The debate rumbles on:   are creative writing courses worth it?   Is ‘creative writing’ in fact something that can ever be ‘taught’?  Are the available courses worth the money?    I have to admit to having very strong personal opinions on the issue, having done an  MA course a few years ago – read on to find out more.

Even the most cursory flick through a Googled list of sites on the subject throws up a wide variety of opinion – Guardian journalist,  Matthew Wright quotes Blake Morrison in a 2007 article(http://tinyurl.com/3p3kpgn) suggesting that writers embarking on these courses are seeking ‘the kind of editorial help they no longer hope to get from publishing houses’ (that may be the case for some people, but for myself, I’d have to disagree, as my experience with my own publisher, Sphere, has been one of exemplary editorial input).  In the same article, Wright quotes writing course director Clare Morgan as saying  that ‘the romantic notion of the single artist struggling … in a garret has been eroded“, being replaced by “the increasing acceptability of the notion of writing as a craft, the skills of which one can develop through apprenticeship’.   Yeah – I like that idea.   Charlotte Higgins, however, in an article from 2008 describes ‘the celebrated novelist, screenwriter and playwright Hanif Kureishi’ as launching a ‘ withering attack on university creative writing courses, calling them “the new mental hospitals“’. (??)   Oxford-based author Emma Lee-Potter’s excellent recent post (http://tinyurl.com/3t5fkdu) explores the subject.  She quotes creative writing tutor Richard Francis as saying ‘You may not be able to teach people to write, but you can take people who are capable of writing and provide them with the space and structure within which they have to write’  This expresses it nicely – though speaking personally, I think there is more to it even than that.

I did my MA course at the University of Chichester between 2005 and 2007.  At this point I was already fiercely ambitious for my writing,  I had completed the first draft of HIS LAST DUCHESS, and had written a fair bit of what would eventually become THE COURTESAN’S LOVER, though hadn’t yet submitted anything to agents or publishers.   I was writing in every available minute (even if, as a working teacher and mother of two, there weren’t nearly enough of those  …), but  I was also seriously struggling with guilt, at the amount of time and energy I was devoting to what to other people was still tantamount to a hobby.

Doing the MA changed all that.

The Chichester University MA course is run by Stephanie Norgate, an inspirational poet and playwright, who is both a wonderful teacher and a fierce champion of all the students on her course.  She has no doubts about the practical benefits of doing a Creative Writing MA.  She says, ‘Over the fifteen years of running the MA in Creative Writing at Chichester with an outstanding team of tutors who are all practising writers, I have been delighted to see an increase in the number of our students who publish.’   Just have a look at the list of Chichester student successes (I feel very proud to be one of them) – it speaks for itself.  (http://tinyurl.com/442k6uh)

Stephanie works alongside a staff of equally inspirational practising writers – poets, playwrights, short fiction writers and novelists.  (http://tinyurl.com/3kfomjc)   It’s not just that these writers help students to improve their skills, (which they undoubtedly do, consistently) it’s also that ,as Stephanie explains,  they understand ‘the mysterious side of writing, that strange opening of the unconscious where the writer almost becomes a channel for the work. That side of things is difficult to teach but, as Stanislavsky says, a state of preparedness aids the mysterious processes.’  And ‘that side of things’ is perhaps the most difficult to access if you are working alone, writing with no guidance.  I suppose it’s not impossible, but being with other writers, other people who understand, other people who are more experienced , allows that channel to open and flourish in a way I think would be very hard to achieve  in isolation.

For me, the first thing I discovered on starting the MA course was a sense of validation – while I was on the course, I could really begin to think of myself as ‘a writer’.  The structure of the modules provided me with a focused journey – at last, it was OK to be as obsessed with it all as I was (and still am!).  The teaching was inspirational – and it was such a relief to be in the company of other people who were as determined to write, and as interested in the process, as I was.   Up until then, I hadn’t met any other writers;   starting this course was rather like being a kid who has been standing outside a well-stocked toyshop with her nose pressed against the window, looking longingly at the all unreachable displays, and suddenly being told to come in and help herself.

