Gail Aldwin's Blog, page 5

How true crime podcasts inspired ‘The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell’ a psychological suspense mystery

In December 2022, Chris Dawson, a former PE teacher and rugby league star was sentenced to 24 years in prison by the New South Wales Supreme Court in Australia for the murder of his wife decades earlier. Although Lynette’s body has never been found, The Teacher’s Pet podcast shone a light on Chris Dawson’s sordid affair with a pupil from the school where he worked, the obsession with her that followed, and the disappearance of his wife. Release of the podcast hosted by Hedley Thomas in 2018 finally persuaded police to reinvestigate the case and charges were brought. 

I became hooked on true crime podcasts in early 2020. At the time, I was living in a remote town in the north west of Uganda and volunteering at a nearby refugee settlement. The power supply was very unreliable and cuts happened most evenings at eight o’clock. With no light to read by, I was often in bed and under my mosquito net around the same time. The nights were long and hot so I spent many hours listening to the podcasts I’d downloaded at a local hotel. I developed a fascination for crime stories from around the world but it was the series podcasts that allowed me to tune into the twists and turns that created crucial listening. It occurred to me I could learn something from the way podcasts were put together that could inform the plotting of my own fictional writing. 

Prior to leaving for Uganda, I had established a regular writing routine which meant getting up early to focus on a writing project before the working day started. I hoped to continue this routine while living overseas but the demands of volunteering on the settlement and the inconsistent electricity supply put an end to that ambition. Power in the town kicked in for about 40 minutes at seven in the morning, and at that time there was always a rush to prepare for the day ahead where I worked with colleagues to improve the social and emotional wellbeing of refugee families fleeing conflict in South Sudan. It was challenging and rewarding work which left little headspace for creativity. Instead, I became absorbed in the refugee stories I collected as part of my work, and the podcasts I listened to each evening. With a wealth of material stored away, I was empowered to write again following repatriation to my home in Dorset, UK due to Covid-19. 

Bubbling at the back of my mind was a novel which used a podcast as a mechanism to investigate an unsolved crime. I read a couple of books which had used this device including Sadie by Courtney Summers and decided to give it a try. The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is a psychological suspense mystery which will be published by Bloodhound Books on 3 July 2023. It’s the story of a journalist who is made redundant and rediscovers her purpose by developing a true crime podcast into the 1979 disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl from a school they both attended. The shambolic police investigation came to nothing but rumours continue to circulate in the West Country town. Early podcast episodes draw large audiences and when an unexpected source comes forward, vitriolic accusations against a teacher gain momentum. 

The many and varied podcasts I’ve listened to have acted as research in creating my entirely fictional text. Gems of detail, serendipitous findings and interviewing techniques have added colour and texture to the story. The real-life motivation to commit crimes has caused me to reflect on what drives my characters. Podcasts detailing cases in the seventies and eighties have helped me to reimagine the norms of the time and give voice to my protagonist. The setting, the characters and the plot are all very different from the events in The Teacher’s Pet and may be seen as a counterpoint to the crime Chris Dawson committed. To find out more, you’ll have to wait until publication of The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell on 3 July 2023. In the meantime, you might like to listen to a few true crime podcasts. If so, I recommend the following: 

Finding Cleo is hosted by CBC’s Connie Walker. She follows a search for a young Cree girl who was taken by child welfare workers in the 1970s as part of a programme of adoption into white families across North America. 

Sweet Bobby is a podcast series from Tortoise which investigates a case of catfishing, where a person assumes a fake social media identity to lure a woman into an online relationship. 

Fake Heiress from the BBC documents the highpoints and pitfalls of Anna Delvey’s daring attempt to con New York society into believing she is about to inherit millions. 

Paradise from the BBC gets to the truth of missing couple Peta and Chris who left home in 1978 to travel the world but came to an untimely end off the coast of Guatemala. 

The Teacher’s Trial is created by journalist Hedley Thomas of The Australian and follows the earlier series The Teacher’s Pet by reporting on events at Chris Dawson’s trial.

(This post was first published by Women Writers, Women’s Books on 10 March 2023.)

