Tom Pepperdine interviews award winning author, Trip Galey, about his writing process. Trip discusses how he discovered the most important part of learning to write, his experience of writing a novel as part of his PhD, and the benefits of dating a professional proofreader.

You can get information on all of Trip's work here: https://tripgaley.com/

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Hello and welcome to The Real Writing Process, the show that finds

out how authors do exactly what they do.

I'm your host Tom Pepperdine and this month my guest is award

winning author Trip Gailey.

Trip is most well known for his award winning debut novel, A Market

of Dreams and Destiny, which is a brilliant book all about a goblin

market under Victorian London.

It's called The Untermarkt.

A magical place, a dangerous place, a place where Faustian pacts are made

and indentured servitude awaits those who are reckless with their words.

The story features a princess who sells her destiny, but

how did she come to sell it?

Who owns it now?

Who wants it?

And what deals may come from possessing such a powerful item?

Yeah, it's as good as it sounds.

It delivers on that premise.

The characters are great, the world is great.

And if you really like this sort of thing, Trip has also written a text

based game set in the Untermarked, which is like a choose your own

adventure book on your phone.

It's amazing, brilliant, and insanely detailed.

It's called Fairy's Bargain, The Price of Business, and it's

available in the App Store now.

He's also written some novellas that are available on his Patreon and if that

wasn't enough, he's also co edited a collection of queer sci fi and fantasy

short stories which is called I Want That Twink Obliterated, also available now.

So he's a busy guy, a talented guy, a guy who writes and a guy with a process.

And I'll chat to him straight after this jingle.

And this month, I am here with Trip Gailey.

Trip, hello.

Hello.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Always a pleasure.

My first question as always, what are we drinking?

I am currently drinking, uh, cider, which I usually drink,

but not always or exclusively.

Um, I've got a Henry Weston medium dry.

Yes, the vintage and I love it.

Um, as a West country boy, I'm always happy to drink cider.

So I was very pleased to see this request come in.

Um, so you are a regular cider drinker, but is it your writing drink?

Don't tend to drink things when I'm writing.

Um, unless I'm writing in a pub, which does happen.

Okay.

Actually.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, I'm already going to contradict myself.

Um, because I do write it in in my local pub with, um, fair regularity.

But as a default, I don't, I don't have a default writing drink.

I'm also the sort of person where I'm a very much a vibes writer.

So occasionally it's like, I wouldn't have a default writing drink because

I would have to, I would have to have a different drink for everything

I'm writing to help frame my mind.

No, so, um, writing in the pub, I mean, I've heard coffee

shops, pubs is new for the podcast, but not for writers as I know.

Um, is that because of the ambience?

Is it kind of, because the setting, with your debut novel, you know, it's Goblin

Market, I can sort of see the tavern sort of vibe of the hustle and bustle,

um, is the pubs, helping with what you're writing at the moment, or is it

just generally you like to write there?

Um, so, I live in Limehouse.

Uh, I've only lived here 10 months so far.

There are no convenient libraries.

I Do not have, good climate control, shall we say, in my space.

So over the past summer, the local pub has really, really good air conditioning.

And it's not, we're far enough out that it's not very crowded during most days.

Um, so I can usually go and I can find there's a one particular tall

round table, right in the corner, that I usually just occupy there

and I can sit and it's not too loud.

It's around the corner from, you know, the football being on the

screen or the speaker playing music.

And that it just sort of turns into white noise.

and I can just sit there with, uh, with my keyboard and a drink.

Because that's the polite thing to do when you're working in someone

else's space, is to contribute to the maintenance of that space.

Yeah.

There aren't a lot of coffee shops around here.

There's there's one I like, but it's much more crowded.

Like the local pub, during the afternoons is quiet or more peaceful.

And it just has this fantastic.

vibe to it.

It's, you know, it's got like the tin ceiling, you know, old fashioned,

lots of exposed wood and a really just nice and congenial bar staff.

Nice.

So yeah, it's just, I find writing spaces such a fascinating thing, uh, because

some people need absolute silence.

Some people need the white noise.

Some people need the hustle and bustle.

But I think that's a healthy medium of just not too crowded,

not too quiet and air conditioning.

So, uh...

I am such a welting flower.

I, if it hits 27 or above.

I just, I cease being functional in any reasonable way.

27's my cutoff as well.

There's a, a sitcom in the UK many years ago called Black Books.

And there's, uh, oh you've seen it?

Yep.

Okay.

And, uh, Dave Syndrome.

That gets in with Manny and I think my Dave syndrome hits at 27.

But, uh, no, that's, that's great.

And so you said you're a vibes writer.

Does that mean that like you're writing sessions are when you're

feeling particularly creative or are you more disciplined?

I work much better when I have a functional structure around me.

It's not completely necessary.

I am to a degree, adaptable, but I've, I found such a great

deal of learning to write is learning how I write specifically.

I Grew up on a cattle ranch in Midwestern America.

I was woken up.

Every morning, 5 36 a.

m.

And my body, up until I was about 40, uh, my body just internalized that.

So I would pop up, I would be functional, writing a market of dreams and destiny.

My best work was always up at six, get a solid two hours of

writing in before I have to like make breakfast or do other things.

So the earlier in the day it is, the more functional my writer brain is.

