I finally lit my candle

My newest novel, beside the candle I have saved for three years

Three years ago, my partner gave me a candle with “The Woods” written on it. Walking in woods was my thing, and a story with the forest at its heart had started to unfold inside me. It’s my favourite story idea to date; I told my partner about it and he bought me the candle. I lit it once or twice at the time, but I haven’t lit it for years. At some point, I put the lid on and decided I wouldn’t light it again until the novel I so badly wanted to write was in my hands.

At that time, my debut novel, Space Hopper, had been picked up by Simon & Schuster and I had a two-book deal. I’d written the second novel, Gabriel’s Cat, and both my agent and editor loved it, so at that stage, I allowed new ideas to start percolating. As well as The Woods, I was also thinking about a character called Joe Nuthin.

When I thought my second novel was accepted, new ideas started brewing

A few months later, in the depths of lockdown, I heard the news that Simon & Schuster USA didn’t want to go ahead with Gabriel’s Cat, because the central character was a grumpy, older man. After some Zoom meetings, I wrote a new novel called Stella. It was the first time I’d researched for a book, as it was about a young, gay sculptor who lost her leg in a bicycle accident; I even talked with Douglas Bader’s relatives and they were fascinating.

Douglas Bader, double-amputee flying ace of the Battle of Britain

My beta readers and I were happy with Stella, so I handed it over with every confidence. But the publisher didn’t want it: it was “too niche”, what they needed me to write was a “mass market” novel. I wrote two more partials, which didn’t fit the bill either, and then I gave up.

Felt pretty helpless at this point

Eventually, I agreed to a meeting with my editor, and she told me that my writing and my novels were good, but there was concern that they weren’t best-seller material. During the meeting, I mentioned Joe Nuthin and went on to write the novel that became Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life. It wasn’t easy, because by then I’d lost my confidence and also, other areas of my life imploded at the same time. I wrote in a fug of deep depression and was medicated for some of it, which made it almost impossible to write, so I had to come off it. I submitted the finished novel with no flourish, no ceremony, I didn’t even read it through. I emailed it to my agent and editor with a note saying something like “take it or leave it.” To my enormous surprise, they took it, and it needed hardly any changes. I still don’t know how I wrote such an uplifting novel during that dark time.

Despite how I felt when I wrote it, Joe Nuthin is an uplifting novel

The two books for the two-book deal were in the bag, but the publisher had first-dibs on my next novel, and I had to write something they wanted. Consequently, I ended up writing well outside of my comfort zone. The story just “wasn’t me”, and it was like wading through vomit. It took a long time to finish, required a huge number of edits, which I hadn’t done before, and after it was submitted, it took them six months to tell me they didn’t want it anyway.

It was a “no”.

This didn’t come as a surprise, I knew they’d say no, but while I’d waited to hear from them, I was unable to write a thing. In fact, the day they said no, was the very day I began writing The Woods and it practically fell out of me, I’d finished it within three months of starting and to my surprise (my confidence was in pieces), my agent said she absolutely loved it. She submitted under a pseudonym it with every faith that it would be taken up by a publisher. The submission received great feedback, almost all of them saying they loved the plot, the characters, the setting and the writing. And yet, each rejected it for the same reason: their sales department felt it would be difficult to market as it wasn’t easy to compare it to anything popular at the moment.

Earlier this year I decided enough is enough

I made the decision to stop. Stop writing, stop submitting. I could see no point in writing novels that nobody would read.

Learning to self-publish was a steep learning curve

That was in January. Friends tried to persuade me to self-publish, and I was extremely resistant. But – cutting a long story short – I eventually decided to do it. I was nervous – if publishers hadn’t taken it, maybe it wasn’t any good. Even though I know some brilliant authors who don’t have any traditionally published work, it’s hard to maintain self-belief when you’re the one being rejected. My fortuitous meeting that led me to self-publish is a story for another blog. It was a steep learning curve, but finally, my idea for The Woods, has become Once Upon a Winter Wood, and is out on shelves. I hope you read it, and I hope you feel that despite the publishing industry saying no, it is my best so far.

Today, after three years of waiting, I have lit my candle again