Dame Devon started us off here with her Path to Publication and, as you know (Bob), the Deadline Dames are spending two weeks talking about how we got started, where our paths took us (for me, for a long time, that was nowhere), and where we are now. I’ve loved seeing the full story behind how my fellow Dames first got published. We’re all so different – and yet, not so different. We’ve each been completely determined to really do this crazy thing. No two writers have the same road to publication, so here comes another one. This is my story:

How a completely ordinary Brit Chick got published in the US
(An illustrated account)

I always, always wanted to write. To be transformed into this mythical beast known as: A Writer. Whatever the hell that meant to me as a kid. I just knew that all those wonderful books I was reading had to have been written by someone! And if they could do it… why not me? (Please understand, I was only about seven years old at the time. *G*)

My brother and I would write and illustrate our own comic books. (I can’t draw, by the way. At all.) We also wrote and performed plays for our long-suffering parents. One of my favorite memories is of the vampire story we created (honestly, this explains a lot about me). This involved a working script – that we were adding to right up until ‘performance’ time – and a half-baked story about a woman who is walking down a deserted road at night when she gets bitten by a vampire bat. There was no explanation for the bat’s vampiric bite, only that it immediately turned the hapless victim (played by me!) into a vampire. We used actual stage ‘props’, one of which was something like this:

We used my mum’s green eyeshadow to cover my face and make me look suitably ghoulish; I had a black cloak, wild hair as I sat rocking in a chair, and two ice lolly sticks held in the shape of a cross were enough to scare me away.

Clearly, I was allowed to watch things like the Salem’s Lot TV miniseries waaay too young.

But I digress… I wrote on and off through my entire childhood. I wrote a little in my teens, but by the time I hit 17 (the age most of my characters – so far – seem to be), I was more interested in living life than writing about it.

Once I hit my twenties, though, I was ready to return to writing. I wrote vaguely literary short stories (usually with a science fictional or dystopian twist) and even started submitting my work. By my mid-twenties I was getting shortlisted in competitions; receiving positive feedback from wonderful authors; and coming close to publication in magazines I subscribed to and admired. But, for me at the time, coming ‘close’ wasn’t good enough.

I wanted more. Only… I didn’t have the endurance to keep going.

I regret that now, though there’s also the possibility that I needed to give up in order to come back to writing better and stronger in my thirties.

I gave up all fiction writing for five years – throughout my late 20s and early 30s. However… I did read a lot during that time. Those five years were filled with so many books and – even more importantly, I believe – books of all genres. I read ridiculously widely. When I was going through some Bad Stuff in Real Life, I continued to read and read and read.

And then I was ill for a few months one summer, and discovered these books (I’m using the original UK covers which are no longer available, because they’re still the best!):

The Anita Blake series blew me away when they were first released in the UK: I couldn’t get enough of them and was waiting anxiously for the back-to-back releases of those early volumes. Of course, combined with the BBC showing the first series of this:

…I was a lost cause. I remembered how much I LOVED this stuff, from way back in childhood, and I decided there and then that if I ever did return to writing it would be in the genre that truly inspired me.

Fast forward a few years, and I was driving my partner-at-the-time crazy moaning about how I hadn’t ever tried hard enough to achieve my dreams of being a writer. A published author. After this had gone on for way too long, he marched me down to the nearest Starbucks and told me not to bother coming back home until I’d written for 2 hours. (He confiscated my reading book and only left me with a notebook and pen – meanie! LOL) This was January 2007, and from that moment on something inside me just… clicked. I was 33 years old and I gave myself 5 years to have my first book on the shelves.

In February 2011 my first book will be published by Llewellyn/Flux in the US and Random House Children’s Books in the UK and Australia/New Zealand. I made it with a year to spare, and I wouldn’t have done it without the support of so many people – including the other eight ladies I’m honoured to share this blog with. In the meantime, I’ve had a couple of stories published in YA paranormal anthologies, the first of which was – appropriately – a book devoted to vampires:

I’d come home.

How did I do it? Lots and lots of writing. Lots of mistakes. A lot of reading (yes, even more reading!). Hooking up with other writers who I could exchange work with (in a strange twist of fate, I met my first CPs in the comments section of Dame Rachel’s blog!). It was thanks to Kim Harrison‘s website that I first learned about our very own Rachel Vincent, and from then I followed her pre-published blog entries and learned so much. THANK YOU, Rachel. (Just in case I’ve never said it before.) It was through reading about Rachel’s journey – in part – that I decided I would aim high and try to interest Dame Agent with my work. I didn’t honestly believe it would happen, but I pushed those doubts aside and focused on writing the best story that I could.

My first attempt – an adult urban fantasy – had potential but was lacking… something. I didn’t actually finish it, though I came pretty close. I think all those years of not writing (apart from journalling), and all the reading I’d done through those 5 years ‘in the wilderness’, had somehow taught me something by osmosis. I really believe that I was unconsciously learning how to structure a story, how to formulate plot and build character… how to show emotions that leapt off the page…

So I turned to the YA idea that was nibbling away at me, and once I had a complete draft of The Iron Witch I revised (with the help of my CPs/beta readers) – and then began querying agents. I mostly aimed for literary agents in the US; I’d seen that overseas authors like Dame Keri could do it, so why not? I researched agents all the time. I lived and breathed agents and agent blogs and agent online interviews. Any time I saw an agent post a guest blog or interviewed somewhere, I took note of what they said and what they were currently looking for. Then I’d query them and make sure to reference that interview or post, letting them know that that was why I specifically wanted to work with them.

But all the time – in the back of my mind – I couldn’t stop thinking about that lone query letter I’d sent Agent M in my very first batch of six queries. Between sending that first query, to sending the full manuscript, and then getting The Call; all that took about 6 months. It was the longest 6 months of my life, but I also know how lucky I am and how relatively short a time that is for gaining agent representation.

However. Let my story be a lesson to you: ‘getting’ an agent is not the end of the tale.. not by a long shot. In fact, getting a publishing contract is by no means the end of the story. But that’s another post for another time – probably at a later stage in what I hope will be a verrry long career. Heh. All told, The Iron Witch was on submission to editors in the US for about ten months. And that was after working with Agent M to get the manuscript in the best shape we possibly could before sending it out into the world. If I’d thought that waiting to hear back from agents was painful, then I was in for a shock! We went out on submission at a particularly bad time for the publishing industry, but thankfully we did eventually find a wonderful home for my debut novel. And then the Australian rights sold, closely followed by the UK rights… I was finally on my way!

If I was going to sum up my Path to Publication I would do it thusly:

1. Read a lot.
2. Read everything you can get your hands on.
3. But don’t be afraid to embrace the genre(s) that you truly love.
4. Write.
5. Finish what you write.
6. Get feedback on your early work.
7. But don’t be afraid to admit that you feel ready to ‘go it alone’ and get less feedback. (Sometimes too many opinions can be as bad as none at all, imho.)
8. Listen to your intuition – both about the writing itself, and about your career.
9. Take every opportunity that comes your way. Stand up to be counted.
10. Say “thank you” to those that helped you along the way – even if they didn’t realise that they helped you.
11. Don’t give up.
12. But if you do give up, keep reading and dreaming and know that, one day, you will return to what you love best.