Tom Pepperdine interviews award winning author and poet, Salena Godden, about her writing process. Salena discusses why she likes writing in the morning, the difference between writing and performance, and her very strange Google searches.

You can find out more information on Salena at her website: https://www.salenagodden.co.uk/

Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/salena.godden/

And Threads: https://www.threads.net/@salena.godden

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Hello, and welcome to the real writing process.

I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.

And this week, my guest is the award-winning author

and poet Salena Godden.

Now, I don't think it's hyperbole to say Salena Godan is one of the

greatest English poets alive today.

At least the Royal society of literature think so, as they elected

her fellowship in 2020, For me though, she's a performance poet.

Yes, she has collections of poetry and appears in anthologies, but her

albums that are the real highlight.

I think poetry at its best is when it's heard and not read.

And Salena is a great read, but wows in a live setting, And I hope after

hearing this interview, you go and check out her live dates because she

really is someone to seek out and see.

For this interview, though, we do discuss her novel writing as well

as a poetry after her debut novel.

Mrs.

Death, Misses Death came out to great acclaim in 2021.

And then 2022 won an indie book award and people's book prize.

It's just a very good book.

Uh, so whether you're a novelist poet or just a fan of Salena, this

is a great conversation to listen to.

Now, it was recorded back in the summer of 2022.

So the weather is quite different than when we discuss it.

But sadly the politics is still depressingly similar.

Anyway enough waffle let's have a jingle that onto the interview.

And I'm here with Salena Godden.

Salena, hello.

Hello, Tom.

It's lovely to be here.

It's lovely to have you here.

And my first question as always is, what are we drinking?

I'm drinking a cup of tea.

What are you drinking?

I am also joining you with a cup of tea.

Now I understand you don't just have any old tea, you have a bit of a tea cocktail.

Will you tell our listeners?

Oh, I do.

I'm, I like to mix my teabag up and I have a Yorkshire tea mixed with a

chai um, which makes it more tea-ey.

Mmm.

. Excellent.

Very tasty.

And what,

What tea you got?

I need to know now.

I've gone for a standard Tetley.

My, my wife is very particular and so I make sure we always

have Tetley in the house.

To the point now that last Christmas I got her a big, like catering bag of Tetleys.

And we're still working our way through.

She thought that would only last a month, but we're here like mid to late

August and we're still going strong.

That's good.

That's good.

Yeah.

I, yeah, so I'm not really a tea drinker, but this show is making

me a tea drinker cause I'm just interviewing so many peoples.

Like, it's got to be a cup of tea.

Yeah, a cup of tea.

Yeah.

It's the slow burn caffeine release.

I've always been a coffee drinker before, but I'm appreciating like,

rather than the hit of caffeine, it's that slow release throughout the

day and I am appreciating that more.

So this is your go-to drink when you are writing.

Yeah, it is.

And this is my cup cuz you'll see it's huge, this huge-

wow.

White cup.

Yeah.

And this is like my cup.

No one else is allowed to drink from it.

Yes.

It's a huge, great big mug.

And um, yeah.

And where I'm speaking to you, uh, you have a fine uh,

series of books behind you.

Is this your writing spot in the house?

This is actually my little writing room.

Yeah.

This is where I live.

This is where I am most of the day actually.

This is where I wrote my books and I'm at the desk.

It's the desk that's in the book.

Yeah.

Nice.

And are you a laptop writer, desktop writer, a notepad writer?

How, how do you like to jot out your ideas?

Oh, I don't think there's one answer to that.

I am a walking, talking writer.

Yeah.

And I it's called composing on the lips.

To compose on the Lips is an actual, I didn't ever hear that

before, but I looked it up and yeah.

So writing and Recording into my phone and typing into my phone.

I kind of like that you can probably hear quite a lot of rhythm in my writing.

Um, I also write by hand.

Mm-hmm.

I like to sit and just scribble away in a notebook.

Got lots of notebooks.

Never throw any notebooks out.

And then, yeah, and then sit there and type all that into the computer, the

audio and the penciled notes and yeah.

It's amazing actually, isn't it?

When you're writing you can write just to scribble like, Chinese noodles.

Yeah.

And that's like a whole chapter.

But you know, it's not an order for your takeaway.

I suppose like sometimes it's just if it can take you to

that place, that's brilliant.

But I do know writers where sometimes they look at a word or

a phrase and just go, no idea.

I have no idea.

Yeah.

That happens too.

That does happen.

Yeah.