That doesn't mean I don't like last night, I was writing until like 9pm.

Because you know how happens errands explode and take so much more time

than they're supposed to take.

So last night, I had to work until nine to get some extra words in.

So I, I can adapt to the circumstances, but I know that I work better, I

work best earlier in the morning.

Um, I work best with music in the background as long as it

doesn't have English lyrics.

Okay, yeah.

Or lyrics that I understand.

Yeah.

Um, but aside from that, I can, I can work standing up.

I can work in the pub.

I can work in the coffee shop.

I can work.

on the bed, working at the kitchen table, et cetera.

Um, it's more a matter of sliders than a matter of ritual or requirement.

Okay.

Nice.

And when it comes to developing your ideas, are you someone who

likes to start off with a world and sort of like, what kind of world

these characters will inhabit?

Or do you have a character in mind?

Or is it more of a scenario and a concept?

how do you start?

Which first, which, which seems to spark the, the, uh, the story?

it's absolutely different depending on the project.

So your current projects.

so I mean, my current project that I'm working on, well, I'm working on like

three right now because time constraints.

The main project I'm working right on right now is, um, the sequel

to a market of dreams and destiny.

So that began as a scenario.

The scenario in question is given that you can trade anything at the goblin market.

What happens when you trade the guilt for an action.

As in the full responsibility, not just the emotional aftermath, but trading the

facts that you committed a particular crime to someone else who then.

Metaphysically functionally owns the facts that they committed that crime.

What happens then?

How do you get out of the frame job that's not a frame job because on a very

real level you actually did the thing.

So like the world is rippling and reshaping itself to point to you.

Fingerprints change.

People's memories change.

Physical evidence changes, at a different rate.

Memories are easier to change than a fingerprint because it's harder to affect,

you know, the real world than someone's memory, which is fallible anyway.

So it began with that concept slash scenario.

but of course for a market of dreams and destiny, it began with the world.

It began with the idea of this goblin market beneath London.

Yeah, that's, that's really cool.

And so, with your current project, when you have that scenario, I guess

you've already got the world in place.

When you're developing the plot and the characters and everything.

Are you someone who likes to write freehand and use notebooks?

Do you have an app on your phone?

Is it all on your laptop?

How do you map out the notes when you plan your outline?

I am categorically addicted to Scrivener.

Okay.

Um, so I have, uh, I have a tablet.

I did my whole PhD.

I wrote all of a market of dreams and destiny on a tablet.

so I have the app version of Scrivener, which doesn't have

quite the same functionality as a desktop version, unfortunately.

But yeah, I know the first thing will be a card with brainstorming, and then there'll

be a card with like a cast of characters, um, there'll be a card for the outline.

Sometimes multiple, multiple of these as I move stuff in

and around and change my mind.

before I was quite so addicted to Scrivener, I used Docs and Excel

quite a lot, um, and I still use Docs and Excel when I am co writing, um,

because it's much easier to share.

Yeah, that sounds good.

one thing I did want to get in with, uh, because one question I'd like to ask a

lot of writers is about, uh, research.

And your, PhD was on Goblin Markets, you've probably done a lot more research

than others into the world building.

how, um, long did your PhD take you to research, uh, you know,

and write your thesis on that?

And has that been the cornerstone to the world building that

you've done since then?

Or do you still like to research new things, as you write moving forward?

Always always always always learning new things um finding cool

stuff and like running after it and figuring out oh how does this fit in

what are the implications of that.

i mean the thing i found that since i'm no longer doing a phd my available

time to invest in research has shrunk dramatically because you know there's this

pesky little thing called money that we have to run around and earn and it just

like it soaks up so much time doing that.

But the PhD, like the whole process was about four years.

I came into the PhD with the foundations of the world already existing.

Actually the first plot I came up with, as an idea for the novel portion of my

PhD studies did not survive six weeks.

Um, it got trunked and a completely new set of characters, well, not a

completely new set of characters, but a predominantly new set of characters

and a new situation slash take on the Goblin market started developing

about eight weeks into my PhD studies.

But I began writing very early on.

Not all of those words survived, not all of them made it into the final version,

but there are certainly like solid chunks, particularly of the opening few chapters

where there's a lot of market description, that has sections of them that have

been there since, since the beginning.

Um, Blatterbosch showed up very, very early.

And the description of his stall with all of the eyeballs and fingers and hair and

all of the other physical merchandise, shall we say, that he deals in has

been there since very, very early on.

Um, that came up quite quickly.

Um, but yeah, it shifted, it changed, it took on All kinds

of additional dimensionality.

Because one of the things I did for research is I went to every single market

I could find and reasonably get to.

Portobello Road, I did a market up in Nottingham, I have a friend in Bristol

who used to work for Bristol Council and he's like, Oh, well, we have in the

archives we have contracts of indenture.

We have period paintings of markets of the 1600s and 1700s, etc.

I did a ton of research into markets and it just, it really, really informed

and grounded sort of the reality of that particular part of the world.

And then, of course, at the same time, I was reading every book

on writing and editing theory and process that I could, you know, get

my hands on quite a bit of research.

But the writing went all the way through.

Obviously, at the end, there was a lot more rewriting, writing new sections to

make up for the characters and chapters that got trimmed or otherwise jettisoned.

