Jo Morey - Highly Commended

Lime Juice Money

Jo is newly represented by Madeline Milburn at The Madeline Milburn Literary Agency

Jo started writing at eight years old on a clunky, oversized word processor her dad brought home from work one day. She’s had dreams of becoming an author ever since. It wasn’t until her eldest son turned eight himself and started penning his own first ‘novel’ that she realised she’d become side-tracked from her ambitions and so decided to give writing a novel a proper shot. 

Alongside being shortlisted for the Cheshire Novel prize, Lime Juice Money was shortlisted for the Primadonna Prize 2023, the Plaza First Pages Award 2023, and is a finalist in Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award 2023 in the literary category. She was awarded the Claire Mannion Literary Endeavour Prize at this year’s Primadonna Festival. Jo has just been long-listed for the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2023 and is a Faber Academy alumna.

Jo has a BA in English Literature and French from the University of Leeds and an MBA from Ashridge Business School. She has lived in Paris and New Zealand, and now lives at the foot of the South Downs with her husband, two boys, and two Portuguese Water Dogs. She’s convinced their energy levels are inversely proportional to her own.

What made you enter the Cheshire novel Prize?

Honestly, the Cheshire Novel Prize is a writing competition like no other. It stands out from the sea of prizes because it puts writers at the heart. Its USP is that it offers feedback to every single person who enters, and of course that was hugely appealing (and also bloody amazing), but the CNP is so much more than that.

The judging panel is such an incredible mix of agents, publishers, and published authors, and the fact that these people would be reading my words was just a dream come true. Knowing that previous long-listed candidates got picked up by agents was also really attractive to me. 

The community of long-listed writers has been so supportive and encouraging, and I’ve found writing friends for life who I know I will stay in touch with. The fact that Sara set up a whole Guild channel for us to connect and communicate on from the very first moment the long-list was announced just shows how focused she is on genuinely helping writers on their journeys. 

What Sara has done with this competition is second to none. The CNP team have been so incredibly supportive and obviously care about every single one of the long-listed authors. They are amazing cheerleaders for us all. I feel so fortunate to be a part of this group and it’s refreshing to have such a ground-breaking prize disrupting the landscape of writing competitions.

What did it feel like when you were LL and SL?

When I found out I had been long-listed, I was completely stunned. I was actually really hungover (I had just got back from a rare girls’ weekend away) and was just settling down for a cheeky afternoon nap before having to get the kids from school. When I watched the announcement video on Twitter, I was amazed to see Lime Juice Money on the list. I started crying and had to rewatch the presentation two more times to check I hadn’t hallucinated it all in my hungover state. I called my husband straight away and it finally felt like this thing I had dreamed of doing since I was eight years old was becoming real. My sons were so proud of me.

And then I had a slight panic. Looking at the next steps of the prize, I realised that if I were to be shortlisted, I would need to submit my whole manuscript. Because I hadn’t allowed myself to think that I might be long-listed for this prize, I hadn’t actually finished my first draft. So, I embraced the shortlist deadline as a sink or swim moment, using every spare minute to carve out my final chapters. My sons were amazing during this time, knowing how much it meant to me, and would tell me to ‘go and get on with your novel, Mummy’. 

When I was shortlisted, it felt even more unreal. I had seen the quality of the writing in the long-list and to see my work picked to go further was brilliant. Writing can feel like such a solitary pursuit, and self-doubts can creep in, so it was incredibly affirming to feel like this thing I’ve always wanted to do, which I had spent the last two years working so hard on, was being recognised.

What was the reaction like from those around you? Family? Friends?

My husband, Will has said he’s just so proud of what I’ve achieved with the Cheshire Prize. He’s known me since I was fifteen (we were friends before we got together years later!) and said, it’s the happiest feeling to know that the person you love is finally doing the thing she’s always talked about and has been put on the earth to do, and being recognised for it in this way, is the most amazing thing.

