In Episode 131 of So you want to be a writer: Vanity book awards and why you should think twice before buying one. Mistakes made by newbie authors and things you can learn from Man Booker Prize shortlisted authors. Win a pack of books to regift for Christmas (or keep all to yourself). Meet songwriter and novelist Holly Throsby. Plus: the Get Pocket app which makes saving things for later a whole lot easier, and much more!
Review of the Week
From Angeladawnshort via Instagram on a post of a cute picture of a dog :
Seriously this pup has my heart and makes writing time so distracting lol but I did write a whopping 1200 words of a very tense scene. My eyebrows feel like they are knitted together for being so tesne as i write it. Think I'll listen to Val and Al for some comic relief as they always make me laugh like a fool in front of people at the gym.
Holly Throsby is a songwriter, musician and novelist from Sydney, Australia. She has released four critically acclaimed solo albums, a collection of original children’s songs, and an album as part of the band, Seeker Lover Keeper (with Sarah Blasko and Sally Seltmann).
Holly’s debut novel, Goodwood, was published by Allen & Unwin in October 2016.
Holly Throsby is a songwriter, musician and novelist from Sydney and she has released four critically acclaimed solo albums, a collection of original children's songs and an album as part of the band, Seeker Lover Keeper with Sarah Blasko and Sally Seltmann.
Holly's debut novel, Goodwood is published by Allen & Unwin in October 2016.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Holly
Thanks for having me.
Valerie
Now just for some of the people who have not yet got their hands on the book, because it's only recently out, tell us what Goodwood is about.
Holly
Well, Goodwood is about two people who go missing from a small town in New South Wales, the town of Goodwood. It's set in 1992 and it's narrated by a girl called Jean Brown, who is 17 when these disturbing events take place in her town.
First of all the coolest girl in town Rosie White goes missing just from her bedroom and then exactly a week later the local butcher, his name is Bart McDonald goes fishing on the lake and never comes home.
I guess Goodwood is in part about the fates of Rosie and Bart, but it's also a portrait of a town kind of in this anxious, tense grieving kind of time, wondering what's happened to them. And it's also Jean's own story.
Valerie
And how in the world did you come up with this unique idea?
Holly
I don't know how unique it is. I think there's definitely books and stories about missing people.
Valerie
Sure.
Holly
I think I was drawn to the subject matter because — I mean I'm a big fan of crime and mystery novels. I enjoy reading them. But, I feel like it is quite sort of an Australian thing, this narrative of people going missing. I think probably because we have this ginormous continent, which is quite underpopulated, relatively speaking to other continents. And there's a lot of places that people can get lost.
But, I don't know I was inspired by newspaper articles that I read. I was inspired by some real life events and very drawn to a small town setting to kind of explore various issues with relationships and psychology and things like this.
Valerie
Now this is your debut novel, but you are not a stranger to writing, because you are an acclaimed songwriter and musician. So, I would just like to backtrack a little bit in your career and talk about your songwriting and then lead up to the book, because you have been nominated for four ARIA Awards, including two for best female artist and one for best children's album, and you've toured here and overseas. Just tell us maybe how it all began. Like, when did you first start writing songs?
Holly
I first started writing songs really young, like when I was about ten or eleven, because I started playing guitar around eight, I think. I mean from then on I guess you're always kind of making stuff up, when you're a young kid with an instrument. Like, you're always kind of just playing around with stuff.
But, I remember I heard my first song when I was about ten. And, just really enjoyed that whole thing, like I really wanted to be a musician, I really wanted to release albums. And all through my teenage years I would get home from school, I had a tape recorder, like a boom box style tape recorder that I would just record my songs on, in order to remember them and keep writing them. And I've got like a box of these cassettes that are probably just full of terrible songs.
But, it was just what I was really driven to do, especially by the time I was in year 12. I was just totally kind of obsessed with it. And by that stage I had met other friends who were interested in song writing as well. So, I think that really helped, when you're young to sort of have people to play stuff to and to get feedback from. It's probably what young prose writers these days get from the internet, which wasn't really around then, like in terms of blogs or whatever.
