If you follow me on social media, you will have already seen the beautiful cover for my book. I love it, because it conveys everything you need to know about Silver Spurs and a Twelve Pound Heart, a story of love, horses, and of course, vodka. However, before you rush out and buy me a bottle of Smirnoff to celebrate the forthcoming launch of my first book, I must tell you that I actually don’t drink the stuff. The characters, Katie and Shelley, are fond of a vodka and tonic, and the lovely Tom, drinks Salty Dogs, but not me. So, if you feel the need to send me anything, a mini bottle of Prosecco would be amazing or if you’re feeling flush, a box of Sainsbury’s finest Chardonnay will do the job very well. We can have a glass together, wearing cosy jumpers, beside my log burner, because the recent wet weather in Northumberland is definitely not inspiring me to go outside very often.

The journey to publication had been a learning curve, and I keep telling myself that writing is a job, and like any profession, you have to work hard and make sure you are fully prepared for any eventuality. Just like when I was nine-years old and my Mum told me that you weren’t a real rider until you had fallen off a horse seven times, I completely believed her. Until I fell off for the ninth time, and Mum said that actually, you weren’t a real rider until you had fallen off fifteen times. And yes, you’ve guessed it. When I hit the deck at the age of fourteen, falling off a racehorse on the road, cracking my riding hat, skinning my knuckles and knees and spending the next three days holding arnica-infused dressings onto my multiple black and purple bruises, Mum admitted that you had to fall off lots of time before you were a real rider. I stopped counting after that. There were ‘easy’ falls when you landed on the grass and got up and laughed, and there were ‘hard’ falls, when you landed from two metres up in the air onto concrete, knocking the wind out of your lungs and the colour from your face. Now, I have discovered that writing is similar to riding horses.

If you are an emerging writer, you have read everything you can get your hands on, you’ve watched authors, agents and publishers giving tutorials on YouTube, you’ve learnt something from every single book you have read and still, as you work with your publisher to bring your first book to publication, it becomes apparent that you know absolutely nothing.

Before I sent my manuscript out into the world – with its mittens dangling on a string from each sleeve of its Parka – I had spent a considerable length of time reading many books and researching how the book industry works. I read a huge number of books within the genre I am writing, but also read thrillers and crime books, learning something from each one I picked up. I thought I was pretty clued up, until I received the copy edited version of my own work. The copy edit reappeared in my life wearing a pair of Nike Air Force 1 trainers, a lot of black eyeliner and brandishing a set of limited edition GHDs and several TikToc accounts under various usernames. The grammar had been sharpened up and although I have a pathological hatred of a comma after the word ‘and’, I have to concede that sometimes, the Oxford comma is okay. I’m not saying that we’re great friends, but I might someday invite it to my house for a coffee and offer it a custard cream. I hate custard creams and that’s why I would offer one to the Oxford comma; the Tunnocks tea cakes and chocolate Hobnobs would definitely remain safely hidden in the cupboard beside the mugs. From the Nike-wearing, black-rimmed eyes of the copy edit, I also discovered that there are three different types of hyphens. I even had to ask Google how to reproduce them on my keyboard so that when I wrote the acknowledgements page, it was consistent with the Book Guild’s house style. There is the usual hyphen that we use to link two words, there is the ‘m’ hyphen which is used at the end of a line of dialogue when speech has been interrupted, and there is an ‘n’ hyphen which is used to replace punctuation is a sentence. So, if you open Microsoft Word and type: 2013, then hit ALT and X at the same time, as if by magic, an n hyphen appears. For an m hyphen, substitute 2014 and then ALT X and the alchemy happens again. Who knew? Not me, but I do now and as a friend of mine often says: every day is a school day.

Silver Spurs and a Twelve Pound Heart is now off to the printers, with its ‘orphans’ and ‘widows’ corrected (I had to Google them too, and discovered the terms relate to the opening and closing of paragraphs). It’s now wearing a rather smart pair of trousers from Zara, a long-sleeved fluffy jumper from River Island and I am looking forward to welcoming it back in January in its Dior suit and Christian Louboutin Suola Hot Chick pumps. In the meantime, I will keep working on the sequel and continue to read everything I can get my hands on, because every day is definitely a school day.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year from Northumberland and may all your dreams for 2023, come true.

Helen.