My sons (10 and 8) have been so incredibly supportive. They’re my biggest cheerleaders. My eight-year-old wrote me a letter which says:

‘Dear Mummy, how are you [sic]. I wanted to tell you how proud I am of your novel, how I am grateful for you for making it this far in your competition and you have made it to TOP 10!!! Wow incredible [sic]. So good luck for the future. You can do it and say your [sic] amazing because we are all rooting for you and will always love you even if you lose. So well done. Love from Charlie xxx’

I’m going to chat to him about the missing question mark. 

I do not shut up about the CNP – everyone, from my friends to the village shopkeeper, love hearing about my journey and about how fabulous this experience has been!

How did you come up with the idea for your book?

The initial idea came to me as an image about seven or eight years ago. I saw a woman, alone in the jungle somewhere, isolated, and afraid. I didn’t know who she was or where she was, but it just felt like a powerful seed. I scribbled out some notes at the time and stashed the page away somewhere to germinate.

When I started to write the novel, I added in my protagonist’s hearing impairment to amplify the sense of remoteness she feels in the jungle. I have lost my hearing at the highest pitches and wear hearing aids in both ears. Like Laelia, I also suffer from constant tinnitus. Hearing loss is not a topic often explored in fiction, and I wanted to write about what it’s like to have to have to adapt to it, especially at such a young age. I’m passionate about removing the stigma of wearing hearing aids. 

I chose to set Lime Juice Money in the Belizean jungle because having been there twice, it captured my imagination and kept calling me back. I wanted to explore it through writing and felt it would give my novel an otherworldly quality. When I’m reading a book, I love learning new things and being transported to new places, and I wanted to give readers a chance to experience this indelible setting, which is almost like another character in the novel.

How long did it take you to write it?

I started drafting about two years ago. I wrote the first 10,000 words or so on the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course with Rowan Hisayo-Buchanan. I’ve written the manuscript over a couple of years whilst juggling work, children, and dogs. 

What’s it about?

Lime Juice Money is an upmarket suspense that tells the story of hearing-impaired Laelia Wylde, a botanist’s daughter who finds herself trapped in an increasingly volatile relationship in the jungle of Belize. 

As part of developing my synopsis, I had a go at drafting a ‘back of book’ blurb just for my own reference and to clarify my thinking:

‘Champagne dreams with lime juice money’ – Belizean proverb.

What’s your writing routine?

Make coffee. Drink coffee. Sit (somewhere quiet – café, toilet, bed, on the floor in the bathroom, office desk if lucky) and type. Drink more coffee. (If it’s evening, switch coffee for gin and tonic). 

Because I have a chronic illness - Hashimoto’s - I’ve learned to listen to my body and am guided by that in terms of my energy levels and knowing when to write, when I can and can’t push on through.

As a busy working mum, juggling has become an absurdist artform. In an ideal writing day, I wake up and squeeze out time at around 5am to write for a couple of hours at my desk with a scented candle before the dogs start stirring or I hear the ‘gentle’ (ha-ha) pitter patter of children’s feet. I find those golden hours whilst everyone else is still asleep, before I’ve logged into the world, before people need me, to be the most productive. There’s also something about the way the brain works during that time, the liminality between sleep and wakefulness, that means the words flow more freely, without too much judgment. 

In reality though, more often than not I’m shoehorning writing moments into my days. My Lime Juice Money file on my laptop has been like a lodestone that keeps pulling me back to it, and I’m lucky that I can focus in on that wherever I am. In a busy café, in the back of the car whilst on a family outing somewhere, on the floor surrounded by Lego, whilst my boys throw bricks at each other. I can write anywhere. I have to.

What’s next for you?

For Lime Juice Money, I’d love to see it on bookshelves one day. I am really looking forward to working with editors to finesse it into a finished product that can be published. 

