This week Nicola's very special guest is Sunday Times number 1 bestselling and New York Times bestselling writer Sarah Pinborough.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Welcome to Bookie, your podcast for readers and for writers.
00:10 I'm Nicola Adam, a journalist, writer,
00:12 and presenter for publisher National World,
00:14 which brings you this pod today.
00:16 National World runs many local news brands across the UK,
00:20 from the Lancashire Post to London World,
00:22 and many in between.
00:23 In each episode of Bookie,
00:25 I'm asking authors to share their ups and downs
00:27 of their journeys to publication,
00:29 and a few tips for budding authors along the way.
00:32 This is Bookie, so get a cuppa, get a sneaky G&T,
00:37 and cozy up in your Bookie Nook.
00:39 This week, our very special guest
00:41 is Sunday Times' number one bestselling
00:44 and New York Times bestselling writer, Sarah Pinburough.
00:47 If you don't recognise her name,
00:49 you will probably know her work.
00:50 She's a novelist and a screenwriter
00:53 who's written both young adult and adult thriller,
00:55 fantasy and cross-genre novels.
00:58 She's had more than 20 novels published
01:00 by multiple companies,
01:01 and her intense thriller, "Behind Your Eyes,"
01:04 was a Netflix smash hit.
01:06 Her chilling psychological thriller, "Insomnia,"
01:08 has also been turned into a TV series for Paramount+,
01:12 starring Vicki McClure, and it's out now.
01:15 This is Bookie.
01:17 So let's give a big Bookie welcome to Sarah Pinburough,
01:23 a name that many of you will recognise,
01:26 because I feel like, Sarah,
01:27 you're the busiest woman in the world,
01:29 because if you're not on a film set very glamorously,
01:32 or a TV set, or writing a book,
01:35 or speaking at a book event,
01:37 yeah, I'm assuming there's times in between,
01:40 you must be scribbling away.
01:41 - You made me sound very glamorous there, Nicola.
01:44 Most of my time is literally spent
01:46 in my dog walking clothes on the sofa,
01:48 scribbling while watching TV.
01:52 It's, you know, like,
01:53 yeah, I think pretty much the same as everybody.
01:55 I think, you know, I think my reputation
01:57 for being super busy is bigger
02:00 than the actual super busy-ness, you know?
02:03 I try and divide it all up.
02:04 I've got better at saying no to things,
02:06 but last year was very busy, yeah.
02:09 - So when I was, we were emailing back and forth,
02:15 and you were saying, "Oh, I'm on set."
02:18 I was like, "Oh, that sounds very exciting.
02:20 Do you want me to tell us what you've been up to?"
02:21 - Well, they dragged me on set.
02:23 We've been filming "Insomnia,"
02:26 which is the adaptation of my last book.
02:29 I adapted it, so I wrote all six episodes.
02:33 And we have Vicky McClure of "Line of Duty"
02:37 starring in it, which is amazing.
02:39 - Oh, wow.
02:40 - Yeah, and you know, she's also, she's fabulous.
02:44 So yeah, that was quite an experience.
02:47 Yeah, so we're now editing.
02:49 We're just in the edit.
02:50 So we've edited one and two, which Paramount now have.
02:54 About to start three and four.
02:55 I say we're editing.
02:56 Other people do the editing, then I watch,
02:58 and you say my YouTube channel is worse,
03:00 and then we all shout at each other,
03:02 and then we go, "Oh my God, our show is amazing,"
03:04 in that way that you do when you're creating something.
03:07 But yeah, it should air in autumn sometime.
03:12 - Brilliant.
03:17 So what I'll do is I'm just gonna rewind you a little bit,
03:19 I think, in case people haven't-
03:21 - How rude of you to allow-
03:22 - When you feel like you're everywhere, really.
03:24 - No, no, no.
03:25 - How rude.
03:26 (laughing)
03:28 Do you wanna sort of start from the beginning
03:29 and tell us like how it all began for you
03:31 when you started writing and just how it all became?
03:35 Because you very much,
03:36 you've been writing different genres.
03:38 You've been script writing in all sorts of TV, et cetera.
03:42 How did all that begin?
03:42 - Well, you know, you hear these stories
03:44 about people who write a debut novel
03:46 and it sells for a million pounds,
03:48 and then they're super successful.
03:50 That was not the path I took.
