Maddy Proud started her professional netball career when she was drafted at the age of 16 by the Adelaide Thunderbirds. Subsequently, she moved to New South Wales to play for the Swifts and she is now the co-captain. In 2018, she penned her first novel, Grace on the Court, and has now published the sequel Grace back on Court. She chatted with Rodney Hrvatin about juggling netball and writing, ideas for future novels and her love of One Direction.
This is the second Grace book. What was the spark for the first one and what made you decide to do a second?
Growing up I was always one of those kids who was always writing stories. My mum’s a journalist so I kind of grew up with it, so English and writing were always a passion of mine since before I can remember. I’d always been into reading but I wasn’t a super massive reader like some people. I loved reading books about sport because I was a big sports nut from the moment I could pick up a ball. I read all of the Specky McGee books [written by AFL star Gary Lyon] and that was the inspiration for Grace On The Court. I loved the idea of the age that Specky was at and how he was starting to get serious about his AFL. I found that there was a bit of a gap in the market for books of a similar calibre for young girls playing sport and particularly about playing netball. I found that any books about sport were not about team sports.
As I got a bit older I wrote in my journals that to write a book was on my to-do list and I ended up getting back from the World Youth Cup in Glasgow at the end of 2013 and I deferred Uni and was on a break from netball so I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I thought I should start writing this book I had always had at the back of my mind. I loved the idea of this character starting high school.
I found that for most kids—boys and girls—that transition from middle school to high school could be pretty daunting and a pretty critical time in a young person’s life. There are so many changes in those couple of years. You go from primary school where everything is nice and easy and you make good friends and then you go to high school and things can change a lot and it shapes you into the person you become. For me, sport was a big part of shaping me into the person I became. It made those years of starting high school fun for me.
So in a way [writing the book] was kind of multifaceted in that it was something that I wanted to read but also to get a message out to young girls to go out there and play sport. On the flip side for girls who play sports, it might encourage them to get into reading. There are two messages I always get from parents. One is: “My daughter has never read a book before but she loves netball and she loves you and it’s the first book that she’s read from cover to cover”. Or: “My daughter loves reading but didn’t like sport. She’s read your book and now wants to play netball.” So I think that if I can get one girl to read a book or one girl to play sport, particularly netball, then I’ve kind of achieved what I wanted to in writing the Grace series.
I think you found the right corner there! So was there always going to be a sequel or did that come about only after the success of the first book?
I think I always thought it would be a series. Coming from the inspiration of Specky McGee I always thought that sporting books are good to have in a series because you can always follow the journey and I loved that about the series, that you saw the progress that he made and I loved the idea of that but in netball, that you follow the path it takes. That’s where I found that I could use my own unique experiences. That was the advantage that I had as a netballer in that I had lived all these experiences. With Grace Back On Court I wanted to talk about the process of trying out for a state team. It’s the sort of thing that people don’t really understand unless they’ve been through that experience. I definitely had that idea that there were so many levels with the book and in terms of her age you can follow the way that she progresses through life.
I still haven’t really worked out how many it’s going to be. There is going to be a third but I haven’t started that one yet. The idea was that I was always going to follow her and her progression and that hopefully as the readers develop, so does Grace and they go on that journey with her which I always loved as a reader.
Did you get any advice on writing for younger readers? Did you have a mentor that helped you in putting the book together?
With the first one, I wrote it with no expectations. It was like a hobby; I just really loved writing and I was caught in a trance for a few weeks to the point where my mum came in asking, “What are you doing with your laptop all day every day?” I was just going crazy with how fast I was writing it and I just got it all out quite quickly. It was definitely self-directed and organic in the way that it happened and I think why I was able to write it so quickly was that I had no pressure. To be honest I didn’t think it would get published but at least I could say I had written a book, whether it went anywhere or not.
It wasn’t until I showed it to my mum who read it and she thought that it was actually good and that I could make something of it that I had to rethink things like the character’s ages, and that I had to write for that sort of audience. Originally I had the characters a little bit older. I wasn’t really sure what the rules were around writing for certain ages. If it’s too mature for the younger readers then you can [market the book] a little older. It was my publisher who eventually said, “They can still be in high school but write down a little bit in some areas.” The publishers really helped with that first one and I found out the book was coming out in 2016 and it eventually got published in 2018 so there was a two-year editing process. I also had a literary agent at the time and she helped me with the bulk of the editing in those early days as well, so it was a mixture of my mum helping out, my publisher and my agent.
That’s why after the first one came out, I moved to Sydney and I thought, “Well if I’m going to write a second, I probably should get some street cred and become a proper writer.” So I went to Uni and got a masters in Creative Writing. I did get a mentor who was one of the professors at Uni and was in charge of the Creative Writing program. She was unreal. I ended up doing a manuscript project with her as my mentor and she taught me so much in regards to the rules of writing. I guess you learn a bit at school in English but this was more about writing a novel for that age group. I learnt a lot more which allowed me to hone in on that second book so that it came out after a couple of months instead of a couple of years. I had found a way to write it without requiring too much extra help.
Was it much easier the second time around?
Yes and no. I think it was harder knowing there was an expectation that there were people who were wanting to read it this time. When the first one was written it was like, “Whatever happens, happens, and whatever else happens is a bonus.” When I did the second one I was like, “I have to make sure that people want to read it but it has to be decent for them.” I actually wrote a lot of it throughout that Uni course—you could submit chapters of it for assignments and workshop it. I found that working to a deadline was good because you could get immediate feedback. So in terms of getting it out, that was probably easier but there was the pressure of, “I want to make it a good book and I want to make sure that people who like the first book like the second as well.” I ‘ve had a lot of people say that they like the second more than they like the first so I feel like I’ve achieved that in that sense.
