Really? My God! [Laughter].

BR: Yeah, about having a go at the way he looked rather

than appreciating all of his writing.

WD: What a thing to say, my God! [Laughter]

BR: It's like no one is allowed to have fun at the

expense of F. Scott Fitzgerald's hair.

WD: It's crazy hair.

BR: But, yeah, I'll look into it and report back about

what that book might be.

WD: Okay.

BR: Yeah, I think I like Gillian Flynn's books because

it's just like, something horrible is happening, like

something weird and unnerving and horrible is happening.

WD: Yeah.

BR: And I like that.

WD: I love the voice. Her voice is very her own.

BR: Yes.

WD: And it pulls me through the whole book and I am just

delighted to read her stuff. Her little mini twists --

obviously she's had a massive, landmark twist in

Gone Girl, but in her other book she has mini twists and

just little things, little bends rather than twists, and

I really enjoy that because I find most twists extremely

unsatisfying and annoying.

BR: Now I want to be like, "Tell me about twist you did

like", and then no one is going to read those books

after ...

WD: Exactly. I will never talk about twists ever. And

also when I'm about to read a book I don't want to be

told there's a twist in it.

BR: Oh my God, me either and I get so furious!

I basically don't want to know anything about a book

other than "It is good". I want someone that I trust to

recommend a book and then I will read it.

WD: Exactly.

BR: Unless it is like sci-fi or fantasy, when I will not

read it.

WD: Yeah, "Don't tell me there's a twist at the end".

No.

BR: Or even halfway through.

WD: Yeah.

BR: Just, yeah. And I feel like this is related to my

rant about trailers in the previous episode of this

podcast where I was like: I don't want to see The

Beguiled any more because I know what happens. Yeah,

I don't know, I'm just furious about it all the time.

Does your book have a twist ... wait! No! Don't

tell me.

WD: My lips are so sealed.

BR: Any other people that you want to big up?

WD: Yes, in terms of writers now that I love, it's

difficult to remember everyone right now on the spot.

But I love Kit de Waal. Have you read her book, My Name

is Leon?

BR: I haven't.

WD: Soooo good.

BR: But she was also speaking ... you know the thing

where I did my dry breakfast?

WD: Yeah.

BR: She was on at that event as well and she was great,

and she read a really great piece that she'd written.

WD: Okay. She's so cool.

BR: Yeah.

WD: And I love that book. It made me very sad and very

... it really moved me. She's very, very good at what

she does.

Then I love Jessie Burton, The Muse, beautiful

writing. I love Imran Mahmood, he wrote a book called

You Don't Know Me, which is really interesting. The

voice is really original. It's set, the main character

is in a dock in a courtroom and it's him kind of giving

his testimony and saying what happened. That's the

whole book.

BR: This sounds cool.

WD: And he does it so well.

BR: This sounds like something I would read.

WD: It's really, really nice.

BR: Is it, like, crimey? Right? Kinda crimey?

WD: Totally crimey.

BR: Okay. I've never heard of it.

WD: It's really, really good. It came out I think just

a few months ago.

BR: Okay, cool, I'm going to look into this.

WD: It's very original.

BR: Thank you. This is all I want.

WD: Very, very good.

BR: Don't tell me if there's a twist.

WD: I won't tell you.

BR: Okay, that's really good because I feel like people

hardly ever mention something that sounds good that

I don't already know about, and you just did it.

WD: It's a good book.

BR: Yeah.

WD: And then there's Abir Mukherjee, who wrote A Rising

Man, which is set in India in the Twenties, and I don't

read a huge amount of historical fiction but this is ...

I really enjoyed this. And kind of by osmosis, not

knowing I was, I learnt a load of stuff about Indian

history in that book. But it was also very exciting and

very, very exquisitely written.

BR: Cool!

WD: I enjoyed it.

BR: These are very solid recommendations and

non-obvious. Sounds good. Thank you.

WD: Good. Pleasure.

BR: What are you looking forward to most in your new

life as an author?

WD: Honestly the thing I like best is being alone

reading and writing. So being able to do that as much

as possible is just the biggest luxury.

BR: Yeah, someone is paying you to do that. It's

literally your job.

WD: Yeah, exactly, I would kind of do it for no money.

So doing it and people reading it and liking it and

being able to do it for a living is crazy. It's

a dream.

BR: People liking it. So your proofs are slowly making

their way around the world.

WD: Yeah, I think there's ten out there at the moment,

and there's a load of new ones coming out soonish,

I think.

BR: So people have been reading it.

WD: Yes.

BR: How do you feel emotionally about people reading it?

WD: Absolutely terrified, genuinely scared. Because

they're not people I don't know: they're people who

I respect and I have really enjoyed their work. So if

I send it to somebody and I never hear anything ... it's

just kind of heartbreaking.