Interview with Barbara Conrey

It is my pleasure to welcome Barbara Conrey to The Writer is a Lonely Hunter once again. We first met online in 2021 when she was kind enough to answer questions about her debut novel Nowhere Near Goodbye. (You can find the piece here.) She now has a splendid second novel released with the evocative title My Secret to Keep. This fascinating story made me wonder about Barbara’s writing process which she explains in this author interview. But first, here is some information about the novel:

When Maggie Bryan works up the nerve to tell her parents she’s pregnant, they immediately disown her. Later that night, her boyfriend is killed. In desperation, she turns to her brother, Sam. Against his wife’s wishes, Sam brings Maggie to his home in rural Pennsylvania.

While Maggie awaits the birth of her child and navigates the tension in her new home, she decides to finish high school. There, she meets Anne Phillips, a volunteer educator and full-time architect. Over time, Maggie becomes drawn to Anne in ways she doesn’t understand, but she knows enough to keep her feelings hidden.

After a devastating loss, Maggie tries to move on, but secrets and betrayals keep her from living her fullest life. Beginning in the late 1940s and spanning decades, My Secret to Keep portrays a woman at war with society, her family, and herself.

And now to the questions:

How much planning was involved in writing a novel that spans decades?

Writing a novel that spans decades is eerily similar to those blasted reading math problems when I was in grade school – and I wasn’t very good at them then, either. So there’s a lot of counting forwards and backward and practically using my fingers to ensure I’ve got my timelines right.

The blurb describes Maggie as a woman at war with society, her family, and herself. This so clearly describes the protagonist, and yet she achieves acceptance too. Did you know what would happen at the end of the novel when you started writing the book?

The ending of this book nearly did me in because Maggie only achieved acceptance, and by this, I mean accepting herself after she lost Anne. I was devastated.

You cleverly dovetailed the latter part of the novel with the story in your debut, Nowhere Near Goodbye. This gave me the chance to reconnect with Kate’s story. Was this your intention?

Most people don’t know that once Nowhere Near Goodbye was under contract, I had to rewrite a good half of the book. I had originally submitted it as a two-person point of view, with one being Emma and the other being Kate. My editor convinced me I could make a stronger story by changing to a single point of view, Emma’s.

So I had all this material. Some of it I used in Maggie’s character in Nowhere Near Goodbye; don’t forget, I had to rewrite a good part of the book, so I fleshed out Maggie’s role, and when I did that, Maggie became much more interesting. That’s when I started thinking about a prequel to Nowhere Near Goodbye to tell Maggie’s story.

Maggie’s early trauma and rejection by her parents create ripples throughout her life. Do you consciously draw upon psychology to create your characters?

Absolutely! I love broken characters and hope they can find it in themselves to overcome their histories and heal. My secret career has always been psychology.

The love between Maggie and Anne is deftly handled and shows their differing attitudes to single-sex relationships. How important was it to keep tension between these two characters?

I wrote Anne and Maggie as opposing forces in the same body. Maggie desperately wanted to be like Anne. She loved and admired her but could never forgo what people thought of her. And Anne simply did not care. Anne was a good, generous, kind, intelligent, and motivated person. Talented. And she loved who she loved without guilt or regret. That alone created tons of tension between the two women.

The dedication is to your mother; in it, you say, ‘We rarely saw eye-to-eye, but then we did.’ It sounds like there’s a story behind these words. Are you willing to share?

There are many stories behind my dedication. My mother and I were like oil and water, but in the end, at the very end, she accepted me as who I am. And I accepted her as who she was. We had a complicated relationship that somehow eased into ‘acceptance.’

What’s next for you, Barbara?

Oh! I thought you’d never ask! I’m just finishing up my third book, tentatively titled Always Ours. It’s a story about a wife who wants to be a surrogate and her husband who thinks this is a wonderful idea but then changes his mind.

I always write on the dark side, so as I finish getting this ready to hand off to my agent, I’m at that stage where I sometimes think this is the best thing I’ve written and other times think it’s rubbish.

Thank you so much for answering my questions, Barbara. I love the title of your new work and I very much look forward to reading it.

About Barbara Conrey

Barbara Conrey is the USA Today Bestselling author of Nowhere Near Goodbye, her debut, published on August 4, 2020, by Red Adept Publishing. Liza Fleissig represents her at the Liza Royce Agency. Her sophomore novel, My Secret to Keep, released on August 23, 2022.

Barbara is an active member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Women’s National Book Association, and Author Talk Network. She also moderates the online book club for the Facebook Group Bookish Road Trip.

Travel is her passion, along with reading, writing, hiking, and exploring antique shops. Her greatest love is Miss Molly, her rescue beagle. Barbara lives in Pennsylvania, close to family and friends.