So do you have a structured writing day where you wake up

and it's going through the notes?

Or do you go, actually I've got a load of notes now and it's suddenly

you realize you have a bunch that you have to sit down and write up.

How is it structured?

Um, Let me see.

Okay, so first things I like to get up really early in the morning.

I'm a very early morning writer.

It's developed when I was writing Springfield Road in my thirties.

And I still don't even need a Alarm clock or anything.

I naturally wake up at four even if I don't have to or want to.

And I sort of sit there and sometimes I'll get up for an hour and read or if I

haven't got a deadline or something I'm working on or you know, something urgent.

But generally I'll wake a massive cup of tea and sit here and watch the

sunrise and watch the sky get lighter.

I love that time of day for writing.

I find it really inspiring.

It's like a new chance.

It's like a new fresh page.

It's like a fresh new day to try and get something better or write something

better that you did the day before.

I think that's probably why so much of my work has so much hope in it.

Cause I feel very hopeful watching the sunrise.

Obviously by five in the afternoon, you know, you've been on Twitter and the

world's all a mess and you're like, what's that point of this then reach for the gin.

But at four, five in the morning, it's all beautiful and hopeful

and full of possibilities.

I don't think there's a strict sort of rule.

There are days that uh, you know, your, your eye has to be on the editing jobs.

There are days when you'll just go back over what you've

written over and over again.

Trying to remember and find like a path of breadcrumbs.

And usually by going back to the beginning, back to page

one, you'll go, oh, I, yeah.

And you can pick up.

Some days you'll spend ages just obsessing over one paragraph.

It's crazy when that happens too.

And then other days you'll merrily go off into some other completely

new ideas and that's really exciting.

And then it's four in the afternoon, you haven't even had

anything to eat or gone for a pee.

And, and, you know, and your, and your husband or partner comes home and is

like, puts a sandwich, next to you.

You don't even say thank you.

You just eat it like an animal and carry on writing till eight.

Those days are intense, but you get a hell of a lot done.

So it kind of changes with.

With projects and timings and what I'm doing.

Yeah.

I think I like writing, thinking no one's looking.

Yeah.

And is it a prose project you are working on at the moment or a poetry

one, or is there a couple on the go?

There's a couple of books at the moment.

So I'm working on a new novel.

I'm working on a new poetry collection.

I've been fiddling with some short stories, which I'm not supposed to

be doing, and I've been writing songs which I'm not supposed to be doing.

And also looking at memoir.

I'm doing a little bit of everything in the moment.

I'm in this lovely place of kind of playing with just basically

new work, new ideas, new projects.

Cuz Mrs.

Death Misses Death took over my life, the last three years or so.

So it's nice to sort, sort of have that, that lovely soft time in August.

Yeah.

Before it's crazy September and spiders and orange and Halloween.

When it's all lovely and I love this time of year.

Yeah, when you just sit down and take time to make pots of tea.

It's not quite back to term time, not quite time for a new pencil case.

But it's that last little end of that all August feeling.

I love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

And I think, this year where we've had such severe heat waves and it's

now got back to a, still warm, but comfortable heat that is not so

oppressive that you can actually enjoy the outside, enjoy seeing people.

Little easier to focus, I think.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, I love this.

I love this time of year, I always have.

Making lists and making dreams and thinking, what do I want to do next?

What do I have to do next?

What do I need to do next?

Yeah.

Not always the same thing.

No.

And like you were saying there, sort of like, writing short stories when

you shouldn't be and songs when you shouldn't be, but it's just when the

creative energy is high and you're sort of like working on all these projects.

Sometimes you need a break from what you need to be working on to do something

that you just want to do for fun.

Yeah.

And it's less pressure.

And like you say, no one's looking at it.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

Yeah, exactly that.

Exactly that, Tom.

Yeah, that kind of feeling like, to be honest with you, Mrs Death, Misses Death

was a massive thing that I was writing that I wasn't supposed to be working on.

I didn't have an agent, I didn't have a publisher in place.

At some points I wasn't even sure I'd ever let anyone read it.

It was just something that I wanted to complete.

So yeah, so that feeling of just, it was like my, what do they call it?

Like a pet project.

Just something I wanted to, that I was working on.

Was just collecting all these deaths and all these stories.

Yeah.

And so how long were you working on that?

How long was the gestation of that project?

Long!

Yeah, yeah,

I've got an old notebook that um, 2011, 2012.

Okay.

So like little scribbled notes and ideas for characters and and

collecting real time stories of, you know, injustice and huge things

that were happening politically.

