Nikki McWatters has had an adventurous life, from television acting to working for a billionaire to being homeless and living in a tent with her young family. The one constant in her life has been her passion for the written word. After completing a law degree in 2009, she changed her mind about her career direction and dared herself to follow her dream of becoming a published author. To date, she has published a couple of memoirs and a string of young adult novels about brave young women, including Hexenhaus, Liberty and now Saga.
Today, Nikki’s on the blog to talk about Saga for another edition of Book Breakdown, your inside look at how authors bring a book from an idea to a bookshelf. Read on!
Nikki McWatters
How did you come up with the concept of your book?
My new book, Saga, is the third of a series of books that all follow the same format although they can be read as stand-alones or in any order. So for this book the concept was already set in my mind – three stories from different countries and different eras all exploring the theme of female courage and the breaking down of barriers that were set in place to confine and restrict their natural abilities and ambitions. I just had to come up with the three strong characters.
What came first, character or plot?
I always start with my characters and let them lead me through the plot. To some extent I let my characters tell their own stories. Sometimes I have to gently encourage them in certain directions or they can get off course!
What does a typical writing day look like for you?
It’s pretty loose and easy really. I write full-time and from home which actually means that I write for about two to three hours a day generally and spend the rest of the time cleaning, cooking, mucking about on social media, talking to friends on the phone, researching, getting distracted by research, thinking about the seventeen books I still want to write and making notes about them, checking the net for reviews, eating Tim Tams, and then maybe a little more writing. If I have a deadline approaching or an edit to deliver, I might forego all of that and never get out of bed and write for ten hours a day or more. I’m not in any really set routine, so long as somewhere every day I put words on the page.
Is your writing process the same each time or do you vary?
I am a pantser so no, I approach each book as a new project and play it by ear. Some books want to unfold slowly and others demand to be written like a cyclone of words to be sculpted and sanded down later. But I am never not writing a book!
How do you work with your publisher – do you come to them with a concept or a first draft?
Both. For Hexenhaus, I gave Kristina Schulz at UQP a full first draft and she contracted it. With Liberty, again I gave her a first draft but with a concept for a third book to follow and on that basis she signed me up for the two books. But in the end the concept for the third book, my new release, Saga, changed so much from the initial concept that the finished product barely resembled it.
What was the editing process like? How much did the editing process shape the book?
Oh. My. Goodness. Usually for me, the editing process is about cosmetic surgery. A little nip and tuck there and shave a bit off here and perk this bit up a little. But with Saga it was open-heart surgery and difficult, dangerous brain surgery and whole character major bypasses all over the place.
I had suffered serious health issues and was moving through some intense personal grief while writing the first, second and yes, third, drafts of Saga. Thank goodness for good editors who are also dear friends who could see how the darkness in my life was seeping onto the pages. A good editor is also a psychologist, a word surgeon, a life-coach and motivator. As I came out into the sunlight again and began healing, I was encouraged to take the book in a more positive and hopeful direction. My characters were sad like I was and unmotivated like I was. My editor, Jody Lee, said one day ‘Your other books are full of kick-arse girls. Go away and write me a book where you characters kick doors down and set the world on fire!’ She reignited that burning torch in me and I wrote a fourth draft, a completely different book altogether and it worked. Saga had her soul filled with dragon fire!
What’s the first thing you do after delivering a finished book?
Well, duh! Champagne! Lots of champagne.
Did you have an idea in mind of what you wanted the cover to look like?
Not really. I never get my hopes up because I’ve been disappointed before (a long time ago in a book far, far away and not one with my current publisher). But Jo Hunt has dressed my three young adult books in this loose series and she nails it every time. Sometimes I make tiny suggestions but with Saga’s cover, the first concept they sent me I jumped at and actually cried because it was so perfect.
Does the book match your overall vision of what it was going to be?
Yes. In the end it did. Hexenhaus was about three girls accused of being witches; Liberty was about three warrior girls and I wanted Saga to be about three young women who changed the world with words. Three wordsmiths, storytellers. And I surprised myself by having some interesting cameo characters like Mary Shelley pop up in there. So yes. In the end, Saga exceeded my expectations.
How do you feel now that the book is out there?
I feel a sense of great achievement at having written three books that complement one another so well. They were all such strong stories about women, many of who were real characters from history. I am proud of myself and for most of my life I wouldn’t have been able to say that. But I can now because the characters from my books inspired me to own my achievements like they did and know that the stories I tell are important and worthy of reading. Old me would have said that sounds arrogant but new me says that sounds empowered. And that’s exactly what I want to give to my readers. A sense of empowerment.
Saga
In the last years of the Viking Era, priestess Astrid takes on the task of recording the True Things.
A skáldmær learning to write royal sagas and a member of one of the last remaining temples to the Goddess Nerthus, Astrid knows she must protect her secrets from the bishops of the Roman Church and from Norway’s kings – a task that becomes harder when she falls in love.
Mercy is taken from a Victorian orphanage in Glasgow by a dangerous man. She escapes and meets Ann Radcliffe..
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