But, yeah. And then I guess the whole time I was a very keen English student. I did 3 unit English for the HSC and then I went on to major in English at university for my bachelor's degree. So, I was always interested in reading and writing essays on books and reading critically and dissecting narratives and working out what I liked about them, I guess.
So, it was always an ambition that I had, that I would like to write a book, but some writing just sort of seemed to draw me in a lot more during my 20s and I started making albums and releasing them and touring. I was just incredibly driven to write songs.
And then my focus turned, I guess, gradually.
Valerie
When you were creating your albums, when you're thinking of a series of songs that's going to go in them, how do you approach writing a song? Do you actually think of the words first? A story? Or phrases? Or do you actually start with the notes?
Holly
Well, people write songs differently, but mostly people would start with melody. Either you have an instrument, and people generally do, and then you find a co-operation you like, you're humming along, you find a melody that you like, that melody might become the verse and then you find a change for that to become a chorus. So, it's a very meandering process of just trying different things and seeing if a melody kind of grabs you, I guess.
And then sometimes a lyric will come out straight along with the melody, and other times less quickly. And then for me it's always been a process of you're going with some of those initial ideas, which would plant a seed as to the topic of the song, which is often quite instinctive and unconscious for me. And then I would then spend however long walking around the market or the park with the song in my head. And I would just gradually kind of write lyrics until they're finished.
It often takes me a little while.
But, yeah, it's a really — it's a strange thing to do, much like any creative process.
But, you know, I've found prose writing is not that different, really. I guess you sit down with a blank page and you start trying to meander your way through.
I mean some songwriters definitely think of — I've been working with Sally Seltmann because we're doing more Seeker Lover Keeper writing at the moment. She really likes to think of a topic for a song and then go from there, and that's different to how I work. I find that really interesting. And so we're getting some interesting things by discussing topics before we start and stuff like this.
So, it depends on the writer, I think.
Valerie
Yeah.
Now you have released Goodwood, and let's just talk about the process of making that happen. At what point did you think, “Oh, I'm going to write a novel now,” which is very, very different to writing a song, a much, much longer process, I imagine.
So, yeah, how did that happen?
Holly
As I said, it was something that I wanted to do for a long time. And, I got to a point with songwriting that I think I felt a little spent. And I'd been touring a lot, for a couple of years I was touring on the back of sort of three very different projects, my solo record, the kids' album and Seeker Lover Keeper.
I was quite tired and I felt when I got home, as soon as I finished that up I was thinking about songwriting and I just wasn't interested anymore. Something about it —
Valerie
Wow.
Holly
I don't know why, but something about it felt like it was gone for me. And I started working instead with prose and just writing these small kind of vignettes of ideas that I was having for Goodwood. And it was those vignettes that ended up kind of blending their way into a story.
Valerie
How did you blend them into a story, because were they separate or did you write them with the intention of blending them into a longer story at some point? How did that all work?
Holly
Well, I knew that I wanted a longer story. I've never been a big reader of short stories, it's just not a medium that I'm drawn to, although I think some are exquisite. I just generally like to have a whole book to read. So, I knew that's what I wanted to produce, because the whole time I was just very driven by what kind of story would I want to read, that was sort of a lot of where Goodwood came from.
The vignettes were all in the voice of Jean. So, I did have my narrator really early on. And I had my setting really early on, in terms of the town. I could just see it and I could feel her. And so they were about nothing. They were about dogs playing or about — they were about things that were not really to do with the story in the end, but it just gave a feeling for her and who she was.
As I started to think about her, her relationship with her mum, for example, her relationship with her grandparents and things like that, that kind of basis gave me quite a clear picture of her and her family structure and where she lived. And, I realised that I wanted — I had these ideas about these missing people in the town and that she could be the one to tell that story.
So, this was months of just having it in the back of my mind and playing around with it. And once I had gotten all of that in a visual way in my head I sort of really set off. And the first chapter of Goodwood is quite similar to the very first draft chapter that I wrote.
Valerie
Right.
When you decided that you had enough brewing in your head and you were ready to go, did you have some kind of plan, as in, “I'm going to achieve a certain number of words per day,” or per week, or whatever? Or, “I'm going to do this in ‘x' number of months.”? Did you have some kind of structure to your writing?
