My journey to getting published was quite long. When I started on the journey nearly six years ago (though I could go back as far as when my teenage years!) I had no idea what I was in for - or how much I still had to learn about writing. A huge part of my journey was about confidence building. Writing is a lonely business. I didn’t have a network of writers to talk to, to show my writing to, back when I started. The first novel I wrote (which remains unpublished, and for good reason) I had friends read, and with positive results. So I send it to an editor for an appraisal, who promptly told me (in a gentle way) just what a long way I had to go in terms of getting my story structure right, plus a whoooollllleeeee lot of other things. Taking her advice onboard, I rewrote the novel. (This was a 120,000 word novel, so you know, no small task!) I then submitted to the Omega Writer’s CALEB competition, mainly because they promised detailed feedback. When the feedback sheet arrived in my Inbox, I read it with one eye closed (literally). And as I read it, I realised they liked it. It was shortlisted as a finalist, but it didn’t place. And no wonder - the judge’s comment suggested the novel still required 100+ hours of editing. So, Dangerous Exchanges got placed in the proverbial bottom draw where it has remained ever since.
But the experience gave me confidence. Some of the judge’s comments filled me with hope that my writing was good. They loved my characters. They loved my dialogue. They was hope.
At the time, I had started reading a heap of YA novels, which I was loving. My mum had always encouraged me to write for a younger audience. I think she was thinking more like children’s books, but I had this story idea, this character, who wouldn’t leave me alone. Though I started with the character Adrian, Kat’s struggle with Peer Pressure and some nasty so-called friends was not far behind. Together, they formed The Boy in the Hoodie.
I prepared to write The Boy in the Hoodie during the month of November, for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I had a good grasp on my characters and the story line. I learned from my previous mistakes, and the advice given by the manuscript appraiser, Iola Goulton, and heavily planned what would happen at each stage of the novel. KM Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel (which continues to be my go-to writing book for structure) was frequently opened and reread throughout the process. I wrote the first few chapters in the lead up to NaNoWriMo, and then wrote it. I joined up with two writers on the other side of Australia, who read my novel as I wrote it. Their encouragement was invaluable.
And so, the entire book, all 65,000 words, was written in six weeks.
Then I began editing.
As I tell my students, I wrote the novel in six weeks, but I spent three years editing it. Writing the mansciprt is really just the beginning. In many ways, it’s the easy part.
Before I spent too much time editing the manuscript, I was desperate to know if it appealed to teenagers. I’d never written a YA book before. So a couple of months after writing it, I sent the manuscript to a teenager whose mum was in an online writing group I’d connect with - her name is Sarah. Sarah read it for me, and loved it. However, originally Kat and Adrian were much younger, and Sarah suggested they needed to be older, that they read like older teenagers. So began my first serious edit - Kat and Adrian went from being in Grade 6, to being 15 & 16, in High School. That meant changing a lot about things that were happening at school and with Kat’s friends. Sarah’s encouragement that it was a good story, and that she found it difficult to put down, spurred me on.
After that major round of editing, I then gave the manuscript to the parents of teenagers, to gauge their reactions, and to a couple of teenagers at the school I work at, who said they’d read it for me. Everyone continued to give me good feedback. So I persevered.
As happy as I was with the story, and the feedback I was getting from my readers was positive, there was still plenty to work on. Whole chapters were deleted. Minor characters were given more substance as I considered there own backstory and journey. For example, did you pick up that Kat’s mother suffered from Post Natal Depression after George was born? And originally Kat’s little brother George played a much bigger part in the story - and had autism. There needed to be more about Kat’s home-life. Things needed to be made more realistic. I read and reread and reread the manuscript, making notes of what worked, and what didn’t seem to fit.
After two years of editing, I decided to send the manuscript to a US competition, Ink & Insights, that also promised lots of feedback. It only required the first 10,000 words, so it was also a good way of finding out how my story was reading for the first 5 or 6 chapters. The competition gives feedback from four judges (who are editors/publishers/agents in the US), so was a great opportunity for only $40 or so Australian dollars. I received the email with their feedback and once again read it with one eye closed. Until I realised they had all really good things to say about it! The Boy in the Hoodie came fourth that year. Such a confidence boost. I had also entered the manuscript in the Omega Writer’s CALEB competition again. This time, there wasn’t the same feedback, but I was notified that I’d again been short-listed. I laboured and laboured over whether to fly to Sydney for the announcement of the winner. I was so anxious about going, and finances were a little tight, but in the end I prayed and prayed and decided God was saying it wasn’t necessary for me to go. So I opted instead to watch the announcement through a Facebook live recording.
The journey of going from having written a story, to having one ready to send out to publishers, took a village. Having people read my writing, give feedback, and encourage me in the process - well, I couldn’t have done it without them. But in entering the competitions, I gained the confidence I needed to be able to start thinking I could one day get it published. I needed both - I needed the readers to tell me they liked it, and I needed the professional writers to tell me I was on the right track. If you’re interested in pursuing publication, I encourage you to do the same thing. There are other really important reasons to getting others reading your writing. I’ll tell you about them in my blog next week, when I’ll run through getting the manuscript in front of publishers and the process I went through to then get it published. But really, it’s all part of the one big long story, which is why I wanted to tell you about the writing part first. Getting a manuscript in front of a publisher is like the top of the iceberg sticking out of the water. Most of the iceberg is under the water.
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