Tag Archives: New Book

Cover Reveal and Some Musings On Cover Development

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Today is Cover Reveal Day for We Are All Ghosts In The Forest! I love cover reveal days – they’re the day you can entirely unself-consciously gush about your book because you’re gushing about someone else’s work which removes (almost) all the imposter syndrome, awkward self-promo feels of your standard bookish promo events.

If you’ve managed to miss me hollering on social media – here is the gorgeous creation of Jo Walker, which I think captures so much of the essence of Ghosts from the colour palette to the tiny details.

Rather than just finish the blog here with an I HOPE YOU LOVE IT, I figured it might be interesting to talk through the process of cover designing in trad pub and perhaps share some ideas for how you the author can best intersect with that to increase your chances of getting the cover of your dreams.

Sound good? Okay.

[A version of this blog was shared on my Substack in January. Where-ever you read it, thank you for your interest and support]

I’m not as visual as some, so when I have a finished book my sense of what I want the cover to look like is generally quite vague. For my first book, I could only say ‘I don’t want people’ and ‘Moody, maybe with foxes.’ Which is … well it’s better than nothing. But there are several hundred directions that premise could take and many of them wouldn’t have really fitted my inner vague sense of the book.

Incidentally, I got extremely lucky with my first book in that my publisher spotted a new piece of art by award winning cover artist Daniele Serra and knew instantly that it fitted the book perfect. So my vagueness didn’t shoot me in the foot and I adore my moody fox with no people cover!

Buying the rights to a pre-existing piece of art is a slightly unusual process though. In most cases a book cover is created specifically for the book according to a cover brief given to the artist.

By my second book, I’d figured out that I needed to think more clearly about what I wanted. Now, I look for covers of books that both fit in the same marketing space and have stylistic approaches I like. I look up the designers of covers I admire and check out their portfolios. I try to come up with a list of aims that are more than ‘make it dreamy?’. Such as – ‘I think a minimalist & slightly eerie foresty vibe would work really well’ (Ghosts) or ‘I’d love lush tropical colours, including animals that are motifs in the book, and reference to the sea’ (Mother Sea).

And so for all my subsequent books, I’ve gone to my editor with some comp covers, a set of specific vibes that I want to convey, and some stylistic or design elements I am keen to see.

This step can take the form of a conversation in a bookshop (my second book), some email back and forth about comparative covers and photographs (my third book), or me sharing Pinterest boards and comparative covers, and us both pulling together a list of potential artists (We Are All Ghosts In The Forest).

Once you and your editor have agreed a direction, your editor puts together a cover brief which contains all the above information, along with relevant themes and motifs, plot points and market placement aims. The cover brief my editor put together for Ghosts was amazing (I wish I could share all of it), and incorporated elements from my Pinterest board, many of my suggested cover comparisons, and some incredibly exciting author comps as well.

The next steps happen without author input, usually (but see below).

With the sign off of Marketing and Publicity (and Mysterious Others), this cover brief is then sent to whichever cover artist is hired for the job. We had a list of top favs, and which one we went with was a juggling act of their vision and availability versus our deadlines. The limits of my involvement in this stage was saying ‘fabulous’ once the artist was confirmed.

Normally, the artist provides a selection of initial cover visuals to the publisher and they go through a process of development to come up with a single draft cover before this is then shown to the author.

With my second book, publishing with a small press meant that I was more closely consulted at this stage. I got to see all the prelim draft versions, pick the elements that I liked and ask for fairly substantial changes in an iterative process that went from entire colour/layout changes to tiny tweaks of font size and contrast levels. While this isn’t something I can expect from most books, it was an incredible learning process. (Check out Jay Johnstone here)

With Ghosts, I was sent a draft cover that had already been through revision in-house. It was beautiful, and very much in line with how I’d envisaged it. There were a few tweaks I wanted though, and after consulting my agent to confirm, I sent this list of requests back to my editor. Now, the bottom line in all of this is that the publisher has final say on covers. Contractually, authors are to be consulted, but not obeyed, so to speak.

With Mother Sea, to be honest this draft was so sublime, I made one request about the title font, which was adjusted, and that was it.

I was a little nervous sending a few more tweaks for Ghosts, so was super grateful when my editor came back with ‘Yes, I agree with all of this, will send it on’. Happy days.

I then got sent a ‘final’ version to agree, which was amazing and incorporated all my requests. But there was one small detail I felt still needed tweaking. I asked; this time my editor said ‘maybe. it depends.’ Which is entirely fair. The artist was working on commission and that buys only so many hours of work. So I get it, and even if they couldn’t make that last change, I still fortunately had a cover I love.

Do I have to love it? Maybe not, but I do have to believe it will help sell the book. We are going to be looking at this cover SO MUCH over the next year or so. I’m going to be taking it to bookshops, sharing it online, using it to pitch myself for events. I have to trust that when I show it to someone, it will give them both a fairly accurate sense of the book, and also make them want to pick it up.

