You can read the first instalment here…
In early April, I received a phone call that felt like everything was about to change. I was driving in torrential rain when Rayne Allinson from Forty South Publishing called me to say I had won the Tasmanian Writers’ Prize for 2022 with a story about women going to Bali for a wild week. How I got This Tattoo was a very un-serious story. I most certainly did not expect it to get anywhere. I had written stories and sent them, with little thought about how they would perform. I was blown away. In my frenzy of writing and sending stories, I had managed to capture the attention of multiple judges and won cash and prizes.
A few days later, I received an email from Allen and Unwin (Publishers) requesting the full manuscript of Homecoming. I finally had the confirmation I needed to tell me that I was on the right path. I was meant to be a writer and Homecoming was going to be my breakout novel. I loved the two interwoven storylines and the strong women who populated the story. While my novels set in France both had old stone mansions, this story took place in a rundown Emporium building that was once the beating heart of a thriving Aussie town.
Not one to freak out, I went to my office and got to work, using the Read Aloud function on Word to find errors and make changes. A few days later, content that the story was as good as I could make it at that point, I emailed the manuscript and tried not to think about it.
Life had settled into its post-lockdown “New Normal”, which was completely crazy at this point. Work was flat out as everyone made hay while the sun shone. I wasn’t writing anywhere near what I needed to be doing each day, and I hadn’t entered a competition in months, but I was thrilled to feel like I was on my way. Even the time spent locked-down and out of my home state felt like it had all been worth it.
Almost a month after I sent the manuscript to Allen and Unwin, I received a very kind No Thank you that contained some brilliant feedback. “It is a very interesting story but I felt it doesn’t sit comfortably in a genre. It’s too gritty for a rural romance, and yet it doesn’t fit neatly into the crime genre either.”
While I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be receiving a publishing contract accompanied by an enormous advance and millions of adoring fans, I totally agreed with the feedback. I had written something weird, outside the confines of the acceptable, as usual.
We went to Bali a few days later, within days of the international border opening. My husband and I love Bali and, over the course of the pandemic, had hatched a plan to semi-retire to the beautiful island nation when the time was right. We celebrated my Tasmanian prize with cocktails, but no, I did not get a tattoo.
I celebrated my win of the Tasmanian prize by signing up again for the Rainforest Writing Retreat and flushed with excitement, paid my fees to attend the Fiona McIntosh Commercial Fiction Masterclass in July. I had made some tentative enquiries late in 2019, but with the shenanigans of the last few years, the time was never right. In late 2021 Fiona announced she would bring her signature Masterclass to the Gold Coast for the first time, so I had booked in for July 2022.
We returned from Bali happy and tanned and a week later; I was once again at the Rainforest Writing Retreat. It’s the largest retreat of it’s kind in Australia and jam pack with great people and brilliant workshops. The weather couldn’t have been more different to the heat of Bali and everyone dashed to and from the warm conference centre, their rooms, and the cozy restaurant and bar. A well-known author published by Allen and Unwin was presenting, and I asked him what I should do with my manuscript now. He was as succinct and wise as always.
‘You have four options,’ he said. That felt great. How wonderful to have so many choices available to me off the back of a rejection letter.
‘You can put it in the metaphorical bottom drawer and write something new. Just start a new story.’
But I’ve just spent months on it. I counted on my fingers. It had taken me six months to write, which now strikes me as the reason it was somewhat unfulfilled when I sent it through that online pitching portal. Time sunk fallacy got me good.
‘You can self-publish.’
I could, but I’ve done that. The whole idea of writing this novel that had caught the eye of someone at a big publisher and the Scarlet Stiletto judges was to see if I could get a publishing deal.
No deal.
‘You can pitch it, as is, to another publisher.’
Okay, I could do that, but I kind of agreed with the feedback. My story needed either more kissing and less crime to be a rural romance, or less romance and a nasty villain.
‘Option 4- Rewrite it. Choose a genre and run with it.’
Right. This is expert advice.
I chose crime. I had to kill a few darlings and removed an entire character to further isolate my main character. It was no good having a feel-good, lovely neighbour to pop down and have home-made scones with every time she felt a little lonely. Deleting whole sections and darkening the interactions between characters was thrilling and then I added a chase scene and an attack by the awful Tall Man who was trying to cover his tracks. I was happy enough with it to take it to the Fiona McIntosh Commercial Fiction Masterclass a few weeks later.
The five days of the Masterclass were fascinating, exhausting, fun and daunting. Would it be too dramatic to say it was life-changing? Surely, attending a five-day event with 20 other writers committed to honing their craft, presented by a million-plus selling author across three genres, is always going to be life-changing if you do it right.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t slept for four days leading up to the event. Insomnia is a long-term friend of mine. I call it a friend because it was helpful prepping for exams, working two jobs at uni and while I was the mother of a toddler who had decided he would wait until his teens to get some shut-eye. Even though the event was held less than twenty minutes from home, I had decided to stay at a hotel near the venue so I wouldn’t get distracted. I was focussed and anxious and I rarely have anxiety. It felt like I was about to pass through some kind of trial by fire, and if I stuffed it up, I would ruin both my life and my teeny-tiny baby writing career. No pressure then.
By the evening of the second night, I was borderline manic. I’ve been there before, and I know how to deal with it. I took myself off for a long run, followed by a cool shower and some yoga, then ate a bland salad from the supermarket for dinner. Four hours sleep was my reward for being so very sensible, and I felt like a million bucks. I did my sun-salutes and went for a run and headed off to the event. The true cruelty of insomnia is the struggle to stay awake in the afternoon. There I was in a room I had worked my butt off to get into and I was nodding off in the afternoon sun. Part of me was tempted to start drinking coffee again, but I knew that way madness lies.
The content was fantastic and, along with the rest of the cohort, soaked up Fiona’s energy. It’s not called ‘Commercial Fiction Masterclass’ for nothing. The focus is on writing books that grab the attention of trade publishers and, of course, readers. My first two novels were self-published. They were magical realism and, to be honest, it had never occurred to me to shop them around. I had always intended to self-publish Hotel Déjà vu and Alia Henry and the Ghost Writer, but I wanted to see if I could write something a little more mainstream. I love writing, editing, and promoting my books, and any help I could get in the publishing area would be greatly appreciated.
So, what happened to my story? Fiona gave me excellent, useful feedback but was sparing with anything that resembled praise. Throughout my school and university years, I had grown accustomed to standing out, and occasionally being outstanding. I’ll admit I had hoped she would be at least a little impressed, but I think we all do that. When requesting feedback, most of us have our fingers crossed that it’s going to be green lights all the way. There were some positives, some negatives, and a whole raft of suggestions of how to make it better. The Tall Man, she said, had the potential to be an excellent villain. I just had to unchain him.
One of my other problems was my habit of writing all over the place. Not literally, but genre-wise. I had my two magical realism novels with their time travel and feisty heroines, my wannabe crime novel, 80k words of historical fiction set in the modern and Neo-lithic eras in France and England, a speculative fiction novel set in near future LA with flesh-eating robots and a cult actress with a mean streak. I needed to pick a lane and drive in it for a while. Fiona was adamant about this. Choose your genre, write your novel, start on the next one while selling the first one. That’s the simplified version. I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to a ‘life’ of crime.
I could always self-publish the other stuff, I figured.
to be continued…
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