I like to walk. I walk every day, through choice as much as necessity (we are a one car family) and, unless it’s really raining, I enjoy the fresh air and exercise. I have a walk to school that I do with the gorgeous girl – we play word games and look at the world around us, watching snails sliding along brick walls, flowers blooming and changing, cats and dogs and birds and butterflies. It’s a lovely part of my day and I feel very fortunate to be able to do it. And on the way back, when I’m alone, I relish the opportunity to let my thoughts out to play. I’m exercising my body but also my mind – it’s amazing how many key plot twists or character conundrums I’ve been able to solve simply by walking along, not thinking necessarily hard about the idea, but just letting it flow with my steps. There is a type of meditative walking you can do, where you tie your breathing to the steps so that you are present in the moment – I haven’t tried it, mainly because I’m worried I’ll drift into the road or something, but I like to think that what I do sometimes is similar.

So as a writer, walking is very good for me. I recently wrote a short story inspired by an unusual outside light I noticed on one of my walks, and much of the woodland feel of my first two Ambeth Chronicles comes from walking through forested lanes as the seasons changed around me. It’s also good if you’re feeling a bit low. Sometimes I wonder why I’m doing this, especially if a rejection comes through, but then I walk and remember I write for the joy of writing itself, of telling these marvellous stories that keep appearing in my mind.

You could argue that working from home as I do gives me more opportunity to walk but it’s something I’ve always done. When I worked full time in an office I always incorporated a walk into my day, whether to or from work (when I could) or, if I was too far from home, using my lunch hour (or half hour) to get out and explore the neighbourhood, take my mind away from the computer screen for a little while.

And that’s another point. When I say walking, I don’t mean wandering along scrolling through Facebook or checking emails or satellite positions or whatever it is those people are doing (you know the people I mean). The ones who walk along holding their phone out in front of them as though it’s some sort of guidance system, leading them to where they need to go. Sure, sometimes I might stop and check for an email if I’m expecting something, but for the most part when I’m walking I’m more interested in what I can see around me, the people I am with and the ideas in my head. I carry a notepad and pen to jot things down, and then I just let things happen.

So if you’re stuck in the plot, or just need to clear your headspace, go outside and walk it out.

PS For those of you who were having trouble following this blog, I’ve looked into the process and apparently the confusion has been with the fact that sometimes you are directed to a sign up page for Word Press. You don’t have to sign up to follow the blog – simply click on the grey “Follow’ button at the lower right of the blog page, confirm your email address and that should be it! But please do let me know if you’re still having trouble. Thanks so much xx

This is an extra post this week just to say thank you. I launched my little blog only six weeks ago as a place to share my thoughts about writing and all that I’ve learned and am still learning about the process. Well, I’m at nearly six hundred views from countries all around the world and I am thrilled! In the huge world of the internet, 600 views may seem a small thing but to me it is a very big deal – 600 times that someone was interested enough to click on my words and read them. So whether you are family, friends or just dropped by to visit, thank you so much! I hope you continue to read along with me on my journey to Ambeth.

Also, a couple of little updates – a few people have mentioned they are having trouble following the blog – I am going to see if I can attach a widget to make it easier for you. And, I’ve had an agent ask for the full manuscript of my book, so I am waiting waiting waiting, sitting on my hands trying not to email them and see what they think! It is very exciting and, whether they choose to proceed with it or no, I am thrilled to have made it this far.

Updates to come and my regular post on Thursday as well. Happy days to you all! xx

In my previous post I mentioned my beta readers, the wonderful group of people who agreed to read my unpublished book and offer their opinions. As a writer you work alone – the ability to enjoy your own company is a prerequisite for the job but, unless you are writing solely for your own pleasure, there comes a time when you have to show that work to other people. I mean, that’s why you’re writing after all, isn’t it? Yet somehow, certainly for me, it is a difficult thing to give up your precious words to someone else. When you’re writing about love or anger or s-e-x, you are drawing on the deeper emotional parts of yourself – to then share these things with others is a curiously intimate process which is why I liken it to being naked on the train.

Yet you have to. You have to do this. I attended a seminar some time ago with several literary agents and one of them made this point very clearly. You have to get used to other people seeing your work. So you have to stamp down that little voice that says it’s not ready, it’s not good enough, no-one will like it. And you will, hopefully, be surprised.