And then also strange stories of near death experiences and people

that survived and things like that.

Not all of it went into the book.

The book could have been like, so all the stuff I'd collected, but I was really

adamant that had to be quite short.

Because life is short and death is such a big, scary subject.

I didn't want the book to be heavy like in someone's pocket.

Like it's head me in your head as it is.

Yeah.

And so obviously that's had great acclaim and success.

And congratulations on the Indie award that you got.

Um,

What's going on.

I don't.

It's, it's it's amazing.

It's really resonated with people and it's really good.

And obviously you're now working on a Second prose project or

is this your second pro or is there like one in between?

I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say, but this is a novel and

there won't be any poetry in it.

So whereas in Mrs.

Death Misses Death, we had some bits of, well I played with lots of forms didn't I?

And poetry, song, and duologue and plays and, and script and stuff.

So yeah, no, this one is a straight up, no messing around.

Booky book, for want of a better way of putting it?

Well, I never asked titles.

I never asked plots, I never asked characters.

So we should be alright by any kind of publisher, agent sort of thing.

And also I always want this to be a snapshot in history.

So I want it to be that we're talking around the outskirts of it, we're

talking about, the behind the scenes.

Yeah.

And then once it's actually announced, once it's actually

released, people can go back and it's almost like a DVD commentary.

Yeah.

Whereas it's oh wow, this is what they were thinking when they actually wrote

it rather than you having to think back, wait, what was I thinking when I wrote it?

So, so we're, we're, we're catching it live real time.

So this is your first proper, like you say, novel novel?

Uh, Yeah.

Springfield Road, the memoir.

Although it was, it's a memoir, but that was all prose, obviously.

So it's not my first time writing like all in..

Narrative?

Narrative, yeah.

That's what I'm trying to say.

Sorry, yeah.

That's alright.

Sorry.

Sorry.

It's fine.

Sorry.

That's what I'm trying to say.

But it's still experimental.

And I'm just getting so much joy from it because it's the complete opposite to Mrs.

Death.

I asked quite a lot of myself writing that book and I didn't

realize or know people would read it.

I didn't know people would read it.

So also I, now I know that people, lots of people have read it.

I asked a lot of the readers.

It's quite a big thing to ask someone to read.

So I'm really enjoying this one.

It's light and joyful and just the other side of me.

And has it been like a long gestating project as well that you've now just been.

Able to really dive in on, or was it people were asking,

okay, you've written mrs.

Death, what next?

And you were like, oh, I've gotta come up with something.

Oh.

No, not at all.

Honestly.

This has also been bubbling away for a long time.

Okay, cool.

It's yeah I'm a lot, I'm, I, yeah I do that.

I make things.

And yeah, so this has been a long thing that I've been developing and working

onto um, you know, alongside Mrs.

Death, yeah.

And I guess the thing I'd like to ask a lot of writers when it comes

to the planning side of it is, was it more of a scenario, a character

or a world that you wish to exhibit that really was the driving force

when you were developing the idea?

Ooh, that's a good question.

I think it's a combination of being led by a character and exploring that world.

Yeah.

Okay.

And is it a character that you feel was like strongly developed when

you actually started to sit down?

Or are you discovering a lot of the character through the writing?

Yeah, I'm discovering a lot as I'm writing about the character's

friendship group and enemies.

And I'm loving developing that and exploring that.

Much as I did with Mrs.

Death.

What does she eat?

She eats eggs.

And so I'm really enjoying that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And would you say it's a character that you feel is close to you or

yeah, close to the people that you know, or have you had to like

research a lot either psychologically or culturally to, make sure it's,

it feels an authentic character?

Very much I'm obsessed at the moment.

Obsessed is a strong word, but this is such a weird story.

Please don't think I'm a weirdo.

Well, I am a weirdo.

Oh yeah.

I was gonna say, I'm not accepting that.

Sorry, you mix your teas.

You established yourself very early.

Somebody wrote me a letter from Taiwan.

And I thought, where is Taiwan and who would've possibly

heard of my poetry in Taiwan?

So then I Googled their address, and then I started getting really

into the history of that country.

Of Taiwan and what they eat and all of that.

So some of my book for this, just because of that, is now set in that

area and in that history because I just found it really fascinating and yeah,

so I've been doing loads of reading and looking up things and pictures and yeah.

Yeah.

So it's funny, isn't it?

When you're writing something, it takes you down these roads and down these paths.

Yeah.

And very strange Google searches.

