Author Archives: Lorraine Wilson

The Road To Publication

2 Replies

Recent online conversations about debut expectations versus the long haul of being an author made me realise that I never wrote my version of this blog. People normally write them on signing with their agent, or when their debut releases, don’t they? Well, how about on publishing their third book & announcing their fourth? Perfect time, right?

Two disadvantages of waiting till now is a) that it’s a looooooong post, and b) I can’t be sure of exact numbers. I’m as accurate as possible, because I know how good it is to see the data rather than just the ‘keep going, you haven’t failed until you stop trying’ sentiment (which I have OPINIONS on btw).

Okay, so a For The Record disclaimer: As you may know I turned to writing when I became too ill to carry on in my job as a research scientist, therefore I have no formal learning or qualifications in creative writing. I ­have done a couple of short, online courses with Jericho Writers and Writing The Other & as many workshops as I could logistically & financially access. ALL my submissions were via the slushpile (and all in the UK fwiw). I started out with no contacts in publishing or writing, and even less understanding of how it all worked, but in my first few years I attended the York Festival of Writing three times. I also managed to access agent 1:1s on two other occasions. Thassit. That’s the extent of my shortcuts and privilege, because yes those things do affect your route to publication and it’s naïve to pretend they don’t.

TL:DR cumulative stats: 13 queries (agents only) over 2 books to 1st agent offer. 81 queries (agents & small presses) over 4 books to 1st book published. 136 queries (agents & small presses) over 5 books to 2nd agent offer.

Full deets, cos it’s a lot more complicated than that sounds … are you sitting comfortably?

photo of a ruined roman amphitheatre in Turkiye

2014            Wrote a fantasy epic, first in a trilogy.

2015                     Because I was a fool and knew nothing, I queried the godawful thing to a handful (~12 agents, to whom – sorry!). I got two personalised rejections, a bunch of forms and perhaps one ghosting. Meanwhile, I wrote the 2nd in the trilogy and simultaneously realised that Book1 was not remotely publishable. I decided to treat Book2 as a test run for applying the skills I’d learned whilst mangling Book1.

2016                     Started writing a whole new book (Book3). A contemporary Scottish witchy fabulist thing that felt like my first ‘real’ book. In that I kinda knew what I was doing this time and the end result was fully my own thing rather than a derivative mess!

2017                     Subbed Book3 to one agent – a very new agent at an established agency who’d been recommended to me at York. She offered, I accepted, it went through minor revisions and went out on sub to around 10 editors. It got some lovely feedback, but no takers. Four months into this, my agent left publishing. Reading between the lines, I think she was not supported at her agency, and so I really felt for her. It was a huge blow though, lmty. I had no idea at that point how common it is for writers to lose agents for any of several reasons so this felt like a moment of utter failure even though it was nothing directly to do with me, or my book.

Whilst on sub, I’d been writing Book4, and my agent had raved about its premise. Book3 was dead – no agent would be interested in a book that had already gone out on sub. So I pulled my big girl pants up, and got Book4 ready for querying…

2018                     I sent Book4 to about 45 agents and 15 small presses over the course of around 18 months. Of those, I had a roughly 50% full request rate from agents, and 30% from small presses. Good huh? Of those full requests, only 1 agent ghosted me (times have changed I believe ☹), most got back within 2 months. The small presses were generally much slower (and much ruder, in a couple of instances!). From all these fulls, I ended up with two offers of publication from small presses. I went with the one whose brand seemed a better fit for the book. They were small, but reputable, award-winning, and strongly recommended by one of those full-requesting agents. That agent believed in them so much he even stepped in to help me negotiate a couple of contract terms. Fab. Yay. I was gonna be a published author! I didn’t mind going small press rather than agent by that point as I just wanted to make that first step on the journey, and I liked the feel of the small press scene.

Yeah, no. After agreeing contract terms, the publishers pulled out.

2019                     By this time I had Book5 finished and waiting,and had started on another one. But I lost heart with the nascent one and very nearly didn’t bother submitting Book5. Book4 had come so close both with agents and then with the publishing deal. After losing my agent, this had felt so hopeful and for it to come to nothing … I just didn’t really see the point in trying again. My skin was not thick enough and my belief in my writing was crushed. The mental cost of the cumulative rejections and knock backs was having an impact on my physical health, and I needed to step away. I decided I would write for private fulfilment not for publication, and started writing a new, deeply personal book, never intending to share it.

BUT Book5 was just sitting there. I figured I’d lose nothing by trying one last time, but this time I was going to be canny. I queried a handful of agents and small presses (excluding the one above!) to test the water.

Of those 6 agents, I got 1 full and 1 R&R; of 4 small presses, I also got 1 full which lead to an R&R.

The R&R from the publisher was a biggie. And to be honest I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, as it meant a complete re-write. But I figured it would be a good test of my skill, if nothing else, and I was kinda curious about whether the editor’s instincts were right.

They were. The edited book was much better. I went back to that publisher with it, but they’d stopped acquiring books. Ugh. Well, I had a stronger manuscript and had promised myself I’d give this book its best shot before calling it a day. So I pulled together a list of indie presses. You’d think I’d have been put off them by now, but all of my communications with agents had taught me that my form of literary-ish genre-blending work can be a difficult sell to agents looking for neatly packageable stories. Plus I still believed (believe) that a lot of the most innovative, diverse storytelling is happening with small presses, so I wanted to trust that there were good, reliable people out there. Somewhere.

2020                     GLOBAL PANINI! In between homeschooling v.1 & general panini chaos, I sent Book5 back out to a small batch of small presses (~8). And got, relatively quickly, 2 fulls and an offer.

That offer was with Luna Press, a very small Scottish indie press with an incredibly global list of authors. After speaking to Francesca I knew immediately that this was a press I wanted to work with. The book was This Is Our Undoing.

I also wrote the first chaotic halves of two books (umm… 7&8). Thank you, pandemic stress cognition decline.

2021                     GLOBAL PANINI! This Is Our Undoing came out with Luna Press. I showed Francesca that near-miss Book4, braced for rejection yet again, but she loved it. I signed a contract for The Way The Light Bends and the bruises left by my prior experience began to fade. With my confidence in myself, my writing, and the publishing industry at least a little rejuvenated, I started thinking about querying that deeply personal Book6. It was a terrifying thought, if I’m honest, and took a while to build up to. In between homeschooling v.2, the debut rollercoaster, dredging up querying courage, and other general mayhem, I finished Book7.

Then I started querying Book6.

This time I sent out larger batches than before. Rough counts were, in two batches, 40 agents and 15 small presses. Of those, I had received ~ 8 fulls when I received an offer of publication from a lovely medium-sized indie press with a very literary, friendly, thoughtful vibe. On chasing outstanding queries I had a couple of lovely chats with agents and another publisher, and an offer of representation from an agent who seemed to genuinely get my writing, my health limitations, and who was demonstrably supporting marginalised authors in his work.

I signed with Robbie Guillory at Underline Literary Agency in late 2021, and signed with Fairlight Books for Mother Sea shortly after. My sad, angry, deeply heartfelt story that I wrote thinking its only readers would be my mum and sister, was going to be published.

