The Journey to Publication

It’s been a little over a year since the publication of THROUGH A DARKENING GLASS (Lake Union Publishing) and given that there has been some inclement…erm…. adversity in getting my second title out there, I figure I ought to revisit the process that got me here in the first place.

As a prelude, I can only hope this entry might be helpful to other aspiring writers. Indeed, I spent years myself scouring the internet, blogs, literary magazines and the like to see what a successful author’s journey might look like. This was sometimes a proven education, but more often, it was an exercise in self-flagellation so painful and violent, that I still have the scars. You know how it works: you check out Bookseller Magazine or Publishers Market Place —- a twenty-something year old kid, debut novel, six-figure advance and an army of publicists. They get out on social media, taking pictures of themselves cashing cheques, opening that cardboard box full of proofs, shed a tear, scream with delight etc etc etc. A Booker Prize? Pour moi? Torture. And yes, I know authors can be curmudgeonly, adversarial, competitive and unpleasant. Trust me, I am none of those things. Mostly. But I am only human.

I have always loved the written word. I used to write bad poetry (such bloody awful poetry). I tried my hand at short stories. I wrote great essays in university. I even wrote instruction manuals for software (I know). But I never thought I could write a book until I actually attempted it some ten years ago. It was a slog, too long, too self-indulgent, metaphor drowning in an ocean of bad simile, allusions to all the great books I’d read and wish I’d written (as if that might impress a reader).

Terrible.

It was a memoir of sorts. I was under the incorrect assumption that the general public gave a hoot about me (they don’t). So, on to fiction, then. I spent a year writing a book about time travelling teenagers, and Irish witches, and child abuse and boxcar jumping and magical trees. It was flaming bag of excrement, but an education like no other – although I had not written a good novel, I had nonetheless written a novel to completion. It was about 100,000 words long and I pitched it to about 100 agents in Canada, the US and Britain. I got three partial requests for the manuscript and one full request. The partial requests were rejected promptly, the full request came almost six months after the original submission, and I never heard back from the agent. Ever.

I wrote another book. This one was much better. I still like this book. It is a slow-burn, literary suspense type thing inspired by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine. A blend of mystery and coming of age, it was atmospheric, set between a current day Canada and Falkland-war era Essex. It explored religion, grief, acceptance, free-will and determinism. I pitched this new manuscript and got a lot of attention, many full requests, but alas, it was too ‘quiet’, it didn’t have the ‘tension’ they were looking for. They weren’t sure where they could place it.

I wrote another book. This one was even better, and I still like this book too. It was again this Barbara Vine-esque type noir, it involved a piano prodigy, her hoarding mother, a terrible secret and blistering denouement.  I had over twenty full manuscript requests for this one from agents around the world. And here, dear reader, I finally got an agent. This is the first gate to pass through if one wants to be published (traditionally).  There were actually three agents that were interested, two were offering contracts immediately, one was still scrambling to finish their read. In the end, I took the agent from the biggest and widest reaching agency among the three. Based in Britain, this agent represented some pretty famous English authors, and the agency itself could boast about massive best sellers. She loved the novel. I was elated. I figured I had arrived.

I had not arrived.

Despite the stellar record of this agency, she was unable to sell it to publishers. The feedback said things like ‘too much of a slow burn’, ‘a little too quiet’, ‘the protagonist is not very likeable or relatable’, ‘the stakes aren’t high enough’. I especially loved this one: ‘I didn’t feel it was the kind of novel I would press into the hands of a friend.’

I wrote another novel. A novel that at the time was simply called, MARTYNSBOROUGH, but would ultimately become THROUGH A DARKENING GLASS. As I was putting the finishing touches on it for my agent to read, a worldwide pandemic descended. There were a few months of mass confusion, and certainly editors weren’t so keen to read manuscripts during this time. Also, around this time, my agent seemed to lose interest in me. I’ve since learned through other authors that this is not unusual. They’re hot for you with that splashy debut manuscript, but if it fizzles, the follow up just doesn’t hold that luster. I sent the manuscript to her and did not hear back for weeks and weeks. Finally, she got back to me and said she had read it and that she liked it (hallelujah), but I would have to make some major changes. I spent the first summer of Covid making those changes, then sent it along to her. Six weeks went by without a peep, not even an acknowledgement of receiving the re-write. I was beside myself – clearly, she had lost interest in me and my writing. I had no idea what to do and descended into a boozy depression. I wasn’t getting any younger. The clock was ticking. I had to get that first book published if I ever had a hope of making it as an author.

Then, something strange and wonderful happened. One of the agents who had expressed interest in the original manuscript followed up with me. She was wondering what happened with that book – she assumed it would have been published. I wrote back to her and explained what had happened. It had not sold. My agent was ghosting me. She wrote back and said, drop that agent, she’s not working for you anymore. So, dear reader, I did. I fired my agent, and I think she was as relieved as I was terrified. What had I done? Well, I went back to that other agent and said, well, now that I have no agent, do you want to read a manuscript?

She did, and we signed a contract. However, she wanted one more kick at the can for the original novel and spent a fall and winter valiantly attempting to sell it. By the following spring, it was very close – many comments like ‘I’m torn on this’, ‘we really like it but...’ The keenest of the editors, with Lake Union Publishing, suggested that it was the ending that she didn’t like, so I spent a month rewriting it. We submitted again with a note that I had fixed the part she didn’t like, but alas, it still was just a little too ‘dark’ and ‘morally ambiguous’ for such uncertain times. But my agent told me that we had her attention, let’s submit MARTYNSBOROUGH exclusively to her and see what happens. Well, by now, we all know what happened. She loved the story, and when I saw the subject line in an email from my agent that said, ‘Cautiously Optimistic’, I knew we were on the right track. My phone rang a few days later with the news.

Thus was the beginning of a wonderful journey. More to come in part two.