Holding the first proof copy of your book is an odd feeling. You’re finally an author! You flick through the pages, reading your own words, but they suddenly seem to have been written by someone else. Where on earth did it all come from?
I guess in my case, some copper irises on a gravestone were one starting point, along with a 40 year old school history assignment, and a Google search for ‘how to write a pitch letter’.
Let’s start with that history project. I was twelve, it was 1979, and my diary of an orange seller was probably the first sustained piece of fiction I ever wrote. I got a good mark but no prize; even so, the characters stayed in my head for the next forty or so years, bobbing up in dozens of failed attempts to turn them into a story. Eventually, during lockdown, I decided to give them one more try, and they finally turned into my first novel, No Common Wench. This book, which is really a love song to my home town in Kent, told the journey of Nell Davey, a Civil War foundling, from serving woman to market trader and alewife, via reluctant brothel keeper and pretend wife. Thrilled to have a completed manuscript, I immediately put together a pitch letter and fired it off to some agents, who all, quite rightly, ignored me. I knew I hadn’t done the Wench justice with my approach and needed more help.
Which led to that Google search during which I came across the Faber and Professional Writing Academy’s Writing a Novel course. I’d never heard of such a thing. You got feedback! A group to support you! And – this was the bit that really fired me up – the chance to go into an Anthology. My husband, to whom I will always be grateful, bought me the course as a gift. I was agog. All I needed now was something to write about during the course. And it’s here that the irises come in.
In a churchyard near where we live is a beautiful Art Nouveau gravestone. It marks the resting place of a young woman called Iris – named after flowers that matched her eyes – who died in 1912, and copper irises frame her epitaph. I’d always wondered what had happened to her, how she came to die in her twenties. I couldn’t find her on any ancestry sites; was there some mystery behind her story? Could this be the basis of a book – a missing girl, a tombstone marking an empty grave? Had she ever been there at all?
The course started, and so too did my story. I left the 1600s behind and began a tale set between the 1940s and the modern day. The girl in the grave (that could be a title in its own right!) became Lizzie Sixpence, though goodness knows where that name came from. An Iris appeared in the story, too. The book began to take tentative shape as I got support from my Writing a Novel group and tutor; a whole plot development came about from one of the course exercises, in which we had to write a scene in which someone was blocked in some way. I became fascinated – I still am – by the way in which a chance comment or even a typo can affect the entire direction of a story.
Then it was time for the Anthology. I sent in my thousand words, and can still remember the moment when Faber emailed to say the Anthology had been released. I honestly expected silence.
One, then another, then another ping came from my phone, all within the hour. Four agents, all asking to read the full draft! And then one, then another, then another, replied to say they’d enjoyed it but were not going to take things further. Their messages were unfailingly kind, supportive and encouraging. They were all busy people but had taken the time to reply in detail and in ways that made me feel like it had all been worth it. I’ll always respect them for that.
One more ping. I remember the moment vividly; the message was from Emily MacDonald at 42, who had been the last agent to ask for the manuscript. Would I like to meet to discuss representation? Well, if I ever write a character giving a gasp of shock, I know exactly what it sounds like, because it’s the noise I made then.
Emily brought new insight, and with her help the book was hammered into more or less its final shape. Carolyn Mays at Bedford Square publishers made an offer, which turned into a two-book deal. She, too, steered the story, and now there are just a few weeks to go until what is now called The Last Secret of Wickham Grange is published.
It would never have happened without the course. For a start, I’d never have dared approach a prestigious agency like 42 (I am still slightly intimidated by the fact that my name appears immediately after Emily Maitlis on their website), and my writing would be the poorer without the guidance of my tutor and the support, encouragement and suggestions of my course mates. Some of them are waiting to be published too, which is wonderful.
So what will I be doing on publication day? Probably sitting in a boring work meeting. But I do have two plans. One will be to have a very good bottle of champagne on ice. The second will be to visit a garden centre, and then the churchyard, where I’ll plant a little iris below the copper flowers.
It’ll be my way of saying thank you to the girl in the grave.
