The long way round – my writing journey
It’s taken me 20 years to sign a traditional publishing deal. I’d love to shout from the rooftops about it, but as the release date isn’t for another year, I’ll have to wait a bit longer. However, I can talk about the journey I’ve had reaching this point. Mainly that it’s taken me a lot longer than I ever imagined, with lots of ups and downs.
I thought it might be helpful to share my experience with others, because I know how much endless rejection, shattered confidence and months of hard work coming to nothing can make you feel like giving up. I hope my story will inspire others to keep going, to be gentle with yourself and recalibrate your satnav to a slightly longer or bumpier ride than you may have been expecting.
• 2000-2001 (Age 28/29) Attend a very cheap and helpful evening class in creative writing, feel fired up and ready to have a crack at writing a novel. Write first full MS, Ticket To Ride, a chick-litty backpacker comedy. Receive interest from an agent at a prestigious agency. Go to meet this agent and am asked to rewrite the “sagging middle”. Yes ma’am, will do! Hooray! Just a hop, skip and a jump away from being able to give up the day job! Resubmit MS and get rejected. A couple of sniffs from a few more agents before all goes quiet.
• 2002-2003 Write second MS, Package Deal, a comedy about a bunch of Brits on holiday in Greece. Get signed by an agent. Book goes out on submission but no takers. Agent says don’t worry, go write another book, but I’m eight months’ pregnant at this point. Writing goes on hold.
• 2005-2006 Husband persuades me to self-publish Package Deal. Apparently there’s a difference between vanity-publishing and self-publishing. I’m not convinced but decide what the hell. I self-publish old-school style and use a local printer to print a few hundred copies of Package Deal (I still have most of them). Manage to get a few branches of Waterstones to stock it, plus a couple of indies in Brighton – amazing! Brighton Waterstones and City Books Brighton are supportive and help me to promote my book. Sales are humble but at least my writerly self-esteem is on the rise. Amicably part ways with agent who thinks authors should leave publishing to publishers. Give birth to second child.
• 2007-2008 Write third MS, Hot Property. Send out first three chapters along with copies of Package Deal to agents (I have many spares…). Net a new agent who is very enthusiastic. She coaches me on whipping Hot Property into shape. I write several more drafts but it never quite meets with her expectations. Eventually she shelves it and tells me to write something else.
• 2008-2010 Write fourth MS, Pearls. Agent helps to shape the outline then later rejects the MS – it doesn’t have the same “spark” as Hot Property. (I have to agree – it’s not the book I was hoping it would be.) Then she announces she’s moving abroad and there’s no one else at the agency who can represent me. I feel like the rug’s been pulled from under my feet. A very, very low point. Adrift. Back to square one. Again.
• 2011-2012 After a year or so of losing all confidence and mojo, husband persuades me to upload Package Deal, Hot Property and Pearls to Amazon KDP as ebooks – it seems more and more authors are going independent and enjoying better royalties and greater control over their work. After a month or so I receive my first royalties: £12.22! A high point! A few months later I make £800 in one month – a very high point!! Plus lots of lovely reviews (and a few shitty ones, but hey ho)! Package Deal is doing particularly well – it’s the summer and it’s a beach read, so the algorithms are liking it (at least that was the conclusion I came to later).
• 2013-2014 Write fifth MS, Blown-Away Man, and sixth MS, The Adventures of Fartella Gasratilova, (a collection of short funny stories for 5-9 year olds). I submit both to multiple agents but there’s no interest in either. Self-publishing sales continue to do well in the summer, but dwindle in the autumn. By 2015, sales seem to be on a permanent downward trajectory – summer included. I can’t get an agent and efforts to promote myself as an indie author are time-consuming and yield few results. The mother of all low points. I feel like a total failure. Why do I even want this so badly? It’s not like anyone’s forcing me to write novel after novel and experience failure after failure. This is entirely self-inflicted. I can opt out at any time. Only I can’t, so I need to find a better way to manage my expectations.
