The Creative Myth
The Creative Myth
Ashley Kalagian Blunt - The 'Write' Reasons for the Wrong Book
In today's episode, we chat to our very first author, Ashley Kalagian Blunt
She is the author of two books, How to Be Australian, a memoir, and My Name Is Revenge, a thriller novella and collected essays. My Name is Revenge was longlisted for 2020 Davitt Awards, shortlisted for the 2019 Woollahra Digital Literary Awards, and a finalist in the 2018 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award.
Ashley’s writing appears in Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, Overland, Australian Book Review, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, the Big Issue, Openbook, Westerly, Kill Your Darlings, the Canberra Times, and more.
She is the co-host of James and Ashley Stay at Home, a podcast about writing, creativity and health, and was a judge in the 2020 Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship.
Her Armenian travel memoir was shortlisted for the 2018 Impress Prize for New Writers and the 2017 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, and received a 2015 Varuna PIP residency.
Ashley is an award-winning speaker. She’s appeared at Sydney Writers’ Festival, Story Club and the National Young Writers’ Festival, and is a Moth StorySLAM winner.
She also teaches a range of creative writing courses and mentors emerging writers. She has a decade of experience in teaching and curriculum design, working with children and adults, and has a Master of Research in creative writing.
Before moving to Australia, Ashley lived and worked in Canada, South Korea, Peru and Mexico.
Podcast - James and Ashley Stay at Home: https://bit.ly/3JUypeg
My Name is Revenge: https://bit.ly/3JVJk7C
How to Be Australian: https://bit.ly/36X4u6T
Today on the creative myth, we talk to Ashley Callahan blunt. She is the amazing author behind two books, my name is revenge and how to be Australian. Aside from publishing two books, she's a master host of literary titles and awards travelled widely and lived largely. Currently, she's working on a third book. He also co hosts the James and Ashley stay at home podcast, and workshops, creative writing techniques, when she's feeling extra. being our first author on the creative myth, we have a tonne of things to talk about, like where to start when you're writing your first book, How to deal with ego and professional jealousy, and how to stay true to your goals in a market that demands something else from you. Today's episode is just full of gems. So without further ado, let's get started.
Unknown:All right, welcome, Ashley, to the creative myth. Thank you so much for having me this morning.
Sirjana Singh:We have read so much about you. We are so intrigued. Yeah, we have so many questions. Are you ready? You haven't had coffee?
Unknown:We have a real life author, like I've always wanted to know, for a long, long time, you know, what goes? What's the creative process behind like a book, where you start? We're going to get into some of that pretty soon.
Sirjana Singh:I want to know about some common traps for aspiring authors. That would be lovely to know. And also what process goes behind the writing process. You know, the whole writing process? Yeah. The steps behind the writing process. Anyways, we have so many things to discuss. Wow, you wrote a memoir? I did. It's called How to be Australian. Yes,
Unknown:it is. I'm originally from Canada. So I we moved here with my husband. I in 2011. I'm in Sydney right now. I've been in Sydney for the past 11 years. We moved here on a one year visa. And I was certain because it took me eight years to convince him to leave Canada. And the deal was that he would go somewhere English speaking for a year. And I just have that experience of living outside the country because I had gone and I lived in South Korea, and I'd lived in Mexico and I lived in Peru. So I just wanted him to have the experience of a different way of looking at the world. So I was sure we were going to do the one year and then we were going to turn around and we're going to go right back to Canada. And we're still, we're still here. So that's the that's where the memoir came from is that at the end of that year when he said oh, you know, I've got a really great job. And I really like it here like the weather's great. Let's stay. I was sort of like, wait, what now? Do you know how far we are from like everyday? Not quite, as far as just thinking that not quite that far. Yeah.
Sirjana Singh:So that realisation set in and you were like wait. Okay.
Unknown:And I think quite interesting, I started writing memoir, because at that time, it felt so much more approachable than writing a novel. Because you have all the raw material, right? You're drawing, you're drawing from real things that happened. So you don't have to it's when you when you start a novel, it's kind of infinite, you can go go anywhere with it. And that's that freedom is a bit too scary. So with a memoir, you've got you've got your clay, now you just need to shape it. And so I learned, I learned about the writing process through memoir.
Sirjana Singh:So now that sounds interesting, but I feel like like a person who has never written a book, I just want to know where how, where were you sitting? How does the idea spark in your head that I want to write a memoir? Where does that come from? Was it is it somebody in your family who has written way
Unknown:back? Yeah, likes to say, oh, so okay, the memoir was not my starting point at all. I think I always wanted to write I'm one of those people. You know, I loved reading as a kid, I grew up in a military family. So we moved around a lot. And I didn't you know, I was terrible at making friends as a child. So books, books were a refuge for me. And I think when you're really avid reader, for some people, it's sort of like a conversation and you want to be part of the conversation and writing is is the way to do that. So I started I mean, I had a little, you know, in our school, we had a school compilation when I was in grade one, and I had a little story published in that. And that was like, a big thing for me is like, Oh, I'm a writer, which actually was really bad because I think I got as a kid, I developed some ego around that. And I actually had to break that down as an adult, I had to realise like, oh, no, actually, you're not a writer, and you have no idea what you're doing, and you need to start from scratch. So I wrote a couple novels when I was in, you know, high school and university and they were horrendously bad, like so bad. And I at least I could recognise that I was like, Oh, I don't think I don't think I'm going to send these to anybody. So then, and then I didn't write for a number of years, I was living abroad, travelling around, I was learning to speak Spanish. And then I moved back to Canada and that was when I was kind of like, okay, You know, I mean, you know, 26 times start taking things seriously, I'm going to write a book and so that I actually was really, really interested in had been for years in my great grandparents were survivors of the Armenian genocide. And when I learned about that, as a teenager, I was like, way, how did I not know about this? Like, you know, it's sort of like this huge event that happened in world history that I just have no understanding of, even though it happened to my own family. And then secondly, like, what is the impact of that on the community, and, and, and even on me as an individual, and so I spent, that's where I started. And so I wrote this book, I spent, you know, years, I did a whole bunch of interviews with my Armenian family in Canada. And then I travelled to Armenia, I spent two months there. I did a master's degree in dashboard and cultural identity I interviewed, you know, a few dozen people here in the Sydney diaspora. I had all this raw material, like 140, interviews, you know, 1000s of photographs. And I said, Okay, now I'm just gonna sit down and write it as a book. And that took me years, because again, I didn't know anything, but at least at that time, I knew I didn't know anything. So I started taking classes I started, you know, getting help, I got feedback from established writers. But you know, and here's the here's the thing, like, just like little things that you don't know that you don't know. So I didn't know how long a book should be. And I didn't even know, you know, maybe I could Google that. So I wrote 200,000 words in my first draft, cuz I was just like, whoa, well, these interviews are all interesting to me. So I guess I'll write about all of them. Yeah. Like, generally, the average length for like a first book is around 80,000 words. So I've written like 2.5 times the length that I shut up.
