Outside, looking in: the reality of being a querying writer

This is how it feels like to be one of those thousands and thousands of writers still querying, week after week, and getting nowhere.

The book industry begins with writers. 

Sure, its fuel is commercial sales, trends, profit and loss, metadata… But it begins with one person (occasionally two) sitting in a room, staring at a blank screen. Then, eventually, beginning to fill that screen, before finally writing "The End".

I began writing seven years ago and have written three novels and am about to start my fourth. I fell into many of the newbie traps: thinking my books were finished way before they were (apologies to anyone I queried at that point), not being clear enough on essentials like the "singular narrative thrust which propels the story forward and keeps you hanging on to find out what will happen next".

What I didn’t realise, when I started out on this path, was that my screen would, in time, be swapped for a window. One for which–while I can stare in at the friendly world of publishing–I cannot find the accompanying door. 

To read the full article on thebookseller.com, click here