And I know this is gonna sound like yeah, but I've been

really enjoying getting older.

I recently turned 50 and just slowing down a little bit, noticing my breath and

just looking at nature and growing flowers and life and nature and all of that.

And where, whereas Mrs.

Death took me to walking around graveyards and feeling very much that.

This feeling in this book is much more on the other side.

And so I've been really enjoying that.

Yeah.

And looking at a narrative rather than exploring a collection of ideas.

Cause I guess with Mrs.

Death Misses Death, it's seen through the prism of a narrator

collecting these stories throughout.

With this narrative have you had to map things out just to

make sure it's a coherent whole?

Or is it still a stylistically sort of snapshots a across a life

Oh no, this, no.

Yeah, cuz in Mrs.

Death Misses death there are.

Mrs.

Death is showing Wolf, the the other narrator, the young writer.

Yeah.

All these different lives.

So we have all these different feelings and flavors.

And we're jumping through history and time and different injustices

and silence, death and, oh my.

Now this one is a different feel.

It's still trippy, it's still experimental.

Because that's where my head is at.

So it's still gonna have that surreal quality to it.

But it's not, so, it's not coming in at you from those different angles this one.

Okay.

It's it's a one voice thing.

Okay.

Roughly, at the moment.

It is.

Anyway.

Yeah.

That might change.

And I guess with this experimental, slightly trippy thing, do you plan a

narrative at all or is it very much you sit down and you just write, and you

just sort of see where it takes you.

And then in the redrafting just establish the beginning, middle, and end?

There's actually a big story that I'm trying to tell.

Okay, cool.

Very big story, but it's very difficult to uh, put that all in, one book.

So yeah.

So I've got the big story and then it's just working out how to fragment

that into doing each, each character in each angle of that story justice.

I have got a really lovely idea.

But just like with Mrs.

Death Misses Death, there was one point where everyone was gonna die in the

end, it's gonna be complete nihilistic.

And then I went to Ireland and stayed in this tower and discovered more about

the character and walks being wolf in the tower in this amazing place.

And just felt very differently about how I wanted that book in particular to end.

And I'm sure that will happen again.

That I will take myself off to where this lead character stays.

And from there it'll all make sense to me.

I'm looking to that at the moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At the moment, I've got everyone dying in a war.

I well, not dying, but in battle.

And so I kind of, you know, they're being like this and I'm not really

sure that I wanna send that like a black snowball into the world.

Yeah.

So I wanna Yeah.

Find a bit more.

But that will come.

I find traveling, I find leaving this room that you are looking at now.

Yeah, really helps.

And going and facing my fears and facing my silence.

I really quite like my own company.

I like my writer Salena, and more than performing Salena.

To be honest.

And I'm, they're much more comfortable in my writing mode than I am in my rah!

Let's all drink rum mode.

Yeah.

It's the um, receive rather than project elements of personality, where you're

just absorbing the things around you.

Yeah.

And we've definitely had guests on the show where they've traveled.

And just getting that evocative sense of place.

And the smells and the sounds.

And it's just, it's so different from your study.

Yeah.

It's just, and you can imagine certain things, but if it's a

place that you've never been, yeah.

It's not gonna feel real to people who are reading it, who actually live there.

And you can really tell we've had a guest on the show who's written about Bristol.

And when I first got sent the book, I was like ready to get my critical brain on.

And I was like, no, this is someone who's lived in Bristol.

And he had.

You can tell.

And it is that thing of, you don't want to cheat the reader.

And I think that, yeah, travel can be fantastic.

Yeah.

It's, that's the magic stuff, isn't it?

Just going and just being on your own and it's very indulgent.

But it's like you have to dislocate yourself from the familiar, you have to

get a bit sad and a bit lonely as well.

Bit like where's my morning cuddle?

Where's my, you know, and you sort of get a bit, but in that you find

this other way of writing and it's, it is really lovely to come home

with a big, fat finished thing.

And you just feel really like you can actually relax, for maybe a day.

Yeah.

And then you get worried about that it's rubbish and then

you go back to writing again.

Well, It's the, yeah, it's a privilege to travel.

It's a privilege to do these things.

I don't have children.

I did do this on purpose.

To have that freedom.

I, I really Protect it, that freedom and protect that time to write, so

that I can stand half the chance of being a halfway decent writer

by the time I'm 70, you know?

I also like my freedom, sleep and disposable income,

so I'm also not a a parent.

