S2E13: Linda Atkins on writing the novel that was always waiting

Season 2: The Home SeasonThe second season of Creative Momentum with Meg, The Home Season, features interviews with Australian writers and artists where I explore how and why people do their creative work.Episode 13: Linda Atkins, AuthorLinda Atkins is a women’s health physician and writer based in Western Sydney who came back to writing in her fifties after stopping as a teenager, and has since written four manuscripts, scored a literary agent, and landed a book deal for her debut crime novel What We Left Behind, due out in November. She started writing again not from ambition but from necessity, sitting down to release a long-held family secret into an essay she sent off to the Calibre Essay Prize, then promptly forgot about. It was longlisted, then shortlisted, and she has not stopped writing since. She is funny, forthright, and completely unromantic about the craft.In this episode, we talk about:- Why doctors end up as writers, and what happens when the science-rewarded part of yourself suppresses the artistic part for 30 years- The essay that started it all: writing a family secret out of her body and sending it off to a prize she then hoped she would not win- What it felt like to pull the plug after 30 years of stored-up words, and why having no craft was part of the deal- Learning to write entirely on the run: reading a bazillion books, sending out short stories, and reaching the critical mass of small wins that made her believe she could do it- How a comment from Candace Fox at a State Library panel became the challenge that sparked her crime novel- Her transition from pantser to plotter, and why crime fiction eventually demands you sort out your plot holes, whether you like it or not- Why the best novel to work with is a finished one, and why writing forward rather than backwards is the only advice that matters- Flash fiction as a craft tool, and short stories as palate cleansers between novels- Why she writes because she cannot not, and her greatest fear that she will not live long enough to say everything she wants to say- What home means to someone who grew up in an immigrant family selected for ambition and dissatisfaction, and how finding safety finally unlocked her creative lifeWhether you are a writer who came to it late, a creative person who buried their art under decades of other life, or someone who keeps rewriting Chapter 1 instead of getting to Chapter 30, this episode is for you. Linda is practical, warm and clear-eyed about what it takes, and her story is a good reminder that 30 years of unwritten words do not disappear. They just wait. And when you finally sit down, they come gurgling out all at once.Connect with LindaLinda on Instagram‘After’, Linda’s KYD Flash Fiction prizeShouting Abortion: A doctor reflects on the politics and economics of terminationsFind all Creative Momentum with Meg show notes and interviews: https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunleyA special thanks to Yvonne Morton for the music accompanying this episode. You can find Yvonne on Bandcamp (https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/) and Instagram.(https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/)Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe