Rosie Walsh, Author of GHOSTED
[0:10]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and this is Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:15]As a mom of four kids in New York City and a writer myself, I know all too well how short
[0:19]everyone is on time, so I'm here to help.
[0:21]I'm going to interview authors and writers of all types about their work, especially
[0:25]as it relates to parenting and family issues.
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[1:00]I'm thrilled to be interviewing Rosie Walsh today.
[1:03]My first guest who is a British, Rosie Walsh is making her U.S. debut with Ghosted, a
[1:09]novel set in Stroud, Galau's Chester Shire, where she was raised.
[1:14]It was actually called the man who didn't call when it came out in England.
[1:18]The U.S. seems to be the last to get this amazing book, as the rights have been sold
[1:21]to 30 countries already.
[1:23]In many, it's already a bestseller.
[1:25]Rosie has written four books, and many articles, including a blog for Marie Claire, under
[1:29]the pseudonym Lucy Robinson.
[1:31]Our Lucy Robinson books are called The Day We Disappeared, The Unfinished Symphony of
[1:37]You and Me, a passionate love affair with a total stranger, and the greatest love story of
[1:41]all time.
[1:42]This is the first novel with her own name attached.
[1:45]A former documentary filmmaker and huge animal lover, she currently lives with her partner
[1:48]who she calls The Man, and with whom she has a baby and Bristol in the UK.
[1:53]She thought she was going to become an actress, but says, for a while I thought I was
[1:56]going to be an actor, but at university it came to my attention that I was crap at acting.
[2:01]So lucky for us, she became a writer.
[2:03]Hi, Rosie.
[2:04]Hello, hello.
[2:05]How are you?
[2:06]Thank you.
[2:07]Very flexible, it's not that you probably saw when you're...
[2:13]Oh my gosh.
[2:14]Congratulations on your U.S. release.
[2:16]So exciting.
[2:17]Oh my gosh, yes, in the most exciting time ever, I feel completely terrible.
[2:27]I love how you've like documented the whole process from sitting in your Pilates fans
[2:31]finding out that the book was going to be sold in the U.S. and everything, and now
[2:34]it's just seeing it come out.
[2:35]It must be just so wild for you.
[2:37]It is.
[2:38]I was just on a radio speaker earlier and just thinking, you haven't met in the States.
[2:49]It's happened.
[2:50]How many times do you tell yourself that it's really still real?
[2:54]I mean, even now, you know, it only popped me really believe that it's just that today.
[3:03]I know it's so awesome.
[3:05]It's really awesome.
[3:06]I mean, you're supposed to pop on a plate and see it.
[3:09]Well, if you want to popping on a plane, I'd love to meet you in person eventually, so,
[3:13]you know, this is the whole likewise.
[3:14]That's at least one U.S. person.
[3:16]Well, that would be fair.
[3:18]I have a 14-month-old, so it's just challenging.
[3:21]Oh, I'm so cute.
[3:22]I'll get over that thing, aren't you?
[3:24]Yeah.
[3:25]I'll take it back.
[3:26]I loved your book.
[3:29]I mean, it's been so much more fun to talk to someone.
[3:33]I mean, I love almost everything.
[3:35]I've been reading for the podcast, but I really, really enjoyed it.
[3:38]I was like on the edge of my seat reading it.
[3:39]So I mean, it was so good.
[3:42]So anyway, thank you for writing it.
[3:45]And then I'll...
[3:46]Oh, no.
[3:47]Thank you.
[3:48]Can you tell listeners who have not had read goes yet because it's coming out now.
[3:55]What it's about and how you came up with the idea?
[3:58]Sure.
[3:59]Yeah.
[4:00]Ghost did a story of Sarah, who believed that in Eddy, she met a lot her life, only for him
[4:05]to disappear off the face of the earth.
[4:08]And her friend could be...
[4:12]But Sarah said, find him in terms of the story, into the story about love, grief.
[4:31]Amazing.
[4:32]So you actually said...
[4:33]I mean, is that all?
[4:34]I mean, that's like everything.
[4:35]What else could you squeeze in there?