But yeah, I mean, I, I have had sort of feelings of wanting to be a

mother, but they normally end with, I would get as far as thinking how

cute a little mini Salena would be.

So it's like a vanity project.

Yeah.

And then I'd get as far as giving them a really cool name.

And then I would just go, you are basically writing a character and I'd just

write a short story about this character and get it out of my system like that.

Yeah.

There are many ways to leave a legacy.

Yeah.

And one that you don't have to fear for health problems.

You don't have to fear about the state of society for, you don't have to worry

about whether they're gonna get a good job or be able to house themselves and feed

themselves and have a family of their own.

Don't have to worry about that with a character.

No.

Although they can scream at you from the book, why isn't

there nicer food in the fridge?

Oh, and yeah, be very demanding.

Be very demanding of your time.

That's true.

Yeah.

But yeah, that freedom.

Returning to the, the ideas of travel and traveling to enhance your work.

I, I feel that's, doing service to the reader.

I don't think it's indulgent, picking up on a word you said earlier.

No, I love that though.

And just listening to conversations.

Listen, I just this weekend I was in Bradford and doing a gig there,

poetry gig, just listening to the change of accents and the feeling

and walking around the town.

And then the weekend before that I was in Edinburgh.

So it doesn't even have to be somewhere with a palm tree just

not this room can be amazing.

Yeah.

And also I would say you know, from London to Bradford to Edinburgh.

Culturally, it's divided by a, a similar language, but like you say, the accent.

Yeah.

And then Cornwall the weekend before that.

That's one end of the country to the other.

And yeah, I think I've always loved that part of performing and touring.

The meeting people all over the country and seeing how certain

poems land so differently.

Yeah.

In different towns, in different vibes.

It's really interesting.

So there's, it's almost there's a geography of grief . Especially if you're

talking about death and grief and sorrow.

Yeah.

And we should talk about your poetry and performance.

It's what you're known for, but it's interesting what you said earlier,

how you prefer your internal writing mode to your performance mode.

But yeah, performance is so integral, I think, to poetry,

especially in the modern age.

That the development of poems can sometimes be created on stage.

And I was just wondering from having an initial concept of a poem to actually

performing it, do you like to rehearse it a lot before then getting it out

in public, or do you prefer to get a rough form out in public and like

you say, see how it lands and then maybe revise the words in it later?

Okay.

There's lots to unpack there in that question.

Okay.

First of all, just wanna say just in case when I said I prefer my my writer

person to my performer, I mean that I'm just more chilled when I'm writing

and there's just a lot of anxiety.

I get very nervous still, 30 years performing, and I still

get so nervous before every gig.

I guess it's because I still care about it.

I treat every gig like it's Wembley.

I give every gig my 100%, and I get so nervous that I'm gonna pick the

right poems or, do the right, or whether I can swear or not, cause

I don't wanna get told off again.

I get told off a lot.

And so there's all of that.

Now, I never do the same gig twice, never do the same order,

never the same selection.

Some poems will only live for one gig and then I'll never perform them again.

Because they're just something I've seen in a headline in the news.

And I'm angry and I'll write it on the train to the gig, something like that.

Or when I was younger it would be cuz you know, some boy had been awful.

Some awful lad being disrespectful or something.

But I feel like I am a work in progress.

I am the work in progress.

And as I write and as I do poems, I'm constantly editing, adding, changing.

Even when I have a poem in my hand, I'll edit it as I'm reading it.

I ad lib, I'll add things.

I'll even heckle myself in the middle of the poem cuz young soft me

wrote something in this really wingy way and I'll be like, oh, come on.

You know?

So, I don't know.

I think it's that my poetry is growing and changing all the time.

And also I make mistakes, like editorial mistakes, punctuation,

those kind of mistakes.

But then also mistakes where I might misgender or I might have got something

wrong and I will always go back and correct and change and learn and grow.

You're not alive if you're not learning and growing and prepared to

listen and see how you can do better.

And that's really important to me and to my poetry.

uh, There's a line in the poem Red where I'm making a joke about if

some blokes went into a pub and it just sounded like I was saying, oh,

anyway, so I changed it immediately.

Just one person came up and talked to me about it.

And I hadn't meant it that way, but then I was like, gosh, it does sound that way.

So I'm always, doing that.

And so that's why you should come to all of my gigs because they're never the same.

Absolutely.

It's a very organic thing and the energy of a room can be so

different from one night to the next.

And from one county to another county.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So many factors, you know?

Like the weather, the traffic, the state of mind people

have getting into the venue.