03:52 (laughing)
03:52 So my first book came out in December,
03:55 it'll be 20 years ago, my first book came out,
03:58 which is ridiculous.
03:59 So I've written like 28, 29, I think 29 books now.
04:03 So I started off writing horror novels
04:08 while I was teaching, actually.
04:10 And I wrote these very kind of horror novels of the '90s.
04:14 I was trying to be Stephen King,
04:15 very badly trying to be Stephen King.
04:17 And they were published in America.
04:21 And then I got a deal over here with Orion and Galantz.
04:26 And so I was writing kind of two books a year
04:29 really to make the same salary as I was making teaching.
04:32 You know, it wasn't like I was getting
04:33 hundreds of thousands of pounds or anything.
04:36 So I was kind of working quite hard.
04:40 And it's kind of just built from there.
04:42 There's no, what I have learned
04:44 and what I try and tell people on social media,
04:47 it never goes down well,
04:48 I'm not a great fan of giving writing advice,
04:51 is that there are no shortcuts.
04:53 You know, you can be as popular as you like on social media,
04:55 it's not gonna make people buy your book.
04:56 You know, I know people were tweeting all day long.
04:59 And I know they've sold like 55 copies.
05:02 So it's, you know, you've got to focus your attentions
05:04 at the right places and you've got to do the work.
05:06 There's no get around to editing and all that stuff.
05:10 So, but actually having said that,
05:13 back in the early days of Twitter,
05:15 casting my mind back to about 2009,
05:18 when there was like 15 people on Twitter,
05:20 you know, the Stephen Fry, Neil,
05:21 I think Neil Gaiman had like 10,000 followers.
05:23 That's how small Twitter was at the time.
05:27 And it was, I didn't even have a book out in England.
05:29 So it was just people who were just chatting
05:32 and laughing and joking
05:33 and then friends of friends all linked.
05:35 And through Twitter,
05:37 I met some people that were working on new tricks
05:40 and then someone gave Amanda Redman one of my books to read.
05:43 And then she was like, Sarah should write a new tricks.
05:45 Sarah absolutely should not have written new tricks
05:48 because it was a massive job
05:49 and I was in no way prepared already for it.
05:52 But it was a huge learning curve, it nearly killed me.
05:55 So that kind of got me on the screenwriting path.
05:59 And then over the years, I've kind of honed that.
06:02 So I would say that actually,
06:05 I'm probably 50% screenwriter, 50% novelist now,
06:08 because the way of screenwriting
06:10 is you can write a lot of films
06:11 and get paid for a lot of stuff
06:12 that never actually gets to the screen, you know?
06:16 But then "One Behind Your Eyes" was made by Left Bank
06:19 that obviously raised my profile somewhat.
06:21 And then now I've adapted, I didn't adapt that one though.
06:24 That was Steve Lightfoot, he did a great job.
06:26 But yeah, so then they said,
06:29 should we come up with something together?
06:31 So we actually, "Insomnia" started as a TV show.
06:34 And then I said, listen, let me just write it as a book
06:36 and then we'll have the whole story.
06:38 So then I went, and also it saved me coming up
06:41 with a whole other book idea for my publisher.
06:43 So then I wrote the whole book.
06:44 (indistinct)
06:47 Yeah, and then wrote "Insomnia".
06:51 Yeah, so now I'm adapting "13 Minutes" for "Carnival",
06:56 "The Death House" for "Compelling Pictures".
06:58 We're hoping to film that end of this year.
07:01 We were supposed to be last year,
07:02 but the producer and I were both so busy,
07:04 'cause obviously "Insomnia" got greenlit,
07:06 so we pushed back a year.
07:08 So I'm just doing the next draft of that
07:10 and hopefully we'll be casting that.
07:11 So I really love screenwriting.
07:13 It's actually reinvigorated my love of storytelling,
07:17 'cause books are great,
07:19 but when you're doing it over and over and over and over,
07:22 I really like the buzz of collaboration
07:25 that you get with screen.
07:26 - I mean, it's a very different discipline, isn't it?
07:31 Screenwriting, and I think you see that often.
07:33 It's rare for actually,
07:35 I think relatively rare for a novelist
07:38 to get the opportunity then,
07:39 if their book's picked up,
07:41 to actually do the screen,
07:42 be in a screenwriter for it. - Yeah, I mean,
07:43 I do tell people now, though.
07:45 Yeah, and people- - It feels unusual.
