Ep. 227: Elly Griffiths on Writing in the Garden

Elly Griffiths was born in London in 1963. Her first crime novel The Crossing Places is set on the Norfolk coast where she spent holidays as a child and where her aunt still lives. Her interest in archaeology comes from her husband, Andrew, who gave up his city job to retrain as an archaeologist. She lives in Brighton, on the south coast of England, with her husband and two children. The Postscript Murders is her most recent novel. 

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Transcript:

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #227 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron, and I am so glad that you’re with me here today. Today, I’m talking to Elly Griffiths on Writing in the Garden. The Postscript Murders is her most recent novel and it just came out and it was really a joy to talk to her. So I know you’re going to enjoy that interview. So hang on for that. What is going on around here in Rachaelandia? That’s a weird thing to say, Rachael-landia. Probably just one L. Oh my gosh. So much stuff, honestly so much stuff. I told you last week that my wife’s visa came in for New Zealand and the dog died which means that we’re moving to New Zealand and we talked to the realtor. So now we are starting to get ready to move. Our realtor is going to come walk through the house tomorrow, which terrifies me because we don’t live like we’re in college, but we live like we graduated from college maybe a couple of years ago. Most of our furniture is inexpensive and, or has been found at a flea market or a thrift store. I’m nervous.

[00:01:37] She’s going to look at her house and say, okay, Rachael, I sold you this house to you 15 years ago. What have you done with it? We have gotten a new electricity and we have gotten the house air conditioning. Other than that, it pretty much is in the same shape. Which you know is fine. Apparently it’s a buyer’s market. No, wait, sorry. It’s a seller’s market in California right now, which is why it’s a good time to sell, but I’m terrified. What other things am I scared of? I just feel scared right now in not- hello, dozy. And not a terrible way, just in a normal human way. Still a bit sick, still finding whatever pain that is that I’ve been finding out for three months. Had my MRI yesterday, haven’t heard anything back. But that was, it was like a four part MRI. So 90 minutes inside the machine, and I must think two things. Number one, my meditation practice, because I was able to meditate through it. Number two, the Valium that they gave me to be in there for 90 minutes, it made the meditation a lot more interesting and easy as I was pretty relaxed, still was not pleasurable. And I’m still kind of feeling the aftereffects of that kind of fear. I’m still feeling plenty of emotions, living with emotions, accepting them, feeling them, crying when I feel like crying, boy, y’all crying is great. I love crying actually is a release valve. It’s-it takes the pressure off, also it sucks. It gives you headaches. I feel like there are times in our lives and I talk about this a lot. You know, there are seasons in our lives, there are seasons to be comfortable or to be digging up the field, not so comfortable. You’re planting there are times to rest and right now our time is to do stuff and to do a lot of stuff and to figure out the order in which to get stuff done.

[00:03:42] Which I love, I am a planner to my teeth. I have realized recently that most of my journaling is just planning. That’s all it is. I’m either planning for the rest of the day or for the rest of my life. But that’s what my journal is. So I do love a good plan. I do love thinking about plans. I love talking to my wife about the plans that we are making and of course, it is also a little bit stressful. So we are dealing with that as well as can be. My darling little dozy dog is going to have to live with somebody for a while when we first go to New Zealand and figure out where to live. And I have- she’s going to stay with my best friend. And that’s amazing. So that is really, really a weight off of our shoulders. We don’t know what we’re doing with the cats yet. They’re both too old to go. They would not safely make the trip they’re geriatric and they do not recommend that geriatric cats spend 24 hours traveling in a plane and then do a quarantine. So, we’re going to have to rehome them. And one of them just got sick. So that is making me stressed out. He’s been sick before. He’s sick again. Can be disease and maybe some other things. So that has got my brain working too, but all this whole time, all the while all of this stuff is going on. Guess what? I’m still writing. And that’s what this podcast is about. This podcast is about getting up and writing anyway, even on the days when I want to lie in bed and make plans, or I need to spend half the day on the phone with a vet, we still show up and do our work. On those days, we write as well as we do on other days on the days that we are completely present emotionally and we’ve gotten a lot of sleep and we feel really heavy, perhaps not, but we’re still showing up and doing our work, even if it is for 10 minutes at a time, 15 minutes at a time we show up because we’re writers.