Now I’m finding the third one the hardest because I don’t have a deadline because I’ve finished my Uni course and I can sort of do whatever I want. It’s harder because there is another readership that has come in now so the pressure is on to make the third one better than the other two.
There is a band in the book called Friday at Five and I was curious as to why you didn’t use an actual band’s name?
Originally it was One Direction. It was kind of when they were right in their prime. Mind you I still think they’re in their prime as I still love One Direction even though they’re not together anymore. In the first book, I referred to Friday at Five songs but they were all One Direction songs originally. I actually got the feedback from publishers that having a real band dates the book and when I reflect on it now, the time it took for the book to come out, a lot of 12-13 year olds who were the target audience wouldn’t know who One Direction are. In hindsight it was better that I didn’t do that. Even with TV shows—in the first one I refer to Riverdale—it’s always a risk. But I love reading a book and going, “Oh THEY love One Direction and I love One Direction!” and being able to relate to it. It was just hard, particularly with the age group because tastes change so quickly in regards to who’s popular and who’s not so it was definitely one we tossed up for a while.
Apart from the Specky McGee books, were you inspired as well by other writers in the way you approached your writing?
Even now I still love reading YA and that sort of thing. I got really into John Green [author of The Fault In Our Stars]. I just loved the way he wrote, that mix of comedy and pretty hard-hitting topics and I pretty much loved everything he’s done. I also loved Alison Noël [author of Laguna Beach]. But when I was younger I loved Morris Gleitzman’s Boy Overboard so I read a lot in that genre like The Babysitters Club and other popular ones like that.
In terms of style I definitely tried not to be too influenced by others but to refer to a few things here and there to make sure the voice was right because you don’t want to be sounding like a 28-year-old writing from a 12-year-old’s perspective. I found that, luckily, I could get into that voice because I deal a lot with that age group and go to clinics all the time so you can stay up with what’s current in their world at the time. I just wanted to keep it pretty authentic.
With the netball side of things, I found that the hardest thing was using the correct terminology. When you live and breathe netball you write like everybody should know what an overload centre pass is. My publishers were very non-sporting people so I had to be very specific with the way that I explained the netball scenes so that someone who had never seen netball before could understand it. But there really wasn’t one specific author who I looked to.
My favourite bits of the book are when you describe the netball games themselves. They are very well written and just flow. To me, it’s very much like you’re playing the game in your mind or drawing on your own memories. Was it hard to find the balance between keeping the action flowing and explaining the strategies or terms to the readers?
That was probably quite tough in the early stages. I was constantly asking, “How much netball is too much netball?” because at the end of the day it’s a book about netball. I wanted to honour those that were reading the book because of the netball but then have enough in there for the ones that were there for the story. I also thought that if people don’t like the netball stuff they can skip over it. I did want to be true to making sure the netball scenes were genuine and authentic and that people could feel like they were playing it. Those were the scenes I probably enjoyed writing the most even though they were the hardest. I was so determined to make sure they felt like you were there and I got the scores and times right, and I was explaining it to those that may not know enough about the game.
I remember getting one bit of feedback from the first book saying there was too much netball and I thought, “Well I’ll take that with a grain of salt because it is a book about netball …”
The second one was hard as well because of the nature of what it’s about. It’s the Nationals which is like so much netball at once and the players are away so it’s back-to-back games. I didn’t want that section to feel like it was being overdone despite the number of games being played but the feedback has been really, really good.
At the end of the day, this is my advantage in that I know the netball stuff like the back of my hand and that’s my point of difference compared to somebody else that likes netball who can write about it.
I wanted a little girl to go to her team and say, “I read in Grace Back On Court that we can do an overload centre pass or we can do an offline defence,” and actually learn something from it as well. I was definitely conscious of people getting something like that out of it.
Are the characters that Grace associates with based on real people from that time in your life?
It’s very funny. A lot of people have said to me, “Who are the characters based on?” The first one was about Grace and her friends and I had all my old friends from Adelaide texting me going, “I know who that person is.” And I was like, “Really? Because I don’t!” You probably subconsciously write about someone that you know but in my mind I really loved having that dynamic of Grace, the level-headed one, then you have the fiery friend, or the relaxed friend or the best friend. So they were more made up than anything. The family dynamic is very true to my experience. I have two brothers I grew up with who were very sporty and we were very close. Those relationships were inspired by my own.
In terms of when Grace goes to the trials and she faces the sort of mean girl types, I was very lucky that I never had experiences like that but I know it does happen. However it was literally one of the most intimidating things walking into those trials and seeing those other girls with their old state kit. I wanted to make sure that people could feel that. There’s also always a “star” that you’re worried to go up against.
There IS a character in the book called Kate Turner, and I was living with [fellow Swift] Maddy Turner and Kate Eddy who now plays with the Vixens and I always said I would write about them so I merged their two characters together, this big intimidating goal defence from New South Wales. I’m not sure if anyone would pick up on that though! Well done if they have!
Interview conducted by Rodney Hrvatin on 19 July 2022.
Grace back on Court was published by Wakefield Press in 2022. RPP: $19.95.
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