Nick Newman, author of 'The Garden' - Award-nominated writer discusses changing audiences, feeling guilty, and balancing plot and prose
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 21 February 2025
⏱️ 68 minutes
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Summary
Nick Newman is an award-nominated author, who as Nicholas Bowling has published 4 genre-defying books for children. Now, he's written his debut adult novel, called 'The Garden'. It's an other-worldly retelling of 'The Secret Garden', inspired by Cormac McCarthy. It tells the story of Lily, Evelyn and a nameless boy who wanders into their vast and flourishing garden.
We discuss the balance of getting the plot down, whilst also writing some lovely words. Also, why he tells himself one thing about what works best for him... whilst knowing the opposite is true, hear about a recent location switch which has changed everything, and whether he thinks he's a writer or a story-teller (there is a difference)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine, where this week we're chatting to Nick Newman, who has just published his debut adult novel, The Garden. |
| 0:18.7 | He's already a best-selling award-nominated children's author, |
| 0:22.4 | with the type of books that really push the boundaries of young fiction. |
| 0:27.4 | And we talk about what's inspired him to now write for another audience and how much he |
| 0:31.4 | thinks of the difference. Also, we try to figure out if he believes he's a storyteller or a writer. |
| 0:39.4 | And there is a difference there. |
| 0:40.6 | We'll unpack it. |
| 0:41.6 | And you can hear whether he feels guilty by a slow work day. |
| 0:45.1 | If I think I've written 1,500 pretty good words, I feel okay. |
| 0:48.9 | I don't feel like I'm flagellating myself because I've not got like a proper job. |
| 0:54.1 | I'm not working as hard as a human being should do. |
| 0:58.1 | I do feel like intellectually maybe emotionally exhausted from writing that much. |
| 1:05.0 | Like I don't feel like I've not done a day's work. |
| 1:07.5 | Like I feel like I've kind of maybe earned that privilege. Like for every day |
| 1:12.6 | that goes like that, there is another day where I'm sat down for eight hours and I'm tearing |
| 1:18.6 | my hair out and I wish I'd done anything other than writing. It's all on the way with Nick Newman |
| 1:24.5 | and a brand new episode of Writers' Routine. |
| 1:40.3 | Yes, welcome along to Writers' Routine, the show where we take a look inside an author's Working Day. |
| 1:41.4 | And this week's episode is supported by Scribe Shadow. It's a game-changing |
| 1:46.5 | tool for writers trying to reach international readers. It uses the power of AI to change your reach. |
| 1:55.2 | Now it's AI, so bear with me. I know that the idea of using artificial intelligence can be |
| 2:00.3 | quite terrifying for a creative. |
... |
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