Um, I almost lost two chapters of the novel, actually.

it was really unfortunate because they were, Both,

chapters between Derry and Owein.

Um, they were sort of like really key, sort of like emotional chapters and

my partner proofreads everything I do.

And he was going through and proofreading and he's like,

where's the bit with the candle?

The bit with the candle is missing.

And I'm like, no, it's in there.

It's totally in there.

It wasn't.

I couldn't find it.

I could not find these chapters.

I had, I searched for days until I found in an email that I had sent

him like two years ago, a PDF version of a 75 percent completed draft.

And I had to like, drag it out and retype them.

And then I, when I did, I realized, Oh, these actually happened in a

completely different narrative order than what I had settled on for the

version that went for the PhD Viva.

Um, so I had to like tweak and rewrite and whatnot.

But I managed to, uh, regain a big chunk of it.

Okay, that's good.

And, yeah, I guess that can be massively nerve wracking when

you're doing multiple drafts and taking different, narrative routes.

It was extra stressful because I wrote the novel completely out of order.

Okay.

Um, because it was part of the PhD studies.

Yeah.

Um, when I needed to hand stuff in, uh, when my PhD supervisor, Dr.

Tiffany Angus, said, give me 2000, 4, 000, 6, 000 words by next week, Friday.

I just wrote them.

Even if I was stuck on something, I would jump to whatever part of the

novel l that I thought I had a handle on, wherever it was, and I would just

write 4, 000 words, 6, 000 words.

The beginning of the second year, one of these um, deadlines occurred, and I was

like, I don't know what I'm doing next.

But I know Dame Aurelia has this sort of arc, so I literally, I just wrote

all of her bits in one document.

All of her bits throughout the whole book.

Most of which stayed, although I added some and some got moved around.

But yeah, I wrote, I wrote basically her entire arc through the whole

book and then just handed that in.

Even though I hadn't finished the ending.

So it was, it was written completely out of order and it was the greatest

nightmare of my life trying to edit and make it make sense.

Yeah, I guess with that, you know, in year one, you have got a

rough outline of the story beats.

But that obviously changed quite a bit as it went on.

Do you still try and have a roadmap, when you start a new

project, and how detailed is that?

Is that just like an end goal, here are some thematic arcs I want to try

and achieve, or do you try and beat for beat, go through the main plot points?

I think of it like a map, like the old style map.

You would have landmarks, because you didn't have roads leading between things.

But like if you're on the Oregon Trail, for example, you knew you had to look

for Chimney Rock, a big visible landmark.

That you are heading for before you start heading to the next thing.

That's sort of how, how I function now, uh, in terms of my writing process.

I can get 25 percent of the way into a project before nailing down

the ending, but no more than that.

Okay.

If I do not know very strongly what the ending is going to look

like by the time I hit that point.

I will just spin my wheels endlessly.

Um, I need, I need to know where I'm going.

And then once I have that, I will work backwards.

Okay, if I'm going to get there, I need to hit this first.

And to hit that, I will need this other thing.

And then I write towards the next landmark on the map.

And.

Although you have an, you know, an ending by a quarter of the

way through, does it ever change?

Like, you get, like, another 25, 40 percent through and then you go, Oh, wait,

actually that ending doesn't work anymore.

A more true ending could be something else.

Or has that not happened yet?

Could that happen?

That has not, that has not yet happened to me.

What tends to happen is I will go back to the middle and I

will beat the middle into shape.

Okay.

Until that through line emerges from the middle, because the middle

is the bit that I struggle with most.

Anyway, I know I'm going to spend a lot of time on it.

I know I'm going to agonize over it.

So if I'm going to already be that deep into the weeds or the

guts of the thing, That's, that's where I try and do my realignment,

rather than, Change the ending.

Okay, that leads on quite well with what I was going to ask about next,

which is kind of the daily grind of it is, you know, there can be a lot of fun

with plotting and like mapping out and sort of like coming up with the story.

And then it could be, Quite therapeutic to edit and refine but actually getting

the first draft, nuts and bolts, Uh getting it on the page, can be a

real struggle for a lot of people where a lot of people fall down.

Um, how do you discipline yourself without having a Supervisor giving you deadlines.

How do you discipline yourself to get in the words on the page now?

Um, I have a daily to do list, um, little, little tickable

boxes, which are so, so satisfying.

But in the evening, I have a box for reflecting on what I've done.

But I also have a box for, Review the chapters that I'm

want to write the next day.

So that I have that going through my subconscious.

and that when I wake up, I already know what the road map is.

So I don't spend as much time trying to orient myself.

Um, so if I, if I've done that, if I know generally where I'm going, if I've

taken the time to say, okay, this, this reversal needs to happen in this chapter.

Uh, I need to hit these three bullet points of information somehow in there.

It makes it so much easier when I wake up first thing in the morning

to just be like, right, keyboard on, fingers type, you know, Going for that.

Um, because if I have to figure it out before I go, then I spend so much

time and then I start, like, getting distracted, like, oh, don't want

breakfast, don't want another cup of tea.

But if I know, it's a way that I've found to reduce the friction.

Yeah.

