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Writing Tips Oasis

My Book Deal Moment by Catherine Ferguson

By Novelicious

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

Catherine FergusonFor as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by books – reading them and writing them. I devoured everything by Enid Blyton as a kid and was always trying to write my own full-length mystery/adventure stories.

At university in Dundee, I studied English then landed a pretty cool job as Fiction Editor on Patches teenage magazine. After that, I worked as a sub-editor on a couple of newspapers in Scotland, before moving to Surrey where – in a complete change of career direction – I established Surrey Organics, delivering fresh organic fruit and veg to people’s homes. (My veggie adventures were the inspiration for my very first attempt at a book, which is still in a drawer.)

Then five years ago, I had a bit of a mid-life crisis/wake-up call. It involved a Big Birthday looming on the horizon and the fact that a spell trading the financial markets (yet another career change) was proving stressful and ultimately rather scary. Did I really want to spend my days glued to a computer screen watching financial indices going up and down? Wasn’t it high time I actually got down to business and finally tried writing that book? So that’s what I set out to do.

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When I started, I gave myself a year in which to write a book and find a publisher (duh!)  Looking back, I can’t believe how ridiculously naïve I was. It ended up taking five times that long!

Those years were pretty bleak, financially. When my savings ran out, I knew I’d struggle to find a job that would fit around school hours, so I set myself up as a self-employed cleaner. I went out cleaning during the day and used every spare minute in between jobs – plus evenings and weekends – to work on the book. It was exhausting but something kept driving me on – although there were definitely times when I questioned my sanity! I had embarked on a mentoring course with The Literary Consultancy (TLC) which was tremendously helpful – and by the end, I had my first completed manuscript. Becky at TLC decided it showed promise and began sending it out to agents. Seven months of nail-biting and four rejections later, I finally got a ‘yes’ from the wonderful HHB Agency. With their support and guidance I wrote Humbugs & Heartstrings – which took another year – then Elly, my agent, began sending it out to publishers. That was the most nerve-racking time of all. To have come so far but not to make it all the way would have been devastating. Three rejections rolled in as I held my breath.

Then … on 26th August 2014 I received a very special phone call from Elly. She told me that Avon editor Helen Huthwaite loved the book and wanted to publish it. Not only that, but she was setting up a brand new ‘digital first’ imprint called Maze – and she wanted Humbugs & Heartstrings to be the book to launch it! I was so elated, I could barely speak.

The house was frustratingly empty at the time (no-one to hear my disbelieving squeaks of delight) so I went for a long, fast walk in the woods to try and get my head round the fact that finally, finally it was happening! I think I floated most of the way. I got back to the house an hour later and there was still no-one home – so I did the walk again. I couldn’t think what else to do. I had so much nervous energy, I just had to burn it off otherwise I might have spontaneously combusted!!

I’ve been celebrating ever since . . .

Catherine's novel, Humbugs & Heartstrings, is out now. 

Filed Under: Cressida McLaughlin, My Book Deal Moment

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