Tom Pepperdine interviews Nikesh Shukla about his writing process. Nikesh discusses his early morning rituals to get him into the writing state of mind. How the Covid lockdowns changed how he approaches writing, and what inspired him in the writing of his latest novel.

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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 incredible author and

screenwriter that is Nikesh Shukla.

Nikesh is a writer's writer.

I'm aware he hasn't got a household name status yet.

But he's fucking good.

And he's a fantastic mentor to the latest generation of British writers.

You will have felt his influence in the British publishing world

with things that you've read.

Most notably, he edited The Good Immigrant, the collection of

essays, exploring what it means to be Black, Asian, and Ethnic

Minority in modern day Britain.

It did quite well.

Won a few awards featured essays from people like Oscar winner, Riz Ahmed,

and former BBC employee, Nish Kumar.

It's very good.

In fact, it's one of those books that loads of middle-class white

people have bought, but haven't read.

It's really worth reading.

It's been out since 2016.

Is time you've read it.

But that's not what this interview is about.

After years of mentoring, Nikesh has finally published

his book on how to write.

It's called Your Story Matters, and it's a very personal guide to

motivate you, to tell your stories.

It's not a book that says follow this blueprint and you'll have a best seller.

It's a book that convinces you not to give up.

To have self-belief in the stories that you write.

To see your story through until it's fully on the page.

Basically it's the writing book you actually need, if you're struggling

to start or finish your story.

But that's not what this interview is about either.

It's about Nikesh's writing process.

He can teach this stuff and motivate others to write, but how does he

do it when no one else is watching?

How does he structure his writing day?

That's what we're here for.

Now Nikesh is a super busy guy and I've wanted to interview him since

the very start of this podcast, but he's never had the time.

Until now.

Mainly because he had COVID and wasn't able to leave the house.

So I'm very pleased to bring you this interview, and I'm very grateful

to Nikesh his time, and I'm really pleased with all of his answers.

Without further ado, may I present Nikesh Shukla.

And today I'm joined by Nikesh.

Hello Nikesh

Hi.

Hello.

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

Is this a question that should be answered realistically or optimistically?

We'll go realistically, but then we can see what your

preferred drink is generally.

Um, I'm having water.

I've got COVID.

I don't feel great, but I'm muddling through because I love podcasts.

Not all heroes wear capes, but we appreciate you.

But they all stay very well hydrated.

Yes, absolutely.

So I'm also on the water and I greatly appreciate it cause a lot of my guests

tend to choose caffeinated drinks and it annoys my wife immensely when I

come off very hyper after an interview.

But yes.

What is your regular writing drink?

Coffee.

Coffee, live for the coffee.

And how do you take your coffee?

Are you a black coffee through and through or very milky, very sugary?

No black coffee.

Black coffee really sets the day up, I think.

But it's a ritual as well, being a coffee snob, I like to have beans to grind.

And I like to have a coffee that involves some sort of like mechanical actions.

So I have an Aeropress and you know, it makes the whole house

smell of that sort of delicious roasted with a hint of chocolate

aroma of my preferred coffee brand.

We could try and go for a sponsorship here.

Do you have a, your preferred brand of beans?

That hopefully will send a crate to your house and say, share about it.

Listen, Perfecto.

The coffee shop that is up the road from me, your Vietnamese blend is delicious

and you know this because I'm there once a month for my kilo of coffee.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

And are you very particular about the grinder that you use for your beans?

Have you, did you do a lot of research for that or do you just buy one off Amazon?

Well, I think I'm very easily led is the honest answer to that.

I have a grinder that was gifted to me and I like it.

But then whenever I go to the house of someone who is more of a coffee snob

than me and they have more gadgets and more intricate gadgets, I start

to think I'm half playing this game.

I'm playing division four football against premier league players here.

Yeah, I also have an Aeropress.

I do really enjoy using it, but yeah, I did go into a deep dive

in researching coffee and just realized the ridiculousness of

how much money you can spend.

And I think the peak was seeing a four grand grinder.

Not even a coffee machine just to grind the beans to the proper grind.

And I was like, you know what, I'm fine.

Listen, I need to show my friend, Dave, how it's done.

So drop me the link to that four grand grinder because if I ever

have a payday where I can afford a four grand coffee grinder out of it.

Yeah, it was a thing of beauty, but I was just like, my wife, would've

never, ever agreed for me to spend more on coffee than we do on our car.

So that was fair.

And where I'm speaking to you now.

Welcome to the real coffee drinking process.

It's an important part of being a writer is what you drink whilst

you work and I'm quite happy to,

I dunno, man.

I feel like it's so easy to romanticize the thing.

The communing with the cosmos aspect of writing, which is setting the mood with

the right aromas and tastes and sounds and having your desk face a certain

angle out of the window at a certain time of day during, certain weather

conditions and, have your pen heated on the radiator for X amount of time.

So it's body temperature or whatever it is.

But ultimately all of this is just like procrastination.

