The good, the bad – and the one that landed! Author Sharon Black on her novel, The Last Saturday in July, being published by Poolbeg Press.
After years – and years – of writing, I have become an overnight success.
Haha – give me a minute while I stop laughing. Because that’s absolutely not true. And, as far as I’m aware, I’m not even the first writer to say it. But right at this moment it feels apt.
The reason is – as most of us know – when we’ve been writing for years, learning our craft (putting books in drawers), attending courses, writing some more, threatening to give up, almost giving up, and eventually something lands … it feels so spectacularly out of left field that for a few brief moments all that other stuff seems to disappear.
On June 21st this year – summer solstice – I got an email from Poolbeg Publishing to say they loved my romantic comedy, and they wanted to offer me a three-book deal. When I stopped laughing out loud (until that exact moment I didn’t realise how I would react to such news), I started to cry (again, a revelation!). My husband and one of my daughters who were at home at the time, rushed to find me – convinced that I’d had some dreadful news and had become hysterical.
“They said yes.” I choked out the words.
“I think it might be good news,” my daughter ventured. I burst into more crying laughter.
That day, I replied to the email to say I’d be delighted to accept their offer, before my husband took me out for lunch. I allowed myself a full day of unbridled joy. So unbridled, that I even started to miss the little voice in my head that constantly tells me I’m not enough, I might never be enough and who the hell am I trying to kid? I needn’t have worried: by the following day my Imposter Syndrome and I had reunited.
Still, for all those reasons the summer solstice shall forever hold a special place in my heart.
So, that’s what happened at the end. Or at least, near the end. Because as yet, I have no idea how my little book will be received, or if people who are lovely enough to buy it will actually like it. But it’s the beginnings that are equally important, right? Because before I wrote the book that eventually landed, I had written three others. All of which had done the rounds of submissions through an agent – none of which had hit the mark. After book three, I allowed myself a bit of a break down. I actually wished, more than I’d wished for anything for myself in a long time, that I didn’t WANT to write. But as that wasn’t a runner either, I picked myself up and started Book Four.
Enter Writing.ie. Or to be precise, an opportunity to participate online in a five-day writing challenge, run by Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin – AKA thriller writer Sam Blake – and journalist and mentor, Maria McHale. At the end of it, the participants had the chance to join the private online writing group, Writers Ink. I jumped.
Every writer will tell you that writing is a craft. It’s only a cliché because it’s true. I stayed in the group for a couple of years, until my own change of circumstances meant I had to leave. But during that time I learned so much. More than that, I found a community of writers, a group of whom I now count as friends. Writing is a lonely activity and we need friends who just get it.
As I nervously await publication of The Last Saturday in July, I am writing the next book for my contract. This time, I have a deadline: not my own but the publisher’s. Yes, it’s terrifying. But it’s also a challenge. Bizarrely, I’ve learned that’s another thing I enjoy.
What helps as I sit at my desk is knowing there are writers everywhere doing the same thing. And the road to publication looks different for everyone.
All I know is that I’d never have got here if I’d given up after book three.
So, apart from ‘keep learning’ and ‘don’t give up’, I don’t have any amazing advice. I try not to compare myself, because I know there will always be better writers than me: I read them every day. For now, it’s a privilege just knowing that some people might read me too.
(c) Sharon Black
Find Sharon:
Writing.ie: writing.ie/member-emerging-writers/sharon-black/
Blog: thisfunnyirishlife.wordpress.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/SBlackwriter
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SharonBlackWriterPage/
About The Last Saturday in July:
Two Weddings, A Cursed Castle, One Unforgettable Day.
ON HER HEN NIGHT, Jess Bradley unexpectedly finds herself on a ferry to the Isle of Man, shipped off by inebriated friends. The outcome? A passionate one-night stand, an encounter she vows to keep secret to her dying day.
Back home, she grapples with the daily demands of her high-pressure job as a marketing manager for a prestigious hotel group. Then, to her horror, she discovers that the man she slept with is her boss’s nephew and her new co-worker, Adam Rourke.
Fate plays a wicked hand as Jess and Adam are thrust together to oversee a celebrity wedding at the opulent Linford Castle in the West of Ireland. Guilt gnaws at Jess as she struggles to hide her upcoming wedding from Adam while concealing her one-night stand from her fiancé, Simon.
To complicate matters further, the weddings are on the same day, and the American reality-TV celebrity’s relationship with her ‘Casino King’ fiancé seems to be heading for disaster.
In a whirlwind of emotions and secrets, Jess struggles to keep both weddings on track. She can’t escape the growing sense that chaos and catastrophe loom on the horizon, on the last Saturday in July.
Order your copy online here.
