Author Confessions: Catherine Steadman
How a cat camera inspired her latest bestselling novel + writing in the flow state.
My older sister, Erin, is a psychological thriller junkie when it comes to books. There isn’t a true crime podcast she hasn’t listened to, and after reading Catherine Steadman’s Something in the Water a few years back, she called me straight away. “You have to read it,” she pleaded. “You’re going to love it. It’s just so…unputdownable.”
Something in the Water was the first book I ever listened to on Audible (now I’m on Libro), and oh-my-goodness my sister was right. The story was about a newlywed couple on honeymoon in Tahiti who discover a huge amount of money in a crashed seaplane while scuba diving. Watching them wrangle with whether they should keep the money or alert authorities about the dead bodies (also on the plane) was thoroughly addicting.
Catherine Steadman has a way of writing that keeps you up late into the night, your bleary eyes reading on as you tell yourself just one more page.
I felt the same when I picked up Nine Lives at the local bookshop on the East End of Long Island. Her latest book is set on a beautiful street in London where the stately row houses have lush gardens out back and quaint gates leading to their front doors. Insert an unreliable narrator in the newly divorced and newly arrived Fran, a cast of questionable neighbors and a new love interest that seems a bit too interested, and you’ve got a great read. Then mix in chapters told from a woman who is being held captive in a grubby basement on the very street where Fran just moved, and you’ve got yourself a gripping suspense novel.
I loved the book so much that I invited Catherine across the pond from her East London home to tell us about her latest book. Catherine Steadman, welcome to Dear Fiction!
I love the origin stories of novels. Where did you get the idea for Nine Lives?
Over the course of a few months, while I was working on a script commission for a movie, a cat started sitting outside my second story window, on the ledge, just staring at me all day while I worked. In the summer, when the windows were open and I left the room, I’d come back to find him snooping on my desk or under furniture and I’d have to let him back out. But he got a good look around my, and I presume a lot of my neighbours’ houses!? He also had a large strange looking collar disk (!) – which was quite distracting. I later found out (his name was Asti and he lived two streets away) the collar disk was just something to do with his vet – but watching him totter along the wall connecting all the houses on the street, and diving in wherever he could, gave me the idea for Nine Lives. That and a pinch of “Rear Window.”
Yes! The book reminded me of “Rear Window” in all the best ways. How specifically is this book different from your other novels? Was there anything about it that proved particularly challenging?
I think Nine Lives is my first and only DOMESTIC thriller. It’s set on a street, in a community, it doesn’t have the jet-setting scope of my previous novels as it’s more about isolation, and how these days we can feel lost, and alone, especially in a city full of people. My natural inclination is towards adventure/high-concept in thrillers but it was fun to try to find those high-stakes qualities in a more contained environment.
I loved focusing in one street in London since I got to know the feel of the area and could imagine what it would be like if I were Fran. On another note, what part of the novel do you really think you nailed?
I loved writing the chapters of Blue (the cat’s) POV via the camera hanging around his neck. There’s a whole subsection of TikTok devoted to cat camera collar footage. You go where the cat goes kind-of-thing. And the cats go everywhere. It’s a voyeur’s dream, ha! I loved writing those mini adventures —and trusting in the reader’s ability to put two-and-two together to build a picture of ‘who-lives-in-a-house-like-this’ was all part of the fun.
The cat cam was very well done! What has been the most challenging moment of your writing/publishing career? Can you be specific and tell us how you pulled out of it?
I think there’s moments in every book that are challenging. I wrote a book last year, before Nine Lives that was abandoned. My publishers thought it might be too speculative for my usual readership so it has been shelved for now. That was challenging because there is, of course, an element of branding/funnelling of content even in publishing. You kind of have to stick to your lane unless you want to publish under a different name…so, I may come back to the more speculative book at some point but either under another name or with tweaks that make it more directly fit the psych thriller space.
Oddly, it makes me feel better whenever I hear that other authors have had projects they’ve been forced to abandon for one reason or another. On a brighter note, if you could relive one day in your publishing/writing career--or your life, what would it be and why?
I think about the day I wrote 13k words, in one brilliant flow state, a lot! That was a GREAT DAY. Also, I remember where I was when I wrote the opening chapter (in one go) of Something in the Water. It ending up being published pretty much unedited. It’s days like that, when it just flows and works that are the literal DREAM!
Wow! Really? That’s fascinating. But yes, the flow state is the best feeling for creatives. What would most people be surprised about when it comes to your writing routine or your process of developing a novel?
I guess, I’ve just covered it but, I write quickly — once I confidently know what the hook, character and problem is. When I feel I’m set up on tracks that lead to the right place and I just let myself go. I also edit as I go, constantly rereading, tweaking, adjusting. I plan but I plan in my head not on a spreadsheet but it’s the same information. Whenever I see a ‘planners’ spreadsheet I’m always thinking ha, that’s funny, I never write that stuff down, I just decide it. Maybe I’ll scrawl it on a post it – if I think I’ll forget an aspect of the structure but I don’t tend to. So, I suppose I present as a ‘pantser’ but I’m actually a ‘mental planner’. Lol!
Also, fun fact: Catherine’s screenwriting debut, all four episodes of the screen adaptation of psychological thriller THE EX-WIFE, is now streaming on Paramount+.