A talk given to Hampshire Writers’ Society on 9th May 2023.
Report by Sarah Noon
Joanna is a writer, counsellor and writing teacher. She is here this evening (with a croaky voice due to recently sanding a floor “classic bank holiday behaviour!”) to talk about her journey of “Rejection to Auction.” She adds that she feels it is important to be “really honest” about life as a writer.
She begins by sharing with us typical responses she receives, when telling people she is a writer. The most common being “Have you had anything published?” She is also frequently asked about when she began writing and when she first got published. She gets asked about her process, as well as what else she does –“What people mean by that is ‘How do you make money?’”
Joanna feels that writing competitions are “brilliant.” She goes on to show a picture of her as a little girl (pointing out the “classic 80’s wallpaper in the background), proudly holding a certificate she won for a writing competition. She wrote a piece called A Journey Through Time for an international competition for Save the Children. She holds aloft for us the anthology published with the winning entries, describing it as “antique.” She tells is that “… it only took me thirty years to get the next one published.”
Having won the competition when she was about ten years old, she tells us how she continued to “bombard” the editor who judged the competition, with pieces of writing, finally getting “the most gentle rejection letter.” However, by this point, Joanna had her heart set on becoming “…the next Enid Blyton.”
Her journey continued with an English Degree and a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, but she then went into sales as a career. She tells us that it took her a long time to progress any further with her writing. However when she did, it was once again down to a competition. She tells us that she had written a book and was not getting anywhere with it, so sent off her manuscript as a competition entry. She describes this as being her “…final roll of the dice.” Joanna explains that she does not want us to think that this route is easy. To demonstrate her point, she has brought with her some of her rejection letters, reading us several extracts (“I like to keep these, just to torture myself.”)! Joanna continues, admitting that if she had not got anywhere with the competition, then she was going to either shelve her book, or self-publish it. She also felt that if she was long-listed or –short-listed, then it would be something she could include in her letters to agent which may help.
Thankfully, Joanna was short-listed. The judge, Juliet Mushens, was an agent with whom Joanna was keen to work and “…much to my amazement…” she selected her manuscript as the winner. This gave Joanna the opportunity to work with Juliet on honing her work and preparing it for publishers. She shares with us the joy of having a “…mad day in London” where after many rejections, she was visiting publishers who were keen to work with her. Her 15 years of working in sales was telling her that they were selling to her and the tables were turning – resulting in a four-way auction! A two-book agreement was finally made with Ebury (part of Random House at the time). Whilst this was a high point of Joanna’s writing career, she is keen to tell us “… don’t worry, there are some more lows coming!” Her book was also published in other languages – Italian and Polish (“The Italian reviews were not great though.”).
Now that Joanna was getting paid for writing and was having to work to deadlines. She “…did the thing you’re not supposed to do and I quit my job.” She had by this time worked in advertising for 15 years, and was also training to be a counsellor. Having been advised by a sales executive at Random House that that was exactly the wrong thing to do, she reminded herself that this was a childhood dream. Joanna goes on to explain how different it felt writing her second book – one that she had been contracted to do and which was attached to deadlines. However, she tells us that she is equally proud of both books (and rightfully so).
The next part of Joanna’s writing journey concerns her third book. As her current publisher, Ebury had first refusal on whatever she wrote next. However, she explains, she is such a slow writer, and was no longer under contract, so by the time she had finished it, Ebury publishers had folded and was no more! She therefore sent her manuscript to her Ebury editor (cue another rejection letter!). She and Juliet continued to work on the book, and Joanna advises the importance of having an agent with whom you can work with editorially rather than one who is simply there to broker a deal. Despite redrafting the book three times, it was not picked up and Joanna points out that this is very much part of the “…ups and downs of a writer’s career…” However, she was consoled by the fact that she had Juliet to work with. She clarifies that she does not think it was a bad book, but it “… just didn’t find a home.” She refers to this time as her “…licking my wounds experience.”
Juliet’s advice was to “…just write something else.” Joanna maintains that this is not easy when you have spent the last four years writing something that did not get anywhere. But, she continues “You have to want to write.” This brings us up to date with Joanna’s work. She is now working on her forth book (“…and off we go again.”).
Joanna finished her counselling training. She is now a counsellor as well as continuing to write. She has also brought both of these things together by way of offering therapeutic writing workshops for wellbeing. This followed on from running a women’s writing group for Artful Scribe. Additionally, having been through the professional editing process herself, Joanna offers an editing service – something she tells us she really enjoys. She also judges various writing competitions. She tells us how she enjoys longlisting. For this, she is sent the first 5000 words and synopsis of approximately 20 entries. She then has to decide if she wants to read the rest of the novel or not “…it’s Roman emperor time.” She claims that you have to be “brutal,” adding that it makes you understand what it must feel like to be an agent. However, it has also been very useful in terms of reflecting on her own work.
Joanna goes on to talk about her process when writing, explaining that she always gets the best ideas when she cannot write them down (i.e. when she’s swimming). She describes this as “… the back room…” which works away quietly at the back of your brain, and then “knocks” to give you something when you’re doing something else. She shares that she has recently discovered the voice notes app on her phone that has helped her to collate her thoughts and ideas.
She considers whether she is a “plotter” or a “pantser. “ A plotter is a writer who plans everything before they write. A “pantser” is a writer who “flies by the seat of their pants” and doesn’t necessarily know how the story will end (she tells us that Phillip Pullman writes like this and she quotes him as saying “If I know how it was going to end, why would I bother to write it? That would just be boring. I need to find out how it ends by writing it.”). Joanna says she used to be like that but is now becoming more “plotty.” She confesses this is why she dives in to all the exercises she leads within her writing groups.
Joanna clicks onto a slide that is simply titled “Top Tips if You Want to Write a Book.” She has managed to condense this down to five points – no mean feat! These are reading a lot (she tells us that she has met may people who are writing in genres they have never read in!), writing a lot, writing the book YOU want to write, finding your tribe and getting feedback from people you trust (but not before you’ve written the first 20 000words!).
The final slide lists questions one must NEVER ask a writer:
- How’s the book going? (A writer will always think their work is terrible).
- What’s it about? (Make sure you’ve got those elevator pitches ready).
- Why don’t they turn it into a film / TV series? (If only it was that easy!)
- Why don’t you write for children? (Joanna refers to this as the JK Rowling / David Walliams effect).
Joanna’s talk has been informative and engaging, and to finish, she urges us to write down our dreams and goals (she shows us a journal she wrote when she was considering leaving her sales job). There is, she says, “something powerful” in doing this – and clearly it worked for Joanna.
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