Eliza Clark: Overcoming Challenges to Write the Second Book
A native of Newcastle, Eliza Clark lives in London, where she previously attended Chelsea College of Art. She works in social media marketing and has worked for women’s creative writing magazine Mslexia. In 2018, she received a grant from New Writing North’s “Young Writers’ Talent Fund.”
Her short horror fiction has been included in Tales to Terrify, and she hosts the cultural podcast You Just Don’t Get It, Do You? with her partner. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Eliza Clark (Photo credit: Robin Christian)
In this post, Eliza talks about the importance of taking breaks from writing, how writing under contract can be a challenge, and more.
Name: Eliza Clark
Literary agent: Rachel Mann at Jo Unwin Literary Agency
Book title: Penance
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release date: September 26, 2023
Genre/category: Literary, crime
Previous titles: Boy Parts
Elevator pitch for the book: Penance is a fiction novel written in the style of a true crime book. It tells the story of the murder of teenager Joan Wilson by three other teenaged girls in the seaside town of Crow-on-Sea on the eve of the historic Brexit vote.
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What prompted you to write this book?
Short answer: I was in a two-book deal and needed to write a new novel!
The process was quite inorganic compared to my first. I knew I needed to come up with something, and there were a couple of real-life cases I was interested in exploring. I decided to write it in the form of a nonfiction book to make the project more formally ambitious and to further differentiate it from my first novel.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I began writing the book in earnest in autumn of 2019 for it to be first published (in the UK) in July of 2023. I took long breaks from working on it and found that the idea didn’t change so much as it evolved and incorporated new layers and perspectives.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Penance was a ‘difficult second novel’ both because it was a second novel, but because it was written both during the Covid-19 pandemic and under contract for a publisher. I found both of these very disruptive to my writing process.
With the pandemic I was (as we all were) stuck in my home, when previously I’d relied heavily on physically leaving my home and working in cafes/libraries to focus.
With the contract, I found not having the option to throw out what I was doing and start again very constricting. It was a huge learning curve in terms of persisting with and improving a manuscript I didn’t always have confidence in, and learning to work in less-than-ideal circumstances.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Not to harp on about it but I don’t think anyone expects to write a book under pandemic conditions! The writing process of Penance will always be inextricably linked to the Covid-19 pandemic for me!
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope readers will think more critically about their consumption of true crime; about the people who tell these stories and why. I hope they’ll approach people affected by stories like this with more empathy.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Taking breaks from work is really important. If you feel like throwing out a project or abandoning it, taking a break of several months can be really useful and productive.