If you’d like to know more about me and my books you can find me at www.barbaraconreyauthor.com

Purchase links: Amazon UK, Amazon USA

Find Barbara on social media

www.facebook.com/baconreywriter

www.instagram.com/barbaraconrey/

www.Twitter.com/barbaraconrey

Barbara Conrey Books – BookBub

You used how many titles?

Photo credit: Nick Morrison, Unsplash

My publishing contract with Bloodhound Books for The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell indicates the title is a working title. It also says the publisher will consult on the proposed cover. Contract vetting by the Society of Authors, suggested I might like to strengthen the consultation right on the cover (and title) to a right of approval. This wasn’t something I cared about. After all, the title had changed four times since I started drafting the novel in 2021. Here’s the story of how the title changed:

Title One: Little Swot

In the 1979 storyline, Carolyn persuades her mother to invest in tutoring which provides an opportunity for close contact with the teacher of her dreams, Mr Simmons. But when I told my husband about Little Swot, he assumed the title referred to a boy.

Title Two: Extra Lessons

Still on the theme of tutoring, I changed to a title which I thought had a nuanced double meaning. (I did check on Amazon that it hadn’t been used for erotic fiction!) Although as time wore on, I began to feel this title wasn’t quite right.

Title Three: The Girl and the Tutor

I attended an online masterclass in December 2021 offered by Writers & Artists. It was called How to Write a Book That Sells and delivered by bestselling author Angela Clarke. The content focused on the submission package (opening chapters, synopsis and cover letter) and was aimed at developing this in order to acquire literary representation. One of the things Angela emphasised was the need to pay attention to supermarket bookshelves. It’s Angela’s contention that busy women doing the weekly shop want to grab a book similar to one they’ve enjoyed before. With the advent of Gone Girl and Girl on a Train, many similar titles followed. This is how I settled on the new title of The Girl and the Tutor and felt relieved that the girl in my title is actually a girl of sixteen years – and not a woman as in many of the other books. My husband still grumbled and said the title was too on the nose.

Title Four: The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell

In the latter stages of my querying journey, I won feedback on my submission package during a fundraising auction for Ukraine. The editor of a small press gave helpful advice to improve all aspects of the package and suggested a new title. She said, The Girl is good, but The Girl and The Tutor is not great. Maybe just something generic like The Lost Girl or The Missing Girl or The Cold Case or The Abduction of Carolyn Russell. So, I played around with these ideas and settled on The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell.

I was prepared for the title to change again on publication by Bloodhound Books but the team were happy with it. Phew!

How important are titles to you in choosing a book to read or giving a name to your creative work?

The next stage of working on my manuscript

The copyedits for The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell were returned to me recently. I had a fortnight to go through them and found this was just about long enough to complete the changes needed. Here are three things I was reminded about along the way:

Compound words

How could I have got so many compound words wrong? Take two separate words and combine them to make a new word with a different meaning. When you put the nouns post + box together, created is the red box where we post our letters, a postbox. Sounds simple, right?

One look at this page on Grammarly, and I realise it can be more complicated.

Ellipsis…

Who knew a space either side of those three little dots indicates missing text? (I did but somehow forgot.) It’s only when the three dots are attached to a word that the trailing off of speech is intended. And don’t get me started on dashes– these show where dialogue is interrupted.

But

I had used the word but 753 times in the manuscript. I decided this was rather too many and weeded out 300 of them. Often, the word was unnecessary (particularly at the start of a sentence) and the rest I changed to except, although etc. Other high usage words included once, only and with. However did I cope before the find and replace facility?

The next stage of the editing process is proofreading. Who knows what terrible errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar this will flag up. Wish me luck!

A sojourn in Prague

I was pleased to spend a few days in Prague with my family at the end of March. The trip was originally planned for 2020 but postponed due to Covid. We stayed in a central location and wandered the cobbled streets until my feet cried for mercy. It was good travelling as a group because we each had different things we wanted to see. All set for a bit of endurance sightseeing, we tackled the Prague castle complex on the first day. Other highlights included watching the astronomical clock strike the hour, the view over Prague from the Petřín lookout tower, the Jewish quarter and photos in front of the Lennon wall.