[00:05:48] And that is what I love reminding you of, that even though there are seasons in our lives as writers, every season is for writing. I truly believe that. I write more a lot of times in my wintery phases and it may be more in my journal. Nobody’s ever going to see these things, but when times are hard, not only do I tend to ramble on my podcasts like I’m doing right now, but I tend to ramble in my journal.  Our writing is an outlet for us and aren’t we lucky? That we have that, there are so many people who have to deal with such enormous difficulty in their lives. How do they process it without writing something or somewhere? I just, I honestly don’t understand how people do it. So I’m just feeling very grateful that I have this, that you have this, that we have this super power. So don’t forget that you have it. You own it. You’re listening to this podcast because you are a writer. Use that super power. 

[00:06:54] Okay, quickly, just a couple of new patrons or a few new patrons to thank, thank you so much, Lucia. Thank you or Lucia. Thank you so much for your patronage. Jenny Darlington edited her pledge up and oh boy, that makes me feel amazing when you do that. Tammy Whitesoul. Hello, Tammy! Welcome, welcome. Lisa Sy, thank you so much. And Christina Colada, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Brian Souders, I hope I said that right. Thank you Brian and Liz Barrett, something has changed in Patreon where when you do get a Patron in a different country now shows in their money form. So Liz Barrett is hers comes in pounds, in, that is pounds. Yes, that’s pounds. And I just love that. I love seeing that in my email that’s a bit of a thrill. So thank you to all of my patrons who allow me to write those essays, hoped that you enjoyed the last one about wintering. It was hard to write. It was hard to send and I’m proud of it. So if you did read it, let me know what you think. Thank you for being there and for supporting me, it means the world.

[00:08:06] Okay. With no further ado, let us jump into the awesome interview with the amazing Elly Griffiths. I know you’re going to enjoy it, and I wish you, my friend very, very happy writing.  

[00:08:17] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at www.rachaelherron.com/write and you’ll also get my Stop Stalling and Write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now onto the interview.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:36] Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome to the show, Elly Griffiths. Hello, Elly! 

Elly Griffiths: [00:08:41] Hello! Thank you for having me. I’m very excited.

Rachael Herron: [00:08:42] I am thrilled to have you. Let me give you a little bit of an introduction here. Elly Griffiths was born in London in 1963. Her first crime novel, The Crossing Places is set on the Norfolk coast, where she spent holidays as a child and where her aunt still lives. Her interest in archeology comes from her husband, Andrew, who gave up his city job to retrain as an archeologist. She lives in Brighton, on the South coast of England, with her husband and two children. And The Postscript Murders, which just came out is her most recent novel. And Elly, I have really been in, I haven’t quite finished it yet, but I’ve really been enjoying The Postscript Murders. It is such a, it’s such a unique premise and also, I must just say right off the top of the bat as a queer woman, I really, really appreciate that queer representation. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:09:31] Oh, I’m so glad. I’m so glad. I’ve been dying, it’s a character that she appeared in my first sort of standalone, Stranger Diaries, and then she just wanted to appear again. So, yeah, she’s a gay woman. She’s a British Indian woman and she doesn’t really take any prisoners. Does she? So that’s what I love to write about.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:52] She really takes no prisoners, but I so much love being inside her head and the way that she thinks. And I’m so enjoying this book and we were just chatting a little bit before we started. But you know, you’ve got book after book coming out around in different countries and all of that. And you said the great line, you’re never more than a few weeks away from a new Ellie Griffiths now. So this show is about the writing process. Oh no, here comes the cat.  

Elly Griffiths: [00:10:18] I love it! I just saw your cat come in, and my cat normally comes into my study, but I think it’s a bit cold for him at the moment. So we had to come home. 

Rachael Herron: [00:10:27] Your cat doesn’t howl the way mine does, like we’ve never fed him before. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:10:32] He does! He absolutely does this other free growling and he’s black, black and white. Yes. Black and white as well. I don’t know if it’s such a cat, but oh my goodness, the unearthly howling   

Rachael Herron: [00:10:43] Yes and he liked to be right up next to the microphone when that happens next. So you have a house full of people and animals, or at least one cat, how, and where? Oh my gosh. Now we’re connected. Now we’re tangled. How do you get the writing done? How does that happen in your life? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:10:58] Well, I’m speaking to you from a shed at the bottom of my garden