You just go and sit down and write the fucking thing.

Absolutely.

But it's nice to hear everyone's individual procrastination.

Oh yeah.

Look, over lockdown being in one place, which was something that I'd never

really had before in terms of, before lockdown my working week was so erratic

I would pretty much just write on trains.

Or at my desk in my coworking space, but so much of being a

writer is noticing the world, right?

It's looking up.

Is just being out of the world and noticing it.

And so much of writing is what's noticed.

And if my day involved me being on a train, cause I needed to be somewhere and

I would write on the train, there would be everything that I noticed on the way to

the train and on the train journey itself.

That would sort of feel the book or if I was going to my co-working space, I'd

have the interactions I'd have with the other artists in my coworking space.

Or the journey in, or any thoughts I might have had or any stray podcasts

tidbits, or like a piece of music.

But going into lockdown I just had none of that.

And I was just stuck in one place.

I wasn't experiencing the world other than through a lot of television.

And the view I had was a static view.

Because everyone, we were all just in our homes.

And so I had to really think about how to conjure that thing for me.

Which I, I sometimes put as that communing with the cosmos aspect of

writing for me, came from motion and momentum and the energy that, that sparks.

But when I was in one place, I had to do like funny fiddly

things, like create a playlist.

And I'd play, I'd have that playlist play on shuffle while I prepared my coffee.

And then I'd sit down at my desk and let the playlist play.

And then I would begin.

And I'd have all these little tricks and things like that.

And you know, I'd have things like mood boards and like, um, it helped me to

think about writing in a different way.

And then I, I was chatting to the amazing writer, Caleb Azumah

Nelson a couple of weeks ago.

He wrote the amazing novel Open Water.

I hope he doesn't mind me telling this story.

I mean, he told it on stage, so why would he mind?

But he talked about when he was writing Open Water, he would basically go to

the British library and spend like a morning there or an afternoon there.

And the first hour he would just look at photographs or a photograph and study it.

Or he would read something that spoke to the thing, to the

section that he was writing.

And he talked about how to put himself in the frame of mind for

the thing that he was working on.

He would, you know, he'd study all this stuff and it was really inspiring to

hear another person's process because I'd never considered that before.

I, I always just considered being in the moment that I would be writing, but then.

Open water comprises short fragments.

And he would probably work on a fragment a day.

And so he would be able to pull himself into that fragment

through all of this stuff.

But it made me think that like when I'm back at my desk, I'm going,

I've just had a book out last week, so I'm a little bit chaotic again.

But when I'm back in my desk properly, I'm going to try doing something like that.

Where instead of starting with the writing, I start with something that

kickstarts the brain, or it just forces me to notice because I think the art of

noticing is so important and it cannot be taught and it's is really underrated.

Yeah.

And so with your process now, do you think because you've put your home writing space

and you've set that out over lockdown.

Do you think you'll ever return to a co-writing space or writing on trains

or do you feel that it's improved having being centered at home?

Or do you miss I used to write?

Well this brings up the existential question of whether we are all

yearning to return to the life we all led before lockdown, or

whether lockdown has sufficiently changed the way we view our lives.

I think what I've come to realize is, I don't think I need to be sitting

in the same place every single day.

I think what I need actually is a change of environment because

the change of environment can give me different energies.

I think what I do what I want to retain from lockdown was that

thing of listening to music as a way, way into whatever I'm doing.

So this novel that I'm working on at the moment, I worked on

a previous draft of it in 2020.

During the like, the months of lockdown, just cause it felt like something I

could control in, in uncertain times.

And it was a terrible draft and that's why I'm rewriting it from scratch.

But what I did was create a playlist for these characters that had no

context in my life other than this is music that these characters would

play at a barbecue in June in summer.

And it would tell you everything you need to know about the

types of people they are.

The type of socio economic background they might have.

The part of London they, they live in.

All that kind of stuff.

And It was really helpful.

Like it really helped me to conjure a certain mood.

And the thing that I'm doing at the moment, there's like a real

experiential quality to the story.

Because it's like, this is a book about aesthetics and like

the very nature of aesthetics.

And so like doing things like listening to music and studying

photographs, I think all of that stuff is going to really help me.

To the point where I probably would just find that instead of my laptop, I'm

just carrying around a lot more stuff.

Because I think the other thing is when I was just writing on trains

and at my coworking space, everything had to be find-able on my computer.

But actually there's something about the kind of the kinesthetic

element and handling this stuff that I think I really appreciate.

Might seem like a trivial question, but I'm just interested in when

you're creating playlists and you've got a playlist that is evocative of

the novel that you're working on.

Is that all bands and musicians that you knew already, or did you discover

musicians that you're like, oh, this kind of captures what I'm after.

And if so, who are they?

Well, This is why I'm a big fan of the algorithm, but also I can see

the downsides of the algorithm.

In that my Spotify now knows me well enough to throw bands or thrown

music at me that fits in with the stuff that I really like or pushes

me to discover classics that I may have had a like a cursory listen to.

