FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FALSE STARTS AND REJECTIONS

There have been quite a few - you might need a cup of tea for this…

My first formal attempt came in 2004. While my daughter was at nursery and my newborn son slept, I wrote 40,000 words of a novel and, not realising you were meant to wait until you had a completed manuscript, sent it off to a few literary agents. One of whom invited me in to discuss it. We sat in her gorgeous office overlooking Soho Square and, along with her assistant (Nb. the assistant later becomes a main character in all this), talked about books and writing and I felt like I’d opened the door on a life a million miles away from my own, which at that time involved holding small hands and changing nappies. She said I should write the rest and then come back. I floated out of her office, but for whatever reason, let myself become sidetracked by life. And didn’t write another word. Every now and then, I’d question how I’d let that happen, whilst also being aware that it just hadn’t felt like the right time. But still, it left me with an uncomfortable sense of being someone who didn't finish things…

In the years that followed, I focused on sewing and, through that, was invited to write various non-fiction books - on dressmaking or stitching handmade gifts - although none of these proposals felt quite right. I wanted to write a book, but it had to be the right book. In retrospect, my instincts were good, although I remember feeling that if someone were to write a report card, it would read: Shows promise, but fails to progress. So it was a relief when, in 2016, I received an email from an American publisher suggesting I write a book about English paper piecing, a traditional method of hand-sewing I’d come to love. Although their brief didn’t quite fit with my own vision, when I suggested an alternative book - one that also focused on the history and psychology around why this kind of handwork is so engaging - they were receptive. Over the following eight months, I interviewed fascinating people, read interesting books, and as I climbed the stairs to my attic to another day of researching and writing, I felt elated, not quite believing it could be my life. When I finally turned in that manuscript, I was delighted. Not just because I was happy with it, but because my internal narrative had shifted: finally, I was someone who had finished something. 

But it felt more like leaping onto the next stepping stone, than safely reaching the other side. Because in my heart, I knew the thing I really wanted to do was write a novel. So when a friend suggested we go to an evening class in creative writing at the local Adult Education Centre, I was enthusiastic. I started and later completed my first full-length novel. Although that novel found an agent soon after sending it off…sadly, it never found a publisher. Each rejection came with a similar message: they liked the writing and characters…but it lacked a hook to sell it into bookshops with. As the year drew to a close, I found myself buying a Christmas tree bauble to commemorate my grandmother who’d passed away in the spring, and also one for my characters, who I knew by then wouldn’t get to meet the real world. I was devastated on all fronts. 

The new year crept in and so too, did Covid-19. Like many, I sank into an odd kind of stasis. One that lasted well beyond any lockdowns. I still wanted to write a novel, but felt too wounded to find the courage to begin again. 

- CAN YOU SKIP TO THE GOOD PART?

Okay. Near the close of 2021, a local writer and poet I admired said she had some openings for mentoring. And without stopping to question if ‘mentoring’ sounded like I might be taking my writing a little too seriously (yes), or if I could really justify the expense (no), I wrote and asked if she might have a space for me. Not so much because I believed in myself, but because I believed in her. She’s a special sort of person. 

After our first session, I dove straight into writing a new novel (yes, she’s that good). And it was…awful (my fault, not hers). But I think it’s testament to having found the right counsel if when they give their not-entirely-positive opinion, you’re inspired, rather than crushed. So I let that idea go, and took out another that had actually been floating around in my head since 2017. It was an idea that, when I’d discussed it with others, no one felt had legs, but uncharacteristically, I was drawn to go with my gut. 

When I shared the prologue and first chapter with my mentor (and yes, I still feel like I’m taking myself too seriously when I use that word), she loved it. In a surprising and whole-hearted sort of way. And she immediately suggested I speak to a contact of hers who had experience relevant to my subject matter. Her belief - that my writing was something worthy of asking for time from someone with a busy life and arguably more important things to be doing - felt quite shocking. But it also propelled me to keep writing. 

In the six months that followed, if I hit a plot hole or couldn’t quite work out what to do with a character, I went on a long walk with my husband and our dog and we’d talk it through until it became clear. I gave him each chapter to read as I wrote it, and then rewrote it depending on his feedback. And finally, when the manuscript was finished, I showed it to my mentor, who read it while on holiday in Paris. And then to my sister, who happens to work as an editor (and unofficially, as a beloved and always-brilliant sisterly life-compass). And on the basis of my sister’s feedback, I rewrote much of the second half of my novel when she pointed out I’d slipped into the fatal tell rather than show…And then, finally, I sent it off to agents. 

- DID THINGS WORK OUT BETTER THIS TIME?

Yes! In the end, I ended up with offers of representation from several agents (although no one tells you this will feel like both a good and a bad thing; that they will all be lovely and you will feel heartbroken when you have to pick just one). In the end, I went with the agent whose editorial feedback most resonated and who also happened to have been the assistant in the meeting 19 years earlier, when I’d sent off that first half-finished manuscript. There was something lovely in having come full circle and met again, both now at very different points in our lives (to avoid leaving her nameless at this point, my agent is Karolina Sutton, whom I adore). 

The agents I’d met with had seemed relatively confident my novel would sell. A few had even assured me of this in quite a big-statement sort of way, staking metaphorical hats on it, which felt both exciting and alarming. Alarming, because after my previous rejection, hope felt like a dangerous thing. But in the end, thirteen UK publishers put in offers and in the fortnight that followed, I met with many of them prior to the next round of bids, doing the same over Zoom with publishers in the US. It was a whirlwind, magical, someone-else’s-life sort of experience. And one that, again, had an odd synchronicity around it (within five minutes of my son and husband texting to say they’d boarded the plane for Italy, where my son was moving to study for three years, I received an email to say the translation rights to my novel had sold there. And what in one moment had felt like a door closing, in the next, felt like one being held open). 

- IS THERE A MORAL TO THIS STORY?

Yes. It’s that I’m now almost relieved my earlier novels either didn’t get finished or find a home. Whatever happens, and however this novel is received when it’s finally published, for now, I feel in exactly the right place, at the right time. I never imagined saying this, because I so wholeheartedly loved the characters who now live in a drawer. But life is strange. So if you’re a writer nursing similar rejections, or one holding quiet hope in your heart: truly, the seemingly impossible really can happen.