Was that a stressful experience?

A relaxing experience?

An exciting experience?

Or if it's been like some big tragedy in the news, like Grenfell or something.

I think poets are amazing.

We're living in such scary times.

Scary times for so many reasons.

But also the work, the books, the poets that are coming through in this time.

We're so rich with this amazing work.

And I don't say that, that we needed extra things to be anxious and worried

and scared of to make the work good.

Yeah, but I do feel lucky and privileged to be sharing the stage

and publishing books side by side with so many heroes and legends.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's very much the emotional discourse of the events going on where people just,

you know, still processing, the war in Ukraine and, how do we deal with that?

You know, the longer it goes on and their own personal

fears with the cost of living.

And, there's a worry on the wider humanity, but there's also a

worry of, the immediate family and digesting what's compassion,

what's selfishness what's survival.

And I really feel it's the poets who are deconstructing that and

moving that conversation on.

That's the thing, that's the thing what I've always said to kids.

Who would win in a fight?

A journalist, comedian, or a poet?

And it's the comedian's the slave to making it funny.

Yeah.

And a journalist, a slave to making it factual, apparently.

And then the poet can use fact and comedy and heart and tenderness.

Yeah.

And all of those things.

They have more in the armory.

More tools.

Yeah.

More weapons.

Yeah.

But yeah, that is something that I say to kids when I teach them.

So it must be hard when doing a collection to, you have to abandon these poems now.

The image in my head then was a baby at a bus stop.

Left at a bus stop.

Well, It's just, you know, you say that the poems are constantly evolving and

they're different each year performance, but when they're in a book, yeah,

they're not evolving, they're not changing and people are gonna read them.

And like you said, you have that one person who reads it a certain

way and speaks to you after a gig and go, oh, well I'll change it.

Yeah, I change it.

Can't do that once it's in a book.

Once they're in a book and they're coming to get you to sign it

and they go, oh, I felt this.

And you're like, that's not why I intended, but it's published now.

Yeah.

So?

I dunno what we can do about that.

I don't know what we can do about that.

I've had.

You've been doing it for 30 years, Salena, so I thought there might be

something that you had to make peace with the fact once it's in print.

Yeah, but if you come to a reading, I'll do it how I feel that day.

But yeah, no I dunno what to do about that.

Some people they will say things about your work and you, there is nothing you

can do once it's, yeah, like you said, once it's in print, it's very strange.

That's, yeah.

I'm just wondering that your editors must be enormously patient with you, cuz I just

feel like you've just signed off on it and then you've gone, I did a gig last night.

Bring it back.

Yeah.

Cancel the print run.

I've got another new joke to put in.

Yeah, but then there's the poems that I don't perform.

The ones I do like to just sit on the page, the ones that I never read out loud,

the ones that I just want to be read.

The more sort of raucous ones and more sort of sweary or political ones are

the ones that are constantly changing.

Because we keep changing Yeah.

You know, Ministers and we keep changing list of people that we're angry with.

Yeah.

So is it quite clear when a poem comes to you, is this for a book?

Is this for performance?

Or is there always an instinctive, I know whether I'm gonna perform this or not?

Oh, that's a nice question.

I don't think that I think that far ahead.

In the sense that I write what I wanna write.

An example of this would be if I'm commissioned to write something.

When I'm commissioned to write something, I often feel like

I'm being ordered in like pizza.

And sometimes when your commissioned do things, they'll be like, oh,

change the olives to pennies.

Change the olives to buttons.

And you're like, I know what I'm doing here.

Mm.

Promise me, olives are gonna be nicer than buttons.

But because they've commissioned you, you have to do the pizza the way they want it.

So when you're writing with an audience or to a commission, then that stuff feels

more squeezed and or to a time constraint.

And it's gotta be a certain length.

It's gotta be this, it's gotta, y ou know.

You've gotta sort of somehow very cleverly get your spice in there, get your flavor

from in there, whilst also it being broadcastable for the BBC or something.

Mae West comes to mind when I say that.

She was an absolute legend.

Yeah.

Making things and then putting all these sort of meanings and politics in her work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot of innuendo with Mae West, which is absolutely fantastic.

And when you think of the time that she was performing.

Yeah.

And what she was saying, it's just brilliant.

She was a really big for, black rights and women's rights.

She's quite political a figure actually.

And I, yeah, she's one of my favorites, historical figures.

Yeah.