Luckily I have a new copywriting client who’s really pleased with the work I’m doing for them. It’s the one thing that keeps my confidence from crashing through the floor.
2016 Have a new idea for a novel, but this time I need to up my game. I need to write something an agent can’t refuse – a publisher can’t refuse. I need to hone my skills. I apply to a Curtis Brown Creative Writing Course. Get accepted on their online course writing fiction for children and young adults. Didn’t realise my book was YA, but whatever – I’m in! This is a new beginning. My idea is germinating but this time I’m going to nail it. The course is helpful. I have a new group of writing comrades and a bag of new writing tricks.
2017 Submit my seventh novel, The Reinvention of Rolo Rawlings, to over 40 agents. I get three full MS requests and sign with Lauren Gardner of Bell Lomax Moreton. When we meet she tells me how much she loves Rolo and I’m so grateful and relieved, I want to cry. (I don’t cry but I probably go very red and waffly.) A very, very high point. I enter Rolo into the Bath Children’s Novel Award and bugger me if I don’t make it to a shortlist of five out of over 700 entries! Complete disbelief. A stratospheric high point. I know I have finally found my voice with Rolo, my YA comedy inspired by Adrian Mole.
• 2018 I develop Rolo under Lauren’s guidance and it goes out on submission. Got a good feeling about this. But despite lots of warm-hearted praise (see previous post to read the rejections) and a few hopeful acquisition meetings, there are no takers. A low point. I’m not sure I have the strength to keep doing this. It’s too soul-destroying. But then I pull myself together. It’s not the end of the road. I need to adjust my perspective: stop craving, loosen my vice-like grip on the outcome and sit with the uncomfortable feelings. As it happens, all is not lost. A few editors are keen to see more. One asks if I’d be interested in writing a funny middle grade novel. We meet and she talks me through a gap in her MS wishlist. I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to fill that gap, but I’ll figure it out. Despite there being no guarantees (this is not a commission, just a helpful chat) I will pounce on this opportunity with both hands, feet and mouth wide open.
• 2018-2019 Write eighth novel, middle grade comedy, Clementine Florentine. The nice editor, whose briefing I based it on, rejects it. Hope trickles down the drain. More rejections come in, but then three different publishers take it to acquisitions! For one teeny tiny moment I dare to imagine there’ll be a bidding war. There isn’t. They all reject it. It’s nearly Christmas 2019. I ask Lauren if it’s game over for Clem? Not yet, she says. One publisher is keen to make an offer, but if you accept, as they’ve already filled their schedule for 2021, Clem won’t be published till late 2021 or early 2022. How do you feel about that? Er, let me think… EUPHORIC? DELIRIOUS? DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN?
• 2020 I sign my definitely-not-six-figure, one-book deal. I may not be able to give up the day job just yet, but I have – if all goes according to plan amid a global pandemic and economic crisis – just achieved my lifelong dream of signing a traditional publishing deal with a reputable publisher.
In the meantime, in between editing/critiquing other authors’ MSS, I’ve just written the first draft of my ninth novel, Lemon Armageddon (working title). Will it need more work? Definitely. Will it go out on submission? I hope so! Will it find a publisher? Who knows? If it bites the dust, then what? Then I’ll sit with those all too familiar uncomfortable feelings until I reach a place of equanimity, take some time out, and eventually return to the keyboard. Or take up gardening. (I’m not far off flipping 50 now, so you know, what made me snigger with disdain 20 years ago is now quite appealing.)
Anyway, in summary, I’d like to share a few things it’s taken me a while to realise:
1. Failure and rejections aren’t painful. Craving and aversion is.
2. Don’t sit back and wait for responses. Start hatching the next idea.
3. There’s always something new to learn.
4. Be true to yourself.
5. It’s pointless comparing your path with anyone else’s. We’re all on the path we’re supposed to be on.