2022                     GLOBAL PANINI + BOOK AWARDS. Amazingly, given the small reach associated with a small publisher, Undoing was finalist and winner of several awards. I also won an award for my short fiction. The Way The Light Bends published, Mother Sea was in the works & I had survived an entire year as a published author without coming apart at the seams. Oh yes! Onward! Riding this wave of not being entirely broken, I finished Book8 (Book7 is shelved). And applied for a Creative Scotland grant to fund a return to that nascent book that I abandoned in 2019 mid-despair.

I also wrote a novella.

Book8 went on sub in the Autumn. On the same day that I underwent long-awaited surgery for my endometriosis that ended up being way more complicated than anticipated and from which I am still recovering 7 months on. Note of advice, major health upheavals and being on sub are not a combination conducive to creativity or mental fortitude. Avoid at all costs.

2023                     My 6th written book – 3rd published book – is coming out in less than 3 weeks.

I signed with my beloved Luna Press for my novella, coming out next year.

I was awarded the Creative Scotland grant and have just finished the 1st draft of nascent/abandoned book. So in 10 years that’s: 1 novella & 9 novels – 2 binned, 2 shelved, 3 published, 1 drafted and 1 on sub…

Despite the real-life hellishness going on, there is more good news coming. I’m steadily building my reach and publisher-appeal and this feels whilst not remotely guaranteed, at least a sustainable and hopeful trajectory. I’m not sure what the next few years will hold, but from being on the very brink of giving up 4 years ago, it’s surreal to sit here with a stack of my own books beside me, knowing I will be publishing more. That’s a startling, wonderful thing. The road does not get smoother, but it does perhaps get less steep.

…Lol, I did warn you it was long!! I do want to note that the rates of query full requests, and of ghosting both initials and fulls have changed drastically over the years, so please bear that in mind. Publishing is understaffed and creaking, and that hits writers in the trenches hard. Whoever you are, and however many manuscripts you have yeeted into the querying void, I am cheering you on. It takes a horrible combination of vulnerability and steeliness to weather this game – you’re all epic.

photo of standing columns of a grecian ruin on Cyprus, mountains in the background, the statue of some dude looking resigned and weary.

return to main blog page

Retreats, Arts Funding & Goats

1 Reply

Last year I was awarded a Creative Scotland grant through their open fund to support my writing of a novel that I generally refer to as Welsh Gothic. This was my first time applying for funding for my writing (years of applying for scientific research funding scarred me for life!), and being awarded a small grant was perhaps one of more validating experiences of my writerly career so far – A group of publishing professionals thought I & this unfinished book had enough potential to be worth supporting? Really? How great is that?

Aside from the wee confidence boost though, this funding represents something more widely important. As you likely know, I am too unwell to hold down a ‘real’ job. Last year I was fighting my own body in an attempt to earn something from freelance creative work – articles, workshops etc. – but that was taking a heavy toll on my ability to actually write. My spoonie body only has so much capacity, and this grant allowed me to protect more of my limited creative spoons during what has turned into quite a tough period. If I was hustling this year the way I did last year, I honestly may not have written a word.

Arts funding has suffered in the UK under Tory rule, and came under brief, cataclysmic threat in Scotland before a Scotgov u-turn. After the lockdowns proved emphatically that we all turn to arts when we’re under stress, anything other than wholehearted support for the arts seems a bizarre act of self-harm. And the voices first silenced by lack of funding are the voices of the marginalised – the disabled, the working class, the people already carrying the existential stresses of systemic bias. (Perhaps that explains the Tory desire to starve us out…)

Anyway rant over! A huge thank you to Creative Scotland for their support. It was a tiny sum of money in the wider scheme of things, but it means so much to me. And, to get back on track, part of the funding allowed me to go and stay at the location of Welsh Gothic for a research week.

CUE GOATS!

welsh feral goat amidst heather. He's long haired and pale gold with mad white eyes and curved spreading horns.

I stayed in a cottage in Nant Gwrtheryn – a granite quarrying community in a steep, tiny valley on the coast of the Llyn Peninsula that was abandoned when the quarries closed, then restored as a language centre. It’s a stunning location. Vast quarry cuttings and abandoned machine housings on the cliffs around the centre, the two neat rows of quarryman cottages and the abandoned farm at the top of three slim fields. Fog slipping in from the Irish sea and chough calling from the peaks. AND WILD (feral) GOATS.

These dudes weren’t here the first time I visited (to study Welsh about 14yrs ago), but they were pretty much resident this time. I wonder whether this was because they’d got used to the quiet during lockdowns & then just opted not to leave. Good for them. The world is theirs, we are just guests, and insignificant ones at that. They’re gorgeous aren’t they? Not saying they were the highlight of the trip but…

black and white photo of an abandoned stone farm house, seen through fir trees. It much gothic. Peak ooooh.

Welsh Gothic (real name All The Birds Will Be Hostile – a quote from the Mabinogion’s Blodeuedd of the Flowers tale) is set in the abandoned farm in this photo, unabandoned and occupied with a riding stables. This is the opening sentence of my pitch:

In a valley hemmed in between ruins and the sea, on the edge of the wild Llyn Peninsula in Wales, superstition and family secrets threaten to destroy the childhood home Blodwyn Jones has been running from for years.

Inspired by the story of Blodeuedd, Alan Garner’s The Owl Service and Laura Purcell’s Bone China, it’s full of watchers on the cliffs, curses painted in blood & some badly timed mists. It’s my first foray into gothic lit with all its symbolism and feminist underpinnings, and the time away really made me fall in love with the story again.

It was an amazing week. I went with a few writerly friends, and the mix of staring at the scenery (research!), drinking tea and chatting books made for a deeply lovely, enriching time. I spent the time rewriting the existing partial draft which was originally set further down the peninsula, making copious notes and taking lots of photos. Welsh Gothic has been given a new lease of foggy, spooky life and I am now in the final climax scene, wondering whether to slip a goat in there as a pivotal Deus ex Capra.

Return to main blog page

Submission, Silence & Survival

3 Replies

So I’m ‘on submission’ at the moment. The joy! In case that phrase is unfamiliar (and perhaps faintly nsfw-sounding), it is when an agent has sent their client’s book out to editors and they are waiting to hear back. It is, traditionally, a time of silence and secrecy. We aren’t supposed to talk about being ‘on sub’ too much, and we aren’t supposed to talk about (or to) the editors we’re waiting on. This is so we avoid sounding defeatist & potentially undermining our book’s chances, and also so we aren’t breaching confidentiality. Which is all very logical and businesslike.

BUT. It also means that being on sub is a cold and lonely place.

Publishing is renowned for moving glacially 95% of the time and at the speed of light the other 5%, but over the last couple of years a combination of pandemic, staffing instability and workload increases have seen the submission process move from glacial to tectonic. Some books still sell super fast, and that is awesome. Most are selling much more slowly, which means us authors (and agents) are lingering in the submission abyssal plain for months, in some cases years.

