Hello my friends, and welcome to tall tales’s first official Substack post. The year is 2024 and, although I’m not sure how I feel about this phrase, I am rawdogging life once more (off anti-depressants). It’s been almost three weeks since my last dance with madame lexapro and, to quote his holiness Ronan Keating, ‘life is a rollercoaster just gotta ride it.’ I also heard one of the greatest anecdotes of all time the other day, which I think you will enjoy: my sister’s friend told me that after a man ghosted her she bought him 12,000 instagram followers from a Russian bot site. She figured whoever wanted to date him in future would think he bought them himself, and that? is a contraceptive. Women are amazing.
If you follow me on instagram, you might already be aware that I wrote a book! It’s called rytual, and it’s coming out next year. I thought that this could be a nice forum to talk about it in more detail. If this sounds dull, I invite you to watch this fascinating video of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban singing in a car instead.
Two and a bit years ago, my friend Yve made me this spreadsheet, and despite my previously-mentioned aversion to Microsoft Excel, it was one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me:
I’ve only ever met one person who was confident in their ability to complete a novel before actually completing a novel, and that person is still yet to complete a novel. It’s a strange and daunting task, mostly due to its size. A novel is immense. A novel has a caboose the size of a cargo ship. I learned what a caboose was when I played a six year old girl in Barney The Dinosaur Live in 2016. We toured to the Middle East twice, and on the second trip the Sheikh of Bahrain gave the whole cast an iPhone as a parting gift. I was twenty-three and thought that this experience was indicative of the wild and exciting life I would continue to lead. I sold the iPhone on Facebook marketplace, and when I try to remember that time in my life now, it plays like the kind of dream you have right before you wake up. Two and a half years ago, most of my life played out between my bed and my desk, and that is just…. not good for the skull meat, or the gut microbiome I can only assume.
When it comes to most other forms of writing—a screenplay, an essay, a notes app text draft—although not ideal, if you needed to finish a first draft in a week, you could. The swiftest I’ve heard of anyone finishing a coherent first draft of a novel is six weeks, and even that makes me feel a bit sweaty. For context, a good goal for a first draft of a manuscript is 80,000 words. I did not know this before starting one, as you can see in the spreadsheet above (Yve and I decided it was probably around 40,000 words, although Yve remembers this differently and says we were aiming for 40 as a first chunk). Many books are longer than this, some are shorter, but if you can get it out in 80,000 you’re probably on the right track. Most authors I’ve spoken to say that setting out to finish your first novel feels self-indulgent, because literally no one is waiting for you to write a novel. And I think the reason I found Yve’s spreadsheet to be the most generous gift a friend could give is because it made me feel like at least one person really wanted me to do it.
In saying this, a large part of my motivation for getting through the first draft also came from repeatedly telling myself that I was behind, and that everyone in the entire world had already written one. Which can be true if you look at a select group of people and a select group of people only. The trick is, as soon as you finish the first draft you must pivot immediately to telling yourself it is not a normal thing to do, and that you are probably a child prodigy (I am 30).
Once Yve and I had filled each cell of the spreadsheet, there was a ‘what now?’ moment and I did put it away for a few months. I used a couple of chapters for early editions of tall tales, which I won’t link here but if you’ve been around a while you might have them in your inbox. And here’s where the luck comes in: after I put the half-manuscript away, I received an email from a literary agent asking if I had ever considered writing a novel. It was dumb luck, and also the product of having friends with a ‘platform’, but it came off the back of sending a deranged number of pitches to almost every major media outlet in Australia, and being mostly consistent with writing this newsletter.
We agreed to schedule an introductory phone call, and I sat outside Everyday Coffee in Collingwood and sweated through a thick layer of Rexona clinical protection. This literary agent’s name was (and still is) Benjamin Paz, but you might also know him as Benjamin Stevenson, the best-selling author. That phone call marked the beginning of a rich working relationship, and I’m as shocked as you about the fact that he is a man. Ben is patient, kind, supportive and professional, and genuinely cares about the success of others, which is iconic given that he is also an author. Over the two years that followed, we worked on the manuscript together until it was ready to be sent out to publishers. At one point in the process, this man gave me 1,785 notes on a draft. For free. If you are a writer you will understand that to have someone pay close attention to your work is a delicious treat, and I am so grateful for everything I learned from that experience.
The book is about a cult beauty brand with some sinister secrets, and when we sent it out to publishers the pitch was The Devil Wears Prada meets Fight Club, which I think is accurate. If you know me beyond the internet, you might be thinking, ‘Hang on, didn’t you work at that real life cosmetics brand with a cult following?’ to which I say……………. this book is a work of fiction. But yes, of course, I did work for a cult beauty brand for six years and it taught me a lot about capitalism, and the skin’s barrier function. But the book is about women, about the rise and fall of the girlboss, about rage, and also murder, which is not a spoiler because there is a murder in the prologue. It is also about not knowing what all of the jobs are. I myself have never committed a murder, and I do not know anyone from the real cult beauty brand to have committed a murder either. Good to be up-front about things.
I thought I’d talk more about the process of selling a book to a publisher in this newsletter, but what I really want to say is this: you actually can just write a novel. Most of my friends who are published authors don’t have a degree in creative writing, or if they do they didn’t write their first book until quite a while after graduation. Yes, I sound like Tony Robbins but I am also just a girl, and maybe I myself will start a cult in which I encourage people not to be marketing coordinators but I do not take their autonomy. I’m sorry if you are a marketing coordinator, please understand that I don’t know what I’m talking about.Â
I know I said that no one is waiting for you to write a book, but when I think about the way I hoover the internet for a single crumb written or spoken by my favourite writers, I have my doubts. Remember when we listened to Dolly Alderton and Caroline O’Donoghue talk about Sex and the City for two hours every single week? I’m not saying start a podcast, that would be irresponsible, but I am saying something the internet does NOT want you to know: your perspective is unique and interesting. You are a child prodigy. Never forget your impending demise; life is for doing things you are scared of and also trying new chilli oils.Â
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stories of note
May December - although I’m sad about the Greta/Margot Oscars snub, I’m furious that Charles Melton missed out on a nomination for his role in this film. He is devastatingly good, as are Ms Portman and Ms Moore. This film is exactly my taste and I loved it.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - a brutal and heart-wrenching speculative fiction novel that is actually….. not that far from reality. Think The Hunger Games meets The Handmaid’s Tale.
Letterboxd’s 2023 Cinematic Needle Drop Playlist - so many bangers. Listen when you want to feel like a lady in a movie (Cat Cohen reference).
stoooookkkkkkeeeeddddd for the novvvvveeeeeelllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is so exciting!