It is easy, as with editing the book itself, to get tied up in tiny details. To worry about comma placement, exact shades of green, the length of chapter 27, the perfect placement of the title to the millimetre. And yes, those things matter. But also they don’t? At some point we are fiddling with things that no shop browser or reader is going to spend more than 3 nanoseconds on, so it’s okay to step back and go – it’s fine. I’m happy. I trust it.

Which is what a lot of it is about, I think. Trust. Trusting the publishing team to know what will work for your book, trusting your gut, trusting your book to stand without you in the world and do its job on its own.

Conversely, if your gut is telling you this cover is wholly wrong for your book, then step 1 has to be to talk it through with your agent if you have one. How much is simply that you aren’t familiar with current trends in cover design in your sub-genre? How much is a genuine disconnect between where you see your readership and where your publisher sees them? I’m very lucky I’ve never had to deal with this particular minefield, but if you find yourself in it, speak to your agent. Ask trustworthy friends who both know your book and know enough of publishing to give an honest, informed take. It’s hard to find the line between standing up for your book and not trusting the expertise of others, but resolving a sticking point can only happen through gentle, clear communications. Ask me, if you like! I’m happy to offer my semi-informed opinion!

I love the cover design stage. I love the joy of pointing at beautiful covers of books I admire, and saying ‘I’d like something like that please’. I love the absolute wild magic of sending a set of bullet points and random pictures to an artist and them somehow, miraculously producing something that captures the essence of your book. How? They are amazing creatures, cover designers, and deserve far more recognition than they generally get.

Did I get my final adjustment? No. Does it matter? I’m glad I asked, I would have regretted not asking and I think my suggestion was a valid one, but I still have a cover I both love and trust, and have been bursting with the urge to show it to everyone.

With the cover of Mother Sea I usually shove it at people, shouting LOOK AT THE CRAB. With Ghosts, I think it’s gonna be GOLDDD BEEEEEEEES.

Mother Sea Island Tour

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In the lead up to Mother Sea’s publication I did a wee countdown series of social media posts visiting various islands that inspired the island in Mother Sea. It was mostly an excuse to post lots of photos and rave about lovely places, and I figure I ought to pull it all together here just in case. (In case of what, I don’t know … the fiery death of Twitter? the need to prove ownership of the photos? validation that all my effort pulling it together was worth it? … Probably that last one tbh)

Anyway, below is a slightly expanded-upon tour of the islands behind the island…

One – Iceland

Not much in common with the tropical island in Mother Sea you say? Well, no. But this place has A Lot to teach the writer about colour palettes, I think. The deceptively monochrome black sand and white glaciers and searingly blue sea are an incredible reminder that less can be more! Also in this country there is no escaping the power of an unquiet land & the persistence of folklore.

Fav folklore – The Jólakötturinn – a giant cat that eats folk who weren’t gifted new clothes at Yule

Fav experience – The northern lights. I have no photos but omg, it was all the things and more.

Two – Tierra del Fuego

Staying in higher latitudes but at the other end of the planet, the beauty of these southern islands blew me away. It’s undeniably antarctic in weather and wildlife but all my preconceived notions of that were undone by flower-strewn islands, by hummingbirds & parrots right alongside penguins & sealions. Also, partcularly relevant to Mother Sea, heartbreaking histories of colonial genocide & the loss of language & culture.

Fav folklore – Teiyin from the Yahgan ppl. A shapeshifter god, protector of children & elderly, enforcer of altruism.

Fav experience – Following in Darwin’s footsteps – I read This Ship of Darkness while I was there for extra cross-temporal-bonding! Also, steamer ducks. So round.

Least fav – my 1st ever sunburn. I did not know it *hurt*! What?

Three – Shetland (and Orkney)

Closer to home, Shetland in particular, but also Orkney, taught me that political borders don’t always mean an awful lot. That dialects and folklore follow their own paths across the sea and old trade routes still shape island identity now, regardless of what the maps say. They also taught me that teeny tiny planes are the best, and I’d probably not survive a Shetland winter.

Fav folklore – The Sea Mither (spot the #MotherSea connection!) who wrestles the dangerous Teran to calm the seas.

Fav experience – Standing in the old broch on Mousa, listening to storm petrels purr in the stones around me. And getting dive-bombed by Bonxies on Orkney mainland!

Four – The Mediterranean

Kinda cheating lumping this whole region (and the Canary Islands) into one, but doing each island individually would turn this into a book, and also there are some common strands despite the distinctive feel of each place. I love the Mediterranean garrigue ecozone. It’s so stark & distinctive & surprising. I have a huge soft-spot for cyprus stands and stone pines, and ancient olive groves. But these islands are also fascinating for studying farming’s adaptations to a hard climate, the way humans have shaped the very land & how fragile that balance is. Especially as tourism threatens rural economics, communities, water resources & conservation.

