writers victoria

Six years ago I typed “The End” on my first manuscript, and was convinced I’d written a masterpiece.

Reader, I had not.

I sent it off for external validation by means of a paid manuscript assessment, and in hindsight I got lots of great advice. I didn’t pay attention to any of that, though. The only thing I heard was “I’m sure you’ll be able to find an agent”. Clearly the assessor had recognised it was only a matter of time before I became a best-selling superstar.

It took a year and rejections from nearly every publisher and agent in Australia before I learned to listen to what I was being told. The tipping point was from someone slightly more blunt than most, and I remember her exact words. “Your writing is fine, but you have no idea about plot.”

I went back and looked again at all the feedback I’d been given, ignoring the ego stroking this time and just focusing on the “but…” comments. Surprisingly, there weren’t many themes. Sure, plotting came up a bit, but so did pacing, head hopping, dialogue, character arcs, the use of tropes and many other bits and pieces.

It turned out that there was so much wrong with my masterpiece that it was too hard to tell the whole truth, so people just pointed to the one thing that bugged them most. And that was different for everyone.

I didn’t have a masterpiece; I had 75,000 words of irredeemable triteness. No amount of rework was going to make it something worth reading.

I’m not gonna lie, the realisation hurt.

For some reason though, it never occurred to me to give up. The end product might have been terrible, and I had lost confidence in my ability to produce something good, but the act of writing was a revelation. This was something I loved and was going to keep doing. I just needed to figure out how to do it better.

I signed up for the first of many writing courses and began learning the art of writing. I joined writing associations and met other writers and talked about the craft, and the industry. This was not a moment in time but a way of life. I’m now a member of, and regularly attend workshops, conferences and training programs with:

• Romance Writers of Australia
• Australian Society of Authors
• Writers Victoria
• Queensland Writers’ Centre (the CYA conference is terrific)

Then there’s all the other non-association aligned courses or talks I sign up for just because they seem interesting or someone recommends them.

It wasn’t only training though. I started reading widely in the genres I wanted to write in. I entered any competition I could find that would give me feedback. I pitched to editors and agents at every opportunity, and I asked for feedback. I worked with an editor (May Peterson, cannot recommend highly enough) who helped me understand where I still needed to improve. I found a writers’ group who I trust implicitly, and I listen when they tell me something isn’t working.

And through all of this I kept writing. I wrote a second novel, then a third, fourth and a fifth. Each one was exponentially better than the one before (which just highlighted exactly how bad the first one was).

I call those first five manuscripts my practice novels. I was learning the craft of writing, but I was also learning what works for me; how I write best, what I like to write, what other people like that I write.

Thoroughly Disenchanted is novel six. I had no problem finding an agent for this one, or a publisher. It was remarkably quick and easy; if you count from when I started submitting it, and not from the moment I realised I needed to get better at this writing gig. If you’re consider the big picture it was not quick or easy; six years, countless hours of writing, lots of education, and not a little soul searching has led up to this novel being published.

I’ve been trying to think what the moral of this story is, and I’ve come up with several. Choose which works for you, or make up your own. 

1. Keep writing (if you want to). The way to get better at writing is to write, but you need to enjoy the process of creation not just the external validation of succeeding.
2. Keep learning. Take every opportunity you can to hear from others about what they do; not so you can copy it, but so you can figure out your own way.
3. Listen to feedback. You don’t have to action all of it (or any of it!) but if you’re not listening, there’s no point asking for it. I have a whole other blog post lined up about this.

Happy writing!