Do you dream of writing a novel but don't know where to start? Liz Frost tells us how she got started with the expert help of Jacqueline Burns...
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this dream to write a novel. As anyone who shares my dream will know, ‘I’d like to write a novel’ is a dream on a par with ‘I’d like to walk on the moon.’ It would be great, but it’s probably never going to happen. I mean, think of the number of words involved. Not to mention the characters and plot that need to be plucked from thin air. And even if you did manage to write it, what are the chances of actually finding somebody to publish it? I mean it’s a virtual impossibility. No, writing a novel is best left to the likes of Jane Austin. Isn’t it?
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve spent the afternoon staring at a blank page, wondering how it could possibly materialise into something people would actually want to read. Not only want to read, but seek out and pay to read. As any writer will know, procrastination is rife. When faced with a blank page you will go to great lengths to avoid actually sitting down to write a sentence (I can’t write today, I need to sort my cereal shelf into alphabetical order). Despite my good intentions, every one of these encounters with the scary blank page left me full of dozens of cups of tea and another step further from becoming a novelist. Until I met Jacq.
Jacqueline Burns, a literary coach and agent was recommended to me by Lucy at marmaLADYa. ‘Write a book!’ said Lucy. ‘Find me an agent and I will’ I replied smartly. Now I was eating my words. To me, Jacq possibly held the key to unlock my dream, which was both scary and exciting at the same time. Exciting: I could actually do this. Scary: I might actually have to do this. I wondered if I was ready… Maybe another cup of tea and then I’d decide…
Our first encounter was in the café of Waterstones bookshop in Piccadilly. I’d sent her some of my stories to read in advance, so she could see how I write and I was told to come armed with any plot ideas … even if there were none. All I had was the aforementioned blank page and a seriously tea-stained gullet.
I started to feel a bit silly as I sat there hideously early, waiting for Jacq to arrive. Until this moment, my dream of writing a novel had been solely in my fantasy world. Now I was about to declare my intentions to somebody in public. Not just anybody, but somebody ‘in the know’. What if she just laughed in my face? I wondered if this was how Neil Armstrong felt on his first day at Moon School.
The highly professional emails and phonecalls we’d shared the week before had left me expecting somebody a lot more formal, so I was delighted when an attractive smiley lady approached my table in a pair of jeans and a summer top. At the very least this would be a pleasant chat with a nice lady, I told myself.
I had been sure she would politely send me on my way, then I could go back to drinking my tea and rearranging my CD collection, safe in the knowledge that at least I tried, so I was surprised that the first words from her mouth were. “When you’ve written your first book…” What? I hadn’t even written my first word, let alone my first book. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a precipice about to jump. But as we chatted about ideas and came up with possible plots, I felt like we were in this together. She gave me constructive and honest feedback on my stories and I realised: This woman has faith in me. I left our first meeting glowing with pride and something else that lurked near the surface. Hope.
That was just a few months ago, and last week I gave Jacq the first 8 chapters of my novel to read. As I nervously bundled them up like a baby in swaddling and posted them off, the enormity of the journey I had already embarked on hit me. As I waited nervously in a café in Victoria for the long-awaited feedback, it was reminiscent of our first ever meeting in Waterstones. Only this time, the moon didn’t seem quite so far away.
Check out the Free Agents page on marmaLADYa or contact Jacqueline Burns to find out more about a creative package to suit your needs (and watch this space for details of Liz Frost's first novel!)
