A Conversation with Hattie Crisell
Your latest book stemmed from your podcast In Writing, so I was just wondering if you could share the process of transforming a podcast into a book.
I started the podcast in 2019, and it really started as a passion project. It’s just something that I was really interested in; I love podcasts and I’ve always been interested in the writing process. I didn’t know whether anyone else was going to find it interesting, but I just thought I’d make ten episodes and, if nobody listens to it, I’ll just quietly drop it, and never talk about it again… But I did find an audience who I think found it as interesting as I did, which is really exciting, and it sort of grew from there.
And then, in terms of the book, I’d always wanted to write a book, but I’d put it to the back of my mind a little bit. I had tried – I’d started writing things and then abandoned them, as everyone does. So, I was struggling to find the kind of confidence or the courage to really push forward with and give it a proper go, but speaking to all of those writers was really inspiring. I remember talking to Kit De Waal about Creative Writing MAs, and something Kit said was that an MA is really just an opportunity to spend a lot of time focusing on your writing, talking about your writing, taking it seriously and devoting yourself to it. And that really clicked. I kind of came away from that interview and thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this’. So, I did an MA, and then people kept telling me that I should do a book of the podcast, but I couldn’t figure out exactly how I wanted to do it. It took me probably a year or two and then I, one day, the format just popped into my head.
Amazing! Maybe for you specifically, but also in general, why do you think there does seem to be such a fascination about how people actually put pen to paper? It’s almost as though there’s a mystique about that whole process…
I don’t know actually. I mean, I think it’s definitely something that we are particularly interested in in the current cultural moment. I don’t think there was much interest in this before – I mean, my parents are a bit baffled by why people find this stuff so interesting, but there is a real hunger to learn more about process at the moment, I think.
Also, I think doing anything creative, like writing – when it’s not something that you’re necessarily going to be paid for and nobody’s asking you to do it – there’s very little external pressure on you to do it – it’s all from within. And it’s quite difficult to summon the level of motivation, persistence and resilience that you need to actually see a creative project through to completion, so I think hearing from other people about how they do that is very helpful; it has been helpful for me, and I think it helps others because a lot of the process is really about building a kind of scaffolding that supports you to complete something. So, whether it’s helping your concentration, helping to tune out the distractions of life, or managing your mood and learning how to keep going despite the self-doubt, the writing process is all about managing that.
And I guess, even if you take the writing out of it, it’s almost like a study of humanity and how we are able to sit and dedicate ourselves to something. It’s fascinating.
I agree. And I think, by the time I finished writing the book, I felt that, as much as it’s a book about writing, it’s really a book about life; it’s about how to keep going when things are difficult, how to keep going when you feel vulnerable and you’re putting yourself out there, you know, how do you resist the urge to run away and hide? And even things like, in life, we have to take other people’s feedback, and we have to decide whether to listen to them. Are they right? Are they wrong? And how can we push forward and bounce back from rejections or failures or negative feedback? These are all skills that writers have to hone, and they’re actually really useful skills for life.
Totally. I feel like it would be remiss of me to not ask you about your own writing process - do you have a dedicated space? What time do you like to write?
I do all my writing here, right where I am right now, which is the corner of my living room. It’s not ideal in some ways as I spend most of my life in this room. I do have hopes and plans of moving into a different room for work at some point. I’m also definitely a daytime writer. I don’t like to write or work in the evenings because I just don’t feel that my brain is up to the job. I will do it if I have a deadline and, when I was writing this book, I worked on it whenever I could around my journalism, but I think I always get my best work done in the morning. It also depends how much pressure I’m under – I think pressure is definitely good for me to an extent. Deadlines are also really important to me; I find it very difficult to self-motivate without a deadline.
Do you try to carve out time for your writing? Or can write in the little pockets of time in and around other things?