[4:37]I'm going to say, of course, that's quite a load.
[4:39]Do you want to give us a lot of issues there, but...
[4:41]Yeah.
[4:42]That's easy.
[4:43]That's easy.
[4:44]You know, I feel free to jump in and add them later.
[4:46]Yeah.
[4:47]Yeah.
[4:48]If you just update your website, please let me know.
[4:50]Yes.
[4:52]So I was interested to learn.
[4:54]You started out by writing a blog from Marie Claire about life and love.
[4:57]And you chose a pseudonym kindly to the men you were sort of dealing with at the time,
[5:02]not to out them in any way.
[5:03]And your pseudonym Lucy Robinson became her own sort of famous creation.
[5:08]And you wrote four books under her name, went to Buenos Aires,
[5:13]from the greatest love story of all time, because a women's fiction editor suggested it.
[5:17]Can you tell me about that whole transition from blogging to writing a novel
[5:22]and just what that whole thing was about?
[5:25]Sure.
[5:26]First of all, people write your blog in the home that, you know,
[5:29]they're not all like an answer to it.
[5:31]I really can handle hearts.
[5:32]They have not my attention.
[5:33]I've never planned to be a writer.
[5:35]And I sometimes feel guilty telling this story,
[5:38]because, you know, sending my writer friends had to work so incredibly hard.
[5:42]But I guess we've all been on stage, don't we?
[5:44]I'd write a book that was provisional.
[5:46]Being a writer and there may be a sense that I should be,
[5:54]never imagined that that would be something that I could do,
[5:57]or that would be possible for me.
[5:59]But I had an email from the thinking of her,
[6:41]because he's writing a novel.
[6:42]She said, there's no how to.
[6:43]She'd be able to be great.
[6:52]Send that email from the bedroom and says,
[7:05]my housemate, I can't do this.
[7:07]She said, no, just write, even if you write 100 words, write something for a deed.
[7:14]And that was the start of it.
[7:16]I thought you were going to say,
[7:18]I thought you were going to say you came out of your room after two hours.
[7:20]And you had magically figured the whole thing out.
[7:22]And it was like, almost done.
[7:24]That's all organ close.
[7:28]Good.
[7:29]I wrote a few words, just a character study on my,
[7:38]some character notes in my first character.
[7:40]Of course, this is stressful.
[7:47]It would make me laugh when people come to me and say,
[7:50]oh, nothing more than to be a writer.
[7:52]Yes, it's a fantastic job.
[7:53]And it's incredibly privileged to have.
[7:55]But it's incredibly hard.
[7:58]And I think when you are an unpublished writer,
[8:01]none of the stressful realities of having a contract are obvious.
[8:06]And I think I've met a lot of those unpublished writers in my time
[8:08]who preach to think of them a little whinger.
[8:11]I'm incredibly grateful that it's my full-time job.
[8:13]There's nothing else they want to do.
[8:15]But as with all jobs, it's a job.
[8:17]And that's why they're doing another job in the telly at the time.
[8:27]So I was just sort of cramming a bit here and there.
[8:34]But I know you wrote somewhere that you were writing from 5am to 9am
[8:38]and then going to your day job in TV and working all day
[8:41]and then coming home and writing at the novel some more.
[8:43]That's like insane. How did you manage that?
[8:46]I think I've gone mad.
[8:48]I think I've gone mad.
[8:50]Lots of caffeine.
[8:54]Nine in which I would recommend.
[8:57]And it's quite a lot of madness.
[8:59]I was going to go to one side of it anyway,
[9:03]because I've already...
[9:04]I've never written my life.
[9:16]In the middle of packing my life into the storage unit.
[9:29]I don't honestly know how I've decided.
[9:32]I just remember sitting in bed at 1, 2 in the morning.
[9:36]Of course, that was not sustainable.
[9:46]By the time I finally made it to one of the photos.
[10:00]at that point that's what I actually needed to.
[10:02]So from that point on, I just calmed down,
[10:10]which could have been insane.