07:47 - People will often pay the author one draft,
07:51 and they won't even read it.
07:52 They'll just pay for it
07:53 and then get their own writer in afterwards.
07:56 And actually, a lot of producers tell me
08:00 that not many people straddle the bridge well.
08:04 People are either novelists or screenwriters.
08:06 It's only a small percentage that manage both.
08:10 And I think I'm probably a better screenwriter
08:11 than I am a novelist, actually.
08:13 Other people write really beautiful novels.
08:15 Mine are kinda just commercial fun.
08:18 But yeah, it's a very different skillset,
08:23 but it does feed in.
08:24 It does help you.
08:27 Like now, when I'm writing a novel, I think,
08:29 oh, have I come into that scene too early?
08:31 Could I come in in a punchier way?
08:34 Could I, you know?
08:34 So it does make me address my novel writing
08:38 kinda more critically.
08:41 But screenwriting is tough.
08:43 Everything is structure, and every word matters.
08:47 And then someone will change that anyway
08:48 or it gets lost in the edit.
08:49 So you can spend an hour on the phone discussing one line
08:53 with the script editor, and then in the edit,
08:54 we're like, yeah, we've gotta trim this,
08:55 and that line goes.
08:57 So yeah, it's different.
08:58 - I have to admit, I've had a little stab at it myself,
09:02 and I found it a very different discipline.
09:05 And I think you have to, the amount of trust
09:07 that you have to place in one of your scriptwriters,
09:12 the amount of trust you then have to place
09:13 in those who are actually filming something,
09:15 is quite a lot remains unsaid, doesn't it?
09:17 Whereas I think in a novel, you can almost say more.
09:20 - So much is in the lap of the gods.
09:23 So you budget constraints.
09:25 You know, if your budget isn't massive,
09:27 that's gonna change the story.
09:29 Who the cast are might change how it's written,
09:31 because the way the cast member might play a part,
09:34 you think, oh, okay, that's gonna be different to,
09:37 let's adjust the script.
09:38 And then of course there's the edit,
09:39 and then everyone has notes
09:41 'cause there's so much money involved.
09:42 So it isn't, you know, when I write a book,
09:45 it's like, okay, this is my story,
09:46 and if people love or hate it,
09:48 I mean, obviously your editor plays a good part,
09:49 but it's one person.
09:51 It's not like 50 people all with some ownership of it.
09:56 So, you know, with a book, you get that,
10:00 okay, this is mine, and with film and TV,
10:03 I think it's why they pay so much money,
10:05 because it's a fight every step of the way.
10:08 Even if you love the people you're working with,
10:09 and even if you think they're amazing,
10:12 there are fights every step of the way,
10:13 because everybody is seeing it as their story,
10:16 which is as it should be.
10:17 Otherwise you don't get the best of everybody,
10:20 but then you're battling to save the bits
10:22 that you really like.
10:23 And, you know, it's a,
10:26 this year has been a massive learning curve,
10:27 but I've absolutely loved it, weirdly.
10:30 - So you, where are you in sort of novel-wise?
10:36 Do you have one in your head ready to go?
10:38 The next one?
10:39 - Which will be out in summer 2025.
10:43 This year, I've got, so I had 10 years ago,
10:47 I wrote three fairy tales called "Poison, Charm and Beauty,"
10:50 which are kind of feminist and fun and sexy.
10:53 And I am writing a prequel and a sequel,
10:56 and revising the original three.
10:58 And then Galant's are gonna do a big new release of them.
11:03 So it's actually quite fun not to be writing a thriller.
11:07 You know, it's quite a palette cleanser, you know?
11:10 And I've done this new deal with Galant's and Orion,
11:13 where I can, I mean, God love 'em,
11:15 basically write what I like.
11:17 If I wanna write a crime novel, I can write a crime novel.
11:18 If I wanna write a fantasy novel, you know,
11:20 I didn't have to give them any outlines.
11:22 It was a dream.
11:24 And they're also, you know, like doing,
11:25 redoing the fairy tales and a couple of other backlist books
11:28 they're gonna repackage and stuff.
11:31 So that was kind of, I hadn't ever thought
11:35 that I would go back.
11:36 I'm never a great believer in going backwards,
11:38 but they totally blew me away with their package.
11:41 So I'm really happy to kind of gone back to where I started.
11:45 It's been a nice, nice moment.