So I sucked up my courage and sent my book to friends and family to read, just a couple of people at first, then a few more. I ended up sharing it with a fairly disparate group of people in several countries, ages ranging from 15 to 65, all with different backgrounds and ideas. I had a couple of people whom I knew would tell me straight away if it was crap, whereas another friend read it critically, looking at the language to check for repetition. Yet others were looking at spelling, or for holes in the plot. The teen readers were valuable as my main character is 15 years old – I do remember being 15 but it was a long time ago in a different world, so I needed to know whether my character still rang true. A couple more readers were fellow writers – one of them stoically read his way through the monster that was my first edit, all 160,000 words and gave me thoughtful and measured feedback all the way through. The other, bless her heart, read the first three chapters and said ‘Do you really need these?’ Light bulb moment! I did not, or at least I could condense most of them into just a few pages and so I have a much stronger book thanks to her honesty and fresh viewpoint.

The point I am trying (hoping) to make is that while we write alone, we do not work alone. And thought it may feel as though you are stripping your soul bare, you need to step back from those words, from the story that for so long has been just the two of you in a quiet room. Release it into the world, let people see it, let them in. And don’t worry about being naked on the train – that feeling will pass as your confidence grows. All my readers so far, despite their many and varied viewpoints, have enjoyed my book, and that is giving me the impetus to press on, to keep working towards publication. It’s also given me the courage to start this blog, and thus hopefully reach an even larger audience – clicks to date have come from Australia, Canada, the US, the UK and even Brazil (commiserations, football loving friends). So thank you, thanks to everyone who is reading my words – I really do appreciate it.

Rejection is part of every writer’s life – hell, it’s part of everyone’s life. Whether it’s a job you desperately wanted, a lover who turns away or a friend who shuts you out, rejection is part of the human experience. Not a terribly nice part, but somehow necessary, I suppose, for building character and resilience and appreciation when all is well. For me, rejection has been a spur. A nasty, painful spur, but one that is forcing me to be a better writer. To consider each word I put to page, to see if there is a better way, a different way, a more intelligent way I can communicate the story I’m trying to tell.

When it comes to writing I don’t think there are many who have never had their work knocked back at least once and that includes several very well known best sellers. Any sort of creative endeavour is subjective by its very nature. But what to do with those letters, those polite, encouraging yet ultimately disheartening letters with their thirty three ways of saying ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ You could put them on a spike (a la Stephen King), or perhaps use them to paper your office (not there yet, but who knows). I’ve even heard rejection letters being spoken of as some sort of badge of honour, as though being told you are not good enough, not yet, is part of the process of becoming a ‘real’ writer, rather than simply the act of writing itself. I have chosen simply to file them away and, for those who send me a personalised email, to write back and thank them for their time. There is nothing to be lost in being polite.

As mentioned in a previous post, I sent my book out last year to a handful of agents and was resoundingly knocked back. So I took a step away from the work, mostly because I had to, came back to it with some substantial rewrites and now I feel I have a much better product. So these new rejections, though there have only been a couple so far, hurt a little more. My daughter watches a show, some sort of teen fluff, and one of the plots involved a guy ‘buying’ three of his female classmates at a fundraising auction (don’t ask), then ordering them to follow him around, cheerleading all his accomplishments. Well, of course it backfired, with the girls humiliating him at every turn, including when he got turned down for a date. ‘Rejected, rejected, R-E-J-E-C-T-E-D, you just got rejected!’

So even though my beta readers all love the book, even though other writers have commended it, I can’t stop that silly song running through my head when another letter or email comes through. Fingers crossed I get a different response soon, one that has me singing a happy song.

In my previous post I mentioned that I’d submitted my book to a handful of agents last year with no luck. I can still remember, I think it was July of last year, finishing my first book. It was as though the torrent of words that had been pouring out of me slowed to a trickle, then stopped, the characters letting me know that, for the moment, their stories were done. ‘Awesome,’ I thought. ‘I shall polish this a bit, do an edit, then send it out! Off we go! I shall have an agent by October (sorry, I still laugh when I write that) and all will be well.’

Ha. Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t go too well. I was not ready. Not at all. My fossil was clear of the ground, that was true. But plenty of dust remained in the crevices, waiting to be removed, small details needing to emerge, larger chunks of dried earth that I’d mistaken as necessary to the whole needing to be removed so the true structure of the piece could be revealed. A whole world of research was needed, not to mention just not looking at the thing for a while. Blissfully unaware I sent it out into the big bad publishing world, and then the rejections started to arrive. Some were personalised, which I took as a good sign. One commented on my talent as a writer, the fact that it was a great idea and that I wrote with energy and imagination. Still ‘it was not right for them.’