There's little ways to reduce the friction to make it easier.

and I find that also on days where I write, even a few hundred

words before breakfast, my chances of writing a few thousand words

for the day massively increase.

If I wait even till after breakfast to get those few hundred words in,

I can still probably pull out like a couple thousand words if I have to,

but it becomes much more difficult and it eats up a lot more time.

Um, so, my process is figuring out what I'm going to do the next day so that I

can just do it first thing in the morning.

And then repeat that.

That's great.

I hear a lot of writers who will do the morning review of the day before,

like come back to it fresh, but to actually write, break, reflect.

And do that reflection the night before so that when you wake up,

you've already got that goal in mind.

That's really interesting.

I think it also helps like the subconscious.

Yeah.

Because like writing is as much a subconscious process as it is a

conscious one, particularly for me.

Um, it's hard to say how much like had just been worked

through while I've been asleep.

Yeah.

And then I wake up and I can just put the words on paper.

That's nice.

And, uh, you mentioned you having little tick box daily goals sort of thing.

Is that a, I'm going to write for this many hours or I have

to hit a certain word target?

What's your writing goals generally for a day?

I tend to find that writing takes up the amount of time you have for it.

I would love, my life would be so much easier If I could just say, I'm

gonna write for two hours this morning and then move on to the next thing.

But if I do that, my brain will obsess.

That nasty little like perfectionism imp that I have tried so hard to exercise and

I cannot exercise for the life of me, like the most I can do is like chain it, ball

gag it, stick it in a Cage in the corner.

If I I'm writing for two hours, I'm going to start hearing that little voice.

It's like, Oh no, this needs to be better.

That needs to be better.

Does the logic of this work perfectly?

and then I hit the end of my two hours and I've got a couple hundred words.

Whereas if I say, look, I have got to hit 2000 words in this two hours.

Then I can go right.

Fine.

This many words in 15 minute sprints with like five minute breaks in between.

and then I'm like, okay, I can hit that.

Um, and if I run into a problem, it's much easier for me to go

like, Nope, I need to do my words.

Write it now, fix it in post.

Or, you don't know this bit, fine, skip to the next bit, write that,

and then go back and link them.

But if I've given myself a time limit, my brain will hit that little

impediment and it will stick on it.

Right.

It would be much healthier for me to just do time limit, but it

is much more effective for my brain to do word limit, do a word limit.

Especially because, this is something that I have done off and on, but

I have done every day since the beginning of 2025 is I am now keeping

like a word count sort of document.

And I enter in every day how many words I produced.

And like, I found that really helpful.

Just because time and experience, like, are so subjective.

If I didn't do that, it could be very easy for like three days to

slip by, five days to slip by.

Where I felt like I've been doing stuff, but then at the end of that, I don't

have more than a few hundred words.

If that.

because I'm like, Oh, I need to do this other really important things like,

Oh, no, no, I need to do self promotion on social media, or, I need to figure

out this one specific plot point.

And it's got to be just right.

That can just like suck so much time away.

Um, I have a huge tendency to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Yeah.

Um, or even the finished.

Um, the only way I have found for me to get around that is to do this

sort of like granular tracking.

because then I can be like, okay.

This got accomplished.

That chapter was done.

I can move on to the next thing.

Yes, it's going to be a nightmare to edit, but that is a problem for future trip.

Which I mean, is a much smaller problem than handing future trip, oh, sorry,

you still have to write the whole flipping novel in addition to editing it.

Rather than be like, look, past trip has already written the novel.

You just have to make it a bit better.

Yes, with your writing style of, oh, this is a sticking

point, I'm going to skip ahead and, where you were with the PhD.

You know, I'll write this person's character arc out

of sync with the main thing.

When it comes to all these problem areas that you've like, put off and put off,

by doing everything else, does that make solving those problems easier or harder?

Uh, I find it makes it easier for me.

Okay.

So this has a lot of bearing on both my drafting

process and my editing process.

Um, but this is a realization I had about the way I write.

And it took me this, this only came up, uh, a couple of years ago.

and It revolves around the way I read, actually.

so, there's this thing, uh, where some people, when they read, they

do not see pictures in their head.

And then on the other end of the spectrum is, people where they

read and they've got like a full 4D experience going on behind their eyes.

I'm not quite that extreme, but I am much, much more on the movie

in my brain end of the spectrum.

When I read a book, I do not consciously register the words on the page.

I don't notice them because there's a movie going on behind my eyes.

I don't see chapter breaks, I just, it just, it just goes.

So if I have to, when I'm reading, say, Oh, you can only read for this amount of

time, I literally have to physically take a bookmark and put it on the chapter I

want to end on in the way, to break my field of vision and to stop the movie.

Otherwise, I will lose all sense of time.

I will completely dissociate and I will just read for hours.

And I'll look up and think it's been 15 minutes.

And my partner will have been like, we were supposed to be

at the film 90 minutes ago.

Yeah.

What's going on?

I just, I There's a complete disconnect between the actual black and white words

on the page and what happens when I read.

And I've realized that I sort of do that in reverse when I'm writing.

I Have a vibe or an image or a scene or situation that I can see and feel.

And when I'm writing, it's very hard for me To fully focus on the words.

I do it to an extent because like, oh, I'm writing a scene where there's like

this anthropomorphic queen of bees.