Fav mythology – The Minoan rock tombs on Crete & Lycian cliff tombs in Turkiye appear in Mother Sea. Caves & bats – what’s not to love?

Fav experience – Cretan orchids. Omg, if you’re remotely into flowers, the orchid species crowding the hillsides will give you heart failure.

Five – Seychelles

The right ocean at last! These are the closest islands to my fictitious one in Mother Sea, so a lot of the flora & fauna are similar. Seychelles taught me a hard lesson on coral reef damage & restoration, but a beautiful one on Creole language & culture. It also taught me to look beyond the glossy curated tropical paradise images for the murkier truth about the impossible value:cost trade-off of tourism on places and communities like these.

Fav folklore – An eejit Brit in 1800’s decided the coco de mer was the original forbidden fruit because it looks like a bum! And therefore that the Seychelles was the lost garden of Eden. I mean, it’s a definite paradise in some ways, but also, lol.

Fav experience – Meeting giant tortoises? Or giant fruit bats squabbling in the tree above us as we ate our dinner in the dark (hint: Mother Sea may contain bats)

Six – Madagascar

Along with France & South Asia, this is the other origin of my community in Mother Sea, so hints of Malagasy culture fed into the book. This country is a biologist’s dream and heartbreak all in one – the most mindblowing evolutionary wonders alongside some of the most heart-rending poverty and worst habitat destruction I’ve ever seen. For Mother Sea though it gave me ‘tsingy’ landscape (limestone karst) & baobab forests, pirogues & feminism & day geckoes.

Fav folklore – I was told once that bats hang upside down to show their arse to god as revenge for an offence. I cannot remember what the offence was but I love this so much.

Fav experience – An aye-aye there-&-gone in the dark, indri singing in the dawn, being unutterably lucky.

Seven – The Outer Hebrides

Finally to the place where Mother Sea began – with the history of St. Kilda & it’s abandonment. That tale of population decline, of grief and a terrible communal turning-inward because of that grief was the seed that everything else in Mother Sea grew around. And the islands of North & South Uist, Benbecula, Eriskay and Barra were also there to teach me so much about island communities, the persistence of faith, carving a living from the liminal shore.

Fav folklore – The Blue Men of the Minch. They’re blue, they shout poetry slam challenges at ship captains, they raise storms. I love them.

Fav experience – Just the startling, stunning bays – white sand and turquoise water and the steep, watchful dunes. The ruined silhouettes of churches and manor houses on lonely islets, the ghosts of brochs haunting the lochans.

Thank you for coming with me around the world! There are a couple of dozen more islands I read about, stalked online, talked to people about and dreamed of, that all fed into Mother Sea in other ways. But these are (some of) the ones I’ve lived in and loved, and left pieces of myself behind in.

Writing The Difficult Stuff

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Mother Sea comes out tomorrow. I am so excited to share this book with you all, and so honoured at the care Fairlight Books have taken with it. I really, really, really hope it resonates with you.

Before it comes out though, I wanted to talk about some of the issues I explore in its pages because if you’ve read my previous blog, you’ll know that when I was writing Mother Sea, I never intended to seek publication. So I went into some places that perhaps I wouldn’t have been brave enough to venture into if I’d been writing with an external audience in the back of my mind.

With hindsight, I am glad that I wrote this book and that others will get to read it. I think it’s important to write the things that scare us as authors, or make us cry as we’re typing, the things that we put off writing for days because we fear them. Writing is, if nothing else, a way to reach out to strangers. It is a way to whisper to someone else, ‘I know how you feel. I feel it too.’ Which is why darker, sadder themes are so powerful, and so pervasive in stories, right? Because that quiet connection, that resonance is both a hand held out in companionship, and also at the same time, a hand held out to guide you through the unfamiliar terrain of someone else’s heart.

So although I think Mother Sea is as much a book about love and resilience as darkness, it does go into some deeply sad places. But my hope is that in doing so it might help someone feel less alone, it might help someone else understand a perspective or an experience in a way they hadn’t before. If it can do that then I will be content.

Aside from the wider themes of climate change and the global injustice of climate impacts, there are two specific events in Mother Sea that were incredibly hard to write. And talking about how I wrote them involves some personal details that are a little scary to put out into the world, so please bear with me. If you want to avoid spoilers please stop reading now, because although I won’t go into plot details, I am going to reference the nature of these two moments.

sepia tinted photo of a ruined chapel and old gravestones behind a low stone wall, taken on North Uist.

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Okay, still with me?

The first, encountered in the opening few chapters, is some profound suicide ideation by Kit, one of the Point of View characters. His depression and the desire for release drive him to the edge of a cliff. Obviously, he walks away, otherwise that would be the shortest PoV plot thread ever. But writing his thoughts leading up to that moment, and writing some of his journey towards healing afterwards, drew on my own experiences more than I’ve ever really admitted to anyone. That was hard. It was so hard that at one point I realised Kit’s thoughts were bleeding into my own, and I had to put the book aside for several months until I felt able to return to it.

