Tag Archives: literary agent

Don’t wake me

Posted on July 17, 2011 | 3 Comments

My first book Hunting Lila comes out in just over two weeks’ time, and joy, it’s getting rave reviews and will be on the 3 for 2 tables in Smiths and Waterstones throughout August.

It’s been a long journey and if you were with me from the start of can we live here you’ll know how I only first started writing when we decided to leave the UK because I couldn’t think of any other idea for how to make money. And thank God I didn’t google how much writers actually earn. But anyway fast forward 18 months and I actually have not one, but THREE books coming out in the next year.

ahahahahahahahahaha

There’s a line in Lila where she thinks that maybe she’s lying on a pavement in south east London comatose because she can’t believe the reality of her life and that’s pretty much how I feel every single day. I walk around grinning like a simpleton. (When you do this it’s surprising how many men smile back at you). I also drink a lot of wine because a) in Indonesia there isn’t any (or none that I can afford) and b) I feel I have an excuse to celebrate every minute of the day. I also buy a lot of things (more on this later) kidding myself that one day I’m going to be rich and will be able to afford to pay it off.

Ahhahahahahahahaahaha (that’s my publisher and every other writer in the universe bar JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer and Stephen King laughing at my naivete).

For the last two weeks in London I’ve been meeting my agent and my publisher for posh lunches, I’ve been editing my second book, and I’ve been working hard on promoting Hunting Lila (in between shopping of course) – there’s a blog tour starting on the 1st August and I am stalking the heck out of readers on Goodreads (I figure if I friend them all they might feel more inclined to give me a nicer review – cunning huh?). My favourite question so far in the interviews: How has your life changed since getting a book deal?

The funny thing is, I realised that my life wouldn’t be that much different to how it is now – ok fewer wining and dinings probably, but we’d still be in Bali. And I think that’s a really cool thing. My writing didn’t create the lifestyle. The lifestyle created the writing. (Ok and also John paying for everything at the moment is sustaining the lifestyle – thank you thank you amazing husband).

But the really exciting news, well second after the news that I have bought the most stupendous Vivienne Westwood dress and killer shoes for the launch, is that a ten year friendship with someone I met at uni has evolved into lunch at the Ivy Club (Daaaaaarling) and an offer to option Hunting Lila by an independent production company.

It’s early days of course and I’m naturally circumspect about stuff like that, though I am going to be wearing Westwood to the premiere and have written the clause to go in the contract which gives me the right to sit on the casting couch and test drive the male actors…but as I said, I’m totally circumspect…

If I am actually lying in a coma on a street in south London somewhere, please don’t bother waking me up.

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What if…

Posted on November 20, 2010 | 3 Comments

As you know John, Alula and I left the UK in January 2010. We were looking for a new home – somewhere hot, less stressful,  somewhere with a creative, entrepreneurial vibe, somewhere with good schools and good people. And we found Bali and it’s our version of perfect living (back then I hadn’t even anticipated the full time cleaner / cook thing). For the moment anyway.

Anyway in the summer of 2009 just after we’d decided to head off on our round the globe mission and were trying to figure out how to pay for it all, I was in melt down. What would I do? How would I make money? I mean, I had no discernable skills in life whatsoever other than being a pro at buying shoes on ebay and having a withering look that could shrivel people in a matter of seconds.

Swimming one day I had a conversation with myself that went like this:

Who’s rich? Let’s see. The queen. Hate her. Err, Stephanie Meyer she’s rich. She’s like a millionaire and all for writing about vampires. Ok, I can so do that. Now think about it think about it. What could I write about? Nothing about vampires. Cliché.  Yeah, so what if there was  a girl and her name was – um – Lila and then there was a boy. Let’s call him Alex, after Alex Skarsgard – yes Alex is a good name and he’ll be the opposite of Edward Cullen – so not a vampire, not moody or angsty and he won’t have quiffy hair and / or be a mindreader. And then I started saying what if… and then about 5 lengths later I had the outline for my story.

I got home, started plotting, started writing. Four months later I had my first book written.

Then we headed off to India and the day before we went I sent the manuscript to agents.

By the time we left India I had an agent.

By the time we left Bali I had a two book deal with a publisher – the brilliant and globally massive Simon & Schuster.

I went from being a Head of Projects in a not for profit in London where the only thing I ever wrote was creative fiction of the fundraising kind to being a like PAID author.

Heehehehehehehe (sorry still have to giggle at all this occasionally).

When we got to the States (by which point I’d written the sequel to Hunting Lila – as it’s now been titled) I decided to start a new book – a whole new series with new characters altogether. I finished it about three weeks ago.

And then yesterday I got an offer for that book too (hence the shopping for a breakfast bowl). This means – and I’m still having to process – that I’ll have three books out within about 9 months of each other next year. Two young adult book series, both with an amazing publishing house, alongside some of the best young adult writers out there – other writers I love like Scott Westerfield and Neal Shusterman.

Heheheeheheheehee.

I read the offer email to John. And John looks at me shaking his head and he says, ‘the universe really does give you whatever you want.’ Or something along those lines. And I am thinking to myself well it’s not giving me Gisele’s body, Scarjo’s face and Oprah’s wallet, but hey I’m not complaining.