Sirjana Singh:Whoa. So
Unknown:it sounds a little bit like the video editing process. you've recorded way more than you had, sir. And then a lot of edits of on the cutting room floor. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that actually, that process of working it back, working it back draft by draft, I got that down to 75,000 words over about eight drafts. And then that, you know, was shortlisted and a few unpublished manuscript awards, and publishers read it. But the thing I hadn't thought about was in what publishers told me, there's no market for a book about Armenia in Australia, who's gonna buy? Yeah, so after about nine years, smila, seven years of work, let's say, there was no market for it. So that's why actually, that was to write the memoir about Australia, because I was like, well, there's definitely a market for books about Australia here. So that's yeah, that was how I ended up doing that.
Sirjana Singh:I want to say so many things in my head is like swirling. So first of all, let me see if I can put them all in order. One, can we be friends? Because there's so many things you said, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I have this. I have this in some shape, or form in my, my own past, etc. Second, because you are so resilient. This is amazing. Seven years of putting your hard work and soul into something, something you actually like really mean something to you? Yes. And then having an am hearing there is no market for it. I would have turned sour, like the sourest candy. No, no, no, just sour, bitter would still be better. Like so sour. So, so resilient. So I would love to surround myself with resilient people, I don't know, I just put an application for a friend and then see how that works. Third, I, I just find it amazing that you had so much self awareness. A lot of people have to cultivate that quality and the fact that you have it i i would want to do a whole other podcast on just that on self awareness and how that affects a creative mind because we are so plagued right with rights and wrongs, that we have a lot of empathy as creatives and having that self awareness about your own good and bad qualities, quote, unquote. It must be torturing at some point rewarding it others but must be like you have to sit with them and the weight of them. So basically, my question is, after my application for friendship, we'll see if it gets approved or not. But go jump on that bandwagon. Oh, you're going to apply as well. Okay. So we're both sending applications. Let us know how that process goes. I would love to know, you know, you said there was a big ego around when you started first writing. Does big ego hurt as a writer or not? Like does it help In any process, like as a starting point as a middle point, having big ego How does that work?
Unknown:That's a great question. I think maybe it did help in that, you know, it convinced me to do it, when I knew literally nothing like that's it. And I think partly it was because, you know, I had taken some credit writing courses in university, I shouldn't say that I knew nothing. I had taken some credit credit courses in university. And I was in, you know, a very small town. And I won a couple like small, small credit writing awards, but that, you know, convinced me that I knew what I was doing. But I mean, I think if only four people enter an award, like the fact that you won doesn't actually mean that much like I like, and I don't know what, but I'm assuming, you know, what, wasn't that stiff competition, I guess. Because then when I look at, you know, I moved to Sydney, which is a much bigger city, and I look at the quality of writing here. And then you look at the quality reading has been published somewhere like New York, like, you start to realise, oh, okay, like, I wasn't competing at that level. But some Yeah, the ego did help, just in terms of getting me convincing me, you know, this is what I was meant to do kind of thing. But right. But I think then, within a very short time, it was stymieing me because I felt when I wrote something, and I got it to a point where I liked it. That then if you know, I sent it to you, and you didn't like it, well, that was just because you didn't get it or it wasn't for you. It wasn't because there was any room for improvement. And it wasn't until I had sent a story into an anthology and it got selected. And you actually got to work quite in a quite detailed way with an editor for this anthology. And this editor sent me her feedback. And she had worded it I owe everything to this editor, because she had worded it in such a way that I realised she did get what I was doing with the story. But she also saw where the story wasn't living up to its potential, and she was helping me make it better. And then I was like, Oh, I can learn from this. Like, she has things to teach me. And I can make this, you know, so much better than I could have ever done it on my own. And that's when I realised like, oh, actually writing, you know, we think of it as a solo activity, but it's actually a very collaborative process. And reader feedback has been such an important part of my process ever since then.
Sirjana Singh:Oh, my gosh, there's so much to unpack here. You're coming back.
Unknown:I just want to say that I think we had a similar moment within like what we were doing. I mean, I know myself, I had, I still do somewhat of an ego surgeon will tell you all about it. But yeah, in photography, particularly. And it wasn't until like, I think three or four years into business, where we met somebody who was truly ego, Lis, right, a photographer,
Sirjana Singh:let's celebrate celebrating all creative energies around yeah,
Unknown:it was just like infectious and to seeing how you could be open to like what everybody else can do and work collaborative, collaboratively,
Sirjana Singh:it was a breakthrough point for us, definitely. But also, as personally, like I said, there are some things in your story that that resemble mine. So I, I used to write poetry, it was published in all like newspapers, local newspapers, then it started getting published in the national newspapers. And I just started thinking I was, I was not even a teenager, when this was happening. And I just, you know, people around me started talking about how good it was. And I started building it up in my head. So then I started writing regularly and more and more and more, then we changed schools. So I went from not from a public school to English, particularly just English speaking school, and I realised how basic my ideas sounded, when you have more vocabulary in which you could have elicited those ideas even more and, you know, flush them, the sounding very basic. So for a while I couldn't write, I was just stuck. It took again, like, you know, understanding this is how I can improve my English. This is how I can improve my storytelling. I started writing again, then I studied psychology, and things that I would wonder in, in my poems suddenly became clear to me. So I stopped writing again. I was like, what have I been writing? This is bullshit. People out there that know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Why am I asking questions that I've made clear. Science knows about this. And so I remember a talk with my father who then said that being an artist is not about finding answers for the world. It is to share your own personal anguish with the world or own personal passions with the world. And through that you open doors. It's it's a different process of still discovering and uncovering, but it's not like a scientist who Do start writing again. And then I met this one. I one very unassuming morning, he woke me up with a poem that he wrote for me. And as he finished the poem, I was tears, I was puddles. And he thought he has touched my heart. And I am like, and he had in the first few sentences, but after that, it was all ego full tears. I couldn't believe that somebody who had never written a poem was writing a poem that was so moving so wonderful. And he is my own partner. I just didn't know what to do with that. My first thing was I told him, you're never to write. I was like, You are never writing another poem? Well, you know, it took me a month I was for a month, I was furious with him. And then I would get the moment I would be like, Why am I furious with him, I would get really angry with myself. So we had that really classic marriage of two creative people who couldn't reconcile with our own strengths and weaknesses. I did the same thing to his passion, which was photography, you would take photos, and I would improve them, and it would feel the same to him. And yeah, like Ben said, it took us meeting somebody who celebrated creative energies to realise, listen, we can celebrate rather than be angry.