I don’t pretend to understand everyone’s experience of depression, but I understand my own. And I wanted to speak to anyone else who’s lived this terrible, lonely thing, but I also wanted to write accessibly enough for people to empathise with even if they’ve never known depression. Have I achieved that? I don’t know. But I’m glad I wrote the walk to the cliff top, and I’m even gladder I wrote the walking away. 

The second event isn’t something I’ve experienced myself. I wrote the death of a baby. Even typing that sentence makes me feel sick. It’s the worst thing I think I will ever write, and I put off doing the actual scene for weeks. I tried to rejig the plot to avoid it happening, I tried to narrate it from further away, I tried to make it something unspoken. But none of those changes were right. None of them did justice to the truth of the islanders’ situation, and the gravity of the death itself. It’s not gratuitous, it’s not even actually described at all. All you hear is the mother’s breathing change. That’s it. But it still left me wrung out and oddly guilty.

I haven’t experienced the loss of a child. But I have experienced multiple miscarriages, and although I’m not equating those two experiences, my own griefs definitely shaped my desire to tell this story. Because this – the neonatal tetanus epidemic – was the seed that started Mother Sea. It comes from real events on the islands of St. Kilda in Scotland, and reading about that was where this all began. I could not get the thought of those women out of my mind. What it would have felt like to be carrying a child knowing its chances of survival were so slim – how did you guard your heart from that? What would you be willing to do to try to change fate?

I couldn’t write the story of a community’s grief and fear, the story of their fight for hope, and not bear witness to the heart of that – a mother carrying her child, and losing it. I hope I’ve done it justice, I know I feel a kinship with anyone who is carrying the ghosts of their lost children in their arms.

The term ‘book of my heart‘ gets thrown around a lot by writers, doesn’t it? But Mother Sea could never be anything else because I wrote it for my own heart. I wrote it out of both my private griefs, and my wide-open, globe-spanning grief in the face of the climate crisis. And yet ‘What is grief, if not love persevering?’ as Vision said. So it’s just as much about love too, in all its forms from the private to the globe-spanning. Although it started as a very private thing, by the time I was editing I had begun to picture readers other than myself. I began to hope that a story about an island that doesn’t exist might perhaps feel true and precious to strangers. I know how you feel, my islanders whisper from the shade beneath the tamarind trees. I feel it too.

Thank you for reading this abnormally personal blog. I wanted to write about these two things by way of content warning and explanation. I also wanted to say to my readers thank you for venturing with me through such difficult terrain, I hope I carried you through safely to a place of hope.

A photo from North Uist looking out across a lochan with an island fort towards St. Kilda.

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The Road To Publication

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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.

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Retreats, Arts Funding & Goats

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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.

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Dark Academia – tropes, toffs and tribulations.

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What is it, why do we love it, why do we hate it, why am I even trying? 

It’s a popular genre at the moment, isn’t it? Whether you consider it as born out of Tumblr vibes or Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Dark Academia is doing WELL. I’ll confess now that I am both writing a DA and absolutely not writing one. I’ll explain that later.

First though, my Schrodinger’s DA project has got me thinking about the genre itself and all the various conversations that I’ve had with other writers & readers about it. These conversations basically fall into four questions, as summed up by my opening sentence, and I’m going to answer each one as best I can. Not out of any great literary scholarship but out of an interest in the reasons why I am so drawn to this genre, and yet why it often (for me) falls short of my expectations.

black and white photo looking through a ruined doorway in an abandoned blackhouse on South Uist.

What is it?

Lol, start with the easy one! I think there are two forms of DA, to be honest. You may disagree – please do, I’m all ears.

If we accept that the label and thus the story-form arose from Tumblr posts first, then Dark Academia is basically any story involving the following ingredients:

  • An elite school/college, preferably isolated and/or very insular.          
  • People being studious.
  • Gothic architecture, libraries, fog.
  • A small close-knit, probably deeply toxic cast.    
  • Dark plottiness of some form*

*There’s not an awful lot of consensus over the default plot of DA when your focus is on the vibes, but it’s usually some form of Dark Things Happen, whether that’s murder, monsters, deadly secrets or just The Grown-ups Are Evil.            

If you take The Secret History as your starting point (this is a divisive one – many people say it is, others say it’s not DA at all), then the ingredients are similar, but also different:

  • An elite school/college, preferably isolated and/or very insular.       
  • The study of something esoteric that mirrors the characters’ psychologies/the book’s themes.   
  • Libraries.
  • A small close-knit, probably deeply toxic cast.   
  • A plot that explores the faultlines at the heart of the institution, and possibly therefore at the heart of society, and cracks those faultlines wide open, usually cracking open a few characters in the process (literally or psychologically).

So my take is that while both forms of DA involve a similar evocative, restricted setting, one strand is much more focussed on the vibes & inter-personal plot, while the other is focussed on dismantling the vibes to find the rotten heart beneath.