11:47 (upbeat music)
11:49 - Sounds like an amazing place to be,
12:10 because I mean, we've been talking to a lot of authors
12:13 through this podcast recently,
12:15 and very few of them have that much control
12:17 over their careers in that, you know,
12:20 they're writing to whatever their editor wants.
12:23 And even those who've got like, you know,
12:25 maybe options, you know, optioned books,
12:29 still don't know or have, you know,
12:30 so you're in a great,
12:31 sounds like you're in a fantastic place.
12:32 - I was lucky, because Orion and Glantz,
12:35 they know me well, and they know that I've written,
12:38 like my natural, I don't even know what the right word is.
12:41 I guess, metier for want of a pretentious word,
12:45 is to jump around genres.
12:48 That is where my best work comes from.
12:50 If I have to do thriller after thriller after thriller,
12:53 I get jaded and then the book won't be as good.
12:56 Whereas if I could be like,
12:57 oh, I want to write a fantasy novel set in X kind of world,
13:02 then, you know, that's exciting.
13:04 And I'm more likely to make it fresh.
13:06 And because they have the resources to do both,
13:10 you know, crime thriller and fantasy.
13:13 Yeah, I've been very lucky with that.
13:16 But I mean, in the lockdown,
13:18 I remember when I'd been handing in outline
13:20 and after outline after outline prior to insomnia.
13:23 And they were like, oh, it's too horror.
13:25 Oh, it's too fantasy.
13:26 Oh, it's not crime enough.
13:27 Oh, you know, because I'd signed up for three thrillers.
13:29 So, you know, they're expecting a thriller.
13:31 And I just remember sitting in my sitting room and thinking,
13:35 when I started out in this business,
13:39 I've said this a few times now and I stand by it
13:41 and I have to remind myself of it sometimes.
13:44 It was supposed to be enough to pay for a house,
13:48 you know, like, because I think it's really important.
13:50 People who earn big money, they suddenly get all excited
13:53 and they buy themselves a posh car and a massive mansion.
13:54 But actually no mortgage to me was key, you know,
13:59 like I've got no mortgage.
14:00 So I've got a three bed sunny.
14:02 It's not glamorous.
14:03 It's not posh, but it's mine.
14:04 You know, like I know that house is mine.
14:08 Yeah, and then it's like,
14:09 just have enough money in the bank to live on.
14:11 And I'm very lucky that I've got more than enough money
14:14 in the bank to live on.
14:16 And then write what you want.
14:18 You know, that's the whole point of this.
14:19 It should be fun.
14:21 So if you want to write a literary novel,
14:23 write a literary novel,
14:25 but expect that only a thousand people might buy it.
14:27 You know, like manage your expectations.
14:30 But actually it should be fun.
14:32 And I was definitely losing the fun of novel,
14:35 especially novel writing.
14:37 I mean, screenwriting I'm really enjoying
14:38 because it's relatively new to me compared to...
14:42 - New to you.
14:43 - New to me.
14:44 - Compared to...
14:45 - But yeah, so having this kind of range.
14:48 And once I've handed the fairy tales in,
14:49 that's my books for 24, 25 and 26 all in.
14:54 So then I can have a breather because they've got...
14:57 Yeah, well, so they've already got two
15:00 and then this fairy tales will come in.
15:02 So then I'm like, okay, that gives me a year or so
15:06 just to breathe without even thinking,
15:08 oh my God, I should be writing a book,
15:10 which would be the first time
15:11 I've not been writing a book for ages.
15:12 But I also have a bunch of screenwriting stuff to do.
15:14 So I'll spend the time on that.
15:16 - Do you think that, you know,
15:21 is it screenwriting is more social?
15:23 - It's definitely way more social.
15:25 Once you get going with it and even,
15:28 you know, it's actually social in a lot of ways
15:31 in a more healthy way than novel writing
15:35 because the people you're mixing with are producers,
15:39 they're script editors, they're, you're not,
15:41 unless you're in a writer's room,
15:43 you're not sitting with a bunch of other writers.
15:45 Whereas I do find with novels,
15:48 I'm always amazed by the amount of authors
15:50 whose entire friendship circle is other authors.
15:53 'Cause I kind of think if you're a plumber,
15:54 not all your friends are gonna be plumbers.
