I vowed, when I was a much-rejected wannabe, that when I was published I would tell the truth about how long it took and how difficult it was...
Nobody fought over my manuscript. Rather, they unplugged their phones, switched email addresses, took long sabbaticals on the other side of the world and instructed their assistants to tell me they'd died of a rare and sudden tropical disease.
My file marked: "AGENTS - those who've said sod off" - bulged and broke its seams. Publishers cowed from my offers of sexual favours, and remained unmoved when I chained myself to their railings.
I wept, wailed, got horribly drunk and spent £156.98 on postage. I did strange spells, took up chanting, consulted psychics, threatened to hang myself from the shower-rail if I didn’t get a book-deal and took to stalking.
What I didn’t do was give up. I was determined to get that novel published, even if it meant rolling up to my launch party with no teeth and a colostomy bag. I think we can safely say I was obsessed.
And published it was. I did sell it in the end, on a gloriously ecstatic, champagne-soaked day in August 2000 but it was by a long, circuitous and torturous route.
I kept going because after all the joy, elation, tears and liver damage I’d suffered writing an entire manuscript - don’t believe anyone who says it’s easy - I didn’t want it wasted. Many have seen this attitude as a strength but it is also one of my failings. Sometimes you do have to waste things. As a writer you need a built-in crap-o-meter and an iron nerve to discard all the stuff that doesn’t work.
But first and foremost you need determination. If faint heart never won fair lady it certainly didn’t get a book deal either. If you too, are on the point of cutting your throat because nobody wants to publish you, hold off until you’ve read this book. It might change your life.
Or if you’ve always wanted to write, but have never quite got round to it, this could be just the spur you need.
And if you’ve no interest in writing at all and have only read this far because it’s raining outside the bookshop and you’ve got twenty minutes to kill before the bus comes, don’t be such a skinflint.
Buy it anyway and give it to someone for Christmas. I could do with the sales.
