Writing is all I've ever really wanted to to do, so quite how I ended up spending too many years working in the local jobcentre is anyone's guess. Normal life got in the way I suppose, as it does for most people. Earning enough money to put down a deposit on our first house, weddings, babies ... they all took priority, until suddenly I looked back and slammed the brakes on. STOP. I'm getting lost here. Swamped. I'd lie awake at night after feeding my littlest boy in 2006 and think I'm sure there was something I wanted to do ten years ago ...
And so I did it. I wrote. And I wrote, and I wrote.
I entered competitions, joined forums, and I made writer-ish friends who are now amongst my closest buddies. In November 2009 I came second in the Mills & Boon annual writing competition, and although that book never made it as far as the shelves, placing in the competition gave me the confidence to carry on writing. I tried again with them several times with different manuscripts over the next twelve months, but always with the same end result. It turned out that I like to include too many eccentric secondary characters and I swear too much for category romance, so with regret I shelved the dream to write for Mills & Boon.
After several gloomy glasses of wine and grouches to my writing buddies I decided to just write the book of my heart without trying to stick within any perameters or guidelines. And you know what? I loved it. I had no clue what I'd do with the manuscript when I'd finished, I just threw myself into it and let it take me whereever it wanted. I began just after new year 2010, and nine months later I found myself with ninety-ish thousand words and a brand spanking new copy of The Writers & Artists Handbook.
I'd done the hard bit, right? I'd written a book.
Now for the fun bit. I'd get myself an agent.
That'd sort it...
YOU ARE READING
From First Word to Publication ~ Undertaking Love by Kat French
Non-FictionMy true-life diary from first stroke of the key as a brand new writer to publication by Avon. My first romantic comedy, Undertaking Love, is to be published in June 2014 by HarperCollins. I also write erotic romance as Kitty French. I've recorded my...