What was so great about it?  It’s difficult to pick out individual elements -  learning to share work-in-progress with tutors and other students through the workshop system was revelatory  (and a  vitally important working practice) , but, as Stephanie Norgate explains, ‘It’s not all about workshopping, though that is often the most appreciated element by students. Our writing exercises and inspiring discussions of reading which focus on narrative possibilities, the building of character, story, subtext, imagery, undercurrents and so on,  raise the bar for the work submitted in workshops.’

I think it’s fair to say that I don’t think I’d have been published had I not done the MA.  Not only because I was taken on by an agent whom I met through a University-organised publishing panel (though that helped, of course!) but also because of what I learned, and how much better a writer I was when I left than when I arrived.

So, as Emma Lee-Potter says,  ‘ if you’re an aspiring author who’s thinking of doing a creative writing course my advice is: ignore the cynics and get that application form off in double-quick time’. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

*

I’m lucky enough to work regularly on promotional events with a couple of other Chichester MA graduates – Isabel Ashdown and Jane Rusbridge.  It’s lovely being able to work with other novelists, of course, but especially good when we have the MA experience in common.

http://www.janerusbridge.co.uk/             http://isabelashdown.com/

All of us writers have to do a fair bit of our own marketing these days – so, although it might seem like a bit of shameless self-promotion, I’m taking the opportunity to post an excerpt from ‘His Last Duchess’, along with a few reviews, both from papers and from Amazon.  I hope you enjoy it!

“The main drawbridge was down.   The sky was the colour of old pewter and a fine drizzle was dimpling the surface of the water in the moat.   The four great red towers of the Castello Estense glowered down at the rain-slicked city like scowling sentries,  the aggressively military precision of their dimensions somehow softened, blurred by the waterlogged air.  Diamond droplets hung along the length of all the white stone balustrades.

A sodden group of figures turned into the main piazza in front of the Castello as the cathedral bell chimed the midday:  four riders, one small cart laden with luggage, and, tethered behind the cart, a miserable and bedraggled looking white mule, ears drooping, small hooves scraping across the cobbles, as though too exhausted even to pick its feet up from the ground.  The group crossed the piazza, turned towards the castle and clattered up onto the drawbridge.

As they reached the central courtyard, Giovanni de’ Medici leaned forward and ran a hand down his pony’s waterlogged neck.  He kicked his feet from the stirrups, swung his leg up and over the horse’s rump and jumped down.  Hunching and rolling his shoulders, Giovanni stretched his back to ease out the stiffness of hours in the saddle, as several of the Estense horsemen emerged to greet the new arrivals.   One of them, tall, round-faced and cheerful, took Giovanni’s pony’s reins.

‘Thank you,’ said Giovanni.  ‘Thank you – she’s absolutely soaked – they all are.  Can you give her a good rub down and throw a blanket over her …?’

‘Of course, Signore – all the horses will be dried and stabled straight away.’

‘Her name’s Brezza,’ Giovanni began, ‘and she – ’

‘Vanni!’   He was interrupted by a shriek, and the sound of footsteps.  ‘Vanni!’

Turning, Giovanni saw Lucrezia running across the courtyard, her skirts bunched inelegantly in both fists.  He grinned and began to walk towards her.  She let go of her dress and threw her arms around him;  hugging her back, he lifted her right off her feet.

‘Oh, Vanni, you’re here at last!  But – you’re soaking!  How was your journey?  Was it horrible?  How are mama and – oh!’  She broke off and stood back from him, her mouth a shocked circle.  ‘Oh, cielo! Violetta!’ 

She had seen the mule.  Amused, and pleased with the impact of his surprise, Giovanni watched his cousin scramble across the courtyard to where the disgruntled donkey stood behind the cart.  She wrapped her arms around its sodden and dirty white neck and the mule tossed its head and stamped a hoof, irritably.   One of the stablemen began to unhitch it from the tailboard of the cart.  Lucrezia cradled the creature’s muzzle in both hands and kissed it, then turned back to Giovanni, her eyes shining.  The bodice and sleeves of her dress were now blotched and stained with rain and mud, and her face was dirty.   Giovanni rubbed the heel of his hand across his eyes and laughed.

‘Look at you!’ he said.  ‘Nothing changes …’

‘You brought her,’ Lucrezia said through a wide, muddy smile, ignoring him.

‘I take it you’re pleased.’

‘Did she complain all the way?’