[10:13]So I love how you've written a lot
[10:16]about how to survive bad writing days
[10:19]and sort of been very self-effacing and funny
[10:22]about the fact that writing is not always so easy
[10:25]and it's not just like, you know, sitting
[10:26]with the view of the ocean, you know,
[10:28]crafting some sort of miracle.
[10:31]So you said, you actually,
[10:32]I'm just gonna read this back to you if you don't mind.
[10:35]You wrote, here is what my head says
[10:37]when I hit on problems with my novels.
[10:39]Oh God, oh God, oh God, I'm doomed.
[10:40]My agent is on holiday.
[10:41]I couldn't possibly send it to my editor
[10:43]because she then realized that I'm not perfect.
[10:45]And I've never understood what the health people are on
[10:49]about when they, when they're having a writing mentor.
[10:52]So I ain't got one of them either.
[10:54]I am totally and utterly fucked.
[10:56]Ah, there is nobody who can help me.
[10:58]I am alone, doom, death.
[11:01]Nothing like that of melodrama.
[11:03]I love death.
[11:04]I think that's a place that many writers have taken them.
[11:07]I think that's one thing that's been very comforting
[11:10]about having loads of writer friends,
[11:11]making those writers friends over the years.
[11:13]If he is, oh man, you know, we all need to make times.
[11:16]And I've certainly got a lot better at dealing with them.
[11:19]But when I really allow things to spoil out control that.
[11:22]I've still had many years later
[11:24]where my head takes me.
[11:25]Bit of a shame, really.
[11:26]I guess.
[11:27]That nothing is not conducive to good writing.
[11:30]Although if writers didn't have like an ongoing sort of
[11:33]interior monologue, there would be no books, right?
[11:35]Isn't that where they all come from?
[11:36]Right? There's so many voices going on.
[11:38]I agree.
[11:39]I think it's a prerequisite of any good writer
[11:42]to be slightly insane.
[11:43]And that's it.
[11:44]It's just keeping that insanity,
[11:46]spent boundaries and tools and techniques now,
[12:08]you know, I work in short bursts.
[12:54]Three jobs, you know, you're sort of cool, I think.
[13:00]So writing a dialogue and just sort of
[13:02]re-grating yourselves with humanity and the reminding of that.
[13:08]What it's like to be a person, to watch out the people
[13:11]and to spy on people, you know, to do all the things
[13:14]that writers do and the ways sort of a constantly
[13:17]building out of people's behaviors.
[13:19]Yeah.
[13:20]To me, it's really important to have some of my data
[13:22]get into that.
[13:23]You know, he's basically a human interaction.
[13:26]I think a lot of people could benefit from getting
[13:28]out from their desks instead of sitting there
[13:30]for eight hours a day, honestly.
[13:32]Oh, I couldn't agree more.
[13:33]You know, straight, you know, getting out of your legs,
[13:36]running all the sport, anything.
[13:37]Yeah.
[13:38]I think it's better than, I think, I think,
[13:40]a sort of static audience of death, grappling with problems.
[14:01]I love how your advice on the website is just
[14:04]get outside, however possible, on a bike, on foot,
[14:07]however, and just get moving and get out there.
[14:09]You mean my website?
[14:14]Oh, yeah, but I'm really cold.
[14:24]And I love that.
[14:25]Or sometimes I think, oh, you know, it's writing time.
[14:30]You know, can transform the rest of your writing day.
[14:41]and if you don't get outside the chances of the entire day
[14:44]will be a writer or problem, just half of it.
[14:47]Yeah.
[14:48]I love how you said, even if it's freezing,
[14:51]just like wrap yourself in a blanket and sit on your porch.
[14:54]And like, I'm like imagining you sitting there
[14:56]all wrapped up, just like waiting.
[14:59]Is my outside time done now?
[15:02]Well, finally, we were not that late.
[15:04]We had to, since I wrote that, we had to work on our help,
[15:07]but she had that little purse, so I used to fish on her.
[15:10]I'm going to have to find a new one.
[15:12]Maybe in our front, God, not be a bit weird,
[15:13]because my name is people can pass all the time.
[15:17]Could you make up the blanket and make some strange movements
[15:21]or noises, did you?