I want to keep writing novels. I’ve got a file of ideas I’ve built up over years that I’m letting percolate. I’d like to write more short stories and flash fiction alongside, as I love the different skillset and part of my brain they use. More than anything though, I want to keep learning through writing. Every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter, means I’m growing as a writer. A love of learning is like a fire inside of me that I want to keep fuelling. I love drafting, but I also love editing. I love talking about novels and throwing ideas around. I want to be challenged, both by myself and others. And that’s the key for me. Then, writing is the place where I am happiest and most free. I have so much to learn, and this is just the start of the journey. I never want to stop.

Have you done any writing courses?

I did the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course to kick off writing my novel, which was fantastic for initial accountability and getting up and running with my draft. 

Early on, I spent a week at Totleigh Barton on the Arvon ‘Publishing your Novel’ course with James Spackman and Suzie Dooré because I wanted to get a better feel for the publishing industry and build a sense of objective in my mind whilst writing my draft. 

I’ve done various online workshops including Louise Doughty’s Guardian Plotting Masterclass, and some Jericho Writers, Arvon, and MSlexia classes.

I’m on the Curtis Brown Breakthrough Mentoring programme where I’ve been fortunate enough to work with the amazing Chloe Timms. I have also been working for the past year or so with Women’s Prize shortlisted author, Jill Dawson as another mentor who has been fantastic at helping me think about my objectives and career longer term.

I’m a member of Hove Writers, a writing group run by author Jo Furniss. We meet weekly and have sharing sessions where we critique each other’s work and sometimes have open mic nights to try out new material. We also have authors come to speak to us and these have recently included S J Watson, Frances Quinn, and Julia Crouch. 

I was invited to join a four-person novel writing group run by author Beth Miller. We meet once a month in Brighton to spend intensive time looking at each person’s work in progress. I absolutely love hearing what people think about my work and have learnt to much from both receiving (and giving) feedback. 

What are your two favourite books and why?

Is this not the hardest question in the world ever?! Just two…?! So many books flash into my mind as amazing reads, including The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo, Luster by Raven Leilani, Shame by Salman Rushdie, The Gathering by Anne Enright, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and the amazing The Time of our Singing by Richard Powers – his weaving of science, time, and music with black history of the 20th century is pure alchemy and has left a thumbprint on my heart. My favourite books are those that as soon as you finish them you want to pick them back up again and read them all over a second time to work out how did they do that?!

But if I had to pick two… Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is unlike anything I have ever read before or since. It has so much to teach a writer because it is as technically brilliant as it is artistically beautiful. Urgent and unnerving, this story of warped seduction is unlike most controversial novels of the past in that, still now, it has the power to disturb and offend. Nabokov keeps everything teetering on the brink of parody. The poetic use of English-bending language, its artifice and imagery, as well as the novel’s self-mockery and complicated word games both entrance and captivate the reader, seducing them not unlike Humbert seduces Lolita. So much so that the reader is, almost unwittingly, able to sympathise with the most complex and disturbing of protagonists. Not only does the reader learn about manipulation within relationships, but they also actually experience it. That makes Lolita an incredibly powerful and postmodern tour de force.

What advice do you have for any aspiring writers?

Sometimes I think aspiring authors wait too long, until they think something is perfect before they show it to others. But I think it’s really valuable to get your work out there and get feedback as early as possible to listen to what others have to say. And sometimes that can be hard to hear, but oftentimes the advice you initially balk at is in fact the most pertinent, and there’s a reason you’re reacting to it in that way. 

My favourite quote is Goethe’s, ‘Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. For action has magic, grace, and power in it.’ I sat around not actioning my dreams for decades, and it’s only now, inspired by my own children, that I’ve started following my dream. Getting the words down is the most important thing. I’ve learned to just trust the process. Write from your gut as well as from your heart. Follow your instincts. Put faith in your characters; they will show you the way. 

And:

I know there will be lots of opportunity for this, but I just want to say here as an extra note – it’s been an absolute joy and pleasure to be a part of this whole competition. The way they have supported us, and everyone involved in the prize at all stages, has been so amazing. It has been such an honour to be involved. So, thank you thank you thank you!! x