Rachael Herron: [00:11:01] Oh I’m so jealous

Elly Griffiths: [00:11:03] Yeah it is really good, I do recommend a shed. My husband says I shouldn’t call it a shed, but it is basically a shed and so I kind of escape and I do recommend it because you can just get out of the house. And it’s only like a little trek up through the garden, but just that bit of distance. And, you know, it’s just too far away for people to say, oh, where are the eggs? You know, you’re just that little bit too far away. And as I say, my cat usually comes up the garden path, but usually other people don’t bother me. On the minus side is a little too far away for people to bring you cups of tea and things. But it’s very good for working, 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:39] Well, especially in the pandemic because, a lot of the people that I’ve spoken to recently and myself included, I always wrote out of the house. Revision I would do it in the house. That was fine, but first drafts really needed to be at a cafe or outside. And you’ve got that, you still have your sacred, precious space. How long have you been out in the shed, shed-ish? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:11:59] Couple of years. I used to work, I had like a, what I called it, a study in the house, but really everyone else called it, the other kids called it where they played on X-Box you know, my husband was always mysteriously shredding things in there don’t know why. So, yes, that was a little bit hard to see that as my own space. But couple years ago, I did decide to, you know, to have my own space in the garden. And that has helped. Yes, I do feel so new. My writing friends, like to go to cafes and have that sort of ambient noise around them. And that’s been really hard isn’t it? It’s been really hard as well. I mean, so many things have been hard too. I know, but it has been hard. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:35] Yeah. We have to figure out new ways. So when it comes to your process and when you’re sitting down, are you a binge writer? Are you a steady on every day kind of writer?

Elly Griffiths: [00:12:45] I’m quite steady. I am thousand words a day person. You know, I that’s my minimum. I try and do thousand words a day. I start in the morning and my cat does normally comes up to my shed in the morning and he sits outside at about sort of seven, eight. And he waits to be let in. And he’s like my little conscience, you know? So I kind of know that I have to go into the shed and start writing. So, I usually go up there in the morning and you know, I try and do at least a thousand words a day and it is steady like that, you know, but of course, when I’m near a deadline thing, I call it this deadline thing then I tell it dry when I’m busy magic lighting, but usually I’m a little bit a day. And I try not to go back over the previous day’s stuff and just add another thousand words, you know, you know, the temptation to keep writing the same thing 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:32] and then we would never get books done. Exactly. Oh, I love that. I love that. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:13:38] I think, well, one of the challenges always is, you know, to find that time isn’t there every day. But another challenge I have, and I think right is a kind of divided into writers who write too much. And I just, you- they write enough. And I’ve got lots of very good friends who are writers and we always have discussing it. And one of the best writing vendor is Leslie Thompson, is a great crime writer and she always has too many words. And I always say to give me some of yours, because when I finish a book, it’s usually about 70,000 words long, and I know that my publishers want 80,000, at least. So it’s finding those extra words. I do find a bit of a challenge. I think I might’ve been suited to the golden age, you know, and obviously you never see them, The Postscript Murders, a lot of sort of golden addresses when those Agatha Christie’s handled there were about 60,000 words and I sometimes think that might have suited me.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:32] That’s so interesting that you say that though. I really believe there are these over writers and these underwriters and I am like your friend. I’m an over writer. I have miles of pages about a scene that could have been done in a page and a half. You know, I don’t know. I think that the people who are underwriters tend to have a better time plotting, they have more plot. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:14:53] Maybe, and funny enough, Leslie and I recently have been trying to just for fun, write something together. And actually it does work quite well because I’ll say this is what happens then that happens. And that happens, then that’s the end. And Leslie says, cool, perhaps this happened in the, and actually work’s going well because I’m forcing her to go to the end and she’s sitting at a ticket to take a bit of a deep breath. Let’s do something else. So. Yeah, it does work quite well working together. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:20] Oh, I love that. That’s gorgeous. Okay. So what is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:15:25] I think, especially in the sort of COVID times, the biggest joy has kind of been escape, you know, way to find an escape to. And what do people do? Actually they don’t have a world to escape to you know, I’ve always had that. I’m sure you’re the same as a child is I used to tell myself stories. My mum says, I used to walk round and round the gardens up telling myself stories.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:46] And you still do that. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:15:47] I can still do that. You can look up the garden and it is exactly something about gardens and there is it’s escaping into another world really. So, I definitely think that’s the biggest joy, but also sharing the book, having people read them. I mean, I do get nervous before a book comes out and that gets sort of worse with each book actually. But actually when it’s out, the fact that other people read it and people say to you that they’ve enjoyed it. I mean, that’s such a joy, isn’t it? That’s wonderful. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:13] It’s the best feeling in the world. Actually the best feeling is writing the words, the end and those four hours afterward. And then it wears off but

Elly Griffiths: [00:16:24] and those four hours. But then I always, after I’ve written the end, make myself write the first line of the next book, even if it’s just the first line, because then I think I’ve started the next one 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:35] On the same day?

Elly Griffiths: [00:16:36] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:37] I love that tip! That’s a gut- that is so fun because then you can say I’m in the middle of my next book or somewhere in the middle. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:16:45] When your editor’s got your book, I’ve started it. 