A lot of the former books – some of which are recent bestsellers & Booktok hits – touch on the latter deeper themes, but in my opinion fail to do them justice. Which is why I ended up deciding there were two types of DA, so I didn’t get too annoyed with the former for failing to be something they weren’t necessarily set up to succeed at.

(Note: I’m not going to name names as I don’t want to sound unfairly critical. This is all subjective)      

photo of the ruins of a roman-style arena in Turkey

Why do we love it?

Did I mention libraries? And the fog? Honestly though, I think this is an easy one both on the more superficial level and digging deeper. Create a story that revolves around dusty tomes, discussions about those tomes, and wearing cozy jumpers & you’ve basically tapped into most bookworms’ secret aspirational life. Add in some danger, romance, fraught found-family bonds, and some blood, and the lure is irresistible.     

Personally I’m a big YES PLEASE to all of the above, but I also really want a story that links the hunger for knowledge with the characters’ undoing, that peels back the allure of the institution, forcing the characters to face the darkness … and to choose between complicity, rebellion, escape or immolation.

M.L Rio’s If We Were Villains does this beautifully, driving her characters to essential immolation, where-as Naomi Novik’s The Scholomance series involves both rebellion and escape, in a fantastic unravelling of the institution and its secrets.

I want to feel like I’ve been seduced by the institution, and then betrayed by it – which means that all the best DAs plot a descent from the glittering spires into the darkness, and some of the best DAs do not emerge again.

Photo of the upper storeys of a very pink scottish castle. It's all wee turrets and small windows and pink.

Why do we hate it?

Aside from getting annoyed with books that I expected to do all the deep thematic stuff but instead just gave me vibes & character-plot, there are a few aspects of DA that pose a challenge to some readers. These are really interesting to me because they often reflect the weaknesses with the All Vibes form of DA, and suggest that those readers would still love the ‘Deep Themes’ form.

First off though, let’s talk about elitism & the British obsession with class structure.

DAs being set in colleges that are old, grand, highly selective and often wealthy just ooooozes Oxbridge rich boy insular ivory towers type worlds, financed by inherited wealth and privilege (which is in turn financed by the oppression of others). Although the character list almost always contains one or more Outsider – with no connections, no wealth, inadequate training etc – the Institution and most of the people in it are straight from the societal 1%. Which is … a turn off to a lot of people. I don’t like tories & toffs, why would I want to read about them?

See where the distinction between the two types of DA comes in here? I’ve read a few recently where I really didn’t like any of the characters, I didn’t like what the institution stood for, and although plots happened and enemies were overcome, there was no real, true reckoning of the structural cruelties and lies that the institution and the characters stood upon. I no like. Despite the library and cozy jumpers.

What else don’t we (I) like about DA? The deification of Knowledge. This is a funny one. I love nerdy books that demonstrate the author’s deep love and understanding of A Thing, whether that’s Shakespeare or philosophy or maths. I even more love books where real world knowledge is bedded into a speculative other within the world. BUT it’s quite easy for this nerdiness to swing too far in one or both of two directions –

  • Arm-waving, as my old PhD advisor used to call it. Lots of talk that doesn’t actually stand up to scrutiny.
  • Showboating – going into lots of expositionary detail to impress us the readers with your amazing cleverness.

Neither of these is that appealing really, are they?

On the other hand, some books that are labelled DA are really not seeking to center a field of study in this way, the story just happens to be set at a University or boarding school, and I think it’s okay for those books to just merrily do their thing without being called DA.

Lastly, and this is perhaps a little niche … if you’ve spent any time in academia, you will read these books and slightly despair. Where is all the paperwork? Where are the endless faculty meetings and grant deadlines and HR emails asking for updated budgets? Where is the goddamn bureaucracy and tired, overworked post-docs who just want half a day to themselves to get their bloody paper written?? Lol, sigh. I do not miss it, ngl.

And now, because I promised you I’d explain…

Shot from the beach looking towards St. Andrews. There's a bloke with a horse on the beach & one of the university towers on the skyline, snow on the hill behind and wintery light.

Why am I even trying?

I’m writing a Schrodinger’s DA/not-DA at the moment. I am hedging around calling it DA because I’m not sure the studying stuff is esoteric enough. Instead of philosophy or literature, it’s machine parts and old radio bulletins, maps and songs and doing hard maths by hand For Reasons. It’s also not got the Ancient Tradition vibes as the college was only established twelve years ago (after A Thing happened).

It does, however, have a very tired researcher failing to get her paper written and drinking too much coffee while her students offload their crises onto her & she’s constantly due in a meeting. It also has an exploration of the rotten heart beneath the haunted, isolated, book-filled floating fortress that is my college. And my poor main character is forced to confront her own complicity in this rottenness, with all the necessary blood, found-family trauma, secrets and mayhem.