BR: Has that happened?

WD: No, no, not at all.

BR: Because I was like: I will beat them up, I will find

out who they are.

WD: Not at all. Only one or two people have read it but

they've been super positive and that's been [sighs]

a huge relief and so nice. So it's been good.

BR: Good. Then one day there will be reviews of it;

will you read them?

WD: I think all writers do at the beginning and I'll

probably be exactly the same, like the first reviews

I'll read, and then I'll go through a process of

realising this is not good for my health and actually

I should stop. So I'll probably fall into that.

I probably should never read a review but how are you

going to do that? How are you going to be that

disciplined?

BR: I think maybe I just won't. Maybe I never will.

WD: Really?

BR: Yeah, because I don't think you're going to learn

anything from them.

WD: I just think it's difficult not to be tempted.

BR: Yeah, because you want to read something good.

WD: It's like a dark kind of thing luring you in. So

I think I'll read a few but I definitely don't want to

read them going forwards, especially not if I'm writing

the next project or the project after that. I can't be

dealing with that.

BR: No, and what you're writing, whatever you read in

a review, you're not going to learn anything from that

that should influence what you write next. That should

be something that you figure out with your editor and

your agent, not some random person on the internet or in

a magazine.

WD: That's very true.

BR: In my opinion.

WD: No, you are right. So I will try and ...

BR: I just wouldn't, you know?

WD: Yeah, I'll try and stay away.

BR: I'm certainly not.

WD: I'll probably fail, but I'll try and stay away.

BR: Yeah.

WD: Especially the kind of Amazon reviews where they

talk about it being two days late and the packaging was

inadequate.

BR: Yeah, well you don't give a shit about that!

WD: Like: No! Don't give me two stars because of that!

So I'll ignore those. [Laughter].

BR: Yeah! "Don't blame Royal Mail's failure on me."

WD: Yeah.

BR: And are there other things that you are not looking

forward to?

WD: No.

BR: You are just ...

WD: No, I love it. I'm so lucky. To be able to do this

and, like you say, people you pay for it is just the

biggest privilege in the world. I want to have fun with

it and see what happens. I want to try and get the

balance right, maybe, between my hermit time in the

forest, which I need, not just to be able to write but

also to be healthy and happy, and my time travelling

going to conferences and festivals and all of that

stuff, which I love but in kind of small doses. So

I just need to get that balance right.

BR: At least when you are hermitting you get to hang out

with Alfie.

WD: I do, a lot. That's really nice.

BR: And he is a very vibrant person.

WD: He's amazing, he is the coolest little person ever.

BR: Yeah [Laughs].

WD: He's a lot of fun.

BR: So even when you are hermitting it is an intensely

social time?

WD: It is, even with my cat, he is intensely social. He

is like a Labrador wrapped up in a lot of fluff. He's

a ridiculous cat: he comes if I whistle to him, he plays

with Alfie like they're two brothers.

BR: No! I love them too much!

WD: They wander off into the woods and they find a frog

and they're playing, and it's a beautiful thing to see.

BR: Oh yeah, so here's something. Apart from the

mushroom woman what is the most swamp thing that has

happened in the swamp?

WD: The most swamp thing?

BR: Yeah.

WD: Okay, I think I have an answer for you. When we

were building I was living in London and flying over

every weekend on Ryanair with £5 tickets that we had

back then to try and build this thing, this eco-house,

and we were digging, we had a digger, to try and put

drainage pipes down -- we really needed a lot of

drainage -- and we found a tractor, a skeleton of an old

tractor from the Thirties or Forties and according to

the locals this thing had slowly sunk over the decades.

Nobody had buried it; it had just sunk. So it was maybe

a metre below the soil surface.

BR: So it is real bog stuff?

WD: It had been consumed. It had been swallowed by the

swamp. That was wild.

BR: Oh my God, yeah! [Laughs].

WD: So this thing came and we were like, "What is this?

Who put this here?" And they were like, "No one",

I think it just sank over the years.

BR: The bog ate it?

WD: And then they took it away on the back of a trailer

and it was kind of sad to see it go, this old rusty

skeleton.

BR: That is kind of swamplike?

WD: That's quite swampy, yeah.

But the positive side, can I talk about the positive

side.

BR: Yeah, tell me the good shit!

WD: So the good thing is that most people who live in

Swedish forests have a huge mosquito problem.

BR: Okay.

WD: Big mosquitoes. They start off quite small and by

the end of summer they are massive. But because we are

so swampy we have like a Royal Air Force of dragon

flies.

BR: That eat the mosquitoes?