And also like my Spotify is also really good at taking me around the world.

And, you know, I've discovered so much amazing music from the African

continent over the last two, two years of obsessively, like cycling through stuff.

And all of that is led me to, because I think the problem with the

algorithm is if you don't capture it from an algorithm generated

playlist, then it's forgotten forever.

And you don't have that engagement with the artist that you might, might do if

it's a physical thing, but it's just really got me into record buying again.

And like a really like, there's no greater joy than putting a record

on when you're making a coffee.

And you're just thinking about the thing that you're going to be doing.

And that record and that coffee just conjure something for you.

So like, I do really appreciate the days where I get to just

be in my own space doing that.

I imagine there will be times where I'm writing on trains again and

I won't, it won't feel the same.

What's the latest record that you've bought that while you putting it on your

coffee you're really into at the moment?

I really love like there's an Ethiopian jazz musician called Mulatu Astatke and

there's a type of Ethiopian jazz called Tezeta , which is like very nostalgic.

And there's a song that he does called Tezeta and it must be a standard.

I don't know enough about it.

But I'm obsessed with listening to every single version of

that song that I can find.

It's just the most beautiful piece of music.

There's also record by Jana Horn that I really love as well, which is like

really soft, sad acoustic songs that make me feel sad in my heart, but yeah.

Yeah.

Nice.

And um, I know, through interviews that you've done in the past and in your

book, Your Story Matters as well, a lot of your novels are based around a

question and the novel is written in a way for you to answer that question or

try and find an answer to that question.

Is that the same with this novel?

And if so, could you tell us the question?

Yes.

And no.

I guess, I guess it's just in that, it's just in that thing where I'm still

just figuring it out at the moment.

So I've had these characters in my head for a very long time.

And the version of their story that I wrote in 2020 that I junked, I wrote

about the end of their relationship.

And the more I wrote about the end of their relationship, I felt like I wanted

to given that they were each other's first love first significant love.

I just wanted to spend some time with them in the throws of first love.

And so I decided to just park what I was doing, and I may come back to

it, and just write about the meeting.

Because their meeting is like a depth charge through both of their lives.

And that's been really beautiful.

So I'm writing about first love and the path of love, the path of true love never

runs smoothly and all that kind of stuff.

And there are some questions about how we bring all of ourselves to being in

love when we've spent so long, like masking those parts of ourselves.

It's obviously, I'm not very fluid in talking about it because it's just

in that sort of very tender stage.

It's it's not even a newborn yet.

It's still it's still I was going to say I'm still pregnant with it,

but that's an awful thing to say.

So I take it you've not completed a first draft of the current novel?

There's still a form of plotting and planning out how

the story is going to unfold.

Or have have you done your first draft and you're now looking to refine it?

I'm working through an edit of it at the moment.

Like this one's really hard to talk about because I don't want to let

people peek under the hood too much because I'm trying something quite

experimental with it and almost talking about the experiment that I'm going on,

undermines the point of the experiment.

But also it's just not at a stage where I feel confident about it.

Like I was so confident about the version of it I was writing in 2020.

And then when I decided to junk that then um I was, I sort of lost some faith.

I lost faith in my abilities for a little bit, but actually I just

need to, I just need to let it live with me a little bit longer.

Yeah.

And I guess when you parked it, you then went and wrote You Story Matters.

Is that was that what you did in between, or has Your Story Matters book been

in development for quite a long time?

No.

So last year I wrote Your Story Matters and I wrote a YA book but

both in tandem, which was quite hard.

They're both under contract, so I needed to do them both at the same

time, which was quite interesting thing to balance the two, because on the one

hand I'm going, this is how you write.

And on the other hand, I was like, this is all the advice that

I need to take on how to write.

And yeah, so I've, I've written a third YA book, which hopefully

will be announced soon.

I don't know when it will be announced, but it'll be out early next year,

around this time next year it'll be out.

So can we take that people reading Your Story Matters, it's like, well,

this all applies to his next YA book.

Was it a very self-aware process when you were going through or was it more based

on the teachings that you've done as a writing mentor over the last few years?

The the way I should probably talk about it more once it's

announced or once it's actually out.

But what I will say about it is I had already written two

YA books for my publisher.

And so there was a sense that we have a working relationship.

And so for this one, all I had to do is write a couple of chapters to

give them a sense of the tone and give them a detailed plan, which I

did, and that's what they bought.

And then I had to do the thing of following the plan as closely as I could.

And and actually, because writing is funny like that, like it

doesn't a hundred percent follow the plan, but, the plan made it.

Well, though the plan meant it was in really good shape.

And so it came out quite structurally sound and yet, there's always work

to be done on things, but it's really been, it's really been a joy to write

because it's a return to comedy, which I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Good.

Yes, no, I do enjoy your comedy.

And with planning, is that something that you've always considered yourself,

a writer who plans, or is it something that's developed and that at the

start, you didn't really plan at all and you've you've formulated how

to plan as your careers progressed?