Which is not exactly oodles of fun, let’s be honest. So I figured it might be useful to those of you approaching this stage to have someone talk about the process and how to survive it. I’m also currently far enough in to Have Opinions, but still near enough to the start that I’m a) mostly sane, and b) more or less optimistic.

black and white photo of some arching stems of pale campanula flowers against a dark background

So…

The Process. This will vary between genres, agents and the particulars of your relationship with your agent. But in general, once your book is ready your agent will pull together a list of editors at different publishing houses/imprints who are a good fit for your book. Hopefully your agent will pre-pitch the book to a good few of these editors, testing the water and seeding interest informally so that when your submission lands, it catches their eye. Once pitch is perfect & the emails are gone, the waiting begins. *doom laden drumbeat* Your agent will likely nudge editors at intervals – some do this more often than others. In the current climate I think the pre-pitching and the nudging skills are probably becoming more and more significant in getting timely reads, but *shrug* who knows? Your agent will likely also have a second batch of editors in mind if the first batch do not work out.

The Responses. These can take multiple forms. Ideally, obviously, you’ll get an almost immediate pre-empt or bunch of offers that trigger an auction, drama, excitement and cake. More likely, you will get some of these: 1. The rejection – which usually contains a little bit of feedback about reasons, but these are as subjective as any feedback so be prepared for contradictory comments and the ensuing frustration. 2. The initial maybe – this is where that individual editor liked it but needs to take it to others in their team, or to a full acquisition meeting with marketing & publicity before offering. 3. The offer – hurrah. Which your agent will then use to chase other editors & hopefully cue multiple offers, excitement and cake.

The Survival Toolkit. Okay so how do we endure the waiting without spiralling into a catatonic loop of refreshing your inbox, self-doubt, and really really not getting any actual writing done godammit? Here are some things to try out…

black and white photo of a globe thistle head from above, pale against a shadowy ground, the outer whorl of spikes forming a circle
  • Structure your communications. Some people like to set a day of the week for their agent to email them an update, so they can forget about their inbox for the rest of the time. Some of us (hi) would rather just get those random emails at any time. Some people need a monthly live chat with their agent to ask all the questions & get some perspective. Some are happy with emails. Talk it through with your agent if you want to try structuring communications in a way that fits your brain. They won’t know what suits you unless you tell them, and they will want you to stay sane, so do tell them if something they are doing isn’t working.
  • Give your agent information. Spoke to an editor at a convention last year? Got shortlisted for an award? Been awarded a residency? Tell your agent, it can be useful both when drafting the pitch letter and in making those ‘nudge’ emails a little more eye-catching.
  • Form a secret cabal. Honestly, this is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT SURVIVAL TIP. Find a writer friend or two who is also on sub or there abouts and designate them your safe wailing space. Keep it private, you’re a professional. But have those wails, you’re also human. These people will stop you chewing your own arm off, or at least be someone to compare chewed stumps with. Okay that metaphor got icky, sorry.
  • Ask questions. Whether this is of your agent, your secret cabal or other writers. This is a big unfamiliar territory of horrible unknowns – it’s absolutely okay to want information, and honestly, that’s what your agent is there for (aside from, you know, actual agenting stuff). You’re also allowed to have opinions – if you want to try X editor over Y, or not sub to a particular place For Reasons, talk it through.
  • Try to be realistic. I know it’s tempting to think you’re the exception, because someone gets to be the exception so why not you? But the chances are you aren’t going to hear anything for weeks, more likely months right now. This is a long haul at the moment, so structure your expectations appropriately. Force yourself to focus on something else, whether that’s drafting or editing another book, short stories, blogs (lol, it me), or learning to skydive. When (yes, when – we have faith) you get an offer, you might get developmental edits thrown at you fast, so it would be useful to be progressing other projects before then. But that said…
  • Be kind to yourself. The constant background hum of being on sub is taxing on the brain and body, especially if like me your body is rather fried to start with. So while it’s important to keep moving writing-wise (and physically, get up and stretch. Have a boogie) (who says boogie anymore, Raine, ffs. I am An Old), it’s also important to be flexible and realistic about your targets so you don’t stress yourself out unnecessarily.
  • Try not to stalk the editors on Twitter. But also, stalk them on Twitter. Keep an eye out for their MSWL posts, new job announcements etc, & let your agent know if it seems like it might be relevant to your sub (Twitter is a mess & your agent is busy, they might not see it). But don’t expect eds to tweet about this amazing sub they’re reading & omg it’s just like yours, they don’t do that. Which is probably best for all of us really.
  • Drink tea.
  • Eat chocolate.
  • Scream at the sea occasionally.

A final note of honesty. Some books (a lot more than we like to admit) ‘die on sub’. They do not sell. And this categorically sucks. But it is not the end of you the writer, it’s not even necessarily the end of that book – it might sell to a small press, or work as a follow-up book in a multi-book deal. The fear of dying on sub is real though, and the powerlessness is worse. But the only thing you can do to improve your chances is keep writing. Keep writing. You’ve got this.

Go back to Blog homepage

colour photo of a black veined white butterfly resting on a cornflower. It's stark white & black colouring shines against a dusky background of grasses and flower stems.

A Christmas Book-buying Guide For All* Species Of Reader (*some)

Leave a reply

Tis the season for the ‘Best Of’ lists, and rather than worry about whether I make anyone’s list, I figured I’d make my own. I read somewhere in the region of 150 books this year & so here are my fav reads of 2022 (not all published this year) and recommendations for Christmas presents for all your bookish relations. Enjoy & let me know what your top picks of the year have been.

An image of six book covers against a graphic image of snowy landscape and falling snow against a blue sky. The books are as mentioned in the article.: How We Disappeared, The Dance Tree, HellSans, Dead Water, Notes From The Burning Age, and Widowland.

For the literary darling: They’ve probably read the Booker Prize shortlist already so what do you buy for the reader who loves the conversation-starters and the esoteric? Slight confession – I’ve not read much in this field this year. My spoons have been too low for anything too demanding. That said, I loved these two:

How We Disappeared – Jing-jing Lee

A searingly beautiful story of trauma and family, travelling from war-torn Singapore to the US. This was out in 2020 but I’d not encountered it until this year, and it absolutely broke my heart into shining pieces.

The Dance Tree – Kiran Millwood Hargrave

An intimate story of female friendships and the terrible burden of silence, told through eerie and unsettling events in a small town suffering a terrible heatwave and societal turmoil. This story moved me & resonated with me deeply.

For the gimme-the-darkness goth: They love stabby books and black as hell books, books that make you question their mental wellbeing, and wonder about the author’s FBI file. I’ve read more horror this past year than I have for ages, not sure why. It’s been a stabby kind of year, I guess. Top two were:

Dead Water – C. A. Fletcher

Zombies but in the Hebrides. Bring it on. I loved this dark and creepy tale combining folk horror, small island life and grief; with a cast of very relatably flawed characters and some genuinely shiver-inducing scenes.

HellSans – Ever Dundas

This could have sat under ‘dystopia’ or ‘science fiction’ too, but I’m putting it here for the body-horror. This is a punch to the face of a book, but one of those punches that just makes your blood sing (iykyk). Crip rage is a beautiful thing; I swallowed this book whole & it lives inside me now, all spiky and glorious.

For the ‘we’re all fucked’ eco-worrier. It me. I love a dystopia. We need these narratives as playgrounds for our fears and our desperate hopes. A struggle to pick out just two, but here they are:

Widowland – C. J. Carey.

Ok, more alt history than future dystopia, but dystopian nevertheless. I loved this exploration of the power of stories and the ways in which the holders of power seek to bend narratives to their purpose. Interesting and enticing & I’ve got the next one lined up on my kindle.

