On Friday morning I sat in bed with various empty chocolate wrappers around me and two dozen drafted emails on my laptop screen. After years of work on THE GIRL YOU LEFT BEHIND, I was finally ready to go: book completed, literary agents researched, queries typed, email addresses copied, and files attached. There was nothingContinue reading “Just Press Send”
Tag Archives: rejection
The End
A lot has changed in my life in the past three years, but there’s been one constant: my novel, The Girl You Left Behind. It’s been my shadow, growing and evolving from a dream-inspired scrawl in a notebook to a first draft, a second, a third, a fourth, and now, finally, into a finished product. ForContinue reading “The End”
Writing Through Heartbreak
I met up with an old friend a few weeks ago. We chatted about a lot of things, reminiscing and swapping stories, and she mentioned she hadn’t seen any blog posts from me in a while. “Have you been too busy being happy?” she asked, smiling. And I cried. Because for seven months, that was the case. After yearsContinue reading “Writing Through Heartbreak”
Pitch Wars: The Walking Wounded
I fought in Pitch Wars 2015. And I lost. I mean, I got in. My name was on that list. I saw it at silly o’clock in the morning UK time, after feverishly refreshing my phone’s Twitter app in the darkness of my bedroom, and I thought, ‘This is when it all begins.’ I’dContinue reading “Pitch Wars: The Walking Wounded”
Back to Square One
A few months into querying BEYOND THE CALL OF BEAUTY — my beautician-turned-sleuth mystery MS — I could tell it wasn’t going to work out. I didn’t fully believe or accept it at the time, but deep-down I knew that I wouldn’t win over a literary agent with it, I wouldn’t tempt a publishing house, andContinue reading “Back to Square One”
10 Tips From a Flash Fiction Judge
I’m a judge for the wonderful Mash Stories, a keyword-based flash fiction competition that focuses on showcasing new talent, and I love it. The ideas, the language, the brilliant pieces — I’m honoured to read our submissions, let alone help decide the winner. But it’s not all good news and happy faces. I’m a judge, and thatContinue reading “10 Tips From a Flash Fiction Judge”
The Other Side of Rejection
Being on the receiving end of rejection sucks. It really, really sucks. I’m a wannabe novelist and I’ve had my mystery MS — my baby, my pride and joy, my masterpiece — rejected by over sixty agencies and countless more competition judges. I’ve been overlooked in Twitter contests. I barely scraped through the Pitch Wars agent round.Continue reading “The Other Side of Rejection”
2015 — The Year I Failed
2015 will for ever be the year I tried — and failed — to get a literary agent. 2015 was a year of failure. It’s hard to write that. Not because I’m sad and it hurts, but because I generally like to be optimistic. Upbeat. I went into 2015 with a polished manuscript and a shinyContinue reading “2015 — The Year I Failed”
The First Rejection
What was your first ever rejection? I can remember mine perfectly. I won’t say it’s etched into my memory, because that would be a lie. It doesn’t dwell in my mind or my brain. It was cut into the soft, unsuspecting flesh of my heart. When I reach inside for the moment, I feel the jaggedContinue reading “The First Rejection”
Lucy Goacher 