A cup of Chai with Josephine Moon

Josephine Moon has four novels published internationally, something that surprises and delights her in equal measures. She is still getting used to this success, probably because it took so long to get here. Join us for an entertaining chat.

Jump onto my website: https://www.sarahwilliamsauthor.com and join my mailing list to receive a free preview of my book and lots of other inspiration.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah:               Welcome to Write with Love. I’m Sarah Williams, best-selling author, speaker, and creative entrepreneur. Each week, I chat to passionate and inspiring authors about their journey in creative writing. Some are traditionally published. Some do it themselves. Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone has something interesting to say. We all love love and love what we do. Today’s show is brought to you by our amazing fans and supporters on Patreon. If you’d like to help support the show and get some awesome bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/sarahwilliamsauthor to learn more. Now, here’s today’s show.

Sarah:               Good day. I’m Sarah Williams, romance author and independent publisher at Serenade Publishing. Today I’m chatting to the author of Three Gold Coins, Josephine Moon. Thanks for coming on the show, Josephine.

Josephine:       Thanks so much for having me.

Sarah:               Excellent. I’m really excited about your new novel, Three Gold Coins. It’s just been released. So far it’s getting some really great reviews. Tell us about how you got started and your writing journey so far.

Josephine:       I think I was always a writer. I think like all writers I became a writer because I was a reader first. I think as many female writers, say, [inaudible 00:01:30] was the one that kept me awake at night devouring all of her books. I suddenly wrote my first book at age nine, called Starlight the Brumby, because I was obsessed with the Silver Brumby series at that point. I acted the whole thing out in the backyard and then wrote it down. My dad took it to work, and his secretary typed it up and everything, which was pretty cool.

Josephine:       I did what I thought was sensible and studied journalism at school. I went on to teach. I think it was my first teaching, so it was 1999, I went to a workshop with Queensland Writers Center. I just had this light bulb moment of going, “This is it. This is absolutely what I want to do. I want to be a career author.” From then on, I started writing about a writing body very quickly. We wrote short stories and met every month and critiqued each other’s stories. I did that for years, really.

Josephine:       Eventually, I wrote ten manuscripts in 12 years. The tenth one was The Tea Chest, which finally got picked up. I think, for me, I was writing across a whole heap of genres. I didn’t really know where I fit on the shelf. I finally worked that out and wrote The Tea Chest, and that worked for me. Yeah, it was a lot of rejections, a lot of tears, but we got there.

Sarah:               Excellent. Your books to date. You’re got The Tea Chest was first. What came next?

Josephine:       The Chocolate Promise and The Beekeeper’s Secret, and now Three Gold Coins.

Sarah:               Brilliant. They’re based in Australia or have a little bit of Australian women?

Josephine:       They all some element of Australia. The Tea Chest is set across Brisbane and London. The Chocolate Promise is set in Evandale and Tasmania and some in Paris and Provence. The Beekeeper’s Secret is set entirely on the Sunshine Coast, a little bit in Brisbane. That was absolutely a love story to the Sunshine Coast, that book, because it had been my dream … I’m a Brisbane, but I wanted to live up here my whole life and finally got here and was just loving the Sunshine Coast lifestyle. It was definitely a love letter to the Hinterland. Three Gold Coins is set between Brisbane and Tuscany.

Sarah:               Excellent. That sounds brilliant. I’m in Maleny, in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. You’re in Noosa hinterland. We’re close, but haven’t met in person yet.

Josephine:       I’m heading up there next week on holidays next week actually.

Sarah:               Brilliant. Come say hi. Tea and chocolate, you’ve got a bit of a sweetness for those. Any particular brands that you love?

Josephine:       Do you know, for tea, I’m a big chai fan. I just love my chai. If anyone has read The Tea Chest, I talk a lot about chai in The Tea Chest, or my character Kate does. Because chai is do different everywhere you go. Chai just means tea blend, so it can mean anything really. I do love discovering new chais. I do have a absolutely favorite one at the moment, but of course its name has just popped out of my hand. It’s done up in the Hinterland, near you guys. It’s the …

Sarah:               The [Maudville 00:04:44] one?

Josephine:       It’s a chai … They soak it in honey. It’s all fresh spices and then they dry it in honey. When you put it in, it just, ah, it’s divine.

Sarah:               Excellent.

Josephine:       I’ll have to [inaudible 00:04:55] the brand for you. I’m drinking it now actually.

Sarah:               Excellent. We will link to that in the notes. Excellent. I was looking over your website and I saw that you do some charity work with Story Dogs. Tell us about that.