So, like, my brain registers it enough to know, like, okay, we're

looking for honey metaphors.

We're looking for describing things as being like wax.

Um, if they're not actually wax.

We're looking for like hive minds and buzzing and honeycomb

and hexagons and things.

but.

Yeah.

It's very difficult for me to actually register words on a page.

Yeah.

Editing is very, very difficult for me.

Okay.

And we will come on to editing in a moment, but there's one other part of

the drafting process that I want to cover with you, which is something that

you're doing, which is quite unique to a lot of writers and might feel, well,

your Patreon at the moment, you're writing, uh, A Game Beyond Death and

that drafting process you're putting out.

You're putting chapters out as you write them.

Are they fully first drafts or do you want to talk a bit more

about how that's being developed?

So the process for a game beyond death is really it's the

process of me writing anything.

I came up with the idea.

I fleshed out the beginning and a bit of the end in enough to start.

I'm a little bit worried about the end.

I'm a little bit worried that it's going to, the ending is going to

shift on me a little bit more than it usually does on one of my projects.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

But yeah, so I have the concept.

I have the enough of a feel of the characters.

They're going to like grow and change more, but it's basically what you read

when you are reading chapter to chapter for a game beyond death is pretty much,

if it's not a first draft, it's like a 1.

15 draft.

Um, what you were reading on the page is the words as I wrote them down.

My partner is a professional proofreader and copy editor.

He will have gone through, so we will have eliminated the annoying nasty words, we'll

put commas in the right places, it will have a proofread on it, and it will have

a very light copy edit, where he's like, you've used this word like five times,

or You should mention this thing like two paragraphs earlier for better flow.

But generally what you were reading on my Patreon on those first drafts

are, yeah, it's like, it's like a 1.

15.

Um, it's pretty much as I wrote it.

This is very different from your usual writing, where if there's

something sticking, if you're having to give that linear narrative to

your patrons, uh, you can't skip.

I'm still skipping.

Okay.

Because I'm writing it slightly ahead of posting it.

Okay.

like, right now, I think there are currently two chapters up.

I have three chapters written beyond that.

Writing today.

I was writing, I don't know, let's call it chapter, chapter five.

I don't know what the actual chapter was, um, because I don't

have it right in front of me.

I wrote the first, first 50%.

I got completely stuck, but I'm like, I know how this chapter ends.

I jumped to the end.

I wrote the last 250 words.

And having done that, I'm like, okay, that's where I'm going.

I got between 750 and 1250 words roughly for the pacing that

I'm going for to get there.

How do I hit that that and that by the time I get there.

And that's usually enough to get me Unblocked in this sort of thing.

The things that will slow me down a little bit is I have sort of like a detailed

ish outline like the first 12 chapters.

What's gonna slow me down is here in a couple days, I'm gonna go like okay.

I've run through my detailed outline notes.

The next Landmark is this.

Roughly feels like it's roughly four chapters.

It doesn't feel like it's more than four chapters of story.

What happens in each of those chapters and figuring out a slightly

more detailed description of what happens in each of those chapters.

So that I can wake up in the morning and you're like, right,

this is what I'm doing today.

That's, that, that, that.

Um, that's, that those are going to be the speed bumps that,

that slow down this process.

Fortunately, I have a partner who is a trained dramaturge.

Is a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, loves me, loves my writing.

So if I get stuck, I can go, Hey, can we go on a walk?

And I have this problem and I'm going to talk about it and you're going to

tell me what works and what doesn't.

And then I'm going to sort out how to move forward.

Nice.

Um, we do that quite frequently.

usually along Regent's canal cause it's beautiful and it's, you know, There's

not too much city, but you can still like nip off to a cafe if you need to.

Yeah, I think, um, walking definitely can free up the problem solving part

of your brain and having someone like a physical person who, like you say,

understands narratives and You can talk it out with is, is fantastic.

Oh, yeah, because that's the other thing.

because I I co write with other authors.

My bestt co writing friend is an author called C.

L.

McCartney, who is also one of my fellow editors on I Want That Twink Obliterated.

And having a discussion with him, because he kept saying,

well, just fix it this way.

And I'm like, no, that doesn't work for me.

And he didn't understand why until we like broke it down.

And I'm like, no, no, no.

When I read something, this is what happens.

He's like, how do you edit or write anything?

If you don't see the words you're actually choosing, cause he's very

much on the other end of the spectrum.

He sees the words when he reads them.

And so we had this fabulous in depth conversation.

and it's really informed so much of like, the way I now approach my writing.

Knowing Oh, I do this, I need to be aware of this.

Because when I'm writing, I'm like, okay, I am aiming for this kind of

feeling with this kind of character and this thing needs to happen.

And I can't, when I'm reading over and editing, it's very difficult

for me to separate out what is on the page from what is in my head.

The number of times I have had an editor, usually my partner,

go, you did not say this.

And I'll be like, no, no, no, I totally said that.

And then I go back and I like very carefully read through it.

And I'm like, there's not even a mention of that word.

I'm like, but, but it was there in my head.

And because I knew it, I can't separate out what exists for

the reader separate from myself.

It's very, very difficult for me.

so when I'm writing, I'm trying to hold 15 things in my brain all at once and

part of my drafting process is doing little writing projects that help me

get a feel for, okay, this is, this is the way this character speaks.