Unknown:I don't think it's particularly just celebrating creative interests, either. Like the point is that he's celebrating it within a community of entrepreneurs and community of business owners. Yeah, like, even hotter, who have to make money for what they do. That's the hard part. Yeah. Like you said earlier finding a market for your book. And it's super important that you do, but how do you do that and not feel like, you know, your creativity may be being stifled? Or you're in competition with somebody out competition? Yes.
Sirjana Singh:So how do you have feelings around competition and comparison?
Unknown:Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, I think it's inevitable, like I have, there was a guy who joined my writers group about six years ago. And when he joins my writers group, you know, what we do is we meet once a month, we send each other a couple of chapters in advance, every month, about a week ahead of the meeting. We all read each other's work, we all make comments. And then and then when we meet, you know, if they're discussing my work, I stay silent. Now that we're on Zoom, I'm on mute. And they each have about five minutes, I'll hit their key points, like what are their their major points of feedback. So they'll each talk, they'll each take their turn. And at the end, I get asked questions like, I don't get to argue with them. I don't get to debate them. I just get to, like, clarify things or say like, Oh, what do you think about this approach, but I think with that approach, it is so useful, because and there's there's four or five of us in the group. So you know, you're getting, you're getting a few different perspective perspectives. So if one person says, oh, you know, this thing isn't working, but nobody else comments on it, it's like, okay, that's whatever, if all of them say this thing isn't working, I know that thing has to change. So it's, it's fantastic. So this guy joined the group, and, you know, 10 years younger than me. So he's in his, he's in his 20s. And he is writing 20 Somethings, it's writing. He didn't, he didn't have a lot of ego, though. He was a lovely, lovely guy. But just random is terrible. And year by year, though, you have come into the group, and this is writing kept improving. And then he was working on this manuscript. And so we saw it sort of, you know, a couple chapters at a time, and we were working our way through it for about a year. And then he said, I think I've got this thing done. Do you want to read the whole thing? And so he sent it to me, and I was like, this is brilliant. Like, the thing is, this thing is incredible. And we started talking about, you know, where could he send it because I was working for writing organisations, I knew the industry in Australia really well. So he was just like, taking my advice on you know, what he should do next. And he entered it in a few things. And he started winning some fellowships, like right away. And then within a few months, he entered it in the penguin literary prize for unpublished manuscripts and he won. And he's his now this book is coming out in July this year. It's, it's brilliant. But then he like during this, he went off and wrote an entirely new book. And you know, he'd written five or six books before this, like, this was not his first book. He'd written a bunch, but he just was the same as me. He just like he wrote this stuff. And he's like, I don't know what to do with this. Like, he's like, I know it's not good, but I don't know what to do. And so He credits the writers group, as well as giving him a lot of direction. But this new book that he's just sent me, I'm like, oh, man, like you're gonna win the booker like, this is just brilliant. So he has completely eclipsed me skills, just like what how did you how did you get into this? And so you were really good friends, like we do a podcast together about about writing and creativity. And so I'm like, I but I am definitely jealous of him. I'm like, What is going on in your brain that you just were able to look at clips me like,
Sirjana Singh:oh my gosh, I felt I felt
Unknown:You can't see but said in his mouth was a gape. Yeah,
Sirjana Singh:I felt you I went on this ride with you I had like I had visceral emotions. As you were telling the story, I can feel it. Oh my gosh, it is so hard to be a creative as it is. But you don't even have to just
Unknown:I think I think I mean, I can acknowledge that like, but I'm also really happy for him like, I'm still like I can I can of course, those two ideas in my mind at the same time. Yeah,
Sirjana Singh:exactly. And that is the thing, like I said, that is the whole idea of self awareness. It is. It's both a blessing and oh my gosh, it's a very hard pill to swallow at the same time. Because, you know, like when Ben wrote that poem, I totally understood like, where it's coming from, and that I should be and it's written about me and all of that. But even then, there's this clashing emotion, that he's my husband, he writes, so well, how damn, you write better than me. Oh, my God, he writes better than me. This is amazing. Shit. He writes better than me. You know, it's just like a tug of war and
Unknown:this tug of war still going, because my favourite author, like for a long, long time now it's been Bill pricing and such and refuses to get into him because she thinks that I write a bit like he does. But this is because I got into him when I was about nine years old dad got me an audiobook and lost continent. And I used to fall asleep listening to it, like memorise it. Oh, and I could probably still recite the first couple of pages verbatim at this point. But because of that, she thinks that he's this competition in a way. Is that Is that right? No,
Sirjana Singh:I just I really enjoy reading you. So I
Unknown:don't want to Okay.
Sirjana Singh:I would love to know who your favourite author is. Oh, did you have one?
Unknown:Yeah. What inspired? What or who inspired you? Yeah, right. Well, actually, Bill Bryson is one of the models I use for my book about Australia. So you'd like that kind of humour and everything. So yeah, Bill Bryson is definitely favourite. I think he's brilliant. I love David Sedaris. Dude. Sideris. If you like Bill Bryson, I think you'd really like to read him now. Okay. Yeah. So he's an American essayist. And he's from, he grew up gay in the south. And he's just really, really funny. And he's got a lot of books. And he's just really, really smart and really funny. So he's definitely was a model for me as well. There's a book called Destiny disrupted history of the world through Islamic eyes, which is a is a sort of popular history of Islam, written by a guy, an Afghani American, who wrote textbooks for high school students in Texas, and realise there was this big gap in terms of how the West sees world history, and how the Middle East sees world history. And he wrote this blog for Westerners to enter like, in a very colloquial way to explain the history of Islam to them and also to himself. And it's brilliant. It's just brilliant. And it's, it's, I love, I just love that book so much because it made so much of the world makes sense to me. But also, he has a great sense of humour within it. Like it sounds like a very heavy topic, but then he like works in little bits, like about how there was this, you know, one general if one point and I can't remember which army, but he wore his moustache so long that he could flip both ends of it over his shoulders while he was riding on horseback. So he's just like, he's brilliant writer, and he can take this huge concept and make it so engaging and so understandable. And then I love thrillers. So I'm a big fan of like Candice Fox has an incredible thriller writer, JP polymerize, who's Kiwi Australian thriller author. I just Yeah. Big. You know, I love Gillian Flynn. And, yeah, so there's so so so many authors that I love and that have inspired me over the years. I just want to point out to all your peeps listening that while Ashley was talking, she was incredibly emotive about watching, like, yeah, you can see the passion for what she does on her face. It's similar to how we talk about photographers that we love or like movies that we freakin know. Right? Like, yeah, you can just see that there's been a lot of deconstructing behind the scenes.
