In this episode, Dr Rachel Knightley is joined by instant Sunday Times Bestselling author Sarah Brooks. Sarah won the Lucy Cavendish Prize in 2019. She works in East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds where she also helps run the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing. She has a PhD on monsters in classical Chinese ghost stories. She is also co-editor of Samovar, a bilingual online magazine for translated speculative fiction. Originally from Lancashire, she now lives in Leeds. Her novel The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands comes out in June 2024 from Weidenfeld and Nicolson (UK) and Flatiron Books (US). Sarah talks to Dr Rachel Knightley about everything from inspiration and self-confidence to the pros and cons of writing routines – and what’s made her a fan of sessions at the Writers’ Gym.

Find out more about Sarah:

https://us.macmillan.com/author/sarahbrooks

https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B0C8D834ZW#

Join the Writers’ Gym for more writing and creative confidence workouts at www.writersgym.com or sign up to our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com

Get in touch with us at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Writing Workout based on Sarah’s interview

“When I was writing the Cautious Traveller, because it's set on a train and because YouTube has anything you could possibly want, I would listen to these videos that were basically 10 hours’ train ride across Switzerland in the rain or Orient Express ambience. And they were so helpful because they would have the train noise.” Sarah Brooks

Warm-up: Board the imaginary train.

Pick an environment you’re writing about – or one you’ve never written about before. Find a soundscape and press play. Think On The Page for five minutes.

“I didn't feel that I had to write in a certain genre to make somebody want to read it or buy it or whatever so it was very, very freeing. Sometimes the advice that you need to pick a genre and I'm just not sure that necessarily always holds. So it's been really nice that people have seen that it's different genres and some people have felt it's more this or more that but have basically seemed to be fine with the kind of the genre mash-up.” Sarah Brooks

Exercise 1: If you knew it would be absolutely fine, whatever you included and however many genres it overlapped, what would happen in your next story? Think On The Page and either write a scene, or an outline.

“I would love to be somebody who manages to say, okay, this time every day, I'm going to sit down and write, definitely every day. But my brain doesn't work in that kind of way. And I've sort of had to just find what works for me.”

Exercise 3: Draft your ideal writing week. What are the times and places when you write? When does that mean you want to be fully off duty?