15:57 And it's such a fragile job that I think how,
16:01 it can't be good to constantly be surrounded
16:03 by people talking about what deal they've got
16:04 or haven't got, or, you know, like I kind of like,
16:07 I've got some great writer friends,
16:09 but I've also got some great,
16:11 what I call normal life friends,
16:12 which is why I live in a little town
16:14 because no one cares about my job.
16:16 They're proud, they're happy, they're excited about stuff.
16:18 But if it all went away tomorrow morning
16:20 and I was going back to teaching,
16:23 they would still be my friends.
16:24 That social circle wouldn't change, you know?
16:26 And I kind of feel sometimes with writing,
16:29 it's a little, I don't think it's always great
16:32 for people's mental health.
16:33 Sorry, that was me dropping my glasses.
16:36 I don't think it's always great for people's mental health
16:37 to be constantly surrounded by writers
16:39 or constantly on social media, talking to other writers.
16:42 I've learned that just follow your own track.
16:45 There's no point, you know,
16:47 I mean, I'm fully up for supporting other people,
16:50 you know, and new writers and things,
16:52 but I don't wanna spend my entire life
16:54 having lunches with other writers, you know?
16:57 I'm old and jaded, that's what it is.
16:59 I'm old and jaded.
16:59 - It's the new years living.
17:03 You need to live in the world,
17:04 not just in the world of publishing, don't you?
17:07 In order to be able to create, I guess, as well.
17:11 So how can you, you know, have that context?
17:14 So tell me a little bit about,
17:16 now I've been asking everyone this
17:17 and you just before said,
17:18 "Oh, I don't like talking about my writing process
17:20 "and all of these things."
17:21 But just a little bit about how you kind of,
17:25 I guess, motivate yourself, but also, you know,
17:28 inspire yourself because we seem to come into two camps,
17:31 people who have loads of ideas all the time.
17:33 How do you corral that kind of situation?
17:35 Or, you know, does something just sort of drop into your mind
17:38 and where do you go from there?
17:41 What's your starting point?
17:42 - Honestly, it really depends on,
17:45 if I'm between books, that can be tricky
17:48 because then I'm kind of often wanting to try
17:52 and do something that isn't straightforward.
17:54 I like to have a bit of weird in it
17:56 and I'll just often watch a lot of true,
17:58 if it's for a crime or a thriller,
18:00 I'll watch a lot of true crime things,
18:03 loads of old thrillers,
18:05 you know, just watch for things in the news.
18:07 And often then an idea you think you're working on
18:10 morphs into something entirely different, you know?
18:13 I don't find it as easy to find ideas as I used to,
18:20 but I also think,
18:23 and I think this is true for everybody
18:27 when you reach a certain level,
18:29 if you're getting paid five grand, 10 grand, 15 grand
18:32 for a book,
18:33 you can pretty much pitch,
18:35 as long as the pitch is in the right arena,
18:39 you know, that you've been asked to write
18:40 to your publisher,
18:42 you can pretty much write what you want
18:44 because they know they can make their money back
18:45 on that book.
18:47 You know, 15 grand, if they've got,
18:48 even if they've got world rights,
18:50 they can make their money back on that book.
18:52 When people are paying you a lot more money than that,
18:56 it has to be a standout idea, you know?
18:58 So they're looking for a specific kind of book
19:01 that has to have something that's elevated.
19:04 Might not always have it, it might fail, you know?
19:06 Like you might not get it right,
19:08 and you have to pitch that level, you know?
19:11 And I, you know, I see people,
19:14 for most of my career,
19:15 the Sunday Times top 10 was not even something
19:18 I gave any consideration to.
19:20 I barely looked at it.
19:22 You know, I was happy to get to 50,000 on Amazon,
19:25 you know, like I'd have like a few books
19:27 in a few waterstones,
19:29 and I was happy with that.
19:30 You know, I was happy if I had a hardback,
19:32 it didn't matter if people were buying it.
19:33 Whereas when you're suddenly
19:35 in this kind of weird position where
19:38 chart positions matter,
19:41 and to the publishers, they've paid you so much
19:43 that chart positions matter,
19:45 you're in a different game.
19:46 There's a lot more kind of professional things
19:50 to take into account when you're pitching a book.
19:52 So I will now think,
19:53 if I have an idea that 15 years ago,
19:55 I'd think, oh, that was a good idea.
19:57 Now I think, is it though, is it good enough?
20:00 How can I make that slightly more twisted?
20:03 Or how can I make that more fresh or more original?
