2021
The Idea

Like Daphne du Maurier before me, I was inspired to write a psychological thriller after seeing a house on the banks of the Helford River here in Cornwall. (Unlike Daphne du Maurier, I was trying not to fall off my paddleboard.)

2022
Study Mode

Though I’ve always been a writer in some form, I had no clue how to write a novel, so I spent a year in study mode (my favorite mode), learning as much as I could about the craft and listening to hundreds of hours of writing and publishing industry podcasts.

2023
The Moment of Truth

But could I actually write fiction? It was time to find out!

After a busy year of writing, during which I almost gave up on my thriller and started a Shakespeare-themed cozy crime novel (I blame Richard Osman), I was finally ready to query literary agents with my modern Cornish gothic.

Or so I thought. Within a few weeks, I got six full requests and lots of encouraging feedback, but no offers of representation. Agents get thousands of queries a year and only take on a handful of new clients at most, so I wasn’t surprised. To be honest, I was happy to receive any feedback at all!

The common advice is to keep querying, as it only takes one yes, but my gut told me to stop and regroup. After all, getting an agent is only the beginning; they then have to turn around and sell your manuscript to a publisher.

My writer friends consoled me with the knowledge that most published authors have at least one “drawer novel” that has never seen the light of day.

2024
Back to the Drawing Board

But I wasn’t quite ready to give up on my novel. My Christmas gift to myself at the end of 2023 was a course with The Novelry. I was determined to fix whatever wasn’t working.

Then life got in the way, and I had to put my project on hold for several months.

By the time I was ready to return to it, AI-written novels were popping up everywhere, and I felt that perhaps publishing was no longer for me. They say it’s never too late to write a novel, but I seemed to have chosen the exact worst time in human history to do so.

Several more months passed. I tried not to think about my novel, but it lingered at the edges of my consciousness like a sullen ghost. Then an idea I’d developed a one-line pitch for in 2023 started to consume more and more of my thoughts. This stupid writing thing wasn’t going to leave me alone, was it?

2025
The New Idea

I renewed my Novelry course and booked a coaching session with thriller author Clare Mackintosh (whose breakout debut, I Let You Go, has sold over a million copies). During our call to discuss novel #1, I brought up the “new idea” and asked her which one she thought I should work on; she didn’t hesitate: the new idea.

So, in January 2025, I began working on novel #2, a psychological thriller set in a small town in Massachusetts about two women, a dead teenager, and a viral true-crime podcast.

2026
The Next Chapter

19 months, 900 laptop hours, and countless drafts later, I found out my manuscript had qualified for The Novelry’s agent submissions service, which is by invitation only.

I’ll never forget that moment, sitting alone at the train station, bawling my eyes out.

I knew it was a remote possibility, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would actually happen to me, especially given that I wrote the majority of this novel during one of the most difficult times in my life.

There are no guarantees in life or in publishing, but whatever happens from here on out, I’ll always be grateful to those who spurred me on. I’m so glad this book exists, even if only on my laptop. As Raymond Carver would say, everything else is gravy.

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