May's Digest: If Only All Books Were Like Toby the Scoby

In my fridge in my house right now is a thing called a SCOBY hotel. It looks, depending on who you ask, like pig skin floating in a jar (my daughter’s opinion), like something you’d find in a specimen jar in a back-alley science lab (my son’s opinion), or like something that might crawl out in the middle of the night and kill me (my opinion, obviously—I’m the over-dramatic writer!

If you know what a SCOBY is and why it needs a hotel, kudos to you. I’d never heard of one until a fortnight ago and, quite frankly, I could have happily lived my whole life without ever knowing what it was. SCOBYS are hot property; this woman joined a dating app and then scoured it, not for potential partners, but for someone who might give her a SCOBY, which she promptly named Toby. My husband bought his SCOBY off someone he’d never met before via Facebook Marketplace, which is fine if you’re buying, say, a wardrobe or a rose bush, but NOT IF YOU’RE BUYING SOMETHING YOU PLAN TO INGEST!!!

Yes, that’s right, the pig-skin-science-experiment-potential-murderer is being used to ferment kombucha, which my husband is excited about drinking. Hopefully his excitement pays off and the kombucha doesn’t give him food poisoning or kill him. Hopefully the SCOBY dies first. Hopefully I never have to open the fridge and see that bizarre looking thing floating around in a jar for much longer. I’ll update you next month, by which time I’m praying the ghost of SCOBY will be well and truly in our past.

Say hello to the unnamed Scoby now residing in my fridge

The reason I’m writing about Scobys is because I’ve been writing a new book. And I’d prefer to do just about anything other than write the first 20,000-30,000 words of a first draft, including document my perilous adventures with an unnamed Scoby. I knocked out those three hundred words about the Scoby in about half an hour. Whereas, over this past month, it’s been taking me almost all day to write three hundred words of my book.

I don’t know if I’ve forgotten quite how hard it is, because it’s been almost two years since I started a first draft, or if this one is especially hard. Staying focussed has been almost impossible for me and while I could look for excuses, maybe blame the weekend’s solar storm for disrupting the atmosphere(!), the truth is, as a writer, you just have to make yourself sit with the work and write enough words that you know a little more about the story and the characters, and then the focus usually comes.

And finally, this week, my lagging faith in the magic of writing was rewarded. A breakthrough happened. My fingers are now flying over the keyboard and at last I would far rather write about my characters than alien creatures in glass jars.

This time, it took about 38,000 words before the magic happened. What caused the switch? A couple of things, which I’ll write about in next month’s first post for paid subscribers, because I think it’s really interesting to see that creativity doesn’t just happen, and that we can occasionally prompt creativity—we just have to figure out what kindling sets this particular story to burning.

In my experience it’s a handful of things (for me anyway), some of which I need to stumble upon and some of which I have to hand, but that I just need to remember to use, or to use at the right time, I’m not quite sure which!

Until then, here’s a post I wrote about the self-doubt and the difficulties of starting to write a new book (yes, I can get a Taylor Swift link in just about anywhere!):

The Getaway Car (Ann Patchett’s, Not Taylor Swift’s!)

A Writing Retreat Of My Own

This all means that I’ll be a very unexciting author for the next few months, buried deep in my writing cave, hoping to get to the end of a first draft of this book by the end of the school term. I’ve probably said before that I try to write my first drafts very quickly, but then I spend much more time rewriting, generally doing at least 4-5 full drafts of a book, plus lots of smaller revisions.

To help with the process, I’m heading off to our holiday house by the sea in a fortnight to spend five solid days just writing. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you can live in the world of a book without interruption for a short time. I’ll eat when I feel like it, will have nothing to do other than write and nobody else to think about. I don’t recommend being selfish often, but occasionally it’s good for the creative soul to get away from everything and everyone except the work.

I’ll let you know how that goes in a future newsletter!

Pretty notebooks are necessary for first drafts!!

The Mademoiselle Alliance: Update

I sent the first round of developmental edits for The Mademoiselle Alliance to my publisher about six weeks ago and she’s come back to me to say, “I really can’t say enough how impressed I am with your work and the reading experience it’s created for the reader.” Yes, this is the kind of feedback you dream of getting from your editor, and I did dance around my office for a minute or two after reading that email.

It means that this next round of edits will be reasonably light, and I’m feeling confident that I’ll be able to tackle them, which is always a nice way to feel when heading into an edit.