Now I’m back at home, I’m finding it difficult to shoehorn writing into my routine as I’m preoccupied with the ill health of family members. On several days we’ve been on whirlwind tours of hospitals in the South-West including Barnstable, Exeter and Clevedon. It’s probably a good thing that an elderly aunt has moved into a care home but that presents another raft of responsibilities with the sale of her property to fund her stay. My mother-in-law remains in a cottage hospital while my sister is still undiagnosed after six weeks. I can’t fault the care offered by staff but the cogs of the NHS turn terribly slowly.

While I’m not actually doing much writing, I am making plans for the launch of The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell in July. There was a very helpful thread on Twitter from Dahlia Adler for authors who want to promote their books but have no idea how. If you’re in this boat, click here for some sound advice. Otherwise, as the holidays approach, I send you all best wishes.

Latest events

It was International Women’s Day on Wednesday 8 March 2023, a global event which celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. As my contribution to the day, I joined a group of readers and writers at Bridport Library where there was a series of events including a writerly quiz, a lucky dip and talks by local writers. I was delighted to be interviewed by Sarah Scally who asked some searching questions about This Much Huxley Knows. Also on the programme was Nikki May who enjoyed phenomenal and rapid success with her novel Wahala, which tells the story of three Anglo-Nigerian best friends and a fourth woman who infiltrates their group. (I have the novel on order from Dorset Libraries and will watch out for the TV series coming on the BBC.) It was refreshing to hear about her writing journey where it took five years to become an overnight success.

In other news, I wrote a piece about the inspiration that led me to write The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell which appears on Women Writers, Women’s Books. Find out here how I spent time in Uganda listening to true crime podcasts and the ways in which they influenced my writing. The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell, a psychological mystery, will be released by Bloodhound Books in July 2023.

What influences you to read or write a book?

Vaughan Town at el Barco de Ávila

It has long been an ambition to visit Ávila, close to Madrid in Spain. I love walled cities such as York and Ávila is equally impressive. ( I love to see the housing inside the walls.) When I realised it was possible to volunteer with Vaughan Town at el Barco de Ávila (a town not too far from Ávila), this killed two birds with one stone.

Vaughan Town is an organisation which recruits native English speaking volunteers to improve the spoken language skills of Spanish business people. Participants experience English emersion with over eighty hours of contact. As volunteers, David and I got to stay in a four-star hotel for six nights with all meals provided (three courses with wine at lunch and dinner plus a sumptuous breakfast). Volunteers came from Canada, England, the USA and Ireland. It was a unique opportunity to meet interesting people and converse with members of this intergenerational group. As well as one-to-ones, there were scripted telephone calls, group activities, presentations and comedy sketches. It was a rewarding experience to be part of the journey that saw participants develop their skills and fluency in using spoken English. I thoroughly recommend volunteering.

I’m here as the narrator in Cinderella (if you can see behind David’s head).

Now I’m back at home again, there’s lots of catching up to do. I’m continuing to work on a new novel set on a tropical island which focuses on the tension between affluent holidaymakers and local communities. The Vaughan Town experience has given me ideas for another story, so you could call it research.

But, the new priority for this week is getting in a practice run in preparation for the Weymouth half marathon on 19 March. Wish me luck!

Self belief and Writing

I volunteer with the Women Writers Network and help to bring attention to women writers by managing the Twitter account for one week every couple of months. (It’s worth following the Twitter account where a writerly tweetchat is held on the third Thursday of each month at 6pm GMT. The next topic is Women Writers as Observers on 16 February 2023.) In order to engage with readers and writers, I frequently pose questions to develop connections and on one occasion came up with the following: how important is self-belief to writers? It was clear from the tweets that came back, many women writers think self-belief is highly important or even crucial to a writer. How else do writers develop the stamina and commitment to bring a project to its conclusion? The suggestion took me by surprise. Belief in the work had always been at the top of my list ­– the feeling that my stories are important and I’m the only one who came write them. But, I was forced to reflect. If self-belief is necessary for a writer, how do I get some?

Photo: Unsplash

At the time I began wrestling with questions over self-belief, I was also researching business women to flesh out a character I wanted for a story. From an advertisement on social media, I came across Cait Scudder, who according to her Instagram profile is a Multi-7 Fig Business Mentor, Entrepreneur. She sounded like just the sort of person to draw from in order to populate my story. Yet, as I began to learn more about her, I bought into her philosophy for supporting business women and think her approaches have helped me to generate self-belief as a writer. Here are a few of her takeaways:

get yourself in a room with other people who are slightly ahead of you on their journey and draw from their energy and success. This is where a carefully selected writing group can play an important role.Attune with the inner power of your creative energy to move forward with your next project. Could this relate to embodying our characters and settings?Letters after your name, quantity of sales, number of five-star reviews are not important. It’s developing a sense of self that will power your writing.