I think there's always a bit of both with planning.

I think it's always good to have a direction of travel, but sometimes

you want to take the long way round.

Or sometimes you wanna go down a side street or, and sometimes you'll go, oh

no, this side street, we'll cut a corner.

And then you'll get down the side street and realize that actually

you've got to walk your way back to the main road and all the rest of it.

I think a plan is useful, but a plan is not like a hard and

fast manifesto for a novel.

I think a plan is a really good direction of travel, but you have to give yourself

space to find stuff in the writing.

Because the more you write your characters, your

knowledge of them deepens.

And the more your knowledge of them deepens, the more you are able to push

them and take them in certain directions.

And make them feel things and learn things about them, and

get those things on the page.

And if you cut off your opportunity to do that, then you end up, you can end up

with a really well structured, but boring or heartless novel, but if you don't plan

then you can end up with a novel that is a structural mess, but it's all voice.

Which both can work, but a great piece of work is somewhere between the two.

Yeah.

So with that, do you make lots of notes or do you prefer to keep

sort of everything in your head?

Uh, you map out a rough outline and then as it comes to you

just keep it in the brain.

Or do you like to say actually, no, I'm going to put this in a file on

my computer or have a note app on my phone or have a notebook or post-its.

Do you make notes or do you keep it all in your head?

It's all kind of a bit of both, because I think the more the

characters exist in your head.

The more you're able to channel them in a way that means you

can just experience them.

You know, characters don't always think in backstory or they don't

always think what is the type of thing that I would have for breakfast.

They would just get a bowl out and start eating their breakfast.

But then, being in the world and of the world and noticing stuff,

you tend to think this might be an interesting thing for a character.

Like, you know, You might be on a zoom call and someone

might say something so perfect.

And you might go, that's going to go in somewhere.

I hope they forget they said that.

So yeah, I have various notebooks, various things.

I've got one notebook at the moment where if a word interests me, I

will write it down in the book.

Just to give you an example, some of the stuff that's in this this notebook.

Um, sort of, It might not make sense to anyone, but I have written down

arid, exquisite, drastic, putrescent and random words, sandalwood.

I don't know, you know, like sometimes a word just jumps out at you off the page.

It's not particularly like sexy word, but you just need

to make a note of it somewhere.

Yeah.

And with notebooks, do you like to always have a notebook on you or do you

feel that's a bit of a writer cliche and it's just certain times that you

might take a notebook out with you?

Oh, I always have a notebook that fits into the pocket of whatever I'm wearing.

And sometimes they don't always make it.

They sometimes I left places.

But you know, I have a phone, it has a notes app.

Notes apps aren't just for uh apologies when you said something stupid on

Twitter, they're also for taking notes.

Yeah.

And as you are with your coffee, are you very particular with a brand of

notebook or a brand of pen or is it just disposable, as they often get

left out where it's just what's the cheapest one I can just get in the shop?

I'll tell you what, I'm quite a fan of the classic exercise book

that you might get at school.

There's just something quite functional about them.

Like I'm not, they don't need to be pretty the note books because

I don't make a show of them.

They're just there to perform a function.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And going right back to the ritual of writing through the day, of

the daily writing process now.

You've made your coffee, put your music on you.

You've got in the zone.

Do you have a set time of day that you write?

Is it first thing in the morning?

Is it once the kids have gone to school?

Is it late at night when everyone's gone to bed when do you write best

and how frequently do you write?

I write In the morning without fail.

Like, I I try and make sure it's one of the first things I do.

So I try not to have any zoom meetings before 11 o'clock,

unless it's really urgent.

But that way I have until 11 o'clock to do some stuff.

And I know I'm a big believer in rather than worrying about word count going on.

I need to do a thousand words a day, which on the days when you're

feeling like crap and you are stressed because of other stuff in

your life and you didn't sleep well.

Like sometimes writing a thousand crap words a day, isn't really

going to help you in the long run.

It might help you get your word count out now, but writing a

novel isn't about quick wins.

It's about, yeah.

The long-term life of the book.

So yeah.

Trying to do five sessions a week where until 11 o'clock I'm writing.

I used to um, I used to do a thing called writer's hour, which the London

writers salon set up at the start of lockdown, which was really great.

They just did morning pages where yeah.

It was like eight till nine.

You'd just get on a zoom with 500 other people and just

write for an hour in silence.

And there was just something about the comradery and not feeling like you

were alone, which was really lovely.

But then I had to stop when schools opened up again, because it always

just meddled with the school run.

So I would set my own one up with a bunch of friends.

And so like me and five or six other friends, we would do the

same thing between nine and 11 and which is the best thing world.

But then we've all now got too busy to be able to do that, but I still

try and keep that time for myself.

So most mornings I have that time for myself, which really great.

Yeah.

And then after 11, is it just like writing adjacent stuff.

Answering emails, interviews, podcasts, that sort of thing, or do you ever

do your editing in the afternoon?