So I can take that 15 percent of my brain that was trying to hold on to,

okay, this character speaks like this and pull it down to like 5 percent, so

that I can spin the other six plates that I'm trying to spin more smoothly.

Because when like, other people write, they can go through and do like,

okay, I'm just doing the structure.

And then they go through, oh, now I'll do a dialogue pass, and then they'll

go back and they'll go through again.

And like, now I'll polish up like word choice and adverbs and like,

oh, I'll write this thing in here and I'll add that thing in there.

Because when I read something on the page, it's a movie in my head.

That doesn't work for my writing process.

I need to hold as much in my head as I can, so that as much

as possible goes on with the page as part of the drafting process.

Uh, because if I had to like layer it through like that, I wouldn't be

able to because I would read through it three times and I would know I

would have it subconsciously in my brain that what is happening here is

the Duke is using sub vocal magical chanting in order to obtain the

results he wants from this negotiation.

I would know that.

And I'd read through it like three or four times.

And it wouldn't, would not occur to me that I did not explicitly

say it with those specific words because I don't see the specific

words when I'm reading stuff back.

Um, I can do it.

I can like break it down so that I'm looking at a sentence by sentence, but

it's much easier for me to like do it on the sentence by sentence level, literally

reading backward through a chapter.

So I guess it's, you know, great having a partner who is a proofreader

professionally and co writers.

I think editors are the unsung heroes of novels a lot of the time anyway.

But it sounds

Absolutely, 100%.

For you, especially the way that you write, because when you read it, it's

the movie, it's not the granular word by word, having that external person to

be, have you conveyed the message in the words that are on the page is essential,

to make sure that what you're seeing in your movie is actually there on the

page, uh, like, you know, the example you gave of, oh, it's in there and,

you know, it wasn't, so your partner, I guess, you know, the first person to read

a draft, do they give detailed notes on a, on a granular level, or is it just a

chapter, this is what I got out of it.

I, I, cause I guess they, they do proofread, but how do they help you?

How do their notes come across to you?

Uh, is it like things read underlined?

Is it on a separate document?

How, how do your edits come to you?

And also, I'm sorry, I'm doing multi part questions, which is very annoying.

How do you respond to that?

Is that a good thing to receive?

Is it a relief to get those?

Or is it like, no, it should be perfect.

Why are you criticizing me?

I'm going to answer this sort of like, like generally.

Not the full editorial process, but sort of like the where

it goes once I let it go.

Yeah.

So with a game beyond death, because I'm releasing it at a regular

interval, my partner will read like three chapters at a time, and then I'll

go and I'll schedule him on the Patreon.

And while he's doing that, he knows my house style.

He knows that We're putting everything into British English.

He knows we're using the Oxford comma, et cetera, et cetera, those sorts of things.

So he will just, carte blanche, he will just fix those and

he will make those work.

Whenever there is something that is a question of style, he will, he will

literally just do it right in front of me and I will sit there with like

a cup of tea and like read a book and he will say, you've used the word

roiling four times in two paragraphs.

And I will pop up and I will go over.

And I'll be like, uh, that one has to stay, that one has to stay, we're

going to change that to something else, and actually I'm just going to

take out that entire, like, clause, because I don't actually need it.

And I'll just do like little spot edits, and then he'll go

back over it again and resume.

And so it'll just be back and forth right there, just like really

quick fixes, um, and that's it.

He doesn't really do dev edit stuff, or deep structural stuff.

He generally, when he edits, he like, he reads my stuff, and he like,

fixes all my grammar peccadillos, and Small copy line edit sort of stuff.

He will flag for me and then I'll like pop in and I will quickly fix it.

And then sometimes we'll have an extended debate back and forth

about my fix, because I get very particular about the sound of things.

Okay, yeah.

Um, I have this discussion with Chris, C.

L.

McCartney, all the time.

Because they'd be like, no, just change the word.

I'm like, I can't change the word because it changes the sound.

And if it changes the sound, it changes the rhythm of the sentence.

And it just, it just, no, it does.

The whole, the whole, the whole chapter, like, falls flat.

Um, and we will have these, like, really long, drawn out arguments,

which I find incredibly fulfilling.

And they make me deeply joyous.

Um, but it's that sort of thing.

It's like,

Uh, my entire family on my mother's side are musicians, and not a

single one is classically trained.

None of them were taught to read music.

They all learned how to play by ear.

They're all very, very good at playing by ear, being very musical.

Um, I did not get that gift at all.

But I think of the way I write in a very similar fashion.

I sort of write by ear.

I have read a lot of stuff.

I know how stuff holds to sound.

Um, and it just sort of like comes out so I do have opinions

on specific word choices.

And like I'm, I will be talked out of them.

I do have a tendency to use 10 dollar words because that's

just how my brain works.

but I can occasionally be talked out of it, talked down from using them.

Although sometimes that becomes a whole new argument because

I'm like, Oh no, you're right.

I'll change that word.

But then that also means I have to rephrase this entire sentence

to use different words so that it flows correctly, uh, flows

properly and sounds right.

Um, like, no, you didn't need to change that.

I'm like, no, absolutely.

If I'm changing this word to that, then the whole thing has to change.

