Deanna Raybourn’s motto in life and writing is “expect the unexpected” - and her best-selling historical mysteries are the perfect expression of that – they are plotted with the intricacy of a symphony.

HI there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Deanna talks about writing for a very long time before she got published – and what she learned from that experience – and why we’ve totally misjudged Victorian women.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Why Deanna finds the Victorians "comfortably exotic"Yes: First drafts "suck" - and that's OKWhy finishing the book is the only thing that countsHer long road to being publishedAnd why she wouldn't change a thing Where the sparky dialogue in her books comes from.

Where to find Deanna Raybourn:

Website: https://www.deannaraybourn.com/

 Twitter:@deannaraybourn

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deannaraybourn

What

follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for

word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Deanna. .  Hello there Deanna and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Deanna: [00:00:07] Hi Jenny. Thank you so much for having

me. I'm very excited to be on a podcast from across the world.

Reading and writing 'forever'

Deanna Raybourn - Mystery author

Jenny: [00:00:14] I know it's fun isn't it? Readers are always curious to know how authors got started writing fiction and I know you had quite a strong background in English literature before you started writing yourself. But was there a Once Upon A Time moment when you felt I must write fiction myself. And if so was there a catalyst for it?

Deanna: [00:00:40] No there absolutely wasn't. Because I honestly do not remember a time when I wasn't making up stories. I do distinctly remember being about three or four years old, - I'd learned to read pretty early - I was about four when I learned how to read - and I was so excited because I could finally make sense of all the signs that were on the streets and I could finally read my books by myself.

[00:01:05] Then I got really excited when I learned how to print because then I could start making up stories of my own. And I've been doing that ever since. I don't have any juvenilea. Like there's never gonna be a Jane Austen moment where I can publish things that I wrote when I was twelve years old. But I was always making things up. And so when I went to university I decided to double major in English and history because I knew I wanted to write historical fiction and that seemed like the most logical thing to do. It never occurred to me to major in Creative Writing but I went for English and and history and it's served me pretty well.

Jenny: [00:01:46] It's amazing that so young you actually

already knew the genre that you wanted to work in.

A 'hideous' first novel at 23

The Dark Enquiry # 5 in Lady Julia series

Deanna: [00:01:53] Well you know I think it was it was

borne out of wanting to write what I love to read. And so because I loved

historical fiction it just it made sense to me. 

I sat down and wrote my first novel when I was 23. I had just finished

my first year of teaching high school and during summer break I sat down and

wrote a novel. I think it took me seven weeks and it was 120,000 words. I have

never in my life written that fast before or since. And it was hideous. It was

a hideous experience, but I got addicted to the whole idea of starting a story

and seeing it through to the end and finishing it.

Jenny: [00:02:37] Yeah. That is impressive - 120,00 words

in seven weeks for sure.

Deanna: [00:02:42] Oh it's insane. It's insane.

Jenny: [00:02:47] And you've done your historical mysteries, though with a little bit of a twist, because right from the beginning you included a romantic subplot and the meshing of two separate genres. And I just wondered.