WD: Yeah, they do! They are beautiful little things, in

May/June they come out and they're blue and they're very

pretty, and then by August they are as long as your

middle finger, or even longer, as long as a pencil that

you have used a little while; and these things fly

around, there are thousands of them and they are

beautiful and they eat all of the mosquitoes. So we

have no mosquitoes.

BR: Oh my God, that is the dream! Because that would be

a genuine concern, as someone who has very delicious

blood to biting insects. That's so cool that the

eco-system takes care of itself.

WD: It actually makes it a lot more comfortable to live

there. Like when we go to other people's forest houses

that aren't so swampy, it's pretty horrible with all the

mosquitoes.

BR: And you have ... I think one of my nature highlights

of recent times was the elk stealing your flowers?

WD: Yes, we have elk coming through the garden every

maybe three or four months, and they kind of hang around

for about a week, and these guys are massive! They are

just so prehistoric and so properly wild. They're more

wild than anything I've ever seen in the UK. It's like

seeing a bear, you know? And they have zero respect for

hedges or fences, so they just lollop long, they're as

tall as a rhinoceros, they just walk through things.

This guy that you are talking about, he came and he was

eating my grass and eating my flowers, and then he ate

all of our artificial flowers. I had an urn full of

artificial flowers and he just took it away. He just

took it.

BR: No! [Laughs].

WD: We also had one that got wrapped in a hammock, and

he was thrashing around. It looked like a great white

shark caught in a net.

BR: Is it scary? Like, would you be scared for Alfie

and Monty to be outside when there's an elk around?

WD: Yeah.

BR: Are they scary?

WD: They're not scary, but they're slightly

unpredictable because they're so wild, so I wouldn't

want them out there with an elk.

BR: Because they can't control their behaviour?

WD: Yeah, like a general elk is a very docile, lovely

massive thing, but a female elk with young is

unpredictable because they are protective. And

sometimes you get old dude elks that eat rotten apples

and get drunk. [Laughter]. This is like a good

newspaper article in Sweden; you see this a lot.

BR: Yeah?

WD: And it will fall into a tree or it will fall asleep

on a driveway, or get angry with people walking past.

So elk are to be respected, I think. I kind of give

them a good distance.

BR: Cool! Well, on that note I will respect the elk and

ask you my questions to finish up our chat.

WD: Okay.

BR: What book do you wish you had written?

WD: I wish I had written The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

BR: I knew you were going to say that.

WD: Sorry ...

BR: That's okay. That's fine. I understand that.

WD: Okay.

BR: What emoji do you most identify with?

WD: What emoji?

BR: Yeah.

WD: Can I do a hybrid?

BR: Yes!

WD: Okay, I think I'm half pine, half poodle.

BR: Okay, yes! [Laughs].

WD: Would that work?

BR: Yeah!

WD: Okay.

BR: That's like your city life and your swamp life.

WD: Exactly.

BR: Yeah!

If you were going to go to the shop -- when you're

in London, not when you are in the swamp -- and buy some

crisps, what crisps would you buy?

WD: Crisps ... okay, I love ... can I have two?

BR: Yes.

WD: Really quickly.

BR: Yeah, of course.

WD: I love Nice 'N' Spicy Nik Naks.

BR: Yes! Nik Naks are the best!

WD: Yes, because they're not like crisps, they're like

remoulded potato starch covered in flavour.

BR: Yeah, it's maize, isn't it?

WD: And it's crunchy and they're delicious. And they're

orange and they're crunchy.

Then the other thing I like is posh crisps, like

Kettle Chips kind of thing.

BR: Yep!

WD: But only if they're folded over.

BR: Yeah! [Laughs]

WD: So you get double-crunch, and the best thing ever is

when you get a folded one inside a large folded crisp,

so you get a quadruple crisp. It's like a hermit crab

crisp hiding inside a big one. They're the best ever.

[Laughter].

BR: It's like a pearl inside an oyster.

WD: Exactly.

BR: So you are the last guest of this series, so who

would you like to hear me talk to next time?

WD: Thank you so much for having me on, by the way.

BR: That's okay!

WD: I would love, actually, talking of Kit de Waal,

I would love to hear her speak on any subject, so

I would love to hear her on here.

BR: Cool, that's a good nomination. Thank you so much

for joining me, flying out of the swamp and joining me

for a chat.

So this was the last episode in the series of

Hello Friend. I will probably come back, I don't know

when, but in the meantime listen out for a new fun thing

that I'm going to do with a friend. Thank you for

joining me. I have really enjoyed your support and all

of your tweets. Keep them coming, keep listening and go

back and listen to episodes that you missed. Let me

know if there's stuff you'd like me to do differently

next time, or people that you really want to hear on

season 2. Either way I will see you again soon. Thank

you.

WD: Thank you so much!

BR: Bye!

WD: Bye!

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