Sirjana Singh:Or, or how you talk about Bill Bryson. Yeah, yeah. Okay, coming back to your book, what, what is what do you hope people who are picking up your book are going to take away from from your memoir,
Unknown:oh, the memoir was written, it was supposed to be really light hearted and funny. And I wanted, I wanted to engage with concepts of nationality and identity and belonging in a fun light hearted way. So it was like sort of my premise was if Bill Bryson wrote a book about Australia, but he happened to be a very young, anxious and newly married woman. So that that was sort of my approach and but I think each of my books like so my That was my second book, my first book. So that big giant book I wrote about Armenia and about my family, the genocide, you know, that never got published. But I turned that into a very different book that called my name is revenge. I, I was looking for hookers. Like how do I make Australians interested in this history because it's a New Zealand as well. It's so connected to Australian and New Zealand history, because when the Anzacs arrived to fight at Gallipoli, April 25 1915, the genocide started the day before that, and the reason why is because the Ottoman government was convinced that when those ships landed a glibly they were going to lose and they wanted to make sure they wiped out the Armenians so that if they lost this battle and this war that they wouldn't have to deal with, you know, the Armenians taking over any of their territory. So, they were actually like Anzac soldiers who were, you know, taken prisoner of war and held in Armenian churches. There were actually Anzac soldiers who rescued Armenians, you know, children and women who were being marched into the, into the desert to die. So I was looking for a way like, how do I get people to be interested in the history and I discovered, because the Turkish Government still denies the genocide. Despite, you know, all of the documentation, there's way more written documentation proving it than there even is for the Holocaust of World War Two. Because of the denial, there was this series of terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 80s, all around the world. And two of them happened here in Australia and in Sydney, in December 1980. Broad daylight, the Turkish Consulate General and his bodyguard first shot dead in the street. And that crime still unsolved, and I thought, okay, there's a hook because it's a true crime angle. It's an unsolved crime. It's it was Australia's first international incident. So why so I fictional, the people who could have done that, because I that was the other thing and learning what this terrorism is I deeply understood their motives, because I that was the same motives for me writing, but it's just the methods that I was like, No, I don't agree on that. So I wrote I fictionalised the who could have committed this crime. And I, the book opens like, like sentence one is that assassination. And so there's this fictional story that based on this history, and introduces all these different angles. And then when you get to the end of the story, which is sort of a thriller at Scott, it's really Pacey. Then there's a series of essays waiting to explain. Okay, now, here's, here's why you don't know about this history. And here's what you need to know. Oh, that's cool. I was wondering what that essays part was about. Actually, I'm looking forward to reading it.
Sirjana Singh:Oh, my gosh, so much, so much. Honestly, if this mic was not where it was, I would be sitting, like, on my stomach lying on my stomach with my head propped up with my hands. Oh, my gosh, you. Oh, thank you. That's very lovely of you. I am I am, I am so installed. This is so exciting.
Unknown:So from when I started, when I made the decision to start that project and actually started researching, like, in terms of the Armenia project, to when that book came out was almost 10 years, it was nine and a half years to when that book was published. So and that came out with a local Sydney publisher, like it was a very small publication. But in terms of that, like it did quite well, like I did a lot of events, I did a lot of speaking. And it was so great to have Australians come to me and say, I never knew about this history. And I can't believe I didn't know it. I'm so glad I do now. And that was so in terms of like, I think each book, I have a different motivation for like, why I'm writing it. And that one was very, very different part of the Australian like, they're very different books. That's just It's beautiful, though that did you had people come up and say that, right? How cool is that? It's been really, really
Sirjana Singh:well. So what I'm learning from listening to you is that before I spoke with you, I thought as a writer, you write, but it is so friggin much more than that. You have to be a journalist you have to publisher? No, yeah, those are, of course, but also like figuring out how can you create a story out of something that you have already written? That is, I don't know. It's like a detective, like figuring out where the clues are and how things will work and won't work. Very Sherlock Comey? Well, I think I think
Unknown:this the thing is, I think like, I think I don't know if you could speak to maybe how different this is in terms of photography, because I think in terms of photography, yeah, I'd be interested to hear, I think, but in terms of writing, I think one of the things I had to realise is just because I want to write something just because I find it interesting doesn't mean that anybody else will. And if I want a career that makes money, like where people want to read my work, I have to figure out what it is that makes them want to read it and so that long, long process of like getting that first book out, like you know, I figured out okay, like here's a hook here's an angle, came up with a variable Small Sydney publisher, in part because it's a hybrid, like, you don't usually see fiction and nonfiction combined like that. But also because again, like, it's still like, there was still no major demand for this topic. The next book came out with a national publisher because it was like, Okay, this is a book that you know, is of interest to Australians. But then I went away, and I wrote a crime thriller. And I specifically was like, I want this to be a book that, you know, will be published internationally. That was my goal for it. And so I started examining all these big name thriller authors to be like, how, what are they doing? Like, because I love that genre. I'm like, okay, so what are they doing that makes me want to read their work? Like if I've read this author's book, and then I'm like, Yes, I want to get all their other books. What did they do that made me feel that way. And I started trying to very, very explicitly put that into my book. And so now I've just signed with a big literary agency, I've got an agent in the UK, I've got an agent in the US, that book is out with a lot of publishers, right now we're getting starting to get really good responses to it looks like maybe that book will will achieve that goal of international publication. That's awesome. Such an A has committed a taboo for a podcast that is knocking on the table.
Sirjana Singh:I know, multiple times, because I'm so excited. I'm excited for you. I'm excited to hear about your journey, because this is so friggin amazing. Um, I
Unknown:did notice some similarities there between apps. So depending on what you're doing as a photographer, yeah, it's definitely I mean, if you're in fashion, or weddings, or creating like, photojournalism or you creating fine art, you know, photo essays and things that are all has slightly different tint to it. But if you're looking to expand on like, who you are, the thing that really grabbed me was that you were looking at other other writers and what they were doing and how they were working things. And I think in that way, it's creativity is such a, like a given take for
Sirjana Singh:I think you're thinking that because in our industry, it is parroted over and over again, that you have to create for yourself, make art for yourself, don't look around, you know, while that is true, nothing is 100% true for everyone, you can't create it in a bubble. Not only that, I think it is really important to also sometimes figure out like you did actually what you wanted to do with that art project. So it's not just about I want to create it, I'm going to create it, you also looked at, listen, my end goal is such and such, and that end goal can reside outside of you, it doesn't always have to live within you. And it is for me to talking to you of I feel like that there's a permission here that I got for doing that ourselves. Because when we won awards or something that's that's a process that I did as well, like you said, you looked at, okay, these are the books I pick up and why do I pick them up? And I want to be published internationally. So what are the things that are attracting me, when we were applying for awards? When I told Ben, we have to win these awards? I remember when I would collect all these photographs. And I would study them going like, what makes judges love them? And what makes people who are consuming them love them. Yeah, but I would always and maybe I'm misunderstanding but I personally in our industry would hit a wall where it was not in or not right? Or not okay, to be motivated by external forces. Everything was internal, you know, you create so and so because of your own personal journey, and you express your certain way, because this is just you, but I think I've, I'm finding the so refreshing and I just permission giving that I can do that. And there are motives outside of us, which are, which is still very personal, like for you getting published internationally is a personal thing, but it still lies outside of just the desire to write, or just the desire to create, which is very fascinating to me. And I hope people who are listening can make that connection and give themselves the permission to you know, read other people's work in zoom other people's work and feel like that it is okay to be inspired by other people. And it's okay to have ambitions, you know, and be led by those ambitions as what I want to say I hopefully put it across. But
Unknown:yes, we have the same we have the same debates in the writing community as well. And I think I made a very conscious decision that I wanted a career that is sustainable financially, which is I don't think if you're starting out as a writer, that should be your first your first goal because it's exceptionally hard to do. And so even if you know if I was had been starting out like 12 years ago or whatever, and I said, Okay, I'm going to Write a thriller because that's where the like if I hadn't known that, that's where you know, one of the places where you're most likely to make money, if you can succeed, I wouldn't have had the skills to write that, like I, you know, I wouldn't have written a bunch of terrible thrillers, they would have gotten rejected. And I think I chose not to start there in part because I love that genre so much that to go in and make a total mess of it would have been too upsetting for me.
