During the spring of 2020 and owing to the country being gripped by a killer virus similar to that of a very good sci-fi film, there wasn’t much happening on the work front. Although this meant I had no money coming in to pay for all the rubbish I was buying on Ebay, I was able to spend many happy hours encamped in my conservatory with a good book. My sister in law, the Verruca Expert and my friend, the Cleaning Co-ordinator even subconsciously started a kind of unofficial book club. With little else to do, paperbacks were passed around like a can of cider at a Young Farmers’ convention.

It was during this time that I tentatively suggested to my husband that I should, maybe, kind of, perhaps, possibly have another go at writing a novel.

I had a really terrible attempt at writing a book many years ago. I say ‘book’ but it was really more of a novella, around 40,000 words. I feel faintly sick when I recall that I actually sent it to a number of literary agents in London. Oh, my, Lord, I had no idea. You must remember though, this was back in the time when not everyone had access to the screechy noises that signified you were joining the worldwide web. The Writer’s & Artist’s Yearbook was all we had back then. Now, you can submit to these literary agent gods by email, in those days, you posted the first three chapters of your manuscript and your truly awful synopsis with a stamped addressed envelope; and waited. Every day the postman didn’t return your horrendous attempt to you, was a triumph.

In June 2020, I re-read this appalling thing that I wrote and could have dug a hole with my bare hands and thrown myself into it. Dreadful doesn’t even come close. I had no clue about writing, structure and the synopsis (which I have discovered since, is the most difficult thing in the world to write) would have been better if I had selected some scrabble letters at random and thrown them into a Nutribullet. Dire. Absolutely dire.

I wrote the first draft of Silver Spurs and a Twelve Pound Heart in eight weeks, sitting in my conservatory, writing from nine in the morning until early afternoon. Some days I only stopped tapping on my tablet’s keyboard, because I knew no-one in the household had anything clean left to wear and the cat was eyeballing me from the chair opposite.

I emailed the first draft to some literary friends and they all liked it. They gave me incredibly good feedback with my tall friend, the TK Maxx Ambassador, telling me I simply couldn’t leave the ending as it was. She was absolutely right and I wrote another two chapters to bring the book to a close. The Book Critic in Edinburgh, was an even better reviewer and sent me back a list of her thoughts. Some I chose to ignore, two, I acted on and one word she used, literally one word, sparked something in my creative brain that prompted a huge edit and re-write. And that wasn’t even one of her suggestions, it was just a word she used in a suggested blurb for the back of the book.

Fast-forward to August 2021 and I was absolutely sick of this manuscript. I had edited and edited, read it out loud, used text to speech in Word in an attempt to pick up any errors and needed to get it out there. Using my Writer’s & Artist’s Yearbook, (backed up by the internet), I made a list of six agents who represented authors writing in the same genre and submitted my work to three of them.

One replied two days later, saying she felt my book didn’t fit with her portfolio, the others didn’t reply at all. This is why the whole process takes so long. Most agents state that if you haven’t heard back from them within twelve weeks, you must assume that you have been unsuccessful. So, in October that year I sent the first three chapters, synopsis, one line elevator pitch and the blurb for the back of my killer novel to another two agents on my hit list; and heard nothing. So, in February this year, I sent the whole bundle to the last (and I have to say my favourite) agency on my list. Once again, there was no reply and just to check that my debut novel was as good as I thought it was, I sent it again to the TK Maxx Ambassador who hadn’t seen it since that very early draft. She pointed out that I still couldn’t spell the word ‘drawer’, but other than that, she loved it.

Having still not heard back from my favourite agent, by the end of May I had sent the full manuscript to a publisher and then read L J Ross’s article in Writing Magazine and decided, like her, to self-publish it for free on Amazon. I had even got as far as setting up the typeface when I received an email from the Book Guild. There, were some of the most magical words I have ever read: ‘We believe your book has commercial potential…’.

The publication date is 28^th February 2023.

A huge thank you to the TK Maxx Ambassador, the Book Critic, the Duchess, Gothic Niece, the Country Park Owner, the School Governor, the Polo Player and the Aigle Welly Wearer for reading the drafts and giving such honest opinions.

The journey has begun.