[15:24]So what is this Pomodoro technique, time management
[15:27]method that you're talking about?
[15:29]Do you still follow that?
[15:30]What is it, exactly?
[15:33]So maybe it's something that, well, I hope it's
[15:35]the mission about it, and although it's actually
[15:37]a key googler, there's a lot of information
[15:39]on the Pomodoro technique website.
[15:43]So it's an approach to working, which
[15:45]is for 35 minutes, an optimum concentration time.
[16:19]And you do that four times over, and then
[16:20]you take a longer break.
[16:23]And we did many other elements to do your job,
[16:37]and then somebody said, oh, oh, I've
[16:39]noticed all the insurance my back.
[16:42]Rather than then calling them, because you know
[16:44]you're together alone, you just like to note.
[16:46]And then at the end of that, actually,
[16:59]it stops you breaking back your desk.
[17:04]There are many other aspects to Pomodoro technique,
[17:10]and I think it's interesting to look it out taking notes.
[17:25]And then I will just need to expect both.
[17:32]Sometimes I'll say, today, I've got a girl.
[17:43]It's not me, you know, I thought I was like,
[17:46]no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
[17:48]I'm kidding.
[17:50]But when today, when you're in working time,
[17:53]I think it's invaluable to, I would be lost without it.
[17:56]That's awesome.
[17:57]So let's go back to ghosted if that's OK with you.
[18:01]So what made you decide to write this novel under your real name
[18:06]whereas your previous four have been under Lucy Robinson?
[18:11]I was writing it for a kind of novel under your own name.
[19:02]It's awesome.
[19:49]And it gives me such an incredible thrill.
[19:52]I never quite identified when I heard a writer
[19:55]talking about how you never get over the thrill
[19:57]of, you know, unboxing.
[20:00]And they later felt that, even though, you know,
[20:03]my release rubbers and books were really nicely published,
[20:07]really nice jackets and so on.
[20:09]But when I unboxed the first copy that I thought
[20:12]of my firstage, it was essentially, actually.
[20:16]And I read the first few lines.
[20:25]My first thing greatly, you know,
[20:26]I certainly know that opening chapter very well.
[20:29]And I started crying.
[20:31]I was just such a beautiful, emotional moment to me.
[20:35]It felt huge personal triumph.
[20:40]And I don't think I could have felt that
[20:41]had it been a different name in front.
[20:45]Everything just sort of came together at the right time.
[20:49]And I couldn't be happier.
[20:51]It makes me smile if you try and feel it.
[20:55]And that only doesn't say Rosie Walsh,
[20:57]but it says it in a million different languages
[20:59]and on different covers, because now it's been translated
[21:01]into how many languages so many, 30 years.
[21:04]Yeah, yeah, I'm immediately lucky, so yeah.
[21:06]A million, okay, good.
[21:07]No, 31.
[21:09]31.
[21:17]So I was looking at all the different covers
[21:19]because all the different countries
[21:20]seem to have different designs.
[21:21]And I've decided my favorite is Tudo Akilo Canos Separa,
[21:26]which is so pretty with the hands out stretch to each other
[21:30]and like the tree sort of in the background.
[21:33]And I thought that was so nice.
[21:35]What's your favorite?
[21:36]And what do you think about having so many different
[21:38]cover designs?
[21:40]They're amazing.
[21:40]And they're really fascinating.
[21:41]And actually what they tell me, you know, you knew,
[21:44]that there's really great support is that this book is,
[21:49]you know, some of them have really gone sort of middle.
[22:16]I'm that awesome, can I hear not saying anything
[22:30]that you're doing really decent for picture.
[22:35]And she looked at it and thought,
[22:36]I really like colors.
[22:38]And actually an important aspect was not a couple,
[22:43]but they're not together.
[22:45]And so that's why she, she can't make any of the same elements
[22:48]that included two hands and not quite searching.
[22:51]And which I think is really powerful
[22:52]and that that size also translates to,
[22:57]yeah, I mean, like, but I think it's just really original
[23:30]with striking and beautiful and civil and things to a lot of people.
[23:34]And then I think my third thought, one is Spanish one.
