With a background in nursing and a love of literature, author Nicki Edwards has vast inspiration for her unique series on romance between medical professionals in the bush. Now she tells her own story to ELISSA FRIDAY.
Pictures: Louisa Jones
Had you always wanted to become an author?
Good question. I think, like most people growing up, you have a list of things you want to do. It went from wanting to be a policewoman to wanting to be a journalist to ‘I want to do nursing’.
At school I enjoyed writing but never thought about a career in it, other than perhaps journalism that I toyed with a little bit.
I woke up one day and thought, ’I’d like to write a book’ and thought, ’What’s stopping me?’
I don’t have a bucket list of things I’m ticking off, I just thought I’d like to write a book and that’s how it came about.
I had no idea where to start. I read a lot and had loved reading Australian rural romances, so I thought maybe I’d try writing one.
When did you first start writing?
In January 2014 and my first book was published in January 2015. Jokingly I said, ’I’m going to write a book and have it published in 12 months’. It was a 12 month turn-around from first writing it to being published.
As soon as I finished the first one I started working on the next, so by the time they’d published my first book I was already straight onto the second one. The first few came out quickly, one after the other.
How did you come up with your first book idea?
My first idea became the book that was published. I knew I wanted to write something that included medical themes – I’m a nurse. Somebody once said to me, ’Write what you know and write what you love’, so I thought to myself, ’I know nursing, I’m a nurse, I like romance, and I love happily-ever-after endings and the sweet story of boy-meets-girl-lives-happily-ever-after’.
I like that chic-flick, rom-com without anything being too dramatic or too suspenseful or too sexy, so I thought, ’Yes, that’s what I’ll write’. My story started essentially with the main character being a nurse and it just evolved from there.
Is the main character in your first book anything like yourself?
No, ha-ha, and people say that all the time. I don’t think she is. When I first said I was writing a book some of my work colleagues, whom I don’t think realised I was writing fiction, had to have it explained to them that the main character, Kate, is not me.
A lot of the scenarios my main characters go through in the story are real-life stories that have happened to me as a nurse and that’s where I get my inspirations. But I’m definitely not my main characters.
Prior to writing books was there anything else you had a passion to do?
I’m very project-driven – I put the blinkers on and just say, ’Here’s the next project and this is what I’m going to work on’.
When my youngest started school 10 years ago I decided I wanted to be a nurse, so that became my project. For the next few years I studied and then did post-graduate study.
For a while it was, ’I’m going to train for a half marathon and that’s my project, I’m going to write a book and that’s my project’. Right now we’re renovating a house and that’s my project.
Sometimes they’re big projects and sometimes they’re short.
Tell us about your calling to become a nurse?
When I was in Year 10 or 11 at school I always thought nursing would potentially be a good career pathway and one I’d like. My auntie, who I’m very close to, is a nurse and her auntie was a nurse, so nursing flows through the family blood.
It wasn’t until my eldest started school that my husband Tim said I had always talked about being a nurse so why don’t I do it.
I questioned if I was I too to be a mature-age student. I feel that nursing is my calling and this is what I’m supposed to do.
I don’t regret that I didn’t begin earlier because I’ve done so many other things. I know that I’m in a career that I love.
Writing, in a sense, is a hobby that I also love but I don’t foresee myself giving up my career, my calling, as a nurse to write.
If writing or nursing ceased to be fulfilling I’d say, ’OK, what am I going to do next?’
Life is too short to be doing something you don’t want to do.
Where do you work as a nurse?
Mostly at the new Epworth hospital in intensive care but I also work at St John of God in the emergency department, so I go from acute, really unwell patients to the unknown in emergency, which I kind of love.
Probably most of my stories do come from the random things you see in ED. I remember saying to someone one day that no-one would believe some of the things we see as nurses and I’m going to write about it. People say that truth’s stranger than fiction and that really is the case.
What’s your preference: writing or typing?
Definitely on the computer. My kids laugh because I go through so many keyboards – I really bash away at them.
I worked as a legal secretary for years, so I can type at a million miles an hour, ha-ha.
I work full-time and have four kids, so life is really busy and I have to fit in writing wherever I can.
If I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t sleep, I’ll just get up and start writing. I’ve even typed on night duty in my breaks, whatever I could.
Tell us about your kids
Our children are Jeremy, who’s nearly 22, Chloe is nearly 20, Zach is nearly 18 and Toby’s nearly 16.
Chloe’s studying performing arts – she’s a very creative person. She’s read all my books, loves them and she writes very well but whether she will choose to write I don’t know.
My eldest is studying education and is also very creative, always has ideas, like saying he’d like to write a movie.
My next son is a photographer and again super creative.
Our youngest has the sporting gene – he’s a brilliant sportsperson.
We also have the best border-collie in the world – she’s amazing and the kids are trying to talk us in to getting a second one.
We also have a Burmese cat that rules the world.
I hope that, as a mum, I show my kids anything is possible. Going back to university as a mature-age student and writing a book – I’m just trying to say to my kids that if you have a dream, go for it.
Where did you grow up?
At Mt Duneed, on a few acres, and always had horses. Tim is from Newtown, Geelong, we live at Highton now.
Horses were my main passion all through school and I was riding from around age seven or eight. I also rowed at school, which I really enjoyed.
I’m not a ball-sport person – my hand-eye co-ordination is terrible. I can’t throw, catch, pitch or kicks. I was never a particularly athletic person, so it was funny years later after I’d had all my kids when I said, ’I think I’ll try a half marathon’. Everyone questioned what I was doing, saying I’d only ever ran as a far as the gate.
What about your own romance?
Tim and I have been together since we were 17. We have a strong marriage. I’m not advocating that marriage is right for everyone but I think that something deep within every person yearns for love, however it looks.
I like my characters to fall in love, get married and have babies but I understand that’s not everybody’s idea of love.
My husband is my romantic hero. He’s read all my books and thinks I’ve modelled some of the characters on him, the characters that aren’t very well-liked, so I have to keep convincing him they’re not him.
Are you ever inspired to write stories based on things you hear through the grapevine?
Yes, definitely, things I see or read or hear. For my book The Peppercorn Project I vaguely remember hearing this idea of country towns that were dying and for $1 a week you could rent an old farmhouse and they were given to people who needed to get back onto their feet. That resonated with me – I thought, ’That’s cool but, instead of people going to the country town to help the county town, what if the country town offered $1 a week to help people that were struggling?’
What about you would surprise people?
A lot of people don’t know that my husband and I pastored a church. We ran a church for 10 years until about 2011 and he was the senior minister, so every Sunday morning I’d lead the singer, give the message or preach. I was a stay-at-home mum but would help while he was pastoring.
I did my nursing studies and he went and did school chaplaincy. Life changes in an instant and it wouldn’t surprise me if one day we were back pastoring a church again.
At the moment Tim’s working as a school chaplain at Geelong College. I’m embracing being introverted because for so many years I’ve put myself out there, having a public role alongside my husband.
What’s your favourite genre to read?
I love the whole rural romance, the medical romance.
I tend to enjoy reading women’s fiction. I love reading anything from Liane Moriarty to Jodi Picoult. I enjoy reading real life stories about real life people and what they journey through.
Everything I write is a blended mix of scenarios that I have experienced being a nurse. My brand is small-country-town romantic elements with medical scenes and dramas, that sort of thing.
My new book is Critical Condition. Operation Mistletoe Magic, a novella, comes out in November as an E-book only.