Holly
I did, and I did because I was pregnant. And so I thought to myself, “OK…” I was very newly pregnant when I wrote that first chapter, I was about eight or nine weeks or something. So I knew that I had this due date ahead of me and I wanted to finish my first draft by the time my baby came.
Valerie
Right.
Holly
Which I think turned out to be a really good timeframe for me. That was quite intensive working, because… and judging by my first few weeks I had decided that 4,000 words a week was a good goal to set myself. And I sometimes met that goal and sometimes… there was one week where I doubled that goal. When the story really started taking off, when I was really excited about it I just was so obsessed that I didn't want to do anything else, which is a good thing to do when you're pregnant because you get to sit down. I had a nice room in the front of my house with a window. It was very much what I wanted to be doing physically at that time as well, was to be writing and not kind of travelling the world on stages with my guitar.
So, yeah, that was my goal and that was my timeframe. And I managed it within a few weeks of her being born.
Valerie
Wow, awesome.
You mention in your bio your interest in small towns. And that setting plays a big part in Goodwood. Did the idea for the plot come from the setting or vice versa? Or, how did that evolve?
Holly
It kind of came from the setting in that I wanted to explore this notion of people being missing within a sort of a palpable community. And I liked the idea of having it just in the past slightly, like the early nineties is enough in the past, so the information is spreading through conversations, people overhearing things, people actually calling each other on a landline, a more organic spread of information. But, I wanted to sort of explore that thing where everybody knows everybody in this situation, so it's a not a kind of anonymous, big city story where you've got a policeman who has no idea who these people are, or you've got witnesses who have no idea who these people are. Like, I wanted it all to have that feeling that Goodwood has of having, I think as Jean's Nan says, “A high density of acquaintanceship.” I did quite a lot of research about crime in small towns.
It's really interesting I learnt a lot about that, and I think one thing that's quite striking for me was secrecy around crime in small communities, because generally perpetrators are very much known by victims of crime and by other people. There's a feeling of — I don't know if that's necessary — it could be out of fear, it could be trying to protect someone in your family or whatever. But, there tends to be more of a tradition of people keeping stuff to themselves and dealing with things in their own personal way. Violence, for example, being a legitimate way to work out personal problems that might not be as acceptable in bigger city landscapes, things like that, which I found really interesting to explore. And the idea of having missing people, to me, it's a terrifying thought.
But, I think Goodwood, as well, as it is kind of a low-key comedy in a lot of ways, because Jean's outlook on the world is quite wry and she's young so it sort of distills a lot of these more serious dark themes with her kind of idiosyncratic kind of humor, I guess.
Valerie
Did you know what was going to happen, like your story, when you started writing, or did it emerge while you were writing?
Holly
No, I didn't know what was going to happen, which was exciting. I think it's was really exciting for me. I read quite a lot about authors and whether they do or do not know what is happening. There's a lot of difference in the way people approach this.
I've read essays by authors discussing their process, and I was really heartened to discover that a lot of authors don't plot before they start, because that, to me, felt more like songwriting, the way that I way songs. That made me think, “Oh, maybe I could do this,” because I sort of thought if there was some rule that all authors would sit down and work out everything that's going to happen before they start it… I just didn't want to do that. Like, I wanted it to unfold for me. And I felt like that would be more enjoyable for me as a writer.
I think the pace of revelation is Goodwood makes it clear that it feels as if Jean is finding these things out as it's going along, which was really lovely for me, to sort of have these things unfold. And, for the information to get to her in so many different ways.
Valerie
So you've done a great job at capturing the personalities of various residents in Goodwood, did you know these characters in advance, or did some appear as you wrote them as well?
Holly
Oh they definitely appeared as I wrote. And I felt like they just kind of appeared weirdly fully formed, in most cases, because I wanted it to feel like a really three-dimensional populated town, even though it's a small one. But, the residents, I think, to me they felt very… they feel very alive in my mind. And they just kind of crop up and there they were and they had like a little backstory and I could feel what they look like and what they might say and how they might say it. And that was really fun. I mean that was just — yeah, it was the stuff of fiction, I mean…
Valerie
Did you have to kill many darlings, because of course when you're writing and you're not sure where you're going you can write yourself potentially down the wrong path or create characters that become irrelevant ultimately. Did you have to kill many darlings in the end?