And, Actually I'll say this, like whether you have any rituals for performance

or writing at home, but just sometimes people like to have little totems on

their desk or just the making of the tea is a ritual thing that they have

at the beginning of a writing session.

You are nodding vigorously there, so I'm assuming that's, I know true with you.

I literally have the, this is Wolf's China Rabbit there.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

It's the, The rabbit that's in the book.

Yeah.

So that's still sitting here.

I should probably, it probably doesn't need to be on my desk anymore.

But yeah, so Wolf's rabbit is still sitting there and yeah,

there's some little bits on my desk, little witchy things, little

magic stones, nice little totems.

Things that I just look at, little bits from my ancestors and stuff.

Nice.

Yeah.

Nice.

And is there anything that you'd like to have with you when you go on stage?

A very strong drink.

Okay.

(Both laugh)

. I tend to go for a double gin and tonic or a double vodka

tonic or a double rum and coke.

Usually vodka tonic cuz vodka makes me quite energized.

Rum makes me dance and gin makes me thinky.

So nice, nice drink and then away I go.

But oh, I get so nervous before gigs.

I really do.

So there's no real ritual.

Basically backstage before gigs, I'm just jumping up and down on the

spot and going, I hate this, I don't wanna do it, I don't wanna do it.

Like that a lot.

And what's the feeling afterwards?

A combination of wanting to run away and hide, even if it's gone very well.

And often feel quite vulnerable, exposed, naked.

And then sometimes it feels like a party.

If there's lots of friends.

Yeah.

And then it's, we'll go to a pub or a bar and that's the lovely time.

Yeah, we have such good times.

I love that feeling.

And I guess with every sort of creative person, there's that part of the

process that gets the validation hit.

Where it's just like, this is why I do what I do.

And where in the process does that come for you?

I think I'm really hard on myself.

It's very rare for me to pat myself on the back or to give myself any

sort of congratulations or any rest.

Or any kind of, yeah, that's a finished thing.

Yeah, so I'm always competing with tomorrow.

Salena in tomorrow.

I will sit here today and look at Salena's work yesterday

and be like, Nope, nope, nope.

No.

And put with a big red pen.

So it's very unusual for me to go, that's it, nailed it.

Or to feel like that's the best I can do with that moment in the book

or in the poem, it's very unusual.

So that's where in the process I feel some sort of validation or some sort of thing.

I've given up trying to compete with anyone else.

I think it's really important as writers because everyone's on their own journey.

Yeah.

And have their own obstacles and their own thing that they're trying to achieve

or thing that they're trying to say.

That they can only say their way.

With their pain and their voice.

Only you can do your voice and your stories your way.

So yeah, so I learned that a long time ago.

So I'm just constantly trying to make tomorrow the Salena in tomorrow.

Go, yeah, that'll do

And um, yeah, so working towards that.

When that'll come and how often that comes.

I can't really control.

Picking up on some of the comments you made there about

how hard you are on yourself.

It's something I like to discuss with pretty much every writer is

imposter syndrome and having that sort of feeling of, I'm going to

be found out that I'm no good.

And do you have any techniques to process that or just go enough now, I'm working.

How do you deal with imposter syndrome?

I get imposter syndrome mostly when I'm invited to do what

I consider to be posh things.

For example, when I was recently inducted into the royal Society

of Literature, I felt very much like they'd got the wrong person.

And they got my name mixed up in the votes or something, I don't know.

So things like that, that feel quite posh, that's when I

get Raging Imposter syndrome.

My way of coping with it is to ask myself, what is the opposite of imposter syndrome?

Surely that would be some kind of entitled syndrome or, or some

kind of really horrible arrogance.

And I think I'd rather feel a bit like, oh, this isn't where my comfort zone and

oh, this is a bit shiny and new and funny.

I'd rather feel like that than bowl in somewhere expecting everyone to

give me all the cakes every day and expecting all the things and all the

nice things and all the shining things.

I think these things coming along as a surprise and as a treat and

as something you weren't expecting is much nicer place to be.

So just think a bit like that.

Yeah.

Oh, that's really lovely, lovely answer.

Thank you.

And I was just wondering if you ever have any periods where you feel

really uninspired, where just the words aren't flowing, and if that's

a challenge that you have to overcome and if so, how do you deal with that?

Usually I'll go and work on something else I'm not supposed to.

It's when anything feels like work then I'll then I want to go

back to where it's being playful.

So I'll go and work on something else and then that will usually

shift whatever's blocking it.

But often when I'm, we're going back to audience and things, often

the things that I get blocked or stuck on are things that I've been

commissioned for or favors for friends.