Notes From The Burning Age – Claire North.

Gentle, political, subversive and thoughtful, this story is full of dubious morals and twisty characters, and an intriguing take on the future.

With the same snowy background as the above image, this one has the following six books: The Half Life Of Valery K, The Winter Guest, The Metal Heart, The Awakenings, The Girl Who Fell Beneath The Sea, and The Skin Of The Sea.

For the big-dresses-and-tea person. I love that histfic is basically any genre at all but in the past, just like SF is any genre but in the future. As if time defines and overrides all else. Book marketing is so random. Anyway, these two are actually two of my absolute top-of-everything favs this year, so really, even if you don’t like big dresses (which feature in neither of these books to be fair) go buy!

The Half Life of Valery K – Natasha Pulley.

My god I love Natasha Pulley. She creates such fascinating, immersive worlds with characters that you just want to take home and hug and feed cake. This is her first straight histfic book but this story is equally magical & blew me away entirely. Set around a little-known real life nuclear disaster in Communist Russia, this is one to hurl yourself into and get lost in.

The Winter Guest – W. C. Ryan.

The moment I finished this book I went and bought another by Ryan. It is a murder mystery in post-WWII Ireland, but it is also so much more than that. A study on PTSD and a nation breaking its shackles, ghosts, love, loyalties and family secrets all come together in a deeply atmospheric, captivating story.

For the romantic. We all love a love story, don’t we? For that person who gets mushy at adverts, I have started the astoundingly good You Made A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi, but haven’t finished it so two completed favs this year include:

The Metal Heart – Caroline Lea.

Orkney, prisoners of war and two sisters. The romance in this is lovely, but actually it was the relationship between the sisters that made this book for me. So complex and twisty.

The Awakenings – Sarah Maine.

Sarah Maine always does a good romance & this was no exception. A deft dual timeline story binding together two couples alongside themes of belonging, conflict and family into a truly lovely whole.

For the YA fiend, lover of all the good tropes. And I’m not talking tiktok All Tropes No Story books, oh no, these are for the readers who want depth as well as vibes. Oh man but I’ve read some good YA this year & it’s difficult to choose a top two, but here goes:

Skin Of The Sea – Natasha Bowen.

This is a powerful, deeply sad story told with captivating beauty and flair. A whole new side to the mermaid folkloric tale and one that I think anyone who loves tales of vengeance or the sea should read.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath The Sea – Axie Oh.

Huh, bit of a sea theme going on. This was an entirely different tale though – Korean folklore made feminist and captivating and new. Full of characters you fall in love with, this one lingers in the mind after you’ve finished.

As before, but with the books: Nettle and Bone, The Stardust Thief, Kaikeyi, The Children of Gods and Fighting Men, Klara and The Sun, and Sea Of Tranquility.

For the ‘what day is it today’ fantasist. Too much good stuff in this genre. Just too much. I hate you all, making me choose. My top two at this exact second, although it will change any moment, are:

The Stardust Thief – Chelsea Abdullah.

Fabulous characters, amazing world, enticing narrative. This one hit all the right notes for me & I just loved every second of being immersed in this story of thieves, princes, haunted deserts and powerful djinn.

Nettle & Bone – T. Kingfisher.

What even is this book? Adventure, folk horror, low fantasy? Who knows, all I know is that it is weird and beautiful, gentle and unsettling and utterly memorable. Older protags & romance – yes please. Bone dog – YES PLEASE. Vicious chickens – OMG I love them so much.

For the Greek myth reader. These are not Greek myth retellings (gasp) but they are retellings from other mythologies & honestly it befuddles me why Greek retellings are ‘literary’ whereas all others are ‘SFF’. Anyway, there were some brilliant Greek retellings out this year, but lovers of those will also love these:

Children of Gods and Fighting Men – Shauna Lawless.

An exploration of Irish mythology and history that goes far beyond the stereotypes and male-centered narratives that frankly I’m a little bored of. This one is entirely original, lead by two flawed, powerful, nuanced and entirely empathic women, and setting up for an amazing trilogy. I can’t wait for book 2.

Kaikeyi – Vaishnavi Patel.

A feminist origin story for perhaps the greatest ‘evil stepmother’ villain of Hindu scripture – the step-mother of Rama. This is a beautiful retelling giving voice to a fascinating woman, and I know this author has had a hard time in the face of Hindu fundamentalists so go read this book.

And finally. TO INFINITY AND BEYOND. For your space-faring friends. I don’t actually read much straight SF as I tend far more towards either grounded spec or folklore. But I’ve read a couple this year that were definitely worth all the stars:

Klara And The Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro.

One of my all-time favourite authors, so I guess it’s no surprise this one makes the list. A heart-wrenching, enchanting tale of childhood, AI, innocence and morality. Understated to the extreme but all the more powerful for it.

Sea Of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel.

Another of my best-loved authors, so another obvious pick for me.  Time-travel, moon colonies and music. I loved this tale of inter-connectedness, rootlessness, identity and transience, told in the author’s inimitable floaty, deft, poetic way.

These books are a teensy, entirely subjective sample of some of the many books I’ve loved this year, I hope I have enticed you to try one or two. I’ve realised that of these 18 books, only 3 are by men, which is a splendid ratio imo. Whereas I think 11 are by authors who identify as belonging to a marginalised group (other than cis women). Not too bad, I suppose, although I do want to read more books in translation next year. Any recommendations for that TBR list would be welcome. Happy book shopping and happy Christmas all.

Go back to Blog homepage

Photo of a red squirrel sitting on a tree stump eating a hazelnut. He has much floof.

FantasyCon, book tours & the Scary 2nd Book

Leave a reply

First up, the programme for this year’s FantasyCon has just been announced & I am delighted to be part of this event again. It’s been organised in no time at all by the amazing British Fantasy Society team after the original organisers cancelled it & I am in awe of the work that must be going on behind the scenes right now.

For anyone interested (and for me to screenshot so I don’t forget), my programme looks like this:

Saturday 17th September

  • 4pm in Atlantis2 – Climate Fiction
  • 8pm in Discovery3 – British Fantasy Awards ceremony
  • 9pm in Endeavour – Reading from The Way The Light Bends

Sunday 18th September

  • 11am in Atlantis1 – Folklore and Fairytales
  • 1pm in Atlantis2 – Writing the Difficult Emotions

If you are coming to FantasyCon, please come say hi. I promise I’m nice & I may have books. Also, I will be a quivering wreck at my reading as I’ll have just survived the excitement of my three BFA shortlistings, so I deny all responsibility for my emotional stability during that session.

Photo of the hardbacks of both my books on a scarf on the lawn, backlit by sunlight & with a wee blue ceramic hare alongside.

OKAY. Moving on … my second book was released a few weeks ago & I realised I hadn’t written anything on here about that. So … first of all, a moment to appreciate how incredibly lucky I have been with BOTH my book covers. Luna Press have produced the most perfect, beautiful covers for these books and it makes me a bit mushy to see them sitting together on my shelf!