Holly
Not so much in terms of entire characters, but definitely detail of characters, backstory of characters, scenes where people are interacting, that kind of stuff got paired back. With it still having, I think, a lot of sort of idiosyncratic charm, hopefully. But, yeah, definitely — there was definitely some darlings that were killed in my mind. But, I think that is a necessary thing.
Valerie
Tell us about your journey to publication, did you write the entire first draft before you sent it to, like, an agent, a publisher? Just tell us about how it all worked.
Holly
Well, when I was in the initial stages of writing my draft I didn't really tell anybody that I was still wanting to do it, because I just felt like I didn't want to be that person who says, “I'm writing a novel,” and then doesn't actually write the novel because it ends up being too hard, which I thought along the way… so many times I thought, “I don't know if I am going to finish this.” Like, I just wasn't sure.
Valerie
Yeah.
Holly
But, I mean I was determined on one hand, but also lacked confidence on the other. And switching into an entirely different medium I often thought, “Well, what am I doing?”
But, I did mention it my mum that I was working on it, and she is old friends from the '70s with a publisher called Richard Walsh, who's a consultative publisher at Allen & Unwin.
Valerie
Yes, he gave me my first break — one of my first breaks.
Holly
Oh, there you go.
Valerie
Back in the '90s.
Holly
He gave me my first break too. In that he said that he was willing to have a cup of coffee with me and discuss my ideas and my story. And so I said, “Yes, please.” At that point I had no idea how important he was.
Valerie
Oh, gosh. Yes.
Holly
And if I did I probably would have been more intimidated.
But, I just thought he was like my mum's old friend. Then only in the last — seriously, in the last few months… because when we talk we don't talk about his career, we talk about — we talked about Goodwood, really, the entire time and now we talk about other people's books, books we're enjoying. And he's very modest, so he didn't say, “Oh, look at these amazing things that I've done.” He never mentioned any of it. So, I later learnt that he has had a very —
Valerie
He is a doyen of Australian publishing.
Holly
Yeah, he's had this incredible life in publishing, which I'm glad that I didn't know at that point. But, anyway, we had coffee a couple of times. He asked if I could send him stuff that I was working on, and was just really encouraging of me. And, in that I'm forever grateful, because I feel like his encouragement really helped me to keep moving and times when I was feeling like I wasn't sure if it was good he would tell me, “This is really good, keep working.” And that really was invaluable to me, and probably, I think, to most writers to have someone feedback on your work in a positive way and just tell you to keep at it.
Valerie
Yep. Fantastic.
Holly
Yeah. And he also told me really straight up that he wouldn't bullshit me, because I was like, “Don't be nice just because you know my mum so many years.” He assured me that he wasn't in the business of doing that and that would be a waste of everyone's time. So, I said, “OK, that's good to know.”
I worked sort of with him, sending him… he got the entire first draft and he gave me some feedback. He didn't do any editing or like really in-depth stuff, but he just told me to put it in a drawer and leave it for at least three months, was his advice.
And I said, “OK,” because my baby was coming and I said, “Look…” He loved it, but he was also like, “Obviously it needs a second draft.” I said, “OK, I put it in the drawer and planned to go back to it in three months. And then ten months later, after I had gotten through that intensive period of being a new mother, I got it out again and worked really feverishly on finishing the second draft, which took several months.
Valerie
But on that second draft what did you — you parked it for ten months, what did you think in your head, like, what you were going to change and revise? How did you know what to change for your second draft?
Holly
First of all I printed it out, because Richard told me to print it out. He said, “You'll definitely need to read it off paper, not off a screen, because it totally changes the way you'll read it,” which I thought was really good advice.
I have another friend who's a novelist called Peggy Frew who wrote a beautiful book called Hope Farm. And she told me to print it out in a different font, because I would read it differently again, in a different font that I had been working with the entire time.