Sirjana Singh:Yeah. So see, now, this is you've completed my point that it is not the the only way of doing things, things. It's the par for course, you know, it comes at certain point, you have to first be someone like a photographer, or an artist or a writer because you have passion in it. And because it speaks to you. And then the next step comes now that you've established what your skill sets are, now you figure out that okay, I want to earn money from this and how does that work?
Unknown:Because yeah, that's a different that's then yet that's a different mindset. Like, like Ben was saying, Now you need a business, you need to an entrepreneurial mindset. So you've got to go and get those skills as well. That's another thing you've got to train in, if you don't already have those skills. And so, like, you're developing that as and then you've got to figure out like, what that you know, how those two things going to dovetail together for you. Because that'll be different from you know, someone else. So yeah, well, I can tell a story of somebody went through uni with who was a absolute incredible like, behind the lens, incredible at what he did in design, he was throwing himself into it fully, so much that he left uni and were there for five years headlight one of the biggest design companies in town, but found themselves basically just running a business, he was no longer behind the lens, no longer doing any of the design work that he once loved. And I know that he just kind of woke up one day, it was oh, I kind of want to get back and get get my hands dirty. Again, not to say that running a business is not creative. Like I mean, that's highly creative, and you have to be to be successful. But you want to be following the creative path that you want to be following. You know, it's really easy to get sidetracked when you realise that by making money out of this, you know, you have to be a marketer, and you have to now know how to do your elevator pitch, and you have to have all of that stuff sorted.
Sirjana Singh:And if you don't understand the process, you can lose yourself to the process basically. Okay, I think you have next question that I have for you. I think you've answered that for me. But I want to still ask this, because there probably are more insights that I can gain from that, which is, what are the common traps for aspiring writers?
Unknown:Yes, yeah. Right. I think I think one is, is not realising how important it is to get to get that feedback. And here's why is because when you write something, and particularly I particularly talk about this with no more writers, because it's so easy to fall into this, when you're writing about something that you were present for that is a memory in your head, you put it on the page. And when you read that page back, you see the whole thing, right, because you have the memory exists in your head. And same with fiction, like if you've envisioned something, you know, you see all the stuff that is not on the page, it's actually incredibly difficult to to just see the writing for what it is. That's why you need to give it to someone else. And listen to how they've seen it. Because that's when you realise, oh, all this stuff that I thought was in there, that was just in my head, I was just like, adding that in. And so you, you need to really get attuned to accepting feedback and interpreting it, and then deciding, okay, how do I take this feedback? And how do I, how do I make it work on the page. And I think another another thing is similar to that, which is that I think a lot of writers think that writing is about, again, I'd be interested to hear what the parallel is in photography. But I think a lot of writers think that, oh, as long as my writing is really beautiful, like I need to learn to write really beautifully, and I need to learn to have really interesting characters and put them in a really interesting setting, and, you know, portray that setting in a really interesting way. And if I can get those skills, and if you look at like, what courses do they teach at writer centres, they teach character that keep setting, they do teach plot, but I think plot is the you know, like, what is your story? So that's, and that's important. But I think a really common trap is not realising that none of those things are why readers read a book, they read a book because they want to be engaged, they want the story to pull them and and what actually is doing that is is not you know, a thing that you need to invent from scratch. And that comes to you from the universe and is this mystical, magical fairy dust thing. It's actually very, very technical. It's about like, the structure of your scenes and scenes, in every movie, every TV show, every book, they all follow the exact same structure. And it's learning to apply that structure that is the engine of your story. And so if I did that, That's when I learned that when I started developing that skill and applying it, that's when my writing went from, you know, publishers saying, Oh, this is this is really great. But we're not going to publish it to Oh, wow, we really want to work with you. And we really want to publish your writing. So I think it's understanding the technical nature, you know, as as creative and artistic and beautiful. And whatever. There is a technical component to stories just like a car, you can have the most beautiful car, but if it doesn't have an engine, it's not going to go anywhere.
Sirjana Singh:Really. There are so many panellists here, I think social media has Instagrams specially has made it that like you, you described, a few have shiny objects, you know, perfect setting some out of the world, waterfall in the background,
Unknown:a yellow Parker, and you're standing on a black sand beach,
Sirjana Singh:exactly that. Because people see it for milliseconds before they will swipe up, that those things have become more important than the art of storytelling in the photos, which didn't used to be as immediacy
Unknown:that's taking over. Absolutely, that's so interesting.
Sirjana Singh:It we have seen that shift happening. And we now sometimes feel like we are trapped in it. And we have to remind ourselves that Instagram is just but one part. And we don't have to be doing stuff because because, yeah, Instagram, but it definitely is a trap that we ourselves as seasoned photographers find ourselves stuck in Yeah, I was like, what what happens in a trap?
Unknown:Okay, so, one, one thing that you were saying, Actually, I found interesting was that, you know, you're talking about how you have to find the, the structure to things, photography is really similar in that respect. There's a bunch of rules around like how, like an image can be laid out. But one thing that goes around a lot in our circles is once you know those rules, then you can work on hooking people by breaking them in a deliberate scenes, like creating something is different. Is that the same sort of deal? Like I'm sure that you guys like you're kind of heading for the same thing. Am I right?
Sirjana Singh:Yeah. Well, do you want to know the rules, you break them? For?
