Exciting Times

    I've talked before on my blog about how 2011 is turning out to be quite a life-changing year for me; a new job, more BSL education (more on that in a separate post), becoming an advocate for dyspraxia awareness and, of course, my debut novel soon to be published.

    It still seems odd to be talking about my book being published; it's been such ambition of mine for so long, that to be only a couple of months away from it actually happening is ... something I'm adjusting to.

    I've loved writing for as long as I can remember; having a dad who was a journalist all his life certainly didn't help - if I didn't inherit it from him, there's a flaw in the system somewhere! My home as I grew up held so many books; my mother loved crime thrillers, which helped teach me the art of tightly-crafted plotting, and my dad loved non-fiction, which taught me the value of research and writing intelligently for an audience.

    The first thing I wrote was a rip-roaring read back when I was 8 years old. I forget the title, but it was about a cowboy that fought dinosaurs before flying into space. The plot could have done with another draft, perhaps, but the illustrations (done by yours truly) more than outweighed the minor plot holes in the story.

    Since then, I've always loved to write, but never had the confidence to do anything with the various things I had scribbled down. When I was in my mid-20's, I wrote my first "proper" novel, albeit just a first draft. It was an MI5 thriller and while I thoroughly enjoyed writing it, I look at the draft now and realise how much my writing style has evolved, even in the past three or four years - and that's a good thing.

    With Fall From Grace, which is the book that's currently being worked on for publication, I wrote the first draft in about six months ... and as a first draft, it was okay, but definitely needed work! It went through a couple of rewrites before I sent it off to Inspired Quill, and I was fortunate enough to have it accepted by the publisher-in-chief, Sara-Jayne Slack (yes, her parents ARE Dr Who fans, I am assured).

    When I got the email telling me Fall From Grace had been accepted, I'm glad I was sitting down, because my legs certainly wouldn't have carried my weight for a good few minutes. I was actually in a coffee shop at the time, so couldn't do the first thing that went through my mind, which was shout it from the roof tops; I rather like Cafe Bello, and would like to go back there in the future, thank you very much.

    Which leads me to now. It's early August and I've received back my manuscript - today, in fact - from the publisher & editor with some work to be done. I think that was the main thing I was worried about; having people I don't know read my manuscript and give an honest, critical opinion of what I'd written. I'm sure anyone who's written a book must feel the same - that their work, once sent to the publisher, is as good as it can possibly get, and surely doesn't need improving?

    Well, everything can be improved, and reading through the editor's comments this morning has really helped focus my mind on things that I can improve. That level of critical thinking from someone you don't know can be incredibly frightening as you download the document off your email, but when I sat and read the comments with an open mind, I was really pleased. After all, the editor and the publisher are there to work with me on getting the book as perfect as possible - and, of course, we're all on the same side.

    I've worked through some pages already, and I'm going back to the grindstone now to get as much as I can done today. It's terrifying to think that at the end of September, my book is going to be in bookshops - both online and in the real world - but that's only inspiring me to make sure it's as tightly written and paced as possible, so back to work I go!

    PS I discovered yesterday that my book officially has an ISBN attached to it now; if that's not really bringing it home how close this is all getting, I don't know what is!