This is when it stopped feeling real...

That agents liked my book was in itself a dream come true, but was no guarantee that publishers would feel the same.  Obviously I was hoping they would, but again, this was uncharted territory for me.  I'd no idea what their response would be, how long this next part would take, and whether I'd sit in another slushpile for days, weeks, months even, waiting my turn.

This is where you SO need an agent.  After the polishing, pitching your book to people who'd otherwise never see it.  Loads of these other people, as it happens - worldwide.  What followed was the most exciting, unbelievable, surreal experience.  There were offers from foreign territories before the UK - something I vaguely knew happened but hadn't even thought about.  Juliet's calls and emails with the latest updates.  Then the call that began 'Are you sitting down...'

I was so lucky - not a day goes by that I don't think that.  What could have been the most nerve-racking wait of my life happened at lightning speed and despite the best efforts of the taxi driver who was determined to leave me at the wrong end of London that morning, my book has found a wonderful publisher.  It's a cliché, but this is the dream I've held on to, from when I first started reading those fantastic stories about writers who wrote a book and found an agent and got published, just like that.

And it's taken a few years but now, it's happened to me, too:

http://thebookseller.com/news/pan-mac-wins-auction-howells-thriller.html

               

For me, the next chapter is just starting.  There's editing, the next book to write and wonderful people to work with, but amazing though it seems, it is happening.  I will forever keep the emails that flew between Juliet and myself over those completely mad weeks, just to remind myself - it's real!
But my point is this.  Those dream-come-true stories you find online sometimes, aren't made up.  Publishing is full of people who want to find books they feel passionate about - I know this because I've met a few of them.  And okay, for most of us, it doesn't happen overnight.  As an unpublished writer faced with rejections, sometimes it's hard, really hard, to keep the faith.  But the best things are so worth waiting for - if you keep writing and keep believing, you never know, one day, it might happen to you...

On editing...

 

Writing is an endurance test - of the love in your life.  Not just how much you love writing, because it's hard, time-consuming work, but how much your family really love you, when you spend more time in the world you've dreamed up than in the one you share with them.  Guilt levels rising stratospherically higher than the usual sky-high level that every parent knows, when someone says Mum, you've asked me that loads of times or I already told you, you never listen and I don't have any pants.  For the record, I do listen.  Just, when I'm writing, there's far too much stuff in my head.

 

 



 

The first month of this year has been spent editing - properly, with Juliet's brilliant insight - polishing, tightening, deleting what wasn't needed (less really is so often more) and rewriting where the pace needed work.  It's hard when you work back and forth through something, so many times that your brain feels like spaghetti, and that even you, who wrote it in the first place, can't remember what happens where.  I now fully understand what it means to lose the plot, because there were times I came close to losing mine.  Different things helped at this stage - Pinterest, because some parts of the book are very visual - and I put a soundtrack together that fitted the story without overly distracting me, both of which I'll use much earlier with my next book.  And if all else fails, a day away from it too, can work wonders.


I'd no idea what to expect, because it was the first time I'd had any proper, editorial input.  Many people have taken time to review my self-published books and yes, I always read what they write, know I'm not supposed to, but can't help it.  The really lovely ones give me a warm fuzzy feeling and yes, the scathing ones make me question my sanity and remind me how subjective all this is.  But I'm aware that my books could be better, which means listening to people who know.

 

If I'm honest, I wondered how I'd feel about someone highlighting weaknesses or suggesting changes, but I knew also,  that someone else would see things I couldn't.  And it's wonderful working with someone who loves my book.  Someone who answers emails practically as soon as I send them.  As well as that, Juliet found the gremlins that I'd kind of buried away and tried to forget about, while making other suggestions that made it a better book.

 

Immersed in editing, family (and dogs, cats etc) neglected, house untidy, washing piling up, larder bare, I found out too, that sleepless nights don't go away.  One night I woke up, actually in a panic, thinking what if there's a fire!! (Yes, I know) Only I'd forgotten to email my latest edits to myself - a new habit I try to keep to - every night, emailing the latest updated edit.doc. in case of fires or acts of God or computers crashing, because how awful would that be.  So there I was, lying in the dark, cat curled up next to me, thinking obsessively about my manuscript, yet again.

I discovered also, that the insecurities don't go away, getting that familiar churning feeling as I pressed send, winging the latest edits off to Juliet.  What if she didn't like them?

But luckily she did and in the end, we got there quite quickly.  And at the end of January, the latest tweaks done, that very same afternoon I sent it to Juliet, my manuscript was on it's way to publishers.

And then it got even more AMAZING...