Honestly, I don’t know how it’ll get labelled once it’s a whole thing. I tend to leave that in the hands of the professionals (my agent and publisher). But why am I even skirting around the edges of this strange, popular, tricksy genre?

Because there’s a cool library full of semi-sentient books in it. That’s why.

And I suspect that’s also why Dark Academia is not losing its shine anytime soon.

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Photo looking out towards St Kilda from North Uist, in the foreground there's a loch with a wee ruined tower on an old broch island.

The Way The Light Bends

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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…

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The Faith & The Fear

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I’m not entirely sure about this blog. I mean, basically it’s me crying ‘what if you don’t like me!’ into the void. Which is both slightly unattractive and plain daft. However, I think it’s a feeling a lot (all?) writers experience to some degree as launch day approaches (and after, but I’m living in a universe where ‘after’ isn’t allowed to exist yet). So let’s talk about it, shall we?

You see, this is all just a little bit scary. I wrote this book, you may have heard me talking about it. And I thought it was pretty good; in fact I still do. I had enough faith in it to send it to publishers, after all, which takes guts. Only … now it’s up to you guys whether you think it’s any good, and apparently I’m not allowed (by my bank manager and by privacy laws) to send you all bribes to make you say nice things?  

At present, I have had two amazing cover quotes from two wonderful authors, Yvonne Battle-Felton and Will Dean… and ARCs of the beast are out with gazillions (almost) of reviewers, including a blog tour’s worth of book bloggers. How fabulous is that? All those people willing to give up their time to read and review my own words. *melts*

ALSO, as if that wasn’t enough, my fabulous publishers have taken a huge leap of faith on the book, and produced a Limited Collector’s Edition hardback. This is truly fantastic. It moves me deeply that they see such potential in my story, and I feel deeply honoured and very, very excited to see it. Each copy is going to be unique, with an individual quote from the book, personalised messages to the buyer and my very own name (HALP – I need to decide how to sign it… Raine? Lorraine? Lorraine Wilson?). Check it out here. Isn’t that something quite special to happen to your book?

Painting of fox and forests overlaid with text saying 'Fast-paced and emotive, echoes of ghosts and promises of redemption make this a breathless read' Yvonne Battle-Felton, author of 'Remembered'
Photo of a scarce swallowtail butterfly feeding on a lavender flower stalk.
A lucky bug (Scarce swallowtail)

And honestly, I can’t wait to see what other people make of my book – how they interpret the characters and the themes, who they love, what they connected with. In the author panel I did with Yvonne Battle-Felton a while ago, Yvonne said that she loved Kai, and wanted to know more about him, and that was … wow, someone loved a person who used to exist only in my head … how fabulous is that? What a strange and magical thing to happen. I am a lucky bug.

…so anyway, that’s the FAITH. People willing to volunteer reviews of my book. A publisher gambling on special editions of my book…

And HERE’S THE FEAR:

Black and white close up & head-on photo of an Oak hawkmoth.
Oak hawkmoth looking, I think you’ll agree, fearsome

What if all those reviewers hate it? What if no-one (other than my mum) buys the special edition, or the hardback for that matter, or – hell, paperback or ebook? What if my lovely editor is in actual fact the ONLY OTHER PERSON IN THE WORLD who likes my book? It is statistically unlikely, I’ll grant you, but not impossible.

Now, in my more rational moments I know that a) these fears are understandable but equally b) shut up, you fool.

But my rational brain seems to have decided that the lead up to release is a really good time to hibernate. (It’s called aestivating in the summer, did you know? It’s a good word)

It feels weird to talk about this. I feel like I’m meant to emanate a kind of confident, enthusiastic expectation of success, or something. But isn’t it more normal to talk about being nervous before an important event? Isn’t it okay – and more honest – to say ‘hey, I’m feeling the fear, but I’m also really looking forward to hearing what other people think’ because the fear doesn’t stop that other bit being true. In fact it makes it more true. If I truly wasn’t nervous, it would be because I didn’t care what you thought of This Is Our Undoing, and I do care. Very much.

close of up a figure of eight moth on wood, looking very well camouflaged.
Me (or a Figure of eight moth) pretending I’m invisible.

So wish me luck in the weeks ahead, would you? And please, if you read This Is Our Undoing and like it, let me know?

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Photograph of a male Beautiful Demoiselle damselfly on a leaf. The sun is catching the vivid metallic blue of the wings.
Me (or a Beautiful Demoiselle) emanating confidence and success.

Real Author Stuff & Spoons

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May seems to have filled up with what my mind insists on calling Real Author Stuff. Namely, interview blogposts, a newsletter highlight, live & recorded reading events, and a book club visit. I’ll give you the details in a moment, first I’d like to squeal quietly at you, if that’s ok.