I think, being a freelance journalist, and I’m sure there are probably exceptions to this rule, but most of us, unfortunately, are not rushed off our feet with work these days. It’s not a particularly thriving industry, so a freelance journalist will always have pockets of time when there isn’t any journalism work coming in, and part of the skill is learning not to panic and to use that time for something else that’s useful. I had a bit of an advance for the book, so I was lucky enough to be able to dedicate some time to it without having to write around a 9–5 office job. I think that must be really, really difficult, and I don’t know if I could do that.
I guess it also goes back to what you were saying about the benefit of really being able to take your writing and dedicate your time to it.
Definitely, although I think I did feel some guilt about prioritising work on my book, which felt a bit theoretical at the beginning, rather than working on an article that I’d be paid for imminently. But I had to remind myself that, when you’ve got a book deal, you’re just one part of a team of people who are trying to do this professional thing, and you have to show up. You’re part of it. It’s a responsibility that you’re being paid for, and people expect it to be on time. Also, I’ve always wanted to write a book so I really didn’t want the book to come out and for me to look at it and think, ‘That could have been better if I had given it a bit more effort’. I really wanted to make it as good as I could.
I’ve always found that writing and authors romanticised quite a lot, especially in movies! Why do you think this is the case? And what is the most unrealistic representation of an author that you’ve seen in a TV show or movie?
All I can think of is Carrie Bradshaw! I’m trying to think of a more recent one, but Carrie Bradshaw came straight into my head. When Sex and the City was on, it was like twenty years ago, wasn’t it? Because certainly being paid £2 a word is just crazy and that’s definitely not the case anymore. These days, you’re very lucky if you can be a journalist and afford to live in London, let alone have a lifestyle where you’re out drinking cocktails all the time and buying designer shoes. I think it was probably different in the 80s and 90s – there were more perks maybe. But you know, despite all of that, writing is a wonderful job in a lot of ways. It is really good fun. You get like amazing access to things that you wouldn’t normally get access to, and you get to meet people you wouldn’t normally meet and go to cool places, and you’re invited to fun things. So, it’s not untrue that it’s a fabulous job, but it’s just becoming increasingly difficult to make it work. I guess the dream couldn’t last forever.
One of my favourite quotes in your book is from the ‘Ideas’ section, where you talk about Charlie Brooker saying that having an idea or moment of inspiration was like ‘getting an email from your subconscious’ - which I love. I also loved that image of having a series of fairy lights as ideas instead of one big lightbulb moment, and I wondered if you could talk about those ideas and how they relate to your work?
I think writers at the beginning of their careers, and even later in their career, can get very worried about whether their idea is good enough and whether it’s original enough. There’s such a huge amount of writing in the world already, so it can feel like, is it even worth me getting started on something if the idea doesn’t feel special? That thought can be really paralysing, but I’ve met writers who are several books or several series down the road, and that idea really fades. You know, of all the things they worry about, that becomes one of the less significant ones because I think it becomes clear that the initial idea is not actually a big part of the process. One reason being that the idea will change over the course of actually working on the story, you know, it’s the work that makes the thing into what it is. It’s not the idea – it’s the work and the delivery that makes it a uniquely textured piece of work.
We are all different, we all have completely different life experiences, so we come to the work with a unique perspective, even if we don’t feel unique. That’s what will make the work feel different, it’s your own perspective, and it’s also not being satisfied with cliches and regurgitating old ideas. I think it’s more really being quite rigorous with yourself about not taking shortcuts and really being true to what feels true for you. That’s what makes a piece of work feel original, not the initial idea.
I interviewed Emily St. John Mandel, and she said something along the lines of, it doesn’t matter whether the idea is cool or not, I can still make an amazing piece of work out of it. I think that’s really helpful. And the other thing is that, the more you work, the more ideas you generate along the way. I think Jesse Armstrong also said that you’re constantly having ideas while you’re working – you’re having small ideas at every level. The initial idea is really just the first stepping stone.
Yeah, I love that. I love the idea that it’s just a little step, and I’m definitely going to think of ideas as fairy lights from now on – it’s such a lovely image.