Josephine:       Story Dogs is an organization I came across years ago when I’d heard about reading dogs in America. Volunteers take dogs into school and they read with kids in school. I looked for one in Australia and came out with Story Dogs. At the time, I was thinking about volunteering with my dog Daisy, who’s a golden retriever, who we just lost about six weeks ago. I thought, “She’s never going to pass the behavior test. She’s so unruly and such a clown,” so I didn’t do it. My son started prep this year. For some reason, I thought about Story Dogs again. I went and had a look. You can sponsor them, so I sponsor a dog on the Sunshine Coast. All the money is pooled across Australia so they can send people wherever they need to go, but I had a representative in the Sunshine Coast. I’m really proud of that. Anything … I was a teacher. I love animals. I’m a writer. It just sort of ticks all my love boxes, really.

Sarah:               You literally take a dog into school?

Josephine:       I don’t. I sponsor somebody. I sponsor Story Dogs to have a volunteer go in. They do. They go into year two classes in their learning to read phase. Kids read to the dogs. It just helps them build confidence in their reading.

Sarah:               That’s a really unique idea. I haven’t heard of that.

Josephine:       Yeah. It’s beautiful.

Sarah:               That’s so cool. Obviously you have a love of animals. You mentioned the Silver Brumby in your story before. Talk to us about your horses and animals and that sort of thing.

Josephine:       I’ve been a tragic animal lover since I was very tiny. We have at the moment, I think, 20 animals. We’ve got horses, goats, chickens, cats, dogs, and fish. I was resisting the fish, but my son begged [inaudible 00:07:05] night before he started prep. We were like, “Oh, man, we can’t say no now.” Yeah, of course you can. Now we have fish, as well. They’re a big, big part of our … They’re our family. Fairy children.

Sarah:               You founded a horse rescue charity a few years ago?

Josephine:       Yeah, I did. I went spontaneously to a [dogger 00:07:31] sale, which are horse sales where primarily horses have been discarded, and what they call the dogger, the man who buys them [inaudible 00:07:40], is there to buy them. You can bid against the dogger. I spontaneously rescued four horses. I already had three of my own, so I don’t know what I was going to do with them. I just was struck. I’d accidentally bought Lincoln, this black horse. I couldn’t see him over the crowd, and I thought I was bidding on a pony next to him. I actually bought him. When I finally got to see him, sort of an hour later, because I had to move on with the crowd, I just stopped dead. I couldn’t believe it. He was so thin. I’ve never seen a horse in that condition before. He was so frightened. I went in the yard with him. He just dropped his head and he just rested his head on my chest. I was just like, “Oh, man, that’s it. I’m sunk for good.”

Josephine:       It was one of those things where once you’ve seen what you’ve seen, you can’t unsee it. I just sort of had to take some action. I did that basically four times in three years. Now, I have a paddock full of horses. Just looking for retirement.

Sarah:               Exactly. Brilliant. We’ve had Vanessa Carnevale on the show before and talking about one of her retreats that she did in Italy. I hear that you were actually one of those participants.

Josephine:       I was there! That’s absolutely where Three Gold Coins came from. I’d been working on a manuscript that wasn’t working for me. I went there kind of in the hope that I would break through something and fix this manuscript. Instead I decided to toss the whole lot and start again. My first day in Rome, I had seen this elderly man in the street, this sort of cobblestone street, around the Trevi Fountain. I was really struck by him. What are you doing here? He was really frail and struggling. I just was so captured. I took a photo of him and put it away.

Josephine:       A week or so later, we were [inaudible 00:09:31] on Vanessa’s retreat under the trees in the Tuscan Valley, just looking at all this unbelievable scenery around us. The group was there, and I was struggling with the book. Vanessa said, “Why don’t you give yourself permission to just let it go for a few days, to see what else comes up?” My sister, who’d been with me, said, “The man, the old man in Rome.” I was like, “Yeah.” Everyone went, “Oh, the old man.” That’s kind of where it started, was with this image I had of this elderly man in Rome. It went on from there.

Josephine:       I just soaked up everything I could as fast as I could in the time I had left and somehow got it all into the book. It was beautiful.

Sarah:               How long did it take you to write Three Gold Coins then?

Josephine:       It was a big book. Writers often say that books are like children and that they’re all different. Some of them are really great. Some of them are really difficult. Three Gold Coins was really difficult. It was my most challenging book. If I count where I’d started, with the 50,000 words that I threw away, then it was two years.

Sarah:               Wow, two years.

Josephine:       And three completely separate versions of it, as well.

Sarah:               Wow.

Josephine:       I really had enough there to have written three totally different books.

Sarah:               Yeah, excellent. That’s certainly a labor of love for three years.

Josephine:       Yeah. I really had that one, got [inaudible 00:10:56] one.

Sarah:               Do you have any advice to new writers? Obviously perseverance being one of them.