Rachael Herron: [00:16:48] I am working on it. Right. Can you share- that was a good craft tip. Can you share a craft tip of any other sort with us? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:16:56] Well, I’m, one of the tips that I would say, is to read this aloud. I don’t know if you did that on my iPhone. 

Rachael Herron: [00:17:04] I always mean too, and I never quite steal the time for it. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:17:07] I’ve never been able to read the whole thing aloud, which I would like to do that. Some people do that, but always if you get stuck or if there’s, I would, you know, read this aloud or maybe put it into dialogue, just imagine yourself telling the story. I’ve got a niece, who’s a barrister, which makes me feel quite old. She’s a child barrister. And she says, very interesting thing. she said that in court, the police want to tell the story from the crime, but sometimes it’s a defense barrister’s job to tell it from the beginning. A different point and I find that useful. So sometimes I say to myself, maybe just talking out loud. So what happened at the beginning? What happened when A met B long before C murdered B, I’m going to get confused now with these letters to me. So really start, you know, really what happened right at the beginning. So that would be a tip and another tip that somebody told me, and I can’t remember who, said that, they said follow the feet. So just to look down at your practice feet, and just go where they want to go. So I found that quite useful. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:11] That is wonderful. That could be very, very surprising. And also I think that would be great, I’m one of those writers that writes a first draft and there there’s, there’s basically no, nothing around them. They’re just standing in air talking to each other. And if you look at the feet and then look at what’s around them and what they want to see and touch, I think that’s lovely.

Elly Griffiths: [00:18:30] I think it is really helpful. I teach creative writing and sometimes the biggest thing my students struggle with is point of view. You know, seeing, just seeing through that character’s eyes and I find that quite useful. And also it’s a bit like the actors you start from the feet, isn’t it? What shoes are they wearing? Where are they going? What do they, so I do find that quite useful too, to think that what they’re wearing on their feet and where are they going.

Rachael Herron: [00:18:55] Thank you. I also teach creative writing and I’m absolutely stealing that with attribution. I will always give you attribution 

Elly Griffiths: [00:19:03] Well I stole it from someone else. I’m not quite sure who

Rachael Herron: [00:19:05] Oh that’s right

Elly Griffiths: [00:19:06] It’s all in the ether, I think 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:08] It is. So speaking of the ether, what in your life affects your writing in a surprising way? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:19:14] Such a good question, funnily enough, I sort of think of hot and cold affected, in a weird way and that when I’m right, when it’s hot, I mean, I’m living in England. It’s never that hot, but you know, when it is hot, I tend to want to write about cold places and when it’s cold is into what do I do about hot places and I have noticed actually on my creative writing course, because with COVID restrictions, we have been able to do some face-to-face teaching, but I had the doors open all the time in the wind. And my students just write about colder and colder stories. You know, everything in there is like encased in ice. And, but I actually, I quite like writing about sort of poetic things when it’s cold. And but it is about knock down generally, has kind of surprised me. I think it has affected my writing. So Postscript Murders was written just at the beginning of lockdown, but mostly written, freed at this terrible code in time. And I think it’s quite lighthearted in places, and it’s a road trip they go often they’re on a journey and they travel and they’re quite free. And the next book that I wrote, which was entirely written in lockdown was the night or the next group book. And that feels quite claustrophobic and quite sort of hemmed in a lot of the action takes place in a sort of spooky fall now. So I think that, I think when all finds that lockdown has probably affected us in mind and in all kind of surprising ways 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:41] You have the same thing that I do where I, I won’t really notice any of these things when I’m writing them. But then later I will look back and say, Oh, that’s the book I wrote when I was going through this mental landscape or that’s what I was doing when this person was ill or whatever. And it’s in the book, but I didn’t know it at the time.