So it's just get the words on the page in the morning and then

review them in the afternoon?

Yeah, I have so much other stuff going on at the moment that like, it just

ends up being meetings and trying to fit everything else around the meetings.

So like before 11 is when I'll do the novel.

Yeah, so like editing or doing script stuff happens in the

other pockets of the day.

But because a lot of the TV stuff I do involves lots of meetings in America.

I end up having quite long days.

So I've just had to be okay with the passage of time and the usage

of time and know that I don't have to work nine to five every day.

Like I can, so on Fridays between 12 and 5, a thing I do every Friday

without fail is from 12 till 5, I will go and experience life.

I will go and do something or eat something or go somewhere.

I'm not allowed to document it or tweet about it.

Or like use it as material for an essay or a short story or

anything just do something.

So like go to a gallery.

I went bouldering last week.

I might go and see The Batman again.

I might go to get some lunch on the other side of town and and then walk back rather

than drive or take public transport.

So, you know like little things like that on a Friday like that's becoming

quite a sacred time for me as well, because going back to my first point,

like so much of being a writer is yeah, one, one thing is being a

reader, but the other thing is just noticing stuff and being in the world.

And reflecting that world back onto the page, which is something

that I don't do enough of.

Yeah, you need inspiration.

You need to get out in the world.

And I think it's a wonderful thing to actually have, as you say, a sacred time,

which is undocumented and just for you.

I think that's great.

I think a lot of writers can have self doubt with a project.

Obviously you said with the novel that you're working on

now, you paused it for two years.

Bit more interested in exploring that because I'm aware with a lot of writers

there can be a stage in a project where you can lose faith with it.

Is that something that you find on every project?

You might get to a certain point where you go, I'm not sure about this anymore.

Or do you find that once you've committed to a project it's actually

quite easy to see it through to the end?

There have been times where it's taken me to the end of a completed draft to

go, this isn't working or this isn't fixable, or this is not going to work.

Other times I've I had that classic thing where I've gone, oh, the

thing I'm working on is too hard.

I'm going to work on this brilliant other idea I've had and get that

out quickly and sell it for loads of money and retire to Malibu.

And then I'll get 10 pages into that and go, oh my God, what am I doing?

This is this is much more fun in my head.

I think I've become okay with the knowledge that not everything I work on

will find its way out into the world.

I think if you've worked at all in television, you get

to learn that really quickly.

Like I have been pretty much full-time in development in the TV world since 2011,

and yet I've had one thing on TV and I've had, I've made one short film and that's

it um, In terms of broadcast credits.

And I think that's pretty like, that's not out of the ordinary.

That's not abnormal in any way.

But it teaches you that you have to start each project with maximum

ambition, but you have to have zero expectation that it will ever get made.

And I've just put that into the book stuff as well.

Like I've started essays and book ideas and short stories and stuff.

And they haven't really gone anywhere, but sometimes a kernel

of them gets used somewhere else.

Because for me, writing's about extrapolating and interrogating

and trying to understand.

Sometimes it's the process of wrestling with the project that does the

interrogating for me, rather than the need to finish it in a polished way.

And also like, there is that other thing of being a writer where

like everything is material, every conversation I had, every interaction

I have is potentially material.

Sure, but I just don't think that you'd go into your life thinking that.

Where if you go into each interaction, oh yeah, I'm going

to go to my friend Joe's surprise birthday party on the Isle of Wight.

That'll make for a good short story one day.

I think if you assume that everything is going to be material, you

just end up not living your life.

And I'm the type of writer where I need to be in the world and not worry

about narrating the world first.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And actually what you were saying there if you're working in television.

You're someone who's written in a variety of different formats, nonfiction essays

uh, you've written articles in newspapers.

You've got your YA books.

You've edited collections of essays.

When you've got these questions that you want to answer, that's your starting

point for your writing projects.

How do you decide what's the best way?

Is there something about the question that you go, this is a novel idea, or

actually, I think this is more of a YA portrayal that I want to do with this, or

actually I'm just going to write an essay and just really deconstruct it that way?

You're asking me this question, like I've got loads and loads of

say about a variety of projects.

Actually, I'm only really interested in two or three things.

That's the problem.

Like, I'm interested in like two or three things thematically and they

crop up again and again in my work.

I guess things like age or perspective change the type of interrogation

of those same three things.

But all of my work has the same thematic resonance in it.

So like, you can draw a line through all of that work.

It just becomes a case of going what is troubling me this time about this thing.

And I don't know, I think that rather than thinking what form is this going to take?

I try and think of how I want to answer this question.

Yeah.

Sometimes I have to kind of work out whether this is like a

personal interrogation or like a slightly more external one.

That, and that kind of leads the journey.

And also tonally what I want to do.

My, my inclination is to always push for comedy anyway, like what's the

funniest version of this that I can tell?

And sometimes the funniest version of this is the version that's outside of yourself.