[23:39]It's just really beautiful and people get it.
[23:53]No, I didn't my name on it, but I didn't love it.
[23:57]No, I mean, come on.
[23:58]If you're not going to advertise for yourself, who will, right?
[24:00]I mean, I would love it.
[24:02]I mean, actually, you're entire team.
[24:03]But anyway, in the, in the books that you have Sarah watching her friend,
[24:10]Joe and Joe's son, Rudy, your characters are like just so amazing and so real.
[24:14]Anyway, you wrote, Joe took a photo of her son five minutes ago.
[24:18]She'd been telling Rudy off about something.
[24:20]Now she smiled at him with a love that had no edges.
[24:22]And I thought that was just such a great way to depict this parent child
[24:25]relationship of one minute.
[24:27]You're like screaming and furious at the kids the next night.
[24:29]You're beaming with pride and love.
[24:32]So your baby's 14 months old.
[24:33]Have you found this to be the truth as a mom as well?
[24:36]I mean, you know, see, I'm not going to scream or hate my child, but I did not say
[24:45]it.
[24:46]No, no, no, no, no.
[24:47]I was thinking about the times that I lost my temper with him.
[24:50]And even though obviously, I'm never screaming at him or he's more than thing, that
[24:54]the times where I definitely lost my temper and then literally seconds later, I've just
[24:59]felt so overwhelmed by love, but I can hardly speak.
[25:02]And then, of course, you need to all thoughts that I've got across in the first place,
[25:05]but that motherhood.
[25:06]And I wrote that line before I had a child, actually.
[25:11]And there's a woman in a book who has a baby in about her since her baby, you know,
[25:37]to have one.
[25:41]But each of them, that line that he picked out where, you know, front of this girl,
[25:45]she's checking in and then she looked at him with a love that had no edges.
[25:49]When I wrote that, I was still baffled by all of my non friends doing that.
[25:58]I could get over the younger so quickly, with so many of the emotional experiences
[26:07]of being a mother.
[26:08]That's just something that's impossible, impossible to convey to somebody you don't
[26:11]have a child I think.
[26:12]So I wrote it because I was seeing it happening.
[26:27]Yeah, that totally makes sense.
[26:29]Well, I mean, I'm so angry and it still doesn't mean that much.
[26:32]You know what I mean?
[26:33]No, I agree.
[26:34]Somebody I really hate about that.
[26:35]Right.
[26:36]Yeah.
[26:37]No, I know.
[26:38]A lot of parenting makes no sense.
[26:39]I feel like it's an emotional roller coaster.
[26:42]It's like, you know, every minute, there's something else.
[26:44]You got to be like on your toes and all that.
[26:47]Yep.
[26:48]I mean, nothing quite like it.
[26:50]It ain't worth me at that, but I couldn't lose it.
[26:52]But I don't know.
[26:53]I'll be fine.
[26:54]I'll be easy.
[26:55]It was very negative about heritage.
[26:57]Yeah, I can't exactly say experiences everywhere else.
[27:04]So at a lot of parts in ghosting, I was holding my breath and at times I was like calling
[27:09]out to my husband, like, oh my gosh, plot twist, I thought something totally different
[27:13]was happening.
[27:14]And I was like totally like, I was like, remember it like, anyway, it was, you know,
[27:19]I was like physical in my reactions to reading the story.
[27:24]How did you do it?
[27:25]Oh, my gosh.
[27:26]It was real.
[27:27]Thanks.
[27:28]Like, did you plan that, you know, the sort of not weaving path, but, you know, did you plan
[27:38]how the novel would go in the directions from the start or did it unfold?
[27:44]Because a lot of people sometimes say, oh, it just sort of wrote itself, but you must
[27:49]have had to plan it because it was so complex and intricate.
[27:55]Terrible.
[27:56]Terrible question.
[27:57]Not like itself.
[27:58]It would hard work.
[27:59]Yeah.
[28:00]But yes, no, the elements of kind of suspense in the twist.
[28:05]I mean, the major twist that you get curious about the two-third mark, I knew that from
[28:13]it.