Giovanni laughed again.  ‘She certainly did.  God, Crezzi, I can’t imagine why you’re so fond of her – she really has the filthiest temper, and the -’

‘Don’t!  Don’t be horrible!  She’s my darling mule and I love her – and I love you for bringing her!’  Lucrezia hugged him again.  ‘Come on inside out of the rain.’ 

She looked around at the other riders.  Raising her voice, she said, ‘Please, everybody – do come inside.  The servants will show you to your rooms, where you can change out of your wet things, and then there will be hot broth and wine – and I believe a fire has been lit in the East Hall.’ 

Giovanni proffered an arm, feeling suddenly pleased with himself, and rather older than his fifteen years.  Lucrezia took his arm with both her hands and squeezed it, smiling up at him again.  More servants in bright castle livery were appearing at the doors now;  they stepped out into the courtyard, looking, Giovanni thought, out of place in the open air, like a group of pet cats in a field.  Their shoulders hunched against the rain, they hastened to welcome the new arrivals in out of the wet, and, in a damp huddle, the party from Cafaggiolo finally entered the Castello.

Alfonso was startled to hear a commotion in the courtyard as he strode back up from the falconry.

He slowed his pace.

Pausing in the shadows of the tunnel from the back drawbridge, he ran a hand through wet hair and looked from one figure to another.  A trickle of cold rainwater ran down the back of his neck.  One of his horsemen was leading a muddy cob – still harnessed to the shafts of small, covered tilt-cart –  another held the reins of a good-looking little chestnut mare.  Three other horses were being led away towards the stables, along with an obviously elderly, and mud-soaked white mule.  A cluster of the castle servants were, Alfonso saw, irritably collecting the luggage from the cart – and then he saw her.

Lucrezia.

She had mud on her face and hands, and her dress was unaccountably filthy.  Her face, though, was alight with pleasure:  her eyes were shining as she laughed up at a lanky, dark-skinned boy, and Alfonso’s heart clenched tight for a moment until he recognised the newcomer.  His mind on his hawks, he had quite forgotten that his wife’s cousin was due to arrive today. ”

‘Gabrielle Kimm writes with a charm that entices us into a world of intrigue and dark undertones. She creates a passionate love story that gets under your skin, intimate and touching, against a backdrop of danger and treachery. Her vivid portrayal of Medici life is rich and wonderfully imagined, as she draws a skilful portrait of a fascinating time and place.’ KATE FURNIVALL, author of THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE

‘Gabrielle Kimm’s sultry and deeply intimate debut novel brings to life Lucrezia de’Medici, heiress to one of Italy’s richest and most powerful families, who died in mysterious circumstances only three years after her marriage.   ‘His Last Duchess, a vivid portrayal of the teenage bride and the glittering but dangerously political world into which she was born, is a welcome addition to the ever popular historical novel market.
Kimm, an English and drama teacher, writes with elegance and seductive charm as she weaves her magic on a rich and colourful story of love and hatred, obsession and intrigue. Beautifully descriptive, full of fascinating period detail and simmering with tension and sexual chemistry, His Last Duchess is a love story to savour…’ Lancashire Evening Post

“His Last Duchess” is a wonderfully evocative picture of 16th Century Italy, combined with a touching love story and a thrilling who-dun-it plot, that I couldn’t put down! Gabrielle Kimm was inspired to write this book by Browning’s sinister poem,”My Last Duchess”, in which the speaker, Alfonso d’Este, is describing the portrait of the woman to whom he was married; as the poem unfolds, we realise that her demise may not have been natural! Indeed, historically, Lucrezia di Medici, who was the Duchess in question, vanished from sight three years after her marriage to d’Este, and there are no historical records of what happened to her. Kimm has taken this enigmatic poem, and spun a captivating possibile explanation of it, telling the story with vivid language, and painting unforgettable pictures, which linger in the memory long after the end – Amazon Review

‘His Last Duchess’ is a rich banquet of sumptuous detail. Set in Medici Italy, Gabrielle Kimm recreates the sights and sounds of the period with layers of evocative images that assail the senses. Against this backdrop, the drama unfolds at a swift pace. I identified easily with the characters, especially the protagonist, Lucrezia for whom I was anxious from the very beginning. The pace is maintained throughout as the characters struggle for survival within the closed walls of the Duke’s castle in Ferrara. The perfect balance of characterisation and plot sustains interest and intrigue right until the unpredictable and satisfying end of the story. I was captivated by this compelling story and I can’t wait the read the next one.