*me squealing*

I am loving it, in case you were wondering. Each one of these things is a shiny brass weight in the ‘Yes, you are an author’ half of the scales and a pigeon feather in the ‘haha, good joke, yes?’ half. Which is nice. I’ve mentioned in passing before that getting to this point involved a few set-backs. In summary, they included having and then losing an agent (book1), having two publishing offers (for book2), one of which I accepted but that then fell through, dozens and dozens of full requests (books 1-4), several phonecalls and similar near misses (books 2-4), some blatant prejudice, some amazing encouragement… and then This Is Our Undoing (book3 btw) found its true home with Luna. Add in the chronic illness palaver and it’s been an occasionally challenging process.

So being asked to take part in Real Author Stuff is … it’s magical frankly. I am stopping to smell the roses.

Photograph of wild rose bush covered in pink blossoms.

Sadly, aforementioned chronic illness doesn’t entirely agree.

This is one of the things with living with disabling illnesses – that everything, and I mean really, literally everything has a health cost. Gardening for half an hour? That’s a spoon or two please (for an explanation of the concept of spoons and being a spoonie, read this). Walking down to the chemist to get prescriptions? Worrying about a poorly cat? Cooking tea? A few spoons should cover it. Doing a live reading/author chat in the evening? SO MANY SPOONS.

black and white close-up photo of a moth with droopy antennae - it looks sad.
brindled beauty pulling a sad face

Spoonie life is a juggling act, a walking on eggshells existence.

It is a constant bartering of ‘I really want to do that on Thursday, so I can’t risk doing this today’, or ‘I’m doing this on Wednesday, so Thursday and Friday are written off.’ And that’s fine. I’m lucky that with planning and recovery time, I can generally do things. (I mean, it’s not really fine, but *shrug* that’s life, you get on with it.) However, it’s been brought into sharp relief with the advent of Real Author Stuff, because I love being asked to do things, and I love doing them, and want to do more (please) so I am … undergoing a shift, I guess. Which includes taking writerly things more seriously. It has always been effectively a ‘hobby’, so in the spoons bartering it’s been hard to justify paying too much for it, when my ‘payments’ (days of ill health while I recover) affects my family as well as me. But writing isn’t a hobby now. I’m an author, I’m allowed to give Real Author Stuff value. Which is both a very complicated equation still, and also contrarily incredibly liberating.

Statue of a woman with head bent, holding something on her shoulders with one hand. It's very soviet and very striking. There is also a pied flycatcher sitting on her head.

On the other hand, I’m still allowed to protect my health, even with Real Author Stuff. And one of the absolute greatest things about publishing with Luna Press is how unconditionally supportive Francesca has been. Honestly, I cannot put into words how bolstering it is to know that my publisher has my back and that in my health bartering, I do not have to add in the stress (goodbye spoons) of worrying about annoying my publisher if I cannot do something.

This blog has turned into … something more complicated than a ‘YAY LOOK AT ALL THESE EVENTS I’M DOING’ blog. But then, living with disability is complicated, and I don’t want to smooth over the nuances and difficulties of that. Yes, it makes for a messier ‘YAY’, but also it makes the good stuff that much more precious. I am smelling the roses, gently.

…And here are some of said roses…

Publishing Scotland’s newsletter Books From Scotland includes an extract from This Is Our Undoing … it contains bears and the very beginnings of All The Trouble. Read it here.

The book blogger Janet Emson – From First Page To Last – published a wee Q&A where I talk about why I wrote This Is Our Undoing, why I love graphs and what I owe Oscar Wilde. Read it here.

I did my first ever live reading & chat with Yvonne Battle-Felton and an eclectic, fascinating mix of other debut authors. My reading is around the 1:20 mark, watch it here, admire my fairy lights & see if you can spot the cat.

…More to come soon, thank you for reading. Wishing you all the spoons you need. This is a slightly psychedelic photo of me (not me) smelling (drinking from) the roses (geraniums).

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Photo of a hummingbird hawk moth drinking from a wild geranium flower whilst hovering.
Hummingbird hawkmoth

The Art of Waiting

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Being a writer involves a lot of waiting, doesn’t it? I’ve been living on tenterhooks for the past couple of months, and finding it (along with everything else going on) really affecting me. More so than normal, which has annoyed the hell out of me because I guess I’ve previously felt a little smug about how good I am at compartmentalising and getting on with stuff rather than obsessing over inboxes. Oh how the mighty are fallen, or the not-so-mighty-at-all, in my case. So instead of staring at my inbox, doom-scrolling Twitter or whinging to the cats, I figured I’d write a post about things that can make the waiting easier. And I’m going to fill the post with flowers because they’re nice.