And so like, I don't think I could like comedify myself to the weekly extent

that someone might say Tim Dowling does.

Sometimes there's stories I want to tell, the way to make them

funny is to go, who'd be the most ridiculous person in this situation?

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

And another thing I wanted to cover off with the was about your

redrafting and rewriting process.

You're in the middle of a rewrite at the moment.

Are you someone who edits as they go.

So you'll start writ-

nope.

So you write a complete draft beginning to end and then go back

and go, does this make sense?

Yes.

Someone once said, she said it on Twitter.

Fuck.

You know what, exclusive for the listeners, I'm going

to Google this right now.

Cause I quote this so often and I was like, I can never remember who said

it and it's, it's very disrespectful to the writer, shannon Hale.

The writer, Shannon Hale.

I need to remember Shannon Hale, cause it's such a brilliant quote.

She tweeted in 2015," When writing a first draft, I have to remind myself constantly

that I'm only shoveling sand into a box.

So later I can build castles."

Which I love.

I love that idea because the first draft is so formless and it's a splurge

of energy and ideas and characters who aren't fully lived in yet.

And they're ciphers for the theme.

They're not complex human beings just yet or complex aliens or complex

beasts or whatever the thing is.

And so often that first draft is just about shoveling stuff into the box.

I think if I'm editing as I go, I won't have an idea of the bigger picture.

Certainly not until I get to the end.

And I think that people who edit as they go end up spending more time

line editing than thinking about structural stuff and the structural

stuff is much more important.

When you're editing, you have to think about it like this.

I start with the big picture stuff, start with the structural stuff, get

yourself closer and closer to the line.

And the point in which you're just moving commas about is the point

at which you're probably done.

But don't worry about those commas and don't worry about those adverbs and

don't worry about that syntax until you've worried about the big picture

stuff like, the middle 50 pages is really boring, could that just be one line?

Or whatever it is.

You set up a lot of plot strands in the first 30 pages and only

one of them goes anywhere.

There's just no point worrying about the small stuff right now.

And going from your first draft to your second draft, do you decide to just

read through your first draft, take on board what you want to achieve and then

write a brand new draft or do you prefer to just rework individual sections?

What I do is before I start editing is I read the draft in its entirety

and I experience it as a reader and try and trust myself as a reader.

Because I am a writer, I've written eight books, but I have read eight

times that or eighty times that.

I don't know.

I've read a lot, a huge amount more than I've ever written.

And so I trust myself as a reader more than I trust myself as a writer.

And if I don't experience the work as a reader, then I won't

necessarily know what to do.

Yeah.

Okay.

So yeah, you've read it for that first time or you digest

it as the reader version.

And then where do you go?

I'm going to focus on this little bit, or actually I just going to put this to one

side and try and write it from memory.

Cause those are two different methods that I've come across writers do.

Is there one that resonates with you more that you'd prefer to just go,

I'm going to take on board what I've just read and try and write it again.

Or is it just going, I'm going to take what I've read and I'm going to go through

it and make notes and get the red pen out?

One thing that I really appreciate from my work with editors is that they've really

helped me to learn how to edit myself.

And one thing that I, writers don't really talk about this, but I think

it's probably the most valuable thing that happens in the whole of publishing.

So when you get your editorial notes from an editor back, the first round

of notes, they don't send you up a marked up manuscript that points out

all of your adverbs and misplaced commas, and all the rest of it.

What they do is they write you a letter and the letter starts with what's

working, which is really valuable to know.

And then they'd tell you what could be better.

And they make suggestions as to how you could go about making that better.

And before they've done any of that, they've sat down with you on

the phone or in a cafe, and they've talked you through all of that stuff.

And I find that the act of reading my work and then writing myself a letter on what's

working and what could be better is the most helpful thing I can do for myself.

Because I'm then in control of what I want the book to be.

Yeah.

But I guess, articulating to yourself what's working and what isn't and actually

having that on a page really gives you a structure of where you need to go.

So you've got to the point where you just shifting the commas round and you've

got your edit down, who after then?

Does it go to, do you have beta readers that you've gathered and trust?

Does it go straight to an editor or your agent or does your wife get a pass

over it before it goes out of the house?

Who reads it next?

It really depends on where the book is.

So there are instances where the book is under contract.

And it might go straight to the editor and CC'd into my agent.

So like with the YA book, I worked on the proposal with my agent and so she

was across what it was going to be.

And so when the first draft was done, I just sent it directly to the

editor and copied her in so she can have a read of it, if she wanted to.

This book that I'm trying to finish at the moment, because I'm trying

something different, trying something that I've not attempted before.

There are a couple of people who I will send it to and get their read on it.

But I don't like, it really depends on where the book is.

So the new experimental book, that I won't push you too much on because

I respect your process, but I'm gathering, that's not under contract.

No.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

That's cool.

So yeah, so that might be a little while longer just for the listeners to

know before that sees the light of day.

Um, after edits, after, you know, it is kind of signed off and off to proof

sort of level, do you feel like a sense of relief of finishing a project?