Elly Griffiths: [00:20:58] That’s absolutely true, isn’t it? And sometimes it surprises you doesn’t it, because in fact you can be going through and I’m going to the book that I wrote, you know, when my mum was ailing and then dying, you know, it’s not actually a depressing book, you know, sometimes it doesn’t work like that does it, but it is interesting to look back at then, oh I wrote that then, and there is always a shadow of it on the book. Isn’t it? Even if you don’t know at the time. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:24] Yeah. I like that word shadow. The shadow of it is that we’re casting as perhaps the writer with the light behind us casting onto the page. Oh, I think that’s beautiful. Okay. So what is the best book that you’ve read recently? And why did you love it? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:21:36] Well, I just recently read a book called We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:41] I haven’t heard of it. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:21:42] It’s really fascinating because it’s not exactly fiction. It’s about a real life murder at Harvard that happened in 1969. And it’s about a modern day Harvard student, trying to work out what happened to this woman. And it’s fascinating story. She was an archeologist theater, which obviously really interested me as well, there’s archaeology in there but there’s also a lot about women’s roles. What it was like to be a female student at Harvard in 1969. I think they’d only just become co-ed because she was at Radcliffe first. So there was that, and the why she was treated by various men in her life, including her lecturer. So there’s all that and they’re layers of it. And it’s almost like it’s, I’m trying to think what it’s like. It’s almost like a real life secret history. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:33] Ooh, you know what that’s so interesting. I, my brain went immediately to the secret history.

Elly Griffiths: [00:22:37] Yes and I love

Rachael Herron: [00:22:38] That’s what it sounds like

Elly Griffiths: [00:22:38] I love the secret history. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:39] Me too

Elly Griffiths: [00:22:40] I kind of love books set in universities, but particularly American investors. I don’t know why 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:46] Really resonating with you. I have this, I love an academic setting, but I have to say that I love the ones in England. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:22:54] We’ll have to swap. You can have Cambridge. I’ll have

Rachael Herron: [00:22:56] Thank you

Elly Griffiths: [00:22:57] you know, it isn’t, it’s something like, you know, I feel like I, I kind of know some of the settings on the quads and the autumnal life. I can, you know, it’s delusional cause I’ve never been to all of it, but, you know, I love it. So I would really recommend it. We Keep the Dead Close. I haven’t quite finished it. It’s very long and it’s been perfect for this period really

Rachael Herron: [00:23:17] That is flying to the top of my TBR pile. And that is why I asked this question. Thank you very much. Speaking of marvelous books that everyone will want to get, will you please tell us about The Postscript Murders? Maybe your elevator pitch for that. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:23:30] Okay. Postscript Murders. So, when an elderly lady called Peggy Smith dies in assisted living apartment on South coast of England, nobody thinks it’s strange. She’s 92, wasn’t in very good health. But then when her carer starts collecting, putting away her books, she notices that Peggy owns a lot of crime books, which is suspicious, of course, but a lot of them were dedicated to her and they say things like, thank you for the murders. And then it transpires that Peggy, are far from being a harmless elderly lady was actually a murder consultant. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:08] So she has a card that says everything

Elly Griffiths: [00:24:09] She has a card that says it and there’s a sort of diverse group of people who solve the crime. There’s the detective, Alvin Decor, who we talked about earlier, but there’s also an, a telcom, the carer there’s Benedict who owns a local cafe. And they’re sort of paid these redoubtable friend, Edwin who’s an 80-year old ex BBC music producer and they together they’d have to solve this crime. And I hope it’s a lot of fun. It was, it’s a book, some people said it’s a book about writing, but actually I think there’s a book about reading. So it’s a book about the joys and the excitements and the dangers of reading. 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:45] I think it’s both because as a writer reading it, I’m enjoying it so deeply for the writing surrounding it. So everybody listening to this show are writers, so they will want it for that. But of course, everyone listening to the show are also avid keen readers 

Elly Griffiths: [00:25:01] Do you think it’s perfect book for writers, because I think we will all, you know, you’ll read as a new, we’ll get loads of inferences about the sort of publishing world that maybe not everyone will get, but yes, it’s a book for writers and readers definitely.

Rachael Herron: [00:25:13] Thank you so much for writing it. Where can we find you online? 

Elly Griffiths: [00:25:16] So you can find me online. I’m quite active on Twitter to just @EllyGriffiths. I’ve got Instagram as EllyGriffiths17. I’ve got a Facebook page, EllyGriffithsAuthor where I quite often do readings and things like that. And I have a website that I’m always bound to update. (EllyGriffiths.co.uk)  

Rachael Herron: [00:25:33] Oh, me too. And you’re never more than a few weeks away from the next Elly Griffiths

Elly Griffiths: [00:25:38] Exactly. I’m afraid that people sort of say that about rats in London are never more than a few, a few meters away from a rat, but I hope it’s not the same with mine. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:47] I would prefer the book to the rat, but yes

Elly Griffiths: [00:25:49] Exactly

Rachael Herron: [00:25:50] It has been so lovely talking to you. Thank you so much. I can’t wait for people to get their grubby little mitts on your book, and I wish you happy writing in the garden shed. 

Elly Griffiths: [00:25:59] Thank you Rachael, same to you. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:03] Yeah, of course. Cheers. Bye. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.