And you want, you wanna do them a good job, but you want it to be nice for them.

or someone's paying you to write a poem for thing and you want it to be

good cuz they're paying you to do it.

You know, trying to pull it out of yourself to do your best job.

But not wanting to do a karaoke of yourself.

I know when I'm doing a karaoke of myself now, so I know when I'm

writing in the style of myself as opposed to actually writing.

Yeah.

That was actually my next question was like, how do you

know when to stop during a day?

Because you did mention earlier that sometimes when it, the feeling's good,

you can just write straight through without our eating or going to the

loo and just very minimal breaks.

But sometimes you've just gotta go, it's not happening.

I've gotta step away.

Do you have a minimum requirement on a day or is it just now you've

been writing for so many years, you just have that instinctive trust

in yourself that you can just tell?

There's lots of answers to that too.

There's the part of me that's quite obsessive and I will just keep going

until Richard comes home and he will literally find me just still there going

like this cuz I haven't gone for a pee.

And I'm like he'll bring me snacks until I'm, until I'm just absolutely exhausted.

But there are other times when you just have to switch your laptop off, go

downstairs, put on some really good music, and just make something from scratch.

Like a really nice curry or a really nice roast dinner, or a really nice,

you know, shepherd's pie or something.

Or bake a cake.

Yeah.

And just listen to music, have a glass of wine.

And often while you're there chopping the onions or kneading

dough or something, that's when the ideas start coming back again.

Isn't it?

Oh, and gardening.

Yeah, putting your hands in the mud.

Planting things.

Yeah, just gardening or cooking are my two.

Or-organic.

Yeah.

Having organic matter in the house.

I was just gonna ask I, I gather your husband's the first person to read

things once they're finished or do have?

No.

Who does?

Who does it go to once you are happy with it?

The first person that I normally send my work to is Crystal Mahey-Morgan,

who is my amazing agent at OWN IT!.

And I really trust her judgment and I trust her secrecy and yeah,

she's normally the first one.

I wouldn't let Dickie see it first because even though I've known him all these

years, I still want him to be really impressed and to think I'm really clever.

And if his face did so much as a shadow.

Cause I know his face off my heart.

Even if his eyebrow just slightly something or an eyelid, cuz I study his

face while he was reading it, obviously.

Yeah, that would that would actually destroy it.

I'd probably throw it in the bin, yeah.

Yeah.

It's ridiculous really.

Cause Yeah.

Yeah.

That's your benchmark of quality.

Yeah.

That's nice.

And like he stole, he stole Springfield Road.

Yeah?

And I found him in the kitchen reading it like when it was still in um, editing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I found him in the kitchen reading it, but he was crying I knew that was okay.

Oh, and going back to something you said earlier, I don't do word counts.

I'm really anti having word counts.

You know, some people think you should do 5,000 words a day or something.

I count feelings, I count how moved I've been.

If I've made myself laugh a couple of times, I've made myself cry a couple of

times, that's a good writing session.

And if I haven't even giggled, it's all gone a little bit, you know.

Then nor has, the reader, as far as I'm concerned.

If you are not moved in any way emotionally or made to feel some sorrow

or to have a little chortle or a little giggle or to feel fury and fired up, then

I don't think the reader will be either.

So I think count feelings, count feelings, what works.

That's great.

And I think that's a perfect way to end the episode.

And Salena Godden, I've loved having you on as a guest.

Thank you very much.

And that was the real writing process of Salena Godden.

Now regular listeners may notice my last two questions

are missing on this interview.

And it's partly due to running out of time and partly the nightmare of connectivity

problems we had throughout that interview.

Thankfully, I think it's edited well enough that you didn't notice until

I just told you, but yes, it's a bit shorter and some questions are missing.

So I'm very, very sorry.

However, I think what Salena make it clear in that interview is

that she really values listening as part of the creative process.

Listen to different voices.

And be present in the world around you.

I listen to many different points of view, but ultimately write for yourself.

Be confident in what you want to say, the points and what you want to make

and the story in which you wish to tell.

But also listen to feedback.

Other people may interpret your words differently and if the

interpretation is far removed from the intention, then change it.

Which is also great advice for life.

Now, if you'd like to get updates on where you can see Salena live and where

to buy her books, then I recommend you check out her website, Salenagodden.co.uk.

And I also recommend you search for some live performance clips on YouTube

because wow, she's just excellent.

Oh, there's the outro music already.

I guess keep writing until the world ends.