Otherwise it doesn't sound correct to the flow of the story that's happening.

As a reader, I totally get that.

Because there are some books that you can have a 300 page book.

And you're going to have one book that you can read in a day, and you have

another book that takes you weeks.

And it's just the flow of the sentences, the flow of the

pages, the flow of the chapters.

If it just keeps you reading, and it's like candy for the

brain, it's absolute joyous.

And as a reader, I'm not conscious of word choice in that way.

But some, it's just very static and it's very slow and it's a bit of a

grind and a chore to get through.

so, yeah, that totally works for me, and I must say, it was less

than a week that I read your book.

It was phenomenal, it was a great read.

But also, I think The stakes for the characters, you get invested.

So you want to make sure everything's all right.

You want to know how they get themselves out of the situations they're in.

so yeah, I get that.

Thank you.

And like a lot of that is also down to everyone who helped me edit it.

My partner, Robert, absolutely fantastic proofreading, line editing, helping

me solve all of these little issues.

So it goes to him, like, market of dreams and destiny.

Everything went to him first.

Then it went to Chris because Chris reads and writes completely different than I do.

And Chris has possibly one of the best eyes for structure that I've

ever encountered in my entire life.

And he'll be like, I love all of this.

Like your vibes are still on point.

We are now going to have an extended discussion about like the chassis.

Uh, we're going to talk about sort of like fixing your carburetor or whatever.

I don't, I'm not super mechanically inclined in terms of like cars, but he

used a car analogy when we were talking about a market of dreams and destiny.

I don't know why, he's not super into cars either.

Um, but yeah, it'll go to, it'll go to Robert, it will go to Chris.

Chris will help me clear up a lot of structure, structural issues, and it will

go to the rest of my, my beta readers who, who obviously provide different

levels of insight and feedback and then I will, then I will do editorial

triage and implement the changes.

And when the book's finally finished.

The proofs are done, it's off to the printers.

Do you feel a sense of relief that it's complete?

Or is there more grief of, you know, you've developed this world, you've

got these characters, their story is done, and you're not gonna be spending

time with them day in, day out.

Is the movie is over, and is that a sad thing, or is it just like, yes!

Done right onto the next thing?

I'm Generally very happy because it means I'm done doing edits.

And edits are the thing that I find The most difficult about the entire process.

So just my relief at no longer having to do edits.

Yeah Yeah

Probably occludes any sort of like bittersweet melancholy that

may arise from the fact that I am done writing this particular story.

But generally I have So many things that I want to write that my brain

is already plotting The next thing while I'm still in the middle of the

previous thing, which is not useful.

Or not nearly as useful as it could be.

Yeah Because it really splits focus.

Yeah so yeah, I generally, I'm happy to hand it off.

Because quite frankly when the book goes through the printers That's just the

beginning of a whole new cycle Of like little tiny, excited, awesome things.

Like cover art or, Ooh, arcs or, Oh, it's finally in the store

or actually going to hold it.

I get to get a hold, the actual thing, the physical thing.

Yeah, I actually think I, I have more of a melancholic

reaction after publication day.

But again, I think that has a lot to do with how, how much time and energy

and like, buzz builds s up into it in the lead up to publication because,

you know, it's quite a long process and there's like, Ooh, I'm writing an

article for this blog and I'm appearing on this podcast and I'm on this panel

talking about this thing that's related to the book and et cetera, et cetera.

And then it goes out into the world.

And then the publisher is like, okay, moving on.

We're ready for the next thing.

Good job.

Yeah.

Uh, we'll see.

We see, we'll see how sales do in like six months to a year.

Um, write me something else.

And there's a, this is very much like a very big drop off in the amount of

focus that is, that is on the book.

which is a little bit harder to navigate because it's like, I

feel like it's much more abrupt than the process of book going.

The point of the timeline where it's book going to printers.

Yeah, that's that's not an ending.

That's yeah That's a phase shift.

That's not an ending but after publication day, that's much more like

oh no this This project is more done.

You're spending noticeably less time with these characters.

Because, you know, in the run up to publication, we're talking about

character, we're talking about setting, we're talking about the

book and, and all of these things.

So they are still very much there and very much present.

But post publication day, there's a, there's a fall off.

And yeah, I think that's a bit more, a bit more of the aww.

Um, I've just got the last two questions, but it's been a

fantastic time to chat with you, Trip.

Thank you.

Um, now it's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their

writing with every story that they write.

You mentioned earlier how improving your writing was learning how you write.

And optimizing your writing process around that.

But was there anything in particular from the last project you finished that

you're now applying to your projects that you're currently working on?

I mean, the obvious answer that springs immediately to mind is

don't write so out of order as I did on A Market of Dreams and Destiny.

Get things in line more in advance.

So even if there is some slight shifting, it's not literally, okay, I

need to write a summary of everything that happens in every scene and put

it on note cards, spread them all out on the floor in front of me, and then

wiggle them all around until they fit back into a new order that functions

with all the through lines for all the characters and the plot and everything.

Okay, now I need to go remember and like trim all these

other things out and do this.

I've definitely learned that I have got to know, I have got to know the

ending before I push past 25 percent or untangling it is going to be almost

more of a trial than my soul could bear.