[28:14]So someone has thought that's right, but I, you know, I knew that was a couple of things
[28:17]and pretty much running it up and then he disappeared.
[28:19]I didn't know it was one, because it's not months to come up with a good reason so he
[28:28]was not having called a reason that we keep us guessing, or even that we were never
[28:33]honest.
[28:34]But a reason, you know, it felt like a concentration with a left story, and then I really
[28:59]liked, actually, if I just weren't novel about a girl living, and I realized that I, you
[29:09]know, every time I took another positive, I realized I needed to, and I didn't add it
[29:30]into one of my very final edits.
[30:00]A rather than an early pension bridge.
[30:06]Interesting.
[30:08]And so if you had a friend who told you she'd
[30:10]fallen in love basically in a week,
[30:12]and then the guys suddenly fell off the face of the earth,
[30:14]what advice would you give her?
[30:16]What is the love that I miss it?
[30:22]I would always recommend walking away with your head
[30:25]outside because 99 percent of the time people
[30:28]are going to see it because they're very cute.
[30:34]I hope people hear you say that far and wide,
[31:22]because I have a feeling this book is going to spawn
[31:24]like a huge backlash of men will no longer be or not just men,
[31:29]but people will not be able to be like running away
[31:31]from the relationship.
[31:32]You're going to have all these people being like,
[31:33]oh no, he's not rude.
[31:35]He's just, there must be this complex story behind it.
[31:38]And then I have to figure it out.
[31:40]No, that's not your role.
[31:42]That could be right, though.
[31:44]I think, to be honest, I think when people
[31:46]do finally understand why it's dead.
[31:52]No, that's beautiful.
[31:53]I know, that's great, I agree.
[31:55]But at least there's like an explanation.
[31:57]I feel like so much of that, you know,
[32:00]it's just the lack of closure in situations like that.
[32:02]Anything that gets to people.
[32:04]Oh, lack of closure and lack of control in people being there.
[32:09]Yeah.
[32:11]So I know we have to wrap up soon,
[32:13]but what is coming up next for you after this?
[32:17]Well, I have been trying to write my next book
[32:19]for the last eight months.
[32:20]Not really got through.
[32:23]As well as being a new mom,
[32:25]and trying to grapple with all that comes with that.
[32:28]I've also, you know, I've just been doing a lot of publicity.
[32:31]It's beyond, you know, it's exceeded my role this dream
[32:34]to have book deals around the world.
[32:36]But with that, there's sometimes, you know,
[32:41]it just takes me a day to want to all the emails
[32:44]I need to answer about work stuff.
[32:47]So it's been pretty slow progress with this next book,
[32:49]but I've had some breakthroughs recently,
[32:52]had a good chat with a coach who I sometimes
[32:55]go to if I need to sort of shift something.
[32:58]She's really set up some fantastic goals.
[33:00]And I say, I actually feel really motivated and ready.
[33:03]So often my day has infused
[33:05]really in a podcast in few today.
[33:07]I'm going to be back in my desk tomorrow morning
[33:09]and I feel good about that, actually.
[33:10]I feel finally that I'm ready to write this book.
[33:13]And it might actually be.
[33:16]I can't wait.
[33:19]Thank you so much for coming on mom's.
[33:20]Don't have time to read books.
[33:22]And thanks for your amazing novel and best of luck
[33:24]with, I'm sure it'll be just a massive success in the US.
[33:27]It's amazing.
[33:29]Well, thank you so much.
[33:31]And, you know, mom's don't really have much surgery,
[33:33]but we have so much time.
[33:34]We have enough, so.
[33:36]Yeah, if any mom's do have time
[33:38]to read my book, I'd love to hear from you.
[33:39]They certainly have enough time to buy books.
[33:41]So that's, you know,
[33:41]what?
[33:42]So good.
[33:43]All right.
[33:45]All right.
[33:45]Thank you for having me.
[33:46]No, of course, my pleasure.
[33:47]Take care.
[33:49]Thanks for listening to mom's don't have time to read books.
[33:51]This episode was sponsored by Once Upon a Farm.
[33:55]Take care.