Josephine:       Perseverance is one. Find yourself a good writing buddy, absolutely. I always like to say … People often say write what you know. I think that’s a great place to start, though I prefer the next level on, which is write what you want to know. I think that sense of curiosity gives you that forward momentum, rather than a backwards stagnant moment of I already know this. It’s sort of that really fresh, you’re looking at it with really fresh eyes, so your writing takes on that freshness as well.

Sarah:               Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned the Queensland Writers Center earlier. Do you do any workshops with them still? Do you recommend them?

Josephine:       Absolutely! I don’t attend any of them anymore, but I went to so many QWC workshops over my writing apprenticeship. I did everything. I went to playwriting and I went to poetry writing. I went to absolutely everything that was on offer because it was all skill building. I always took away something new. They’re just great. They’re really the perfect place to go.

Sarah:               Yeah, yeah. We can definitely recommend. I think every state in Australia has writers centers, like Queensland. I know South Australia, Victoria for sure. New South Wales I’m sure do. Yeah, they can be a really great place for those aspiring authors. I do talk a lot about Romance Writers of Australia because it’s one I’m very passionate about, but I love Queensland Writers Center as well. Now I’m close, I can go to more lectures. It’s great.

Josephine:       They do a lot online now, too.

Sarah:               Yeah, yeah. They always pack up their schedule. It’s really great. You’re on your book tour at the moment. How is that going? Have you had any funny incidents occur?

Josephine:       The book has only been out not even a week or it might be a week today. I haven’t been that many places yet. I’m trying to get round to book stores and libraries and see as many people as I can. I was going to go down to Booktopia a couple of weeks ago and do a whole big signing down there so that they had signed copies, but had a bit of a crisis midair there. I had an ovarian cyst just burst mid-flight and passed out and vomited all over Sydney. It was really a big drama. I didn’t make it to Booktopia. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sign my books. It was really sad and I caused a lot of problems for people on the plane. Pretty sad.

Josephine:       Yes, that hasn’t happened to me before. That’s new. That’s a new tour experience.

Sarah:               You can read more about that on your blog.

Josephine:       [inaudible 00:13:39] that goes better than that, yeah. Hopefully, that’s the bad luck out of the way. I hope there’s all good luck for now.

Sarah:               That’s it. That’s an experience you can write about.

Josephine:       Exactly. That’s the great thing about being a writer is nothing goes wasted. Even your worst days can be useful somewhere down the track. It’s all compost for later.

Sarah:               Absolutely. You’re doing some book signings in the Sunshine Coast.

Josephine:       Yes.

Sarah:               And in Brisbane, as well?

Josephine:       And in Brisbane. I’m brewing something for Sydney, possibly Melbourne as well.

Sarah:               Excellent. What are you working on now, Josephine?

Josephine:       I’m working on my fifth book, which is set in Melbourne actually. I would like to go back down to Melbourne do a bit more research before I finish my next draft. Always a great excuse, because I love Melbourne and it’s beautiful. That’s fun at the moment. It’s going well. It’s a good book baby. Unlike Three Gold Coins, which was a terrible book baby, this one is being really good and really cooperative. [inaudible 00:14:43] that, but I don’t know I could have handled another one as bad as the last one.

Sarah:               Any little insider information you can give us on this or is it a bit hush hush?

Josephine:       The plot is definitely hush hush at the moment. Mostly because I’m such a messy writer, that things start in one place and end up in a totally different place. I’d hate to lead anyone down the garden path there. My food theme, because all my books have food themes running through them, my food theme is on coffee.

Sarah:               Coffee.

Josephine:       Melbourne obviously is a great place to go for that.

Sarah:               Exactly. I was just going to say, yeah, to be. Brilliant. That is so exciting. I do love coffee. I’m looking forward to that one. Fantastic journey so far, Josephine. That is so exciting. I should definitely recommend that everyone get Three Gold Coins and, of course, all your back list. Where can we find you online to find out where we can buy all your books?

Josephine:       My website is josephinemoon.com. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter. I’m a pretty bad Twitter person, I have to say. I’m sort of not great with that one. Instagram, I’m also on Instagram and I love Instagram. There’s a lot of photos of food and animals that end up on Instagram. Facebook, lots of my event information and that sort of thing all goes through Facebook as well. I have a newsletter you can sign up to. I always put recipes in there and competitions, as well. Lots of ways to find me.

Sarah:               That is fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today, Josephine. That was great.

Josephine:       All right. Thanks so much for having me.

Sarah:               Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Jump onto my website, sarahwilliamsauthor.com, and join my mailing list to receive a free preview of my books and lots of inspiration. If you like the show and want it to continue, you can become a sponsor for just a couple of dollars a month. Go to patreon.com/sarahwilliamsauthor to find out more. Remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a review of the podcast. I’ll be back next week with another loved up episode. Bye.