Unknown:Publishers? Because you guys have that another level? You need to get through me? Unless I'm shooting for Vogue? I don't have an editor above me that it was. It's true. That is true. Put that rule in place. Yeah. Is it different for an author? That's a great question, I think you need to understand the rules to subvert them and and subverting the rules in really interesting ways is, can be really, really exciting. And yeah, that there's another common trap is that thinking that and I mean, that was true for me as well, like, Whoa, that first book, I wrote that just giant monster book, you know, I thought I'm gonna do this. And I'm gonna do that, because I've never seen that anywhere. The reason I've never seen that anywhere is because it doesn't work. But I didn't understand why. So,
Sirjana Singh:yeah, right. Very interesting, which I'm so glad we do this podcast, and now have put in friend applications and so many, just so many different artists, this is so good to understand your own art when you talk to other artists and see things that are overlooked in our own art that we just, you know, just do, because that's something we do, rather than pause and think how those things are done, and how our brain functions around those rules. And what are you called constraints? Yeah, so that's fantastic.
Unknown:URL earlier, you mentioned resilience, and I just wanted to, like speak on resilience for a while, because there were two things like so when I when I, you know, had written that giant book and that I've gone through all those years editing it down, then I was sending it out to publishers that I knew enough by then, that I knew that was gonna be a long process. So I had already gotten started on another book. So I knew, you know, you send it out. And also I knew I talked to enough authors. I'd gone to enough events, I've read enough articles you know about writers, I knew probably I was going to have to accept that that if that book didn't get published, the only thing to do was to write another book like don't you don't allow yourself to get stuck on something and then give up like you read another book, you read another book, that there's a guy in Australia, Robert Lumpkins. Or but Lukens and he wrote 20 books before his first one was published. So like, That's extreme, but I think the average is probably about you know, you write three and then the fourth one gets published. So there was that, but also, I think, what really gave me a lot of resilience was that by that time, I had met a lot of people in the writing community, like I'd started attending events, festivals, book launches, talks, I had brighter friends. And so wrote an article actually saying, you know, I've written these, I've written two books by that point that weren't, weren't published, and that's not even counting the terrible novels in high school. And I said I, but I've made such good friends. And I enjoy connecting with creative people so vastly that I actually don't care if I never become a published author, you know, like, I'm just happy to just be engaged in this, because it is so richly rewarding. And, you know, it was still a couple years, it was still two years after that before my first book was published. And that was amazing. It was wonderful. And that was a game changer in terms of career. But I did genuinely mean it when I said, like, the connection and the and the celebration of creativity is really what is the most meaningful part for me? Yeah, I really think that that's probably why you're you are where you are right now, if you didn't have that feeling. Back when if you won, your longevity in the industry wouldn't have been there, you know, you might have fizzled out. But to without having that, that I think it's something that a lot of creatives get right is this underpinning drive of like, something's fizzing up all the time that you're excited about this thing? And this is what you want to do. It doesn't matter. What's happening around you. It's just kind of like, Oh, my God, this is exactly me. This is what makes me me. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I sit here and I say a lot of creatives have it. And I know that the point of this podcast is they people know that creatives, everybody, every human out there has it. And a lot of it is about how you step back and look at what you're doing how you perceive your particular situation. And having listened to your story. And I mean, I can say, for sure, like surgenor, and I have that same sort of uplifting need to do this thing that I know, people like, I'm not going to name names, but I have a friend who will argue black and blue that he's not creative. And he will go to long lengths to argue the point that he's not creative. And I think when you're in that mindset, all it really takes us for you to realise that he like he has a passion for cars, he loves working on them, he loves buying them and selling them and all of this stuff that he doesn't consider creative. That really is. He's always thinking and learning for himself and these new things. And it's, it's all it takes is one little like, I'm hoping a little spark, like listening to this podcast, for instance, to see that, oh, actually, everybody has this in them.
Sirjana Singh:And I feel like, the more we talk to creatives like you, we realise that we are all because we believe that all of us are creatives that we are all vessels of ideas, and we shouldn't hold them. The more we give away the better. Yeah, you know, and so the giving away part is the scary bit I'm sure when you
Unknown:I think Chilli Peppers popularised that whole idea of what what I did give it away now.
Sirjana Singh:But But I actually know, I have a question. So was there a fear involved in putting your ideas out in the world the first time as a book? The perfume? What if you can remember as a
Unknown:few what the book was that? That yeah, that no one would publish it? I don't Yeah, I think I think I have a bigger fear around social media. I think because of that immediacy, I felt that like, I was gonna make a fool of myself, because I would write something that revealed, you know, that revealed me to be a certain way like, that I wasn't. And so I like instil with social media sister a little bit in terms of thinking of like, all the different angles, like, how could this be interpreted? Like, is my tone coming across correctly, I think there I have a lot more fear around around my ideas not being received on social media with the book, because I'd spent literally hundreds of hours, and you've got so much, you know, you've got 1000s of words to say what you want to say. I felt like my message was clear. But my fear was, you know, this will keep getting rejected, for whatever reason, it's not, it's not good enough. And, and I am wasting my time. And and, you know, before I really connected with the creative community, I did feel like, Have I have I wasted all this time pursuing this thing? If it never happens? And now I know, well, no, of course not. Because you were doing something meaningful to yourself. And you were developing skill and, but when you when you set out with the goal of I'm going to write a book that I want to be published and people to read, and then the books and republished it like that. That was that idea was very, very painful, because it felt like I was just branding myself as a failure if it didn't get published, right?
Sirjana Singh:How did you overcome that? Because I what I am understanding from your story is that pouring yourself into your art, rather than constantly being like, this is what I want to achieve. This is what I wanted to achieve. I feel like for nine years, you just poured yourself into those interviews into understanding the conflict, understanding the genocide and understanding all of that, that there was no Time for fear is all
Unknown:right. Yeah, no, there's I think probably the first five years especially, I mean, also as going through a difficult time in my life in other ways. So there was layers of things happening. But yeah, I think I think I really felt like if I, if I don't make this work, and I spent a lot of money, right, because all of you know, like, I spent two months travelling Armenia, that was all I paid for all of that myself. So I spent like, a lot of money, as well. And I think that those first five years or so I felt like if I if I don't turn this into something that the very least like, gets me my money back. I, because that's it. That's the tip that's very tangible, like, you know, your balance sheet sort of thing. And I'm married to an accountant. So not that he was putting any pressure on me, but I do think of things and No, no, of course, yeah. So I yeah, I felt like if I don't make this work, I'm a failure. I also I was sending out pitches, you know, for smaller articles. And because I thought, Oh, you need to build up a publishing profile. So I'll just start sending out pitches. And, you know, getting I'd send out 15 pitches and all 15 would get either ignored or rejected. So like you, you do feel like you are failing. But then as I connected with more writers, that's when my mindset started to shift. And I realised like, Oh, almost every writer, this is this is exactly, you know, like, the number of years is going to different than is going to differ, the number of rejections will differ. But every writer goes through this, this is just part of the process. And the connections were so rewarding, like these kinds of conversations were so rewarding. And then I learned tricks I learned things like so for example, something I always recommend to writers is, is setting rejection goals. So rather than setting publication goals, when you're starting out, like aim for 100 rejections a year, like write really good quality stuff, send it out to as many places as possible. Because that's, that's the thing you can control, you can control like that, you're the act of sending things out and collecting those rejections. And then if you send out 100, things, you're probably going to as long as you're doing the work to also improve the writing, you're probably going to get some acceptances, too. So I so I, once I had those kind of mindsets, that that really helped. And also other things, you know, improved in my life as well, like, just in terms of mental health and, and career stability. And, and even just the, this is when I was going through the, are we going to stay in Australia? And what does that mean for me, because one of the big themes of my book is, you know, one of the reasons we stayed is my husband got this great job, and he has his identity is very like firmly entrenched in accounting land, like, he's an accountant, he was excelling in that area. I didn't have anything I was excelling at. So I was in this country where I didn't like I just felt like I'm like, I don't quite feel like I belong here. And I just don't I'm not really comfortable with the politics and like, when so but becoming I think, accepting my identity as a writer and then really pursuing that aggressively. Then I felt like that really actually helped my belonging a lot.