Last year we had a book tour for This Is Our Undoing that … didn’t entirely work. A fair few of the readers on the tour were, let’s say, not the target audience for the book and just didn’t click with it. (The weird thing with booktours is that you can’t follow advice not to read reviews because you’re generally tagged in and meant to engage!) So that week was a steep, hard lesson in dealing with meh reviews, and definitely put a dent in my confidence throughout publication week.

But it served me well in some ways, in that it’s quite freeing to learn right out the gate that a) I can survive a bad review and b) the book will still find readers who love it. I mean, two BFA shortlistings isn’t too shabby, is it??  

This year, we had a tour for The Way The Light Bends with the lovely folk at Insta Book Tours, and it was a whole different experience! So many positive, beautiful reviews; so many readers’ tears; such a friendly vibe to the whole tour. There was one comment that came up a few times (about the ending) that I’m tempted to write a blog exploring because the subject of endings, resolution and folklore is one that interests me from a craft perspective. But that’s for another day. Today I just wanted to share some of the review comments and thank Victoria Hyde for organising such an uplifting tour.

Image of the cover of Light, with four quotes reading: I've never read a book where the first paragraph absolutely shattered me. The way the author writes about grief is mesmerising.' 'Cinematic and gorgeous.' 'So beautiful, draws you right in from the start & keeps you gripped.' 'A beautifully written heart-breaking tale, weaved in with folklore and mystery.' All this is against a backdrop of dark, moody water.

I was honestly quite nervous about how Light would be received. Because of Undoing’s blog tour partly, but also and contrarily, because some reviewers have been such amazing champions of Undoing and I didn’t want to ‘let them down’ with my second book! It’s a very different story to Undoing, so I was worried they would be flummoxed and disappointed, and that they’d be disappointed in me for following up with something they liked less. I know, it’s stupid, but I’m excellent at finding ways to catastrophise nothing at all, so there.

Imagine my relief then, when one of those amazing reviewer/champions of the universe had this to say about Light:

This is Wilson’s second book and I thought their earlier novel This Is Our Undoing was one of my highlights of last year. Now this one easily becomes one of this year’s best reads. Sublime character work; a wonderful sense of place and crucially displacement creates a spell-bounding tale giving us characters that we get to love and care about or even fear for. Wilson is very much an author to watch. Strongly recommended!

Runalong the Shelves

I know. I’m giddy as a kipper. Read their full review here. And now I need a cup of tea to recover.

Go back to Blog homepage

photo of my stripy kitty, sleeping on a stripy footstool on his back, both forelegs stretched up above his head and his fangs on display. He looks very relaxed and a little bit weird.

Novellas – Writing Up Instead Of Down

Leave a reply

I wrote my first novella a couple of months ago, and am editing it now (not right now – now I’m procrastinating & it’s set in Iceland, so you’re getting random Icelandic photos. Sorry, I don’t make the rules). This being my first novella experience I did some reading around to see what people’s advice was about structuring them. Almost everything I found boiled down to ‘It’s like a novel, but shorter’. Which is … not entirely helpful. Especially when my starting point was a short story.

So, having written the thing I am now clearly an expert, and wanted to share my thoughts on the art of novella writing when you’re coming at the thing from a small idea rather than a big one.

Photo of half frozen lagoon, distant snowy mountains and a glacier.

[FYI in case you weren’t sure, a novella is usually considered to be between 20-60,000 words, novels between 80-120k and short stories get defined pretty much any way that takes your fancy so long as it’s less than 20k (but usually lie in the 2–8,000 range).]

The advice ‘like a novel but shorter’ means this: It relies on similar narrative arcs, but those arcs are simpler, the plot is simpler, the character lists and worldbuilding are streamlined. It’s basically a novel-type idea but where the plot didn’t need 80,000 words to unfold. That makes sense, right?

But my starting point wasn’t a novel-type idea, it was a 2,500 word short story that felt unresolved and … squished. So if you’re like me & have short stories that want to grow, how do you reframe them to turn them into a functional novella?

I don’t know.

But I’m going to tell you anyway…

Photo of chunks of ice on a black pebble beach, backlit by sunshine with some rainbow refraction going on.

First, how do you know what’s a novella-worthy idea?

  1. Check whether your 2,500 word story really just wants to be a 5,000 word story. Was the plot or worldbuilding just a bit rushed & needs a wee bit more space to breath? Was there one more scene or one more bit of backstory that would really pull the whole thing together? If so, maybe just let it be 5,000 words.
  2. Or, did your plot feel like it was fundamentally lacking depth for the things it was trying to do? My short story was trying to explore PTSD and grief, and to map a descent into dissociation and a big moral choice. Add in ghost stories, family secrets, and a slightly cinematic setting and there’s really no way you can do justice to those things in 5,000 words, let alone 2,500. It wasn’t just that the story as it stood needed a bit more room, it was that the story itself needed huge structural changes to serve its function. Sound familiar? You’ve got yourself a potential novella.

Yay, so now, what’s the difference between your short story idea and your novella? What needs to happen to mutate the former into the latter?

Photo of a smooth black rock emerging from beach sand that is, on one side of the rock, blackish, and on the other pale yellow.

A short story:

  1. Can (although often doesn’t) pivot around an external plot alone – can be about an event rather than a character’s internal change.
  2. Can be slice of life – e.g. there’s no plot per se, no conflict or change, just … an exploration of a character’s mind, world or moment.
  3. Requires very little world building, or more importantly, can afford little worldbuilding. Which, especially if this is SFF, requires a very focussed setting so that the story’s world feels sufficiently explained within that limited word count.
  4. Generally has a single strand plotline following one question, theme or objective. The longer the wordcount, the more strands to the plot you can fit in & the more involved that plot can be, but for my purposes, a 2-3k short can only really carry one central plot convincingly. (That’s not to say it can’t be intricate or thoughtful or multi-layered thematically, but the external plot & the internal narrative? Fairly streamlined.)
  5. Both 3 & 4 above lead to – a very limited cast. There are only so many people we can meet and care about in 3,000 words. Honestly, there aren’t many more we can truly care about at 10,000.
Close up photo of chunks of blue glacier ice resting on the glacier mass, which is white streaked with black lines.

To expand that into a novella, we need to think about:

  • The internal character arc of your main character(s). What is the theme of your story and how does your character’s journey reflect that? How does their psychological landscape change from beginning to end and why does it change in that way (what events drive it externally and what motivations are driving it internally)?
  • Bring your secondary characters to life more – you may have more characters to play with, but a smaller cast will still serve you well so don’t go looking for more than you need. Those characters you have though cannot get away with just being a foil for the MC, or passive or 2-dimensional. They will need to have their own development, their own motivations and psychological landscape. Their arcs are likely to be less pronounced compared to the MC but they need to have something going on that’s independent of the MC.
  • Where a short story often has a very limited setting, or a narrow focus within a wider setting, you now need to think about developing your setting more. Whether that’s allowing your characters to move around, explaining more of the world’s context, or simply bringing the setting to more vibrant, interactive, dynamic life. I’m a big fan of the power of setting, and focussing that urge down for short fiction is always a bit of a struggle, so it was nice to be able to really lean into that particular area again.
  • Plot structure (deep breath) …
    1. Now, in our short story, this was streamlined down to the bare minimum number of strands and a fairly simple progression. At novella length we are looking more at the kinds of plot structures we talk about for novels, which I guess is the point all that advice I found was making. 3-Act Structure, but fewer turning points, Save The Cat, but cut down the B-plots or Road Apples or whathaveyou. Writing up from a short, I needed instead to think about adding complexity – where can I make this revelation or decision harder, how about more misunderstandings, or another foreshadowing motif, or adding in a failure or two? Plus, as mentioned above, how do I develop my secondary characters’ own arcs?
    2. One of the things I love about short fiction is that you can more easily be experimental with form and voice than you can at novel length, but I think there’s still a lot of scope for playing around outside the ‘norms’ at novella length too. I took the well known kishōtenketsu 4-Act Structure as my guide here because I wanted to focus on the internal change rather than a ‘conflict’ as such. I don’t think this approach, for this story, would have maintained its power over a longer wordcount, but at 28,000 it felt really powerful and right.
    3. You need to find the sweet spot between developing the story more, but making sure that all your development gets fulfilled. If you’ve added more characters, make them engaging and important; if you’ve added a sub-plot, make sure you give it closure; if you’ve introduced wider worldbuilding, make sure it is definitely contributing to the story. Your novella can be pacey and full of action or it can be subtle and dreamy and intricate, but it still has to answer its own questions.