But he has a point. I do think I’m the luckiest person alive right now. And I had said to John on Monday ‘I’m going to get an offer for my book on Thursday or Friday’ and whaddya know? I did. Ok, ok, Susan Miller kind of indicated it too and she is the oracle.

And I’ve been reflecting on this. Because what I think it is that I’ve always made it clear what I want. I say it out loud at every opportunity – to John, to my friends, to complete strangers. I don’t just say ‘what if’ anymore. I say, WHEN.

That’s all very well you might say, I’m going to start telling every and any person I come across that I’m going to be the next Nobel Prize winning physicist but that sure as hell isn’t going to happen. (It sure as hell isn’t going to happen to me because it took me five goes just to spell it).

No but if you believe it, if you genuinely believe that it will happen, not just think ‘that would be nice’, then I think it does.

You just need to stop saying what if and start saying When.

Or maybe it’s just me and I really am the luckiest person in the world.

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Vampires, shapeshifters, threesomes, snogging…

Posted on September 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am standing in the middle of a traffic island in rush hour traffic at the junction of St Martin’s lane and Long Acre. And I’m having an in depth quite serious conversation whilst people in suits rush past as though the end of the world is nigh. The conversation goes something like this:

But do you think teenage love triangles are a bit you know clichéd nowadays? You know – Edward Bella Jacob – Katniss Gale Peeta – Damon and those other two other annoying ones (admittedly here I’m thinking of the tv show and not the books)?

And so what if the shapeshifter is actually… and the girl ends up having to kill him? And yes of course he’s hot. He’s like Edward Cullen crossed with Damon crossed with Eric Northman then timesed by a billion.

And I was thinking when the Hunters come after them… and the one with the tail goes all nutso and he has to choose who to save…(it’s so like Sophie’s choice it’s not true) and I have the most awesome first kiss scene written. It’s very, very hot. Well at least as hot as is allowed for young adult fiction (and here I wonder whether erotic fiction might actually be my talent).

And then we start debating the merits of first person narrative over third person. And at that point I look around me at the swamping crowds and realize that I do in fact have the most ridiculously amazing job in the world. (Actually can I really call it a job when all I do is actually make crazy stuff up and write it down?)

And on the tube on the way home with all these suited city types (and if you’ve followed me for a while you’ll remember my hooker-esque feelings upon leaving London regarding men in suits) I find myself delighting in the fact I have a way of making money (cos really I feel uncomfortable calling it a job) that allows me to frequent Gay bars and read trashy fiction for ahum research purposes and look up male models for ahum research purposes and then stand on street corners discussing the merits of vampires over demon slayers in a completely non-ironic way with someone who actually makes very lucrative deals with big publishing houses on just this very thing.

Life has taken a very surreal turn. And I must say I’m liking it exceedingly much.

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I am a writer. It’s official. And that’s way more fun than working in the voluntary sector.

Posted on September 11, 2010 | 8 Comments

I caught a taxi over London Bridge on Thursday and went right past my old office. It was like a regression – like remembering a past life (in this case not the kind where you discover you were Cleopatra with grape-feeding slaves but the kind where you find out you were the grape-feeding slave). And the grin almost tore my cheeks in two.

I still pinch myself regularly trying to believe that this is my life now. No more 9-5, no more commute, no more tube. No more going to meetings in heels to make myself look grown up and pretending like I knew what I was talking about and going cross eyed as civil servants pronounced on riveting stuff like digital inclusion. No more having to performance review people or fire them (though I have to say I do miss that last one). I recently re-read a post I did four days before resigning and it made me cringe at all the lost hours I’d spent at tossery events called unconferences.  But it also made me proud of the old me for having the guts to leave (both the unconferences and head to the pub and to actually leave my job and the UK). I’m the poorest I’ve  ever been but also the happiest.

Earlier in the day I had been to Simon & Schuster with my agent to meet my publisher. I hadn’t given it much thought other than slapping on a pair of heels and some lipstick in an effort to look professional (it’s been a while and even back in the day it was quite a task – my feet are still in shock). So when I walked into the room and saw the champagne on the table and the eight glasses I wondered if I was interrupting something – some important meeting. I even thought to myself ‘oooh what a fabulous job publishing must be – you can sit and read books all day whilst drinking pink champagne, maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty about moving to Bali, there is no champagne there afterall and books are squeamishly expensive’ until I realized the champagne was for me. And a whole lovely roomful of people appeared to say hello (and did I mention they were all extremely LOVELY and also extremely stylish, witty, fun and brilliantly intelligent along with that?). Then they gave me a pile of books and my happiness was all complete. It was like supermarket sweep, only with bookshelves and no Dale Winton. It was about as exciting as getting a book deal in itself. Free books! And champagne!

Before that I’d been to my agent’s office and seen the towering pile of submission manuscripts on the desk and it made me realize how big the odds are to make it to a room with pink champagne.

And somehow, with the help of Alex Skarsgard and an overactive imagination I made it. For that I am grateful.

Ps. My husband helped too. For that I am grateful!

pps. I suppose what I mean to say in this post is something that I saw written on a park bench yesterday and which I saw as a sign (I’m seeing signs everywhere – I’m like M. Night Shyamalan). It said:

He who seeks dreams will dance into tomorrow, igniting passions and capturing hearts.

Seek dreams people.

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