Sirjana Singh:Whoo. Yeah, that was that was packed with learnings and setting rejection goals. Wow, we That's amazing.
Unknown:If you haven't listened to our latest episode, which should be going live this afternoon. Oh, your fellow Australian Jai. Jai long before he gets into that as well. And it's really, really neat to hear that reiterated because it's it's really about like a cliche term, but failing upwards. If you he says that if you if you throw your work at 10 places and 10 places say yes, that means that you're not trying hard enough, you need to be getting those rejections, even like, so even if you've hit a point where your work is amazing. And everybody wants it. If you're not getting somebody out there who said, this is not working like one you're not staying humble. And two, you're not trying hard enough. You need either the whole world to be accepting this. And I mean, that's that should be a goal, right? Or, yeah, you're going to feel like you're failing.
Sirjana Singh:And I want to mention here that this is easier said than done. Well, just yeah. Just don't make a mistake of thinking that it comes easier to ask anybody. It is. It's definitely work. Yeah. And we all do it. The ones who do it. We do it because we know it's good for us. So don't not do this because it doesn't come easy to you and think that oh, it's just not me. i It's not me. So I won't do it. It's none of us. None of us like failure. Anybody. Even when you have I'm sure rejection goals. You can't celebrate all of them. Some of them because of the mood you are in on that day. You might go, Okay, I want rejection 72 But others must hit hard. But the but the idea behind this is that It's a, it's a, it's a skill that has been unlocked. It's a lesson that has been unlocked. And those who know, they know. And those who practice can tell you that it is a fantastic skill to have failing upwards.
Unknown:Also, the idea of failure in Yeah, and then Artistics sense it even in a business sense doesn't really exist until you're underground. You know, you can fail as many times as you want. It's always tomorrow, you can always stand up and just go do it again. Yeah, and try something else. Again, whatever you want to do. But it's, it's entirely in your court.
Sirjana Singh:Yeah. Oh, my gosh, there is so much to unpack here. I still want to talk about the fact that you teach, like teaching creativity, I would love to, you know, talk about that creative writing with you actually, is that something you want to get into? Or do you want to come back and talk about all of that?
Unknown:I mean, I'd love to come back, this has been so much fun. But in terms of creativity, I think I think one thing people think is that they, you know, need to have like all these ideas or like, like, if they don't have a bunch of ideas, if they sit down, they don't know what to write, then maybe they're not a writer. And that's, that's absolutely not true. I think one thing you learn, and you you're probably aware of this as well is that the more you engage with your creativity, the more you realise you're, you're always having ideas, it's just like, we generally just tuned them out, because they're not like about the thing that we're trying to do, like, live somewhere, we're trying to, you know, whatever. But we always have ideas. It's just like tuning into them and starting to notice them. But then also, there's, there's all sorts of techniques you can use to tap into your creativity. And one of the things that I teach, because that's teach creative writing workshops now is using generative exercises. And it's really, really simple. Like, what would you start with a prompt, and the prompt can be anything like really like, you know, dear Ben, that can be the prompt. And Ben is a character that I've just created. I don't know anything about him, but I'm going to write him this letter, maybe from the point of view of another character of just just just created, you know, that that's this character is a tree, there's no tree writing to a character named Ben. And so but what I'm gonna do is, I'm going to set the timer on my phone for five minutes, and I'm gonna put my pen on the paper, or if I'm typing either way, and I'm going to just write for those five minutes without stopping. And even if, you know, I hit a point in those five minutes, where I'm like, I don't know what to write next, I feel like stock this is this is a waste of time, like, what should I say? While I'm writing that my brain is actually going to come up with something else. And my theory on this is that that is allowing you to more directly connect with the subconscious. Because like that, you know, I find this and then my students find this as well. It's so surprising the things your brain comes up with, it's like, Oh, where did that come from? Because some really interesting thing will come out. So there's a whole thing and like the novel, I just, I've layered in all these really bizarre plants that actually exist in the world. And I've laid it just laid them all into the book. And that just came out of a generative writing exercise. I had no intention of doing it like that. And then this, this idea just came to me during one of those exercises, and I thought, oh, I need to I need to weave that in. That's amazing. Yeah, so there's there are techniques, there are techniques you can learn. Yeah, what I
Sirjana Singh:want to do, and I'm just asking you on here, so you have no chance to say no, what I want to do is I want to do an episode with you where we talk about techniques and if creativity can be taught, and if yes, then how, but also get into how they how creativity has a healing process. Yeah, I know, because there's a story around that. But I just don't want that story to be like, like a bipod of this episode. I think the story requires its own episode. Yeah. Definitely more time, because that's important story to tell.
Unknown:Yeah, I think we should also get into the universality of creativity, because seriously listening to the way you're describing what you're doing, and in a way to like bring out creativity. I know, designer, I was taught the creative process, which is quite similar. It's about constraint, but also, you know, time constraint. And essentially, just getting a whole bunch of stuff out. Yeah, we were taught that if you wanted to create a logo, for instance, you're going to have in your brain, at least 50 ideas which are derivative of something else. And if you want to get creative, properly, like come up with something new, you would sketch 50 ideas, and then basically put those aside and start with the next 10. It's a really hard exercise to do. But it's yeah, I really love the way that writers have the same thing. I'm really looking forward to interviewing some other like creative,
Sirjana Singh:different creatives from different fields really, if that is something I use
Unknown:and see if it's the same thing in the fashion industry. Yeah, true.