First, in case you are new to writing/not a writer, you might be wondering what all this waiting is for. Well, at first it can be small things like waiting for some alone-time to write, or waiting for the cranky old laptop to decide whether to start, or, a little later on, waiting for critique partners to get back to you. Then comes the big one: Waiting for agents/publishers/magazines to respond to submissions, which they might never do, of course, leaving those not-answered emails in a Schrodinger’s state of rejected/not-read-yet for the rest of eternity. That sucks, by the way. I’d rather a rejection, however formulaic, than radio silence. But there we go. This stage – the ‘being on submission’ stage is horrible and happens throughout your publishing career over and over again, so buckle up.

flowerhead of an allium against a backdrop of meadow flowers.
Wild allium in meadow

I’m currently in the ‘on submission’ hellpit for two books with various agents/publishers, (and some short stories actually, but I find them easier to forget about once I’ve sent them off). I’m also, though, in an ‘out for review’ limbo for This Is Our Undoing. This is a whole new world to me. I am waiting for early reviewers, my first ‘professional’ readers, to let me know what they think, potentially for quotes to go on the cover of the book. This is nerve-wracking in a whole new way and to be honest, I wasn’t prepared for it. I was so honoured and delighted and excited that these authors who I hugely admire were willing to read and provide a review for the book that I didn’t really brace myself for how agonising it would be waiting for them. Waiting for these people you admire so much, the first people outside of your publisher to read the actual finished book, knowing that they get asked to read other books by (better) bigger names and how can you possibly compare to that? Fun, huh? Anyway, that’s where I am. Please send hugs. And then read this collection of things that have helped me cope in the past…

a yellow banded skipper butterfly sitting on a corn marigold flowerhead.
Yellow banded skipper on a corn marigold
Mystery pink species from a montane meadow, Bulgaria

1.Be honest with yourself about your wider situation. For me, I know that other factors are at play at the moment – my health is not great, I’ve just done another term of homeschooling and am suffering some serious pandemic fatigue. My resilience is lower than normal, and my ability to concentrate on tasks is rubbish as well, making it harder for me to dive into other things. How is your mental health at the moment? If it’s a wee bit wobbly, you’ll be finding the uncertainty of waiting harder. Accept that, cut yourself some slack. Give yourself treats.

2. Work on something else. I’ll repeat that, cos it’s really important. WORK ON SOMETHING ELSE. Not only does it provide a distraction, it also spreads the load of your hope and expectations. If your submitted project doesn’t go anywhere, then all is not lost – you have this shiny new thing you’re developing & perhaps that is The One which will succeed. It doesn’t have to be a whole book, it can be flash fiction, short stories, research for an idea, revisiting an old idea. It could even be writing a blog post 😉

3. Get physically away from your inbox. That thing clings doesn’t it? It’s right there on the computer screen, it’s on your phone, it’s like a little devil on your shoulder whispering ‘Check me! Check me!’ Turn your notifications off so you aren’t getting buzzed & fleetingly excited for every Kinde Daily Deal email or whatever. Go do some gardening or walk the dog & don’t turn mobile data on. Take some photos instead & then when you come back & your inbox still hates you, you can post a nice photo instead of endless crying emojis.

4. Remember the person you are waiting on is only human.

They really are. Even the agents. And they’ve endured the last year too, and are suffering for it too. I’m struggling to read more esoteric books & am re-reading a lot instead, so others are likely struggling to keep up with reading too. Be kind even in your own head, it makes a difference.

5. Drink Tea.

Close up & backlit photo of a wild blue delphinium flower.
Wild delphiniums, Crete.

6. If it’s a circumstance where it’s okay to prompt, be realistic about when you can do so, and stick to that. Again, the other person is only human, and if you pester them, they’ll respond the same way you would if someone was pestering you. You don’t want that. The situation will determine a lot of this – if it’s a service you’ve paid for, you are allowed to expect timely delivery; if it’s an unsolicited submission, the agent/publisher website will often tell you what timescales to expect & whether it’s okay to prompt. If, as in my current case, it’s an entirely voluntary, generous favour, you need to make sure you remember that.

7. Work on something else. Hell, submit something else. If you’re obsessing about B, then you’re not obsessing so much about A, are you? Ha.

black and white photograph of stems of a bellflower.
Peach-leaved bellflower, the Pyrenees.

8. This is veering into The Art of Handling Rejection which would be a whole other post … but remember it’s a numbers game sometimes. If you’ve sent out six submissions, you frankly won’t hear back from all of them & some will take several months to respond (if it’s publishers, they can take up to a year for heaven’s sake). That leaves what? one or two? which you might realistically hear from soon. If you send out twenty submissions (could be different short stories or the same novel), then your chances of hearing something from someone has just gone up. (Obviously though, each submission has to be taken seriously – so don’t spam, it’s not that kind of numbers game).

9. I feel like I ought to round the list off at 9. Buy yourself a new notebook. Don’t check your phone until you’ve written something in it.

So there you have it. Waiting sucks, it makes you powerless, and when you have invested so much of yourself into your writing it is hard to step back from it enough to be patient with a world that isn’t all *grabby hands*. But you’ll get through it. They’ll respond, or they won’t, but either way you’ll keep writing because that’s what we do. Good luck, and know that you’re not alone. Now go make a cup of tea and write something pretty. 

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Close up of a cornflower flowerhead.
Cornflower