Sunshine Soup: Nourishing The Global Soul

Jo: Clever question! In one respect, yes, it is totally different from non-fiction, in that a novel has plot, pace, characters, dialogue, scene setting, and is of course much more creative. A novel is a ‘story’. However, we always write about what we know and for those in your audience who follow my non-fiction books and articles, they will know that I write about portable careers, finding passion, networking, cooking and living abroad. And my novel is about all those things. So yes, I think there can be a huge crossover between genres.

Jo: I found that writing a novel was much tougher than writing non-fiction or poetry. I had to ensure people kept turning pages (rather than just jumping to completely different sections in a non-fiction book). So that meant I needed to finish each chapter on a cliffhanger. Which in turn, meant thinking up a lot of cliffhangers!

Jo: My novel is like a parable. In it, you meet six expat women of a range of nationalities. They are English, American, Dutch, Thai, Irish (though converted to Islam) and Norwegian. Each of these women are living in Dubai and on their own journey. Each has to find a way to be fulfilled.

I know that it is dangerous and unwise to base any character on one specific person. When you do that you tend to create one-dimensional people. So instead, every character is a hybrid of bits of me, bits of others and bits of my imagination. For example, Barb is a bit like me. She is on her umpteenth move and has life abroad all figured out. I feel like that most of the time, now living in my fifth country. Maya is my novel’s protagonist and on her first posting. Barb and Maya meet and each helps the other in surprising ways. I love to cook – so does Maya. I have two boys – so does Maya. I am interested in bellydancing and spirituality, so Liv explores those areas.

At the end of the day, my novel does have messages to share and I am told by those who have read it, whether they have lived abroad or not, that somehow I managed to write about them personally. I truly hope that Sunshine Soup inspires people to understand better what is happening to them (abroad) and to lead happier lives.

Expat Women: Why did you choose to self-publish Sunshine Soup?

Jo: When I first wrote my novel, I was determined to find a mainstream publisher for it. However, after it was done I sent it to a handful of agents and it was clear that a lot of them did not ‘get it’. One agent scribbled on the manuscript that she did not have a clue what I was going on about. Chapter one begins when Maya is about to leave England for Dubai and is ambivalent about the move. She wants to go but she does not want to leave. I defy any expat not to understand how that feels!

Soon after receiving that curt rejection letter, I began to grow my publishing company, realizing that as a networker and someone who had also been a journalist, I had quite a reputation with lots of expat publications worldwide, so I knew my market and they knew me. Doing the maths, a mainstream publisher would offer me 7 percent royalties and if I published it myself, I could get 100 percent royalties. Suddenly it was a no brainer. I believe that if any writer can define their market clearly, and better still, if they live in that market, then they would be wise to consider publishing themselves or working with a specialist publisher.

Jo: No way! My father has written 31 books and at 83 is still writing them. I have to beat his record! Also, I have now discovered how rewarding and therapeutic it is to write a novel. It has made me a better, more observant person. The fact that it was very difficult to write, also taught me to be a better writer. For example, for the first time in my life, I suffered quite bad writer’s block in the middle of the process. It happened because I had a piece of negative feedback from a reader who, like that agent, did not ‘get it’. But thankfully, I found a way to get back to the keyboard and then use my experience to help my author clients to overcome their own doubts and blocks.

I certainly plan to write another novel and have a plot and characters worked out already. I also realize that writing fiction is good for me. It is meditative and I need to continue doing it. When you reach the end of a novel you often suffer a little bereavement as you have to say goodbye to the characters you created. That can be tough to cope with, and so my own solution is to make some new characters and move on. It is a bit like relocating – hard to leave, but impossible to stay. But I know there are new challenges and opportunities around the corner and that each experience is itself, enormously rewarding.

Jo: In addition to the Amazon and mainstream sites, I am excited to have recently launched ExpatBookShop.com. This site is started off with my own books, but is growing slowly and already includes a number of other authors’ books on there as well.

Expat Women: Thank you very much, Jo, and we wish you all the very best with Sunshine Soup, Summertime Publishing and ExpatBookShop.com!

Jo: Thank you so much for having me. If anyone out there wants to stay in touch with me and share details of their own expat books, I would love to hear from them. They are also welcome to visit my Facebook page, listen to my Writers Abroad radio show, and/or read my blog where I share insights from what I have learned. I do not expect I will be slowing down for a while yet!