Sirjana Singh:But I really one of the axes. sizes that Ben and I used to do when we got way into our head about being more business owners than artists was we used to do this writing exercise where in the morning, we would just write what we could see with our own eyes for five minutes, like, literally wind is blowing and how the wind is blowing, or whatever we could see or whatever was holding our attention. Yeah. And written photograph. Yeah. And then after a while, because you were saying things that you could see, it was as if your brain started trusting you and opening up to you, and bringing out things from inside of you that you could not see. And it was we have to start doing that again. Yeah, I just as you were talking about it, I was like, Oh my gosh, they used to be this exercise
Unknown:we used to do Oh, pandemic pregnancy. Yeah, baby things differently made that we can do it, we can do it, we can do it. Um, Minister, thank
Sirjana Singh:you for mentioning that.
Unknown:It's okay to picture for your listeners right now, like a like the big, big smiles on both of your faces. But the fact that you're sitting like right next to each other, and you both keep, like reaching over and touching each other. It is the sweetest thing. And I just want listeners to be on that. Because I feel like a privilege to get to get to witness the creative love that's going on here. Oh, there
Sirjana Singh:is so much of that. This is like basically our relationship we live breathe.
Unknown:And you know, do this. Since I mean, the fact that we have this this same sort of passion and goals for for what we want. Yeah, definitely is the linchpin of why we are together.
Sirjana Singh:I have to say, you know, sometimes I get jealous of other love stories when you know, we'll be at a wedding or somewhere doing an elopement and they will say, I saw her across the room and had butterflies and all of that. Whereas our first date, we met with each other, there was nothing, it was fine. Like I said, I thought he looked great. He thought I looked great. It was fine. But immediately, we started chatting so much. Like,
Unknown:why don't we there was the obligatory. What do you do? What do you do?
Sirjana Singh:Oh, yeah, it was boring, boring, boring. And then suddenly he mentioned he showed me his photograph. And I lit up the way he was talking about
Unknown:right. And then on the back of it, I pulled out my old phone. Yeah, autographs.
Sirjana Singh:And the moment we started talking about creativity, it we just clicked. So we don't have that moment where like I first saw you and I wanted to know, we just wanted to chat about creativity. And so
Unknown:now same wavelength, yes. I think it's amazing that of course.
Sirjana Singh:But no, but I am asking you on air. Actually, please come back. And I want to talk more about teaching creativity and generate a writing exercise that you talked about, but also your journey with chronic illness and creativity and how it can be healing. I think this is a whole different episode. I don't want to what is it disrespected? By just talking about down play that said, Sorry, English is my second language down. Since a baby English is my fourth language, there is googoo gaga. There's Punjabi, there is sleeplessness and then English. So yeah, I would love to do that episode with you. Before you go, I would rapid fire. No. But before she goes, we need to ask her what we asked all our guests, which is, is there a myth surrounding creativity that you would like to bust today?
Unknown:I think that it's that it's not a practice. Like I think I think like the term creative practice is so important. Because it's not something you just it's you don't just sit down and either you're creative or you're not like a like yes, we all are creative creatures, like all of humanity, we just are creative creatures. And it's just about tuning into that. But that comes through practice, like creativity comes through, sitting down, you know, whatever it is your creative thing, whether that's whether that's writing or photography or baking or, or fixing cars or whatever it is, but just just engaging with it, the more you engage with it, you learn the skills, you learn about yourself, you gain that self awareness you overcome, you know, you develop resilience. You overcome fear, like all of those things, you know, yourself and your own creativity. So, yeah, that it's that it is not a practice, I think is a myth that it doesn't serve us it doesn't serve us at all.
Sirjana Singh:Thank you for bringing that I mean, this is this something too. I hope all of us just take a breather and think about what she just said because that is that is so true. Okay, so on that note, we'll start the rapid fire round, ready, three favourite colours,
Unknown:orange, red, silver,
Sirjana Singh:which era of writers do you most? Find yourself drawn to?
Unknown:Oh, contemporary. Absolutely.
Sirjana Singh:Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Unknown:Absolutely. morning person.
Sirjana Singh:What talent do you wish you had?
Unknown:Oh, oh, that's a good question. Oh, fashion? I have no fashion sense at all. And yeah, that was really that was really helped me if I had some some fashion sense.
Sirjana Singh:Oh my gosh, I love that spark that came as you thought you were like, Wait,
Unknown:of course that
Sirjana Singh:what are you going to do right after this interview?
Unknown:I'm gonna go right. I got a I got to work on the next book. I'm in the development phase. The next book I've just started just started, you know, playing around thoroughly scenes. So I'm gonna dig into those next time. I want to talk a bit about that development phase, though.
Sirjana Singh:I know there's so much so. So two more episodes.
Unknown:Excellent. Excellent.
Sirjana Singh:Okay. And lastly, what are the three qualities that got you where you are today?
Unknown:Definitely resilience for sure. I think connection so that that willingness to connect with others. And curiosity. I'm so curious about the world. I'm so curious about people. I'm so curious. Like, I just I find so many things interesting. I want to engage with them. So yeah, really, like I have to like I collect all these little things. And I'm like, Oh, how can I? How can I weave that in somewhere? Like, how could I write an essay about that? So yeah, curiosity,
Sirjana Singh:what a cool answer. Oh, my gosh, I Yeah, we cannot wait to sit with you, again, actually, and discuss so many things creativity related, and learn more about the process of you as a writer, and the universality of creatives, just around the world, having similar processes and how we see them.
Unknown:Oh, I was just gonna say one final thing that American author says until us she also teaches creativity and she believes that when we engage with our creativity, we remake the world and it is therefore a radical act. And I think I think you guys would really connect with her work in that way. I think you would love what what she teaches and what she does, because yeah, that's what you're doing as well. Oh, well. I'm actually I'm saying well to surgeon as face.
Sirjana Singh:Episode, I've had goosebumps.
Unknown:That's a radical act. But oh my gosh, thank you
Sirjana Singh:for sharing that. Ashley. Yeah, you thank you for saying yes to coming back again. We are so excited to have you again and so excited for people to hear this episode.
Unknown:Like I said, I love what you do. So thank you so much. Thank you.
Ben Lane:So there you have it peeps. We hope you are as riveted as we are right now. We'll have Ashley back again for some more stimulating discussions for sure. In the meantime, if you'd like to get your hands on books, my name is revenge and how to be Australian. You can find them and you can find them on Amazon or wherever you get your books. My name is revenge is also available as an audiobook on audible.com. If like us you'd like to stay in your pjs while you get creative. Consider tuning into her podcast. James and Ashley stay at home. You'll find links to all of these in the episode description. When you've got a sick don't forget to come find us on Instagram at the creative myth. There you'll find all sorts of nifty stuff and get a heads up as to what's coming up next. Now until next time, stay tuned. Be kind and get creative