Amazon Review

His Last Duchess is a colourful, clever and compelling novel. This novel is an indulgent pleasure with a plot that is intricately layered with all the threads tightly woven together at the end. A must read for anyone who has ever truly loved another person.

Amazon Review

When you write a novel, I suppose it’s inevitable that at some point in the process, you start imagining the things you hope people might say about your book and the reactions they might have when they read it.  I’ve been very lucky, and have had some lovely reviews for ‘His Last Duchess’, and I’ve been amazed and delighted by every one of them … but last night a comment appeared in my email inbox, directed there from my website, and, to be frank, it has completely blown me away!

I decided I’d like to share it with you.  It’s from a gentleman called Richard Finch.

He says: “After many years teaching Drama and some English, for a while Director of the Ashcroft Arts Centre in Fareham, and then a deputy in a large Southwark comprehensive, I retired and set off for Africa.  Namibia to be exact, where from 2008, I taught at the University in the North and supported teachers – many in bush schools – in the teaching of English and helping them to develop more interactive teaching.

I was approached by some teachers who were struggling with a prescribed text for Second Language learners at Higher Level.  It was Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’.  I had not encountered this work before.  My initial reaction – why set a text written by a Victorian British poet who in turn had set its subject in Renaissance Italy – a far cry from the flat desert plains and villages of the mainly Oshiwambo people.

This powerful dramatic monologue quickly caught my imagination as I decided to approach it as a mystery-thriller, woven with sensuality and romance.  There were distinct resonances as feudal values and attitudes, gradually but not entirely, are replaced by contemporary perspectives on life in a newly de-colonised society.

Teachers and learners alike embraced the poem with enthusiasm and made it their own.   I left Namibia last November, sold my house in Fareham, and have just relocated to Kwa Zulu Natal.

Imagine my excitement and curiosity when, in a Durban bookshop, the title of a new publication – His Last Duchess – jumped out at me.  From the cover place to the final words it had me gripped and enthralled.  I returned to the poem, and then back to the novel.  Everything in the story seemed as it would and should have been.  I want so many to read it.  it would make a dark and powerful stage play … and a sumptuous film.  Thank you for your inspired creation.”

Crumbs … it’s really worth having written the book, just for that, I reckon.  It’s not just the praise – it’s also the fact of reading about someone else’s equally enthusiastic response to Browning’s wonderful poem, and the poem’s being discussed and explored … in the deserts of Namibia!  How Browning would have loved that!  I can only imagine that Mr Finch is a wonderful teacher.  On top of everything, too, I’m just gobsmacked by the surreality of my novel’s being discovered in a bookshop in Durban!  My emailed response to Mr Finch, though heartfelt, felt dreadfully inadequate after all that!

Have any of you out there had reactions to your books that have left you similarly speechless?    I’d love to hear them, if you have!

You often hear writers talking about characters who act of their own volition, or who ‘won’t do what they’re told’ or who seem to exist, somehow, independently of said writer.  Well, this has happened to me on various occasions myself, in the writing of both ‘His Last Duchess’, and ‘The Courtesan’s Lover’, but the other day I actually caught a character in the act , in the early stages of writing my third novel, and I thought you might like to hear how it happened. 

Picture the scene – seventeenth century France, a big country house, and one of the two central characters ( a girl of about nineteen) is coming downstairs to sit in the early morning sun to allow her hair to dry before setting off on a long journey. 

I took her into the salon (the living room), half of which was in gloomy half-light, and had her walk across the room to pull a chair across to where a thick shaft of sunshinewas falling across the floor.  As she sat down and shuffled her chair into the light, someone moved and coughed, just ‘out of picture’.  It gave me a bit of a shock!  As I wrote this scene, I really, genuinely, hadn’t known anyone else was in the room.  I hadn’t planned it at all.  I didn’t know who this  was. 

I described the light falling across this unidentified person’s knees, and as I did so, I saw that it was an old lady.  I hadn’t planned that either. 

Then she spoke, and I realised that it was the central character’s grandmother.  I didn’t know, until that minute, that my girl had a grandmother – certainly not one who lived in the house with her.  And not only did Grandmère speak, she quite clearly had a distinctly defined character.  

