New Zealand author Andrew Wassenaar spent his teenage years hanging around places he wasn’t meant to be. Trouble may have followed, but so did a novel.
Mystery Under Maungauika is a thrilling story about a group of teenagers who uncover a decades-old secret in Auckland’s abandoned war tunnels. Inspired by his own adventures and fuelled by stories heard during a university Sociology class, Andrew’s journey from first word to final publication took 13 years. A redundancy, COVID lockdown and a bit of help from Mum provided the opportunity this young writer needed to achieve his publishing dream.
INTERVIEW BY KATE TAYLOR
Once you started writing, how long did it take to complete your story?
It was 2008 when I wrote the prologue in that Sociology class, but I got busy and writing a book wasn’t high on the priority list. I didn’t touch the draft again until 10 years later.
In 2020, my New Year’s resolution was to finish my novel before I turned 30 in November of the same year. I was making slow progress, then COVID hit. I was freelancing/contracting at the time, so that left me in a unique position where I had a lot of free time and couldn’t leave the house – a perfect storm for a writer! I seized the opportunity and set a goal of 1,000 words per week. I hit my target word count by my birthday, but needed more words to finish the story. The final draft was finished in May 2021 and was 73,000 words.
I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures in your story. I imagine it took some editing to get to the final draft. Did you edit it yourself?
I had a friend who had edited in the past, and she was gracious enough to offer to edit (in exchange for a bottle of nice gin!). It wasn’t a professional edit as such, but it did pick up a lot of things that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I also got my mum to proofread it. She has a good eye for typos.
Your book is self-published. What led you to this decision? How did you find the publishing experience?
I emailed an overview and sneak peek to every fiction publisher I could find. I told myself that if I didn’t hear back from any, it would be my sign to self-publish. When nothing came back, I committed to self-publishing in late 2022. I started running my own edits – a chapter per night – as well as researching the self-publishing process.
I hired an ex-colleague who did graphic design and realised I had a family friend who owned a printing company. Now I had all the pieces – I just had to put them together.
During this, I continued to read and edit my novel, knowing that once I had a final cover design, the only thing stopping me going to print would be any last edits. I saw a few print proofs and, once I was happy, I took a deep breath and approved the printing of my first 100 copies, then waited for delivery.
Over the years of writing, you often faced challenging circumstances. What part of the writing, editing and publishing processes did you find most difficult?
There are many challenges at each stage, but nothing compares to the sheer number of hours spent writing that first draft, specifically, the middle part.
Starting is easy – it’s a fresh idea, it’s new and exciting, you have so many ideas you want to get down on paper. But that big chunk in the middle is pure discipline. It’s setting the scene, it’s character development, it’s driving the plot, it’s balancing themes, trying to make sure it’s not boring the reader – not to mention the crushing self-doubt throughout. It’s the part where it would be easier to quit than to keep going.
What part of these processes brought you the most enjoyment?
The flow state you can fall into while writing is thrilling – it’s like laying the railway track out in front of you while you’re riding along it. Editing can be fun when you read something and think, ‘Wow, that’s actually really good … did I write that?’ And working with a designer to create the perfect cover was a lot of fun – the part where you get to collaborate with another artist!
But none of that compares to making sales and shipping out orders! I’ve come to really enjoy meeting and talking to people at local markets about my book and writing addresses of places I’ve never heard of on the packages, knowing that people around New Zealand are reading my story.
Having a book published is a highly commendable achievement. How does it feel to have accomplished this?
Thank you! It feels amazing to have accomplished this, after having said for so long to so many people that I was writing a book. A lot of times people are like, ‘Oh yeah?’ with a smirk, and you can tell they aren’t taking you seriously.
It was a personal goal for me to write a novel, so to tick that off was a huge accomplishment. Selling hundreds of copies was just icing on the cake – and probably more reflective of my marketing skills than my writing!
Do you have any advice for budding authors?
Start small. Ideas are easy and abundant. Successfully executing them is not.
Seek feedback, enter short story competitions, practise, practise, practise.
And if you ever want to write an entire novel, you need to want to do it for yourself – not for anyone else. And you need to want it really badly, because you’re the only one who can and will motivate yourself to finish it.
Can readers expect any more adventure-fuelled stories from you in the future?
Definitely – but right now, I have a three-year-old and a one-year-old, so that means very little time for writing. Any free time I do have is spent trying to relax or catching up on sleep!
But I do have an unpublished children’s picture book, an unfinished short story about the impact of AI on society, a concept for a potential sequel to Mystery Under Maungauika, and a bucket list goal to write a sci-fi novel at some point. If anyone wants to pay me an advance for any of these, please get in touch!
Where can readers buy Mystery Under Maungauika?
Purchase it online here.