If these ideas chime with you, here are some ideas (drawn from Cait’s advice) on developing creative energy:

Focus on the quality of your enquiryTune into your desire for impactExcavate your inner depthsSurrender to life experiencesHarness unacknowledged truths

Of course, it isn’t easy to do any of the above alone, and that’s why Cait works as a business mentor to others. But she does offer some useful questions for self-reflection which can help us as writers:

Who am I here to serve?How do I want to serve?What is my purpose?What is wanting to emerge?

During the time I’ve been processing these ideas, it has occurred to me that the benefits of improved self-belief can help draw others to me. There’s something magnetising about a woman who exudes her power – this may be the reason I keep returning to Cait’s account – and not simply for research purposes. Wouldn’t it be great to turn the whole publishing conundrum on its head? Rather than chasing publishing opportunities – is it possible to draw attention to ourselves by promoting who we are and sharing the power of our stories?

This piece featured on Deanna Jackson’s blog on 3 February 2023.

Travels without my Laptop

I’m recently back from a trip to Cambodia where I met my Australian friend and we visited the amazing temples at Angkor Wat. After much consideration, I decided to make the journey without my laptop. The timing was good. I’d sent off my latest manuscript to beta readers at the end of December with the expectation I’d hear back from them after a month. The deadline for submitting my third novel The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is on 1 February, and I figured I’d have enough time for a final read-though on return from Cambodia. Yet it was with some trepidation that I set off without my trusty laptop.

There was lots to distract me during the fortnight I was away. We stopped in Phnom Penh for four nights and spent many hours walking around the city. It’s much less frenetic than Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and I could actually cross the road unaided. (I once had to cling to the backpack of a Vietnamese schoolboy to safely cross a busy junction.) Phnom Penh hardly feels like a capital although there is a large business area. We stuck to the streets lined with colonial buildings which were a short distance from our hotel situated near to the royal palace.

Royal Palace Central market Train station

One day we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Visiting the S-21 interrogation and detention centre was a sobering experience. Housed in a former school and it was incongruous enjoying shade in the playground offered by frangipani trees knowing the atrocities that went on in the classrooms. Upon confession, victims of torture where then transferred to be murdered at the nearby killing fields of the Khmer Rouge regime. It seemed disrespectful to take photos but you can learn more about the museum here.

I must admit to having itchy fingers for the first few days of my trip but used the notes on my mobile to jot down any important things that came to mind. The next stop on our journey was in Battambang where we stayed at a delightful resort hotel with a pool. Breakfast and dinner were served beside a lake and excursions included an outing on bicycles and a trip into the countryside on a bamboo railway. Getting off the railway line quickly became a necessity when the scheduled train from Phnom Penh thundered through.

Towel art Breakfast Bamboo railway

By the time we reached Siem Reap, I wondered why I’d hesitated to travel without my laptop. There was far too much to absorb during visits to the temples to be bothered with writing anything down.

Angkor Wat Bayon faces Jungle encroaches Ta Promh

The vast scale of Angkor Wat means it could take days to see all the fine details. I just had a glimpse of its magic then moved on to other temples, completely different from the first.

I must admit during the ten-hour layover at Singapore, I could’ve done with my laptop for company. Instead, I spent time wandering the complex and enjoyed the butterfly garden that features as part of Changi airport’s attractions.

Now that I’m back at home and recovered from jet lag, the final check of the manuscript for submission is calling me.

Have you ever travelled without a laptop? How did you find the experience?

Who do you write like?

Several years ago I published a piece called Find out which published author your writing style resembles which has turned out to be one of my most viewed posts. It gave a link to I Write Like where you can paste an excerpt of your writing for the website to analyse. (The facility is now also available as an app.) It turned out the piece I entered used similar word choices and was written in a similar style to Chuck Palahniuk. I’ve always been rather pleased at the match and wondered if my writing had changed over time to reflect another author.

Today, I entered the opening page from The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell which will be published by Bloodhound Books in July 2023. This time the excerpt matched with Raymond Chandler. To say I’m chuffed is an understatement. In these days between Christmas and New Year, you might find yourself at a loose end, so why not give it a go? I’d love to know who you’re matched with.