At the time we were in the midst of moving house and so, though the rejections stung, I had a lot of other things I needed to focus on. So I put my manuscript to one side for a couple of months. Then another rejection email arrived, a straggler from that first group of agents, and I had a mild freak out. ‘My book is crap! It’s too long (it was, possibly, kinda long). The story sucks!’ I emailed a dear friend and fellow writer who had been with me on this journey from the start and he talked me down from the ledge (thank you), and my husband kept reassuring me that writing the book was accomplishment enough. But it wasn’t enough – I wanted to be published! So I sat down and took a deep breath and pulled my book out from where it had been languishing in a drawer. And, revelation! The time away meant I could see my work with fresh eyes, able to weed out all the repetitive phrases, the bits where I was telling, not showing, and basically tighten the whole thing up until I had something I was really happy with. Luckily, the story still held up, the characters speaking as true as ever – it was the language that was the problem.

So the lesson for me was that I needed to let go. Perhaps, as writers, it is what we all need to do at times. Put our work away, hide it, go outside, ignore the rattle from the drawer as it calls to us, demanding to be tweaked and reworked. Let it grow fainter until it’s gone altogether, and then we can take it out of the drawer and hopefully find we can read it with a fresh perspective. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, that good things come to those who wait, and I’m sure countless other phrases about hard work and patience being required when you are building something worthwhile. And I believe when it comes to writing that they, whoever they are, might be right.

So, as you may be aware, I’ve written some books. And now I’m trying to get them published, submitting to agents in the hope that someone might be interested. But I’ll tell you a little secret – this isn’t the first time I’ve sent them out. Last year, fresh from finishing the first Ambeth instalment, I sent it out with the best intentions and got, well, nowhere. I wasn’t ready. (But that’s another blog post.) However, what I learnt was that I needed to do some research, really take things on board if I was serious about being published and believe me, I’m very serious about being published. So I went online, joined a writing forum, read as much as I could, attended a seminar and gave my book to several more people to read. And I learnt a lot, both about the type of book I was writing and also how to submit to agents. So I thought I’d share it with you.

The Art of the Submission

1. Stick to the guidelines. Now, this may seem pretty basic stuff, but it is so important to give an agent exactly what they specify in their submission guidelines. Usually they ask for a synopsis (try to keep it to one page or less), a cover letter, and the first 50 pages or three chapters of your work. Don’t send extra because you think they might like it, don’t write a synopsis that’s longer than your first chapter and make sure you format the document exactly as requested. Double space or one and a half space is standard. Don’t give them any reason to dismiss your submission before looking at it.
2. Presentation. Check your spelling, check your grammar, check your line spacing and paragraphs, then check them again. Number the pages on your manuscript and add your name and book title as a header or footer – that way if pages get misplaced or mixed up they can be put back in the right place. And no sparkly bows or complex folders or novelty paper clips – this is a professional document and should be presented as such if you want to be taken seriously.
3. Sell yourself. This is very important. Your cover letter should give the agent some idea of your writing experience, summarise your book and position it in the market. It should also be concise and the tone professional. You probably won’t get too far with ‘Well, I showed it to my mum and she seemed to like it, so I thought I’d send it to you.’ Though at the same time, you also should probably also avoid being all ‘Hey b*tches, I’ve just written the next Harry Potter! Bow down and let the bidding war begin!’
4. Research your agents. Don’t adopt a shotgun approach and send your work to all and sundry. It’s a waste of time for you and everyone else. Instead look for agents who represent work in your genre, maybe read some of the authors on their list (a visit to the local library is the best way to do this) and target your cover letter individually for each agent, rather than doing the old cut and paste. A visit to most literary agency websites will give you an idea of the best person to whom to direct your submission, or a quick phone call can also be helpful.
5. Make sure your work is ready. Don’t submit if you haven’t finished your work. Imagine if an agent calls you, wanting the full manuscript and all you can say is ‘it’s not done.’ Believe me, they will move onto the next thing. The exception would be certain types of non-fiction books whereby you submit a proposal before starting the work.
6. Do not harass. Most agents will state on their websites that a certain period of time is needed to look at your work. When you consider that they receive up to fifty submissions per week on top of managing their existing clients, you can see that ringing them up every day to see if they’ve read your work is not the best way to stand out. Observe the waiting period – most will get back to you, some won’t, but all you can do it wait. Learn to meditate, start a hobby, write a blog (ha!) or mark the days with a big ‘x’ on your calendar.