My 2,500 word short story is now a 28,000 novella. Because it was trying to do too much in the first place, I didn’t need to add more characters or sub-plots really, I just needed to actually do justice to all the ideas I was trying to address. So my work was mostly on plot development, backstory, secondary character arcs and setting. Your approach will depend on your starting point, and on the themes and voice you are working with.

Photo of a small human in blue winter coat, blue leggins and blue snow boots sitting on a black sand beach with black basalt columns in the background.

I find that novellas can sometimes disappoint if you come to them wanting the complexities of a novel (I read on kindle, so I often don’t realise something is a novella until I’ve started). But where they blow me away is when although the plot might actually be simpler, it doesn’t feel it, because the atmosphere of the story is so unique and strong that the emotional depth is somehow more concentrated. There’s something incredibly powerful about paring a theme back to its absolute heart and then giving that heart richness, depth and nuance. Like a gin & tonic, versus a damson gin liqueur, if you will.

Hopefully this particular gin liqueur will be out in the world at some point, full of Icelandic ghosts, trippy midnight wanderings, the sea and the terrible lure of bargaining for things we have lost. Now I’ve totally and utterly mastered the art form though, I may well return for more…

Go back to Blog homepage

sepia tinted photo of a black sand beach, showing two bays, some rocks and bright white surf line.

The Dreaded Cover Letter

Leave a reply

Covid has found the household and I can see my productivity slipping away, so to make myself feel like I’ve achieved something, I’m posting this! That counts as work, right?

Anyway … I’ve been looking at a fair amount of submission packages over the last few months, and have noticed some common patterns. So, on the offchance that you’re struggling with yours and are looking for a few pointers, here they are. (Please note, the internet is full of people offering advice on cover letters and synopses, and none of us are omniscient. But most of us have some useful tips & hopefully I do too). I’ll cover synopses if I’m ever feeling brave but today is all about The Cover Letter. Oh we agonise over this, don’t we? And the moment we press send, we spot a spelling mistake anyway. Sigh. But here goes…

The first thing to remember is that this is, effectively, a job application.

I know the relationship goes the other way in the end, but at the point of submission you are trying to persuade the agent/editor that they want to work with you. So it’s a job application. Treat it like one. By that I mean:

  • Be professional in all correspondence. But most of all…
  • BE CLEAR.

This is the fundamental point, I think. Just as you would with a CV or application form, you want to make the relevant information absolutely easy to spot. You want it right there, all in one neat package for the agent/editor to locate and understand quickly. They don’t have a lot of time, and you are up against people whose letters are clear, so don’t bury the key information in random places or beneath non-essential details.

So what is this key information and where is it meant to be?

As with all things, annoyingly, there is a degree of variance here – US cover letters often lead with the pitch, for example, and some agents/editors will ask for a different format or content to the standard. But I’m going to go with what appears to be the industry standard in the UK, interspersed with calming pictures.

So herewith lies my model cover letter structure:

  • Dear [Get their name right, goddammit. Double check. Triple check.]
  • Opening Paragraph. 2-3 short sentences containing:
    1. If you’re submitting to a specific call (e.g. BIPOC writers or a Twitter pitch event request) then open with that. Otherwise…
    2. Title and word count (standard phrase is ‘complete at n words’.
    3. Genre. Don’t get bogged down with ‘but my books straddles 27 genres’. Pick one, add a second term if you have to, e.g. ‘Thriller with speculative elements’, ‘Literary mystery’, ‘Romantic space-opera’. They need to know where your book will sit in a bookshop, they also need to know you understand your book enough to know where it will sit in a bookshop.
    4. Why you’re submitting to that person in particular. Don’t wax lyrical about 14 of the authors on their list, or cite an interview they did 15 years ago. Do say that you saw their recent MSWL (manuscript wish list) and think your book might interest them because of X, or that your book shares themes of Y with their author Englebert Humperdink. If you’ve met them, this is where to remind them of that.
    5. If this particular book has been listed for any awards, mention that here.
Photo of two mute swans on silvery water. There are lots of small ripples and a broken reflection of each swan. It's all pale and calming.
Have some swans. Take a deep breath.
  • Background Paragraph. 3 sentences containing:
    1. Your personal connection to this story – whether a life experience, professional expertise, cultural identity, spotted a news article that prompted it. What was it that made you write it; and if it’s potentially sensitive, what makes you the right person to write it.
    2. Comparative titles. Yes, we all hate them. No, your book isn’t unique and incomparable. Yes, it’s important. Again, this is about showing the agent that you understand who your readers are, and that you have some awareness of the market you want them to launch your book into. Markets change, so keep the comps <5yrs old and try to strike a balance between utterly niche and the obvious big names. JKR is not a good comp, and neither is Aristotle, probably.
  • It’s worth noting here that your comps don’t have to be perfect plot/setting matches. Yes, a little similarity is good – comping your space opera to a romcom in Dagenham is probably stretching it. But think about the themes of your story, the tone of it. It’s okay to compare, say, a historical story with a contemporary one if the feel of the story is similar.
  • Also worth noting, you aren’t being egotistical & claiming you’re as good as Margaret Atwood (although naturally you are), you’re saying ‘my book may appeal to readers of…’ and that’s okay.
photo of my thumb & finger holding an eroded scallop shell up to a pale winter sun. The light through the shell is kind of a mosaic, it's weird and pretty.
You’re getting there. Here’s some sunshine through a gnarly shell.
  • The Pitch. 3 sentences. Oh isn’t it hell? Some pointers:
    1. First off, some people swop this with the Background Paragraph. That’s fine. I think it flows better this way around but it’s not a life or death decision. Do what feels right.
    2. This (otherwise known as your elevator pitch) is essentially a back-cover blurb. The pithy, dramatic hook that presents: 1. the main character(s), 2. the thing they need to achieve, 3. why they need to achieve it, and 4. why that’s so bloody hard. (Note the ending isn’t included here). Read lots of back covers to get a feel for them.
    3. It’s nice, but not essential to have a ‘tag line’ – one short sentence/line that tells us the unique concept of your book. Again, check out a few books – the tag line is often on the front cover, or at the top of the back cover blurb. Mine for This Is Our Undoing is ‘Could you condemn one child to save another?’ Some people don’t like questions but hey, I couldn’t resist – it summarises an absolute moral dilemma in the book that’s both a little unusual and dramatic.
    4. It’s ridiculously hard to summarise your intricate 90,000 words into 3 sentences isn’t it? So don’t. Think about the heart of your book, the feel of it (I’m fond of that image), and write down 10 words that come to mind. Then pick the most emotive of those, grab your four facts from point 2. above and see what you can come up with. Remember to use a few deliberate specifics to show us what’s unique about this story. ‘A woman’ is less engaging than ‘A Victorian adventurer’ for example. ‘To prevent disaster’ is less interesting than ‘To save the world’s last stiltwalkers’.
Photo of a sleeping penguin lying on it's belly facing the camera. Against a backdrop of distant sea.
The penguin says you’re doing great. Nearly there.
  • Your writing credentials. 2-4 sentences. Yes really, we don’t need to know much here. This is where a lot of early-career writers get nervous, but don’t. It’s the least important paragraph to be honest. If you have credentials then that’s fabulous and eye-catching, but if you don’t, then remember that everyone loves to discover a hidden talent, so trust your story to stand up without props. Some things you might include are:
    1. Previous novel/novella publications. Say what they are, who published them and when. If you self-published, you can mention it, but some folk say they’re only interested if it comes with a measure of success – lots of reader reviews, an Amazon bestseller flag, a trade review etc.
    2. Short fiction. Say where they were published. You don’t need to put story titles or dates, and if you’ve got quite a few, just pick the biggest publications (e.g. the ones that pay pro- or semi-pro rates, or the ones with the largest social media accounts).
    3. Prizes & prize listings, scholarships, awards, creative writing courses. Say what the prize/course/award was, and it’s probably good to say which year, although if you’ve quite a few, don’t bother. Again if you’ve a few, pick the most prestigious & recent.
    4. Any other important information. You might want to mention your profession, your location or identity. You don’t need to tell us about your cats, your non-writing hobbies, or that you love reading. You can tell us about the cats if you really want to, I guess. Regarding disclosing marginalised identities – the jury is out on whether to do that or not and honestly, I think it’s entirely up to you. If it’s relevant to the story then you’ll already have mentioned it in the Background Paragraph. If it’s not relevant but you’re submitting in response to a specific call, then you’ll have covered that in the Opening Paragraph. Disclosing it isn’t going to put a good agent off. Anyone it does put off is clearly not someone you want to work with anyway, so perhaps it’s useful as a filter if nothing else. Do what you feel comfortable with.
  • Sign off. ‘Please find attached…’, ‘Thank you for your time…’, whatever your personal approach. And ta da. That’s it. Well done you. Have some chocolate.