I’ve also seen a rough sketch from the illustrator that my American publisher has commissioned to create the cover for The Mademoiselle Alliance. It’s very exciting! There’s still quite a lot of work to do and I don’t think I’ll be revealing any covers for a few weeks yet, but as soon as I do have a cover in my hands, my subscribers here will be the first to see it and to celebrate it. My Australian publisher has also briefed the cover designer here and we’re looking at a slightly different direction for the cover this time. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with too!

June and August: I’m Teaching Some Workshops

I’ve been approached by Wanneroo Library and by

Writing WA's Substack

to run some writing workshops, which are coming up in June and August. Here are the details:

The Big Reveal: Tension in Narrative Fiction

27 June, 10am-1pm, State Library of WA

Turning points, tension, drama and conflict: all writers are told their stories should have these ingredients, that there is no story without conflict and that all drama is conflict, but what does any of that really mean? And what if some of that advice is misleading? In this workshop, Natasha Lester will be using her experience as a writer of eight historical and two literary novels to discuss what narrative tension is, and why the focus on turning points, conflict and drama can sometimes lead to a flat story. We'll look at how narrative tension is the key to creating a deep impact upon the reader, how it's different to drama and conflict, and how it can transform your story.

Writing Your Novel

24 and 31 August, 12pm-4pm, Wanneroo Library

These two workshops are focussed on beginning to emerging writers. We’ll cover everything you need to get started on writing your novel, or to progress a manuscript you’ve already begun. Specifically, Natasha will discuss honing your story idea, the intricacies of voice and point of view, creating memorable characters, the elements of scenes including action, dialogue, thought and description, as well as writing process and getting the words onto the page.

Reading (and Listening) Recommendation

I recently wrote a post for my paid subscribers about attending a writing course in Brisbane run by Booker Prize shortlistee Claire Keegan.

The Manuscript Versus the Market

I also recently raved about her book, Small Things Like These, but I think So Late in the Day might be even better, and a friend alerted me to the fact that you can hear Claire read the whole story aloud on the New Yorker Fiction podcast, which is absolutely the best way to experience the story.

She’s a beautiful reader and hearing what words and phrases she emphasises, where she pauses, and even her accent adds so much. The other bonus is that George Saunders, whose Story Club Substack you all know I love, discusses the story at the end after Claire has finished reading it. It’s a brilliant episode, so if you find yourself with a spare hour to listen and reflect, then please give it a try.

Artist Dates

Those of you who’ve been following Bijoux for a while will know that I read The Artist’s Way for the first time last year and was very surprised when I became quite a convert to some of its methods, like the morning pages. I was thinking about this during the week because I’ve had three lovely catch ups with writers, one a dinner with five other writers, one a one-on-one chat with a regular meet-up buddy, and another dinner with two writers.

There truly is nothing more reviving than talking to other writers about writing and all its ups and downs. The dinner with the five writers reminded me that yes, first drafts are painful for almost everyone, that I was being normal and I should stop berating myself for finding it so hard to write anything that felt decent. The other two catch ups reminded me how solitary writing can be and how good it is for us to get out of our own heads for a couple of hours every now and again to speak to real people, rather than ones we’ve made up!

The point of all this is I was trying to convince myself that these three catch-ups counted as the artist date part of The Artist’s Way. This is where you’re supposed to make a weekly appointment with just yourself to go out and do something that refreshes and recharges you. I’m hopeless at these; I never do them. And of course I can’t count any of those three meet-ups because they weren’t solitary activities.

Maybe the reason I’m so bad at doing the artist dates is because whenever I think, oh, maybe I should do that now, I don’t know what to do! I feel like I need a list of activities that I can scan over, then I can pick one that suits me on that particular day. The process of having to come up with something on the spot seems to be a huge barrier for me, so I want to remove that and I’m asking for your help. What things can I put on the list? So far I have:

• go for a walk on the beach

• visit an antiques or vintage shop

• go to a bookshop

• go to a nursery and buy some indoor plants to brighten up the house

But I’d also like some things that don’t tempt me to spend any money! All suggestions welcome. Please jot them down in the comments. I might even publish my master list of ideas in the next Monthly Digest!

Have a Great Week!

That’s all for now! I’ll be back in the inboxes of paid subscribers in the last week of May with the monthly Magazine. Otherwise, have a great month and wish me luck with my drafting!