So there it is. All that I’ve learnt so far about the submission process. It probably isn’t everything you need to know, but I hope it helps, and remember, there are exceptions to every rule. Please feel free to add tips in the comments.

It’s a strange thing, to dream a person to life. Yet that is what a writer does, creates characters to walk the pages of their book, talking and breathing and thinking and doing. I’ve had to come up with quite a few people for Ambeth, and the interesting and slightly eerie thing is that they seem to have taken on a life of their own. Oh, not in some sort of horror movie way, where I wake in the dead of night to find their hands on my neck (though that is an idea for a story, isn’t it?) No, it is a far gentler thing, in that they speak through me, letting me know what is right and what is wrong for them, who they are with, who they are interested in, how they relate to other people on the page.

When I started to write about Ambeth I had three characters, the main protagonist and two others. I also had a situation, an idea of how they would combine and then implode, a single event that would change everything. As the story grew around them, more characters joining the cast, this single event did not change – in fact, it became even more pivotal, a jumping off point for much of what was to happen in subsequent stories. So I couldn’t change it; no matter how I looked at it, there was no other way. But the character who precipitated the event did change. He started off life arrogant and not so nice, someone who thought only of himself and his own needs. That was fine, I thought, that was what I needed him to be. But then he started to become nicer, gentler, more loving. It was as if he were speaking to me, saying ‘I’m not such a bad guy.’ And, looking at it now I can see that this was absolutely true, that he is so much more than the one dimensional villain I dreamed up initially. But what was I to do about the ‘very bad thing’ he needed to do, the point on which the story turned? What was his motivation? A wise friend once said to me, ‘go to sleep on a question, wake with the answer.’ So that’s what I did. I commended my plot problem to the gods of storytelling and went to sleep. I woke the next morning and, I remember it so clearly, I was standing in the shower and there it was. The answer. The reason for everything.

So the lesson for me was, as a writer, once you dream your characters onto the stage of your story, stand back a little and let them tell the tale. They will guide you as to what is right.

‘But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master–something that at times strangely wills and works for itself.’  Charlotte Bronte

Where do ideas come from? Ambeth was inspired, as I’ve said before, by something that happened to me when I was a child. But it has grown and evolved, the characters telling me things and taking me down paths I didn’t realise were there and I’ve learnt to sit back and let them tell the story, my fingers mere conduits on the keyboard for what they wish to say. I’ve a few other ideas floating around – a house full of leaks, a glimpse of something in the Thames, a porcelain cap for my tooth, a dead woman – they are all jumping off points for other stories that are still percolating in my brain, waiting to come out.

I’ve heard the feeling of finishing a story being described as ‘entering open water’ – heading out to sea. But for me the analogy that rang true immediately came from the great Stephen King. He described finding a story as ‘unearthing a fossil,’ and as soon as I read those words I could see mine. Can still see them, poking out from the forest floor, delicate carapaces of bone or polished wood, it’s hard to tell as I unearth even more of them. One is almost clear of the ground, the story complete, just a bit of polishing required. The others are still offering up new discoveries, new aspects every time I look at them, whether it is a change of only a few words or a whole new idea. But the important thing is that I keep looking at them, keep exploring the angles, the nooks and crevices, until the job is done, the story told.

Perhaps it is something to do with the way a writer’s brain works. That we can take a single small event, or notice something strange while out for a walk and spin from them a story. Ideas are everywhere, if you care to look for them.

Writing on a daily basis means that I think a lot about words and how to use them. Words inspire and infuriate me, lurking like silvery small fish in a tangle of dark water weed, there one moment then slipping out of my hand just as I think I have them, sliding from the page. There are words I love, like delicate, ethereal, winsome, piquant, and others that I love to use because they are fun to write, collywobbles, rotund, bellow, doodle. There are also words I try to avoid, all that management double speak, like ‘at the end of the day’, or the phrase ‘nom nom nom’, which seems to be replacing ‘yum yum’ and drives me into an unreasoning rage whenever I have to read it. And ‘collateral damage,’ a nasty little milquetoast term that refers to destruction and the death of innocents as though it is some sort of excuse, that it can’t be avoided, the shrug implicit in the phrasing.

Words are slippery, twisty, tricky – how often have you sat there thinking ‘what is that word? How can I describe it?’ As a writer, you have to be able to call up words when you need them, to take that picture in your mind and put it on the page in a way that someone you never met can see the same picture, or at least understand the idea. It’s bloody hard and if I can do it only once in a while then I consider that to be a good thing.

So how about you? Are there words you love, words that make you laugh or that you hate with a passion? I would love to know…