That was quite a long blog! If you’ve made it to the end then a) well done, b) hope it was useful and c) I love lists.

To repeat what I said at the start, this is all subjective … to a degree. Make it your own, but the essential point of clarity and succinctness stand regardless of the structure you prefer. Good luck! Let me know what you think. But don’t come at me with your ‘I got 6 offers of representation and my cover letter was an acrostic poem’ – we’re not all called Tarquin. Sit down.  

Go back to Blog homepage

Photo of a mum and five baby capybaras sitting on a narrow dirt track, looking, like they do, rather sleepy and smug.
Here’s some baby capybaras, you deserve it.

Joy In A Time Of Darkness

3 Replies

When I drafted this blog, it was in celebration of the cover reveal of my second book, The Way The Light Bends, and aggravation at yet another sodding storm. But now as I revise it, there are much bigger things happening in the world than British weather or book covers. Hard, heart-breaking, scary, overwhelming things. I don’t know what to say about Ukraine, or the tory government, or the new IPCC report other than that I wish I could do more than I am. I wish the world was doing more. What I am going to talk about instead is something that’s been on my mind –

Should we celebrate things when doing so feels like a travesty?

I think I am not alone in struggling with this. People are dying because of evil men. We are worn thin by heartbreak and fear that are both so large they are almost incomprehensible. It feels wrong, narcissistic, or simply too much of an emotional effort to be joyous as well.

Going back to storms, did you know we find wind stressful because it makes it harder to detect predators approaching (all that noise & moving vegetation)? It’s a fear response stemming directly from our inner rabbits.

The pandemic, the increasingly inhumane government, Putin, climate breakdown, they are all like the wind – a background (if we’re lucky) presence that creates stress, raised vigilance (hello, doomscrolling), a sense of vulnerability and powerlessness. And even when there is very little we can actually do to control those things, the stress lingers. It embeds itself in our minds and muscles, and wears us down.

So should we celebrate things like book cover reveals, nice reviews, publications? How about birthdays, World Book Day, seeing your friend for the first time in two years? Those things all deserve celebration, but doing so feels so bloody wrong doesn’t it?

Dealing with these crises with strength and empathy, though, requires endurance. And that comes from resilience. If we who are on the sidelines are too drained, too paralysed by powerlessness, we will inure ourselves to the bad news because that’s the only way to cope. Sound familiar? So how do we build resilience in ourselves that allows us to fight for change, to do what is within our power, to care about people beyond our own small circles?

I think we build resilience through joy and hope, just as much as through grit and determination. I think we stave off apathy through reminders that there’s an alternative to despair. There’s endocrinological evidence to back that up, but I’m too low on spoons to be specific. Basically, good things give us bursts of ‘feel good’ hormones, which energise and stabilise us.

So here’s my thinking:

  • First we do what we can to help create change – we donate, we vote & petition, we lift up voices.
  • Second we find a reason to smile, because if nothing else, nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
  • And third we create art because we need beauty, and we need stories that speak to a better world.

It doesn’t feel like much, does it? And in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t. Plus it definitely doesn’t remove the taint of heartlessness to the idea of celebrating something lovely. But we are not built for despair so maybe sharing joy means helping each other stay the course.

Black and white photo of a figure in a black cloak looking out to sea.

We revealed the cover of my next novel, The Way The Light Bends on Tuesday. I am so damn proud of where I am and so honoured at the support I’ve been shown by readers and publishing folk. I love this cover enormously and am so excited about All The Good Things I have happening.

I am also in quite a lot of pain, and deeply heartsore, worried and exhausted. I know I’m not alone. I also know I’d love to see your good news, I’d love to be happy for you.

Is that okay, if we do it on top of direct action? Or does it detract from the seriousness of everything else? Maybe, but do we need a little bit of … not distraction but brightness? I think so. It gives me the energy for hope, which is no small achievement.

I don’t really have an answer to the question I started with. It feels wrong to celebrate things right now. But it feels bleak to refuse to do so in the belief that somehow silence is preferable to a little shared beauty. What do you think?

Go back to Blog homepage

a photograph of a sunflower.

The Way The Light Bends

Leave a reply
Black and white photograph of a girl kneeling in the surf, her back to the camera.