Exactly, it’s just about not putting too much pressure on the idea having to illuminate the entire book. I mean, there are some books that might have had an incredible idea, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a great book at all. And then you read some books, and you just think, I have read a similar love story before, but actually this one is particularly stunning.
Also, thinking about it now, I was saying that crises of confidence usually affect people at the beginning of their careers, but I remember interviewing David Nicholls after he had published Sweet Sorrow and he hadn’t yet started working on You Are Here, his most recent novel. When I interviewed him, he hadn’t started working on it yet, and he was in a crisis of confidence; he was questioning whether he had anything to say that the world needs to hear. And in the end, he hit on a story that meant something to him and people have responded to it. As long as you really care about the story you’re telling, it will resonate.
That’s fascinating, but also so crazy because you just never imagine someone like David Nicholls ever having a crisis in confidence. But I guess that’s what the power of your podcast and book is – it’s inspiring to read these incredible authors and realise we’re all the same in many ways.
Yes, exactly. And also, a bit of a confidence wobble is not necessarily a bad thing because it helps us to be more self-critical in a healthy way. As a writer, you need to be able to take a critical eye to your own work. And that’s part of the reason why David Nicholls is a wonderful writer because doesn’t let himself off the hook too easily. There’s a fine line to walk, I think.
I won’t ask you what your favourite interview was because that’s probably a little unfair, but I’d love to know which conversation made the biggest impact on you? Maybe because it offered you a new perspective or taught you something you hadn’t thought about before.
The first one that springs to mind is Ruben Östlund. He’s a filmmaker who made ‘Triangle of Sadness’ and ‘Force Majeure’. Part of the reason why it’s so fascinating to talk to writers of different disciplines is because they have just different takes on things. He is always very open about his ideas, discussing them with other people, and getting other people’s opinions from the very beginning of a project. He doesn’t even write anything down until he’s discussed an idea with lots of people he respects, and he’s got their read on it. I don’t think I could work the way he works, but it was thought provoking. It made me think, you know, there’s definitely benefit from talking to creative and interesting people, and that’s the kind of collaboration that tends to be missing from the world of book writing.
I also think Curtis Sittenfeld was really good on time management. She said this thing about putting time in your diary to write and treating it like an appointment with another person, and that really stuck with me because I was definitely not treating my own projects as being as important as the things I was doing for other people. That was revelatory to me, the simple idea that you’re not going to get anything finished and you’re not going to make any progress unless you take it really seriously.
We’ve talked about how your book is inspirational, but reading so much advice might be overwhelming because there are so many different ways to approach writing. So, if you could distil everything into one place to start, what would it be?
I guess my overriding message is actually something that Maggie O’Farrell said about how you have to be in the work before you can see your way through the work – you can’t do it from the outside. You can’t figure anything out theoretically, you have to get your hands dirty. I certainly spent quite a lot of years being frightened to try things and trying to solve all the problems in my head before I sat down to try something, but that’s just not possible. And when you actually start the work, hopefully the excitement of it and the pleasure of it will help you get through the problem-solving parts – and there will be loads of problems to solve, but you can’t do them until you start. So, however you approach your work, don’t worry too much about finding a perfect way – you’ll find that out in the doing.
If you could go on a writing retreat anywhere in the world and money is no object, where would you go?
As much as I love the idea of them, I’m not sure they’re for me because I just feel like, if I go somewhere beautiful to write, I will just end up having a holiday and not do anything. A reading retreat would be lovely though! I really, really loved Goa, so I’d like to go somewhere like that maybe.
And our last question, which we ask every author, is do you judge a book by its cover?
Well, we all have to. I mean, you haven’t got anything else to judge it by – that’s the whole point.
That’s such a good answer, no one has said that before!
Well, you know, in the absence of any other information, I’m definitely going to be drawn to a good-looking cover, but obviously it can be misleading. You know, it’s very much like people, you should never assume that just because someone’s good looking, they’re good on the inside.
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