Is there grief of, I've been with these characters so long and I'm not

going to be working with them anymore.

Um, what's the feeling when a project's over or is it just like,

phew, that's done onto the next one?

There's this really lovely song by Warren Zevon, where the chorus goes

keep me in your heart for awhile.

And that's how I often feel about the period between finishing the

book and it coming out, because there's always a period of time.

And the moment a book is out, it doesn't belong to me anymore.

It belongs to readers.

Because readers bring their own sense of self to every read.

No reader reads a book in a vacuum, no reader reads a book objectively.

Every reader reads a book and projects a part of themself onto that book.

And that's totally fine.

But that is the point in which a book doesn't belong to me anymore.

And I just have to let it go and move, move on to the next one,

which is the most helpful thing I can do in those situations.

That's the only bit I can control.

The moment a book is finished and the text is done and there's no more changes to be

made it just doesn't belong to me anymore.

And the only bit of the process I can control, I can't control how

much it sells, I can't control what reviews it might get either from

professional critics or from people who do user reviews on like Amazon

or Goodreads and all the rest of it.

Uh, I can't control how people will talk about it on Twitter, if at all, if

they're going to talk about it at all.

What I can control is the writing and that's the only bit

I want to be able to control.

So it's always important to know what I'm moving onto next.

So as you say there to leave it in your heart a while.

Do you have any kind of rituals at the end of a project?

Or do you just take an afternoon off to go bouldering and start

thinking about the next project?

I throw a massive party, get my friend Reggie to play garage and just

rave with my friends, pretty much.

Is that a genuine answer or just an?

No yeah, genuine answer.

Amazing!

Every book pie I've had has been like a rave.

Okay.

That's cool.

That's nice.

That's excellent.

And you've mentioned Twitter a few times in there.

It is a conversation I have with a lot of writers about social media and whether or

not it's essential or just an unfortunate necessity in promotion of a writer.

I'm interested as someone who has been quite active with social

media, what your views are on it?

Is it a necessary evil, or do you really enjoy using it as an extra tool?

For me personally, or for other writers?

No.

For you personally.

I, yeah, I've got no time for Twitter really anymore.

It's just not a place that I find is useful for my mental health.

For a variety of reasons.

I think I spent a long time thinking I wanted a public profile and then I got

one and it was lots of people wanting my opinion on race and immigration issues.

And that became quite hard.

And then to like then have your tweets be taken out of context and shoved

into various articles across the political spectrum where people are like

starting up fights in your direction because of stuff that you said online.

It's just not good for me, man.

Like, I joined Twitter to meet writers and chat rubbish and I

can do that on WhatsApp groups.

Rather than publicly on Twitter.

And I know that I know that I have a public platform and so I can

use that public platform for good.

But at the same time, I don't have the same robust sense of self that

I can spend hours trawling through Twitter, searching for the right thing

to retweet in order that I might help draw other people's attention to it.

I just think that sure I have that platform, but at the same time

I don't have the mental energy for finding the right tweets

to bring to people's attention.

It takes time.

That's a curation, especially if it comes with the responsibility

of having a public platform.

I have quite a small public platform comparatively, but it's still one

where useful stuff can be done to it, but it's just not good for my head.

And that's completely fair.

And I think, yeah, sort of the social aspect of it's taken away when you

get to a certain public persona size.

So having WhatsApp groups where you can vent and check in with

people, that's your social base.

And, and also like those friends get annoyed when you don't see their

tweet and you just say, text me.

And I can't have parasocial relationships to my actual friends as well.

Like that doesn't make sense to me.

And there are times where having a public platform, but also chatting to your

friends can make other people assume some familiarity with you, or it might

make your friends like say stuff that you might say, say to them in private,

which can then blow up into a big thing.

Because it was taken out of the context of a friendship.

Which then makes it uncomfortable for you to have to tell your

friend and look, dude people watch.

And all of that stuff just makes you realize it's just not a good

way to have actual friendships.

And so I'm just not really present with it at the moment.

I don't know if I'll ever come back to it or whether I need to.

Or what good it does for me personally anymore.

Like maybe I've just had my time with it.

Like I did a good 10 years with it.

And then I think I joined in 2011, maybe no, 2009, I joined Twitter.

And then a thing happened at the end of 2020, that was really fucking egregious.

And just made me realize that I don't want to be on there anymore.

So April last year, I just decided to stop tweeting.

And you've mentioned some of WhatsApp groups and having

those sort of social groups.

Do you consider yourself having a group of writing peers, like a network of people

that you might just talk about writing.

A peer group level.

And if so how did that develop?

Uh, Yeah, I dunno how it developed.

Quite organically, I guess.

There wasn't like an application form or anything.

It wasn't that you all met at one event and then just said,

let's start up a WhatsApp group.

It was just a few of you started chatting and we're like, we'll

start a group and oh, actually we should add so-and-so to the group.

It sort of developed that way?