I am not entirely sure what has happened to the last few weeks. I’ve had this blog post on my list of things to do for … quite a while, and now suddenly it’s three weeks since a Very Exciting Announcement was made on the Luna Press website: the news that I have A SECOND BOOK coming out! *Cue pom-poms* It is called The Way The Light Bends, and you can read the Luna blogpost here, then read on for some more behind the scenes details…

As I say on the Luna blog, The Way The Light Bends is a very different creature to This Is Our Undoing. If Undoing started from despairing at the brokenness of the world, then Light started from marvelling at how many broken edges people can carry and yet still appear whole. It’s a quieter novel in some ways – it’s not a dystopian, there’s no spy-thriller-murder-politics edge to it. What there is instead is the dark side of Scottish folklore, a disappearance, two very different journeys through grief and the way that family can both hold us together and tear us apart.

Drops of blood and silver, the haar, the sea, moonlight and hope. The bones of a bird, and a very beautiful, dangerous man.

Photo looking back at St. Andrews along West Sands beach with white surf and wet sand, and a lone figure in the distance.
West sands, St. Andrews

Sound interesting? I hope so. It was a hard book to write because grief is not comfortable or neat, but I love the shifting, evanescent mood of the story, and I really loved writing about two sisters, Tamsin and Freya, trying to find their own ways home. Fortunately (!) my relationship with my sister is not remotely like theirs, but there are elements of the family dynamics that come from my own experiences, which was profoundly weird to put onto paper. Not sure how anyone writes a memoir – that stuff’s tricksy!

Weirdly, I wrote this book before I wrote Undoing. It very nearly got published TWICE would you believe, and when it fell through the second time (I won’t go into that, so don’t ask), I completely lost faith in it and set it aside to focus on Undoing. And I’m so glad I did.

If I had stuck with The Way The Light Bends at that (frankly quite low) point, I’d have just continued to bash my head against my own failing self-confidence. Where-as by turning to Undoing, I rediscovered some belief in my writing, and found Luna Press, who are the absolute bestest.

Photo of a burn in flood, flowing around the bases of silver birches. The trees are dark against the silvery water.

The journey that this book (and my confidence) has been on makes this step all the more precious. I am honestly so delighted to be able to continue working with Luna Press, and am convinced those other near-misses were meant to be, because I couldn’t ask for a better home for this book full of dark water, lost sisters and the power of hope.

Have a look at the photos below – I feel like they catch something of the book’s mood.

Next stop, cover design. *silent cheering* I love this stage…

Go back to Blog homepage

Brave New World

Leave a reply

Last weekend I attended FantasyCon in Birmingham (see pics), The British Fantasy Society’s annual event. It felt like a brave new world for several reasons – the first in-person event now that we are in the (hopefully) latter stages of the pandemic, my first con, my first appearance on panels, hell, my first time meeting more than three people at once in 18 months. We were all venturing out of our caves into a new world that felt both daunting and hopeful, and I personally couldn’t have asked for a better place to venture into.

Between the hotel and the organisers, and with numbers lower than normal & masks compliance higher than I’d feared, I felt far more comfortable than I might otherwise have done. So thank you, everyone, who made that happen.

I’m not going to do a report on the Con itself because others have done that already & some of the sessions are on the Youtube channel here too.  Instead I want to chat about what it feels like as a newbie author, and spoonie, doing these things.

First off, launches are great.

I am glad I did my This Is Our Undoing belated launch alongside three other authors (Allen Stroud & Cheryl Morgan, contributors to Worlds Apart, and John Dodd author of novella Just Add Water). Having all of us reading and talking made it feel like a community celebration rather than a Look At Me. There’s nothing wrong with Look At Me events, we kind of rely on them after all, but I prefer a Yay Us feel instead, personally. So anyway we all talked about and/or read from our work then signed books and ate biscuits. It was lovely, people said nice things, admired Daniele Serra’s amazing artwork, and I realised a) there is nothing I can do to make my writing look neat, and b) I often add too many ‘r’s to my name when I’m in a rush.

Second, panels are more fun than I expected.

Honestly, I had a blast on both of mine (Beginning to Write, and History of Representation in SFF). I’d never done anything like it before either as a scientist or a writer, so I was expecting nerves and overwhelming social awkwardness (especially given the emerging-from-cave situation). BUT I felt relaxed and able to contribute more or less coherently, and I wasn’t even slightly a shaky mess. I mean, I was shivering like mad in one of them as I was sitting right under the aircon vent, but Covid, etc – probably the safest place in the room to be, hypothermia notwithstanding.

Third, being with other writers is so utterly lovely, isn’t it?

I’ve missed that. I started the weekend knowing two people and ended up with a whole gaggle of new friends; interesting, enthusiastic, supportive and fun new friends. I know Zoom is useful, I find remote access invaluable, but I’d missed meeting in person. I’m so glad I went.

A photo showing four books, a necklace with clock pendant and a pair of octopus earrings. Books are The Blacktoungue Thief, Christopher Buehlman; The Academy, FD Lee; Blackbird's Song, Katy Turton, & The Flicker Against The Light, Jane Alexander.
Bookish & treasure haul (cruelly restricted by bag+train combo)

I’m so glad I went, despite the cost.

Because ooh boy, the cost. As you already know if you follow me anywhere online or have read previous blogposts, I’m a spoonie. I live with disabling illnesses that DO NOT LIKE me doing anything beyond the bare minimum. So train journeys, ‘performing’, being intensely social, late nights, changed eating routines, even carrying a bag around all day … all of these are MAHOOSIVE triggers. Which means the weekend was incredibly hard on me physically, both during and now – five days later I’m still struggling. I’m hoping to be a little more stable by next week.

Black & white photo of a 'bone harp' model, brought by Lucy Hounsom & relating to the folktale in her book 'Sistersong'.

Fortunately, I was able each day to go back to my room, dose up on a pharmacy’s worth of drugs and crash for a few hours before re-emerging frazzled but more or less human. It wasn’t perfect, and to be able to do that meant going without drugs the 10 days leading up to the event (otherwise overdose feedback bleurgh stuff), but it allowed me to carry on functioning. Even more fortunately, my publisher knew I would need to take it easy & made sure I felt able to do so.

PS: look at this ridiculously creepy/fabulous bone harp brought by Lucy Hounsom!

One of the highlights of the weekend, as I struggled with spoons, was the panel on disability representation, and the discussion around driving change in the industry. Ironically, it wasn’t one of the events streamed or recorded (no blame intended, could have been due to a number of things e.g. consent/tech issues) BUT it sounds like the British Fantasy Society have both the awareness and the will to continue to improve access for disabled writers at future events. I hope so. One of the panel members said that change depended on more disabled people writing. I pointed out that we were, we just weren’t being published, and access is a huge part of that disconnect. I would love to see fully hybrid events, subsidised tickets, comprehensive access information and provision of BSL interpreters. How about a buddy system for newbies or people who’d find a companion helpful?

The pandemic has demonstrated what the disabled community have been saying for yonks – that overhauling access is actually perfectly possible. Now let’s see that awakening lead to permanent changes (see these guides), and not let the comfort of the ‘old normal’ return to excluding so many.

Here’s to the crips. And the people who are listening to us.

So, with my spoons depleted and my soul revived, here endeth my blog. FantasyCon was wonderful, hopeful and welcoming … I cannot wait for next year.

Go back to Blog homepage

Photograph of the sea, some rocks & a distant Isle of May. The clouds are gloomy but sunlight is turning the sea silvery.
Returned home to a very Autumnal Scotland!