5 Mistakes I've Made As A Writer #3

I Wrote The Book They Wanted

If only I’d made just five mistakes in total. Five is enough to be getting on with, and hopefully broad enough that at least one mistake will touch a nerve with other writers.

To recap: #1 I Subbed Before I Was Ready, #2 I Gave My Work Away.

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This mistake needs a soupçon of backstory. It’s about Second Book Syndrome.

Everything was smooth sailing with my first young adult book deal until a few weeks before publication. Out of the blue I was told that it was being postponed. My cover was going to be drastically redesigned and given a new title. The decision had been made after a pronouncement from a powerful book-buyer. Basically: if you don’t do this, the biggest chain in the UK won’t be as supportive of this novel.

Via long-distance phone call, the news was delivered by two people I admired from the publishing house, by-passing my agent. I’d been happy with the cover and title; they captured the tone of the story. And I was very unhappy with this new direction. You’d think that someone like me, who’d worked in the industry, would have little trouble making their voice heard as an author. In my case you’d be wrong.

I lost my bottle. Although I expressed dismay over the new title and cover direction — begged for it not to be pink, to be less showy, and not named after a girl band I felt no affinity with — I surrendered to everything. In fact, because I initially put up a small fight, I began to worry that I was being such a pain that they’d get sick of me, so I even went as far as telling them I’d come around to the new look.

Reader, I had not.

When the book came out, so many enthusiastic reviews opened with lines such as the cover and blurb do this story a disservice that I was able to feel at least that my instincts were correct — the look was right for the UK’s Louise Rennison-influenced YA comedy market of the 2000s, but it wasn’t right for me. However, sales in the UK were pretty strong after a few months and the book was longlisted for the Waterstone’s award and shortlisted for a regional one. I had to admit that the commercial decision had its merit. Moreover, two authors I greatly admired had given me quotes: how could I hate a cover that had the names of my heroes on it? All of this was enough to make me think “get over yourself, you got what you wanted”.

Now for book two.

I was incubating a story that wanted to be my book two. I’d written a first draft — which, like all my first drafts (though I didn’t know it back then) started promisingly and spiralled into a nightmarish mess of tangled and bloody intestines. So I was at the stage where you’re carrying a whole novel like a giant body of water — somehow, you’re managing this unwieldy, miraculous thing.

This is where I learnt that I cannot carry two giant bodies of water at once.

The publisher wanted a second book that didn’t deviate from the tone I’d set with the first. They said the word brand. Their vision was that I’d continue to strike the same balance between comedy and real life drama — teenage girl, new scenario, same vibe. And maybe a bright purple cover instead of a bright pink one.

The sensible thing to do was bury the story I’d already written. And I longed to be sensible — I didn’t feel sensible about writing, but I thought I could manage it if I ignored all of my impulses.

I took to my desk and — trying to be as efficient as possible so that they didn’t forget me — I quickly wrote the book I thought they wanted. In the meantime, there was a German and a US edition of the first novel on the way, so I was feeling pretty fancy, as well as quietly confident that what I’d pulled off once I could pull off again. I was ticking boxes as I wrote. Funny! Dramatic! Angsty! Realistic! I had the blueprint, didn’t I?

A few months later, I delivered.

A month went by.

I’ll repeat that: a month went by. Translation: things weren’t looking good. It’s hard to describe the feeling of waiting for an editor’s verdict. You give the impression that you’re just carrying on with your life — I had two young children and freelance work — but you’re carrying out this whole extra task, the task of waiting. It is saturating.

My agent told me that while she hadn’t yet received a firm answer, there was a hint that the publisher wanted a sequel to the first book instead. That had never crossed my mind. I rejected the idea body and soul (although, hold that thought for another post).

Another few weeks passed and my agent finally called. It was a no. I can remember listening to her voice, her kindness; me on my back step while my children played in the garden, thirteen years ago. No to this book two, no to the sequel that was their idea in the first place. I was not a brand after all, but one-and-done.

This verdict gave me such an unmoored feeling, as if I’d committed a sin and was being cut free because of it. I didn’t know what the sin was — but of course it was this: sales were below expectations and so was the manuscript I’d delivered.

The Lesson

It took me a long while to take responsibility for this — a healthy amount of it, anyway, which is all you can do when a publisher drops you. They are not in the business of admitting to error so you may as well concentrate on what you can control. My big clue was this: I never mourned that manuscript. I didn’t feel the raw determination that had made me rewrite the first book over and over until someone said yes. I filed it. To this day, I’ve never tried to get it “right”. And that is because it was never my book. It was the book I thought they wanted.

I laugh now to think of the original title of my first novel, the one they changed. It was meant to be called The Girl You Think I Am. I was trying to be the writer they thought I was, I suppose. As for the book I had wanted to write, that became my first Australian novel, three years later.

Recently, when a list of my books came up in an internet search, the old cover of my first book — the one I liked — appeared in place of the brash, pink one. Somehow it had wriggled its way there as if it could not be repressed any longer.

Since that rejection, I’ve always written the book that felt true, not the book that ticks someone else’s boxes. It has not been smooth-sailing to do this. But I’ve never, touch wood, had to file away another manuscript.

Thank you for reading Voracious.