20:05 Or, you know, so that I think gets different
20:09 as you kind of gain more success.
20:11 But you know, I'm not gonna bitch about having success.
20:14 That would be ridiculous.
20:15 (laughing)
20:18 - So what would you say is kind of like
20:21 the high point of your career?
20:23 And perhaps what was so far the high point?
20:26 - There's been a few high points, I think.
20:28 Yeah, I've been lucky.
20:31 There's been a lot of high points, if I'm honest.
20:32 And some of them are not financial.
20:34 Like I remember when I was living in Ealing,
20:38 I can remember sitting on my yoga ball
20:40 working in my jogging bottoms and a t-shirt.
20:44 And I checked Twitter and it was,
20:46 I could see New York Times and Sarah Pimbritt
20:48 and Stephen King coming up in these tweets.
20:51 And I was thinking, I do not exist in the same world
20:54 as either of these two things.
20:57 And I was like, what's this?
20:58 And I kind of checked it back.
20:59 And 'cause my book wasn't even out in America,
21:01 but someone had given Stephen King a copy of "The Death House"
21:05 and he had talked about it in the New York Times
21:08 and said how brilliant it was.
21:10 And obviously I grew up with like every Stephen King book
21:13 was like boxing, you know, "Boxing Day Reading"
21:15 was my Christmas Stephen King book.
21:17 And that was just a mind blowing moment.
21:21 You know, I was like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
21:22 'Cause I hadn't had a big book deal.
21:24 I hadn't had any of those things at that point.
21:25 I was just kind of pottering along in the mid list,
21:27 you know, barely touching the mid list from the gutter.
21:31 So that was like an emotionally high point.
21:34 And then he liked "Behind the Rises" as well,
21:35 but that was the big high point, "Death House"
21:37 'cause it was like, oh my God.
21:39 Then he followed me on Twitter
21:40 and I was afraid to tweet for about a week
21:43 'cause I thought he's gonna realize this is a mistake.
21:45 But now I have Ted and he loves Ted
21:47 so I feel like I'm safe now.
21:49 However much of a fool I am, he loves my dog.
21:51 So that's quite good.
21:52 But also I think a low point, I remember,
21:55 and this was a low that very much turned into a high.
21:57 After "Behind the Rise", my American publisher,
22:03 I gave them "Cross Her Heart"
22:04 'cause it had been a one book deal
22:06 for "Behind the Rise" in America.
22:08 So when they read "Cross Her Heart",
22:09 and I think they were right.
22:11 It was a too, they thought it was too dark.
22:13 They thought it was too British.
22:14 So they didn't buy it.
22:15 And I remember thinking, oh my gosh,
22:17 I had a New York Times bestseller with this company
22:19 and now they don't want my next book.
22:21 And I was walking around the dog park thinking,
22:23 oh my God, I've waited so long to have some,
22:26 to hit some heights.
22:27 And now I've really messed it up with this second book
22:29 'cause I kind of, I was really stressing about it.
22:32 And my American agent who is from Dublin, she's lovely.
22:37 And she was like, Sarah, just don't stress.
22:39 Give me two weeks.
22:41 So I was like, all right.
22:42 And so she went to about four or five of the publishers
22:45 who had wanted "Behind the Rise" and hadn't got it
22:47 and said, listen, I've got a book by Sarah.
22:50 You've got three days, come in with your offers.
22:53 She was so good.
22:54 And then she was like, do you want to do some phone calls?
22:57 So I was like, yeah, right.
22:58 So I was doing these phone calls thinking, I don't know.
23:00 And then, yeah, then I got a seven figure offer
23:04 for three books from another publisher for America.
23:06 And so had I, you know, like it was like,
23:08 it had gone from, oh my God, my career is over
23:11 to, oh my God, I just remember being like
23:12 in a state of shock.
23:14 I just couldn't even imagine it.
23:15 You know, like it was such a weird feeling.
23:19 So now I always think with writing,
23:21 it's such a up and down.
23:24 People that you think are destined for stardom,
23:26 they can vanish off and never see,
23:28 you never hear from them again.
23:29 And other people just trudge along, you know,
23:33 and suddenly it's, you get some good news.
23:37 You've just got to keep going, I think, you know,
23:39 you've got to just keep trudging.
23:41 And I kind of figure.
23:43 - Peter.
23:44 (bell ringing)
23:47 (upbeat music)