So, I did both of those things and it really was startling, because it didn't look familiar to me, it didn't look like the thing that I was used to working on. And because it had been ten months as well, and I had been through this really intense change in my life, I was really able to get a good amount of distance from it.
So, I sat down and read the whole thing from cover-to-cover and it was very obvious the things that were really working and very obviously the things that were really not working. And I thought, “OK…” you know? And so I just wrote notes as I went along.
Actually, no, the first time I read it I just read it and just had it in my mind. Then I read it all through again and wrote notes, because I kind of had known what was happening now. And then basically went through and applied all of my notes to writing a second draft, from, like, beginning to end in a chronological sense.
Valerie
Yep.
Holly
And there was pretty much not one printed page that didn't have scribbles on it, entire things crossed out or things circled. I really dissected it.
Then when the second draft was finished I showed that to Richard and there was some things that still were kind of standing out a little. And the third draft, which was quite close to the second, when that was entirely completed, which was relatively close to the finished book, that was when he took it to Allen & Unwin and said, “Here is a finished third draft.” That was at the point that I got a publishing contract and they said they wanted to publish it.
Valerie
Fantastic. So one of the things that stands out in the writing is your interest in unusual similes and metaphors. Now was that something that you worked on deliberately, or is that, like, just how the way you think?
Holly
I think it's just the way I think. I mean like in terms of my songwriting, I think that's probably always something that I have done, I think. And I am interested in kind of that free-association that the mind does. That's why I was interested in making a children's album, because I wanted to only exist in that kind of childlike free-associated world when I was writing lyrics, which is really fun.
But, in writing Goodwood, yeah, I think it is just the way think.
Valerie
You're successful as a songwriter and a musician and you're acclaimed, nominated for awards and all of that sort of stuff, this is totally different, even though it's still part of the creative process, writing a novel is obviously total different. Were you nervous about branching into a completely different area? It's not like you were just going to jazz, do you know what I mean?
Holly
I'd probably be more nervous to do jazz, to be honest.
No, look, I am still am. Like, I still feel that kind of apprehension about it, because it's only newly out and I — yeah, I feel that quite strongly. Although as it went along, as the process went along and I got to the point where I had finished it enough to be want it to be published and to be happy for it to be published, which I think any author in their first draft you feel you're never going to get it to that point. It was amazing to finally get to that point.
But, I still definitely have a lot of — yeah, I guess a lot of kind of nervous energy around people that I know that I know have good taste in book-reading, for example. I'm thinking, “Are you going to like it?” I mean on some of them I just know aren't because I know their taste well enough to know that Goodwood is not going to be good for them.
Valerie
Right.
Holly
But, there has been some surprise too, along the way, of people that I wouldn't have thought would connect with it who have, which is really — it's amazing. It's just a very different experience, especially because it's so solitary. The whole process was just incredibly solitary. To then bring that out into the world feels a lot more daunting than by the time your album's finished so many people have heard these songs, you know, that have worked with you along the way.
Valerie
Yes.
Holly
It's just a different thing.
Valerie
Right. And so do you think that having a profile makes it a little bit more difficult to try things?
Holly
Sometimes, because there might be some perceived kind of negativity against that, against people switching into something different. But, I think maybe as a songwriter that's — it's in the same realm in a way.
Valerie
Sort of.
Holly
And I have always been really driven by writing lyrics.
Valerie
Right, yes.
Holly
So maybe that helps.
Valerie
You wrote this while you were pregnant, was that your first child?
Holly
Yes, she is my first child.
Valerie
And so have you had more since?
Holly
No.
Valerie
Another book in the meantime?
Holly
No, I don't. She only just turned two, so no.
Valerie
I know that you've discussed the book, Motherhood and Creativity by Rachel Power. Who we've also interviewed in another episode. Do you find it difficult to balance your family life with that of being a writer and a musician now? All of the creative things that you want to pursue?
Holly
Yes, so difficult. It really is. Like, but I think it would just be the same for anyone that wanted to be working. You know, like it's… I guess I don't know if it really matters what kind of work it is. But, it definitely is difficult to find that balance.
I think, for me, it's when I feel like very inspired to work creatively, it comes kind of almost torturous to not be able to do that when you're feeling like you really want to do that.