But it's also an interesting question because I'm now sitting here and I

am thinking back about things I have learned and it's occurring to me.

I love science fiction fantasy conventions.

I go to as many as I possibly can.

I especially love BristolCon.

I love FantasyCon.

I love EasterCon.

Um, I volunteered for the World Science Fiction Convention

when I was here in Glasgow.

I was on a lot of panels and quite often that does give you the opportunity

to verbalize and vocalize and sort of think your way through aspects of your

craft that you may not necessarily have formally thought through.

And I have actually had some insights just talking on panels that I have then gone

on to sort of like, Apply to my process.

Um, I was on this fantastic panel at an Easter con at one point, and it

was talking about cross genre works.

And like how you write them, how you take these two genres and

how do you mash them together.

And just being on that panel and sort of bringing into clear focus,

the image of how I thought about mashing up genres in my head.

It formalized some things, and I'm like, now I actually actively use

it when I'm plotting a, a work.

Like, for example, on my Patreon, there's a novella called Apple Pies

and Eldritch Skies, which is me sort of taking cosmic horror and cozy

fantasy and linking them together.

And I was specifically able to do that because of the thought process

that occurred to me on this panel.

It was very much like, okay, break it down.

What are the Aspects of each of these genres?

What, what makes them a genre?

What is the pattern of storytelling that is formalized as a subgenre in this case?

And there's not a lot of overlap between cozy fantasy and cosmic horror.

No.

but there's an idea that is central to cosmic horror, that it is

terrifying to be such a tiny piece of something so unknowable and vast.

And I was thinking, but that's the, that's the thing with cozy fantasy.

It's all about being a tiny piece of something.

It's about having this cozy, nice, tiny little nook.

And I'm like, so Apple pies and Eldridge skies is overlapping

those two little tiny pieces.

We are keeping the vast and knowable cosmos, but we're linking that and

overlapping it with that small piece so that we can then bring in that's

actually comforting being just a small part in a vast and noble cosmos.

I don't I don't have to fucking worry about killing the witch

king like the world can burn down But reality will go on.

Good will still exist.

Light will still burn in innumerable stars.

Like it's finding those pieces and those overlaps and I would absolutely not have

been able to make that connection because it is a big leap if I hadn't had that

experience on the panel of like air quotes forced by circumstance to vocalize

my thoughts on this particular topic.

Um, and I, I love apple pies and I'll just guys, it needs like more editing,

more polishing, more editor work.

Um, But it was just so much fun.

It's so fascinating to write.

Plus, like, I got to write a very small, very cute, very deadly character, which

is one of my favorite things ever.

That's amazing.

And also I I want to second the amazingness that is author conventions

in the UK, especially genre conventions where you have these panels and

you have shared ideas, uh, it's always fascinating to listen to.

100%.

Um, I'm an American, I'm an expat.

I have lived here in the UK for over 10 years now.

And having experience of the convention scene in the United States and the

convention scene in the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom is like such a

sweet spot of the conventions are big enough to be interesting, but

they're small enough to be personal.

You can really develop a convention family, that like makes the experiences.

Like, so incredibly rich while at the same time having very relaxed, down

to earth contact with major figures in like the UK publishing industry.

I cannot recommend the UK fantasy convention scene enough.

If you are nearby and you can get to something like Easter Con,

which moves around and I think the next one's going to be in Belfast.

I highly recommend it.

If you can come over, if you can afford to come over, if your

life circumstances permit that.

I can't recommend it enough.

I've loved every single one.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh, now just one final question.

It should hopefully be a simple one.

And in fact, because Dr.

Tiffany Angus was your, uh, PhD supervisor, I may already get it.

Is there one piece of advice you find yourself returning to

gets you through your writing?

So, It's not a piece of advice, so much as it is a Perspective.

Or maybe even a mantra, if you want to call it a mantra.

The one thing that gets me through writing more than absolutely anything

else is saying to myself, fix it in post.

Fix it later.

Yeah.

Um, and the thing, and it is very, it's very close to being what Tiffany would

say is you can't edit a blank page.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I think of it as.

You can't edit a blank page.

Tiffany says, what does she say?

She says, I can edit shit on the page.

I can't edit shit in your head.

So write it down.

Yeah.

I think actually in her interview, she did actually say you can't edit an empty page.

That was the words I was thinking.

So, um, great.

Well, Tripp, it's been genuinely fantastic.

I really enjoyed you as a guest.

Uh, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

I had a absolutely fantastic time, honestly.

And that was Trip Galey, what a wonderful man.

His website is simply tripgaley.

com get links to all of his stuff there.

And I do recommend his Patreon so that you can catch up with his

latest book, A Game Beyond Death.

It's really good.

As of this episode being released, there are nine chapters out.

So, uh, you get that, and if frequent chapters being released,

you also get short stories and his newsletter and stuff.

It's about five pounds a month, but I think there's a free option as well.

So it's all very good.

Recommended.

As for me, I do want to give you guys notice that I do plan on attending

several author conventions this year, if my health behaves itself.

I'll give more details as I'm confirmed, but really hoping to

meet some of you and catching up with previous guests on the show.

Hopefully meet some future guests too.

Anyway, that's all for this month.

See you in February.

And for goodness sake, keep writing until the world ends.