Yeah.

Pretty much.

Yeah, it happened quite organically.

Yeah.

And do you find writing networks useful?

If finding other writers very beneficial to you?

Yeah, for sure.

I think I've just been lucky in that I have been around for a long time.

Like, I've been doing stuff amongst writers since 2003, 2004.

And so there are a bunch of writers who I just came up with

at the same time and then, got to put them in The Good Immigrant.

And then it's just, now that I'm seeing people finally give

people like Salena Godden and Musa Okwonga the props they deserve.

They've always been like two of my favorite writers, but also two people I've

just known for an incredibly long time.

And yeah, I dunno, like I live in Bristol and I'm sort of outside of the London,

Peaky vortex of hipster literature stuff, which looks very cool from the

outside, but maybe they would all feel uncomfortable coming to a rave where my

friend Reggie's deejaying, I don't know, like writer networks are really important.

And I guess what I'm saying is like from the outside, I look at all the

cool people doing interesting things in London and oh, I feel a bit left out.

But I live in Bristol and there's some really amazing people in Bristol in

the Southwest doing really cool stuff.

So the one thing that I did want to add, well, another thing that I wanted to talk

to you about was your writing mentoring.

That's obviously you cover off in your book.

But how did that come about?

Uh, was the opportunity brought to you that someone asked you to mentor, or was

it that you felt you got to a place where you want to lower the ladder down behind

you and you wanted to mentor people?

I was mentored, like I don't have a career without the people who've mentored me.

I don't have a career without Nii Parkes and I don't have a career

without Niven Govinden, or Rajeev Balasubramanyam, or Courttia Newland

or Salena Godden, or any of those guys.

Like they helped me at times when they didn't need to or probably

really didn't have the time to, but they invested time and energy in me.

And I would be nowhere without them.

And I can't ever pay any of them back.

Now I can take them all out for a nice dinner.

Maybe I should do that.

But I can't ever pay them back properly, but I can pay it forward.

And that's been the most important thing for me is to just always pay it forward.

Because I thank you for not asking me about this because everyone else

always wants to ask me about this, but I'll just mentioned it very briefly.

There's a lot of structural inequality in the publishing industry and

the race aspect of it is something that I have tried to combat.

And where I have had the opportunity, I've tried to be a really as good an ally as I

can to people from the LGBTQIA+ community.

I've people who from working class background or people with disabilities,

but obviously with my lived experience of being a person of color, that's where

the majority of my energy has been.

And there is so much structural inequality in the publishing industry.

That the only positive act I can do to try and redress that

is to mentor young writers.

And hope that they mentor young writers and that they mentor young writers

and that they mentor young writers.

All of this stuff, man, we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

I'm standing on the shoulders of Zadie Smith, and Bernie Evaristo

and Courttia Newland and Stuart Hall and all of these amazing people.

And hopefully there are people who feel like they're standing

on my shoulders and that is how we rise and that's how we rise.

And that's how we rise.

No, that's great.

And thank you for that.

I've just got my last two questions.

One is it's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their

writing with each story that they write.

Was there anything particular that you learned from the last story, which

I guess is the YA book, that you're now applying to your latest novel?

Write towards joy.

Okay.

Always write towards joy.

Okay.

That's excellent.

Very succinct as well.

And that might actually answered the next question, because the last question

I always like to sign off, is there one piece of advice you find yourself

returning to in your own writing?

But I, if that's something that you've learned recently, write towards joy,

is there something that historically, that you feel has applied to your

writing for a long time that you keep having to remind yourself and

keep focusing on when you write?

Yeah.

It's actually the, it's actually the, hold on, I'm gonna get it.

Cause it's worth saying out loud.

One second.

I put it as the epigraph to Your Story Matters.

It's a quote by my favorite writer, James Baldwin.

you write in order to change the world, knowing

perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature

is indispensable to the world.

In some way, your aspirations and concern for a single man in fact

do begin to change the world.

The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you

alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks or people look

at reality, then you can change it.

That is beautiful.

And thank you very much Nikesh.

Nikesh Shukla, you've been a wonderful guest and thank you

very much for being on this week.

Thank you.

And that was a real writing process of Nikesh Shukla.

Wow.

Just wow.

If you're not in awe of the man, then read his books.

Your Story Matters will become as essential as Save

The Cat is for screenwriting.

Seriously.

I don't write an I found myself motivated to write something.

He's also done a memoir about parenting called Brown Baby,

which apparently is great too.

I don't want kids.

Um, but if he releases a book about dog rearing, then I'm all here for it.

His YA books and novels are excellent.

He just does good prose.

Very readable, very accessible.

Very good.

He's not on social media at all anymore.

And his website just has a short bio and a contact form.

So in the show notes, I'm just going to link to his books.

If you want to know about Nikesh, read his books.

That's the show back next week.

Only two more shows the season that I'm running away to a cabin in the woods

to read up on authors for season three.

It truly never ends.

Love you all.

Please keep writing.