Valerie Yes.
Holly
But, it also gives you this different way of looking at it, whereas when you do have the time it's so precious that I felt much more able to switch straight into that zone without kind of meandering around and putting things off and wandering up to the shops and doing a load of washing. And I do think I used to kind of procrastinate quite a lot during my creative time.
And I always felt that and was conscious of that, but couldn't quite change it in terms of songwriting. I would go through these intensely creative phases, but I wasn't someone who — you know when you read books about being creative, you’re supposed to everyday do some little activity or something. I just wasn't like that. But, writing this novel, like Goodwood was so consuming for me, but also it was so immersive and I was so obsessed with it that I felt like it gave me this whole new creative energy that I didn't realise I had in terms of like my discipline and output.
Valerie
So what are you working on now? What's next? Are you writing a second novel?
Holly
Yeah, I've started it.
Valerie
Wow.
Holly
I just read today over the first sort of few chapters that I've written.
Again, it's just finding the time, because I've just finished my record, which is going to come out in February. We're in the mixing phase of that at the moment, which is my least favourite phase of making a record, which involves making a lot of sort of finicky decisions, which I don't enjoy.
Yeah, it's just really finding the time. Like, I'm sort of longing to just be able to have endless time to write and it's just trying to create some of that time would be good.
Valerie
Is it set in a small town?
Holly
It is set in the town of Cedar Valley, which is mentioned a handful of times in Goodwood. It's a town south of Goodwood. So, it's a similar locale, and it's a year later, it's in 1993. And I'm very interested in that… just extending that kind of world. I wasn't ready to leave it and at this point it's a very different story. But… yes.
Valerie Is it a standalone story? Or is it part of this series?
Holly
I don't know at this point. As going into it I think, yes, it will be a standalone story, but I also… I do love the idea of trilogies or quartets. As a reader I really love that. Like, I loved… when I got into crime fiction I loved James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet. And I loved — there's four Billy Bob Holland novels by James Lee Burke, which form a kind of quartet of the same character, which I just love.
I think you often want to go back and keep reading those stories.
So, I'm not sure how related it will be, but there will definitely be some crossovers.
Valerie
And finally what are some tips for aspiring writers who want to get published one day? Perhaps you can think of, like, your top three tips or something.
Holly
Can I? My top three tips. Um…
Well, I would recommend reading other books or essays or whatever you can get your hands on from other writers about their process. I found that really fascinating, just because I didn't know where to start and I found that a really good way to begin.
I have a screenwriter friend in Melbourne who recommended On Writing by Stephen King, which is a really great kind of how-to manual, which I read very interestedly, cover-to-cover.
But, there's all kinds of stuff, writers writing about their writing process, which I think is a really good place to start. And then try everything until you work out what that is for you, what works for you.
Valerie
Yep.
Holly
Also, obviously having someone like Richard, someone who is in the industry to give honest feedback I think is really invaluable. And the other thing is just to keep going, you know, to keep writing and writing and writing, because it you've got to write a bunch of crap to get some good stuff sometimes.
I mean it's the same with songs, like I've just did so many songs that just worked. Like they were OK, but they weren't — I could just feel that they weren't probably going to make it onto the album, but I'm glad that I wrote them because when I came upon a song that I knew was going to go on the record then you can feel it, that kind of tingling feeling when you know that it's working. So, yeah, I guess to try not to lose confidence all the time and keep writing.
Valerie
Wonderful, great advice and on that note thank you so much for your time today, Holly.
In Episode 131 of So you want to be a writer: Vanity book awards and why you should think twice before buying one. Mistakes made by newbie authors and things you can learn from Man Booker Prize shortlisted authors. Win a pack of books to regift for Christmas (or keep all to yourself). Meet songwriter and novelist Holly Throsby. Plus: the Get Pocket app which makes saving things for later a whole lot easier, and much more!
Holly Throsby is a songwriter, musician and novelist from Sydney, Australia. She has released four critically acclaimed solo albums, a collection of original children’s songs, and an album as part of the band, Seeker Lover Keeper (with Sarah Blasko and Sally Seltmann).