This was the most bizarre sensation. 

The nearest I can come to an analogy is that way in which sometimes you can be humming random notes, and they by chance sound like a song you know, and so you start singing that song, without having chosen it.   Maybe that’s what just happened – I wrote a few random words, and they felt like a description, and that description made me think of a character and …

But that’s seriously not how it felt.  

I’d love to know if any of you have had similar things happen in the course of your writing.  Do tell!

Come and join us for a fun, informal evening of readings and book chat with three award-winning local authors.

Featuring Chichester Book Club authors Jane Rusbridge, Isabel Ashdown and Gabrielle Kimm

Copies of all 3 books will be available for purchase on the evening at the specially discounted price of £5.00

Venue: WOODIES WINE BAR, Chichester

Time: From 7.30pm on Thursday 5th May

Entry: £5.00 / Appetisers & raffle on the night

Order tickets from Stonepillow by phoning (01243) 537934  or email dingram@stonepillow.org.u

Ernest Hemingway famously said that ‘All first drafts are sh*t’.  Bless him!  And he’s right, of course.  Because writing is re-writing.  That extraordinary process of liberating ideas and images from your mind and capturing them on paper – the very process of writing -  can be so fleeting and ephemeral and potentially vulnerable, that in order to do it freely, you probably need to tell yourself not to mind too much about what first appears on the paper, in case worrying about it ends up by blocking it.  

I was given a ‘baptism of fire’ sort of experience in re-drafting when I was half-way through my MA course in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester a few years ago.  An experience that stood me in good stead about a year later. 

We had just been told all about the technique of ‘bricolage’ by our tutor, Dave Swann.  ‘Bricolage,’ he said, ‘is a sort of juxtaposition of different registers of language, pieced together in a story like a patchwork quilt, creating a multi-textured narrative.’  I loved this idea, and, fired up with lots of exciting ideas, I set to with a will.  I created a hotchpotch of sections of story – two newspaper articles, a psychiatrist’s report, two monologues and a prose poem, telling my newly-devised story from all sorts of angles.  I was chuffed to bits with it as I handed Dave my three-thousand word first draft, and looked forward to seeing what he would say about how I had put his ideas into practice. 

‘Erm, not sure how to break this to you,’ he said at the workshop the following week. 

He explained that, in his opinion, one of the two monologues I had written (all of about two hundred words long) was, in his mind, the heart of the story, and was so emotionally highly-charged that he felt that it sat uncomfortably with the slightly tongue-in-cheek light-heartedness of the rest of what I’d written.  ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d hang onto this monologue and scrap the rest.’ 

Scrap the rest?  !!!  ???   

I felt like a pricked balloon. 

Dave tried to console me.  ‘When you build a house, you put scaffolding up, don’t you?’ he said.  ‘That scaffolding is totally necessary to the construction process, but when the house is finished, you take it down.  It’s ugly and not needed any more.  What you’ve written here is the scaffolding, if you like – totally necessary to the building of the story, but due for demolition at the end.’ 

Hhmm.  I got the point, but it didn’t make me feel much better. The words ‘ugly’ and ‘unnecessary’ kept popping into my head.   Nonetheless, I took my little monologue home and re-built the story around it that very night, and as soon as I started, I knew Dave’s instincts had been spot-on.  The story flowed and grew and worked with a completely different energy – far better than the original – and it got a distinction in the end. 

I’d learned some important lessons.  First drafts are usually sh*t.  Be flexible.  Don’t be precious.  Be open to advice and be ready to re-draft on the BIG scale when the experts say you need to do so. 

And boy was I glad of that lesson when ‘His Last Duchess’ was finally taken on by an agent, Judith Murray, about a year later.  

As I said in my last post, Judith told me at our first meeting that she loved my writing, and she loved the story I had told, but that she really did not like the six first person narrators I had created to tell it.  The narrative had to go into the third person, she said, if she was ever going to be able to sell the book for me. 

Re-write the whole novel?  The whole book!  How could I possibly do that?  How could I re-ignite embers I thought I had doused?  I had presumed it was finished:  it was like a ripe fruit I had picked and put aside – complete and no longer attached to the tree.  What would happen if I tried to re-work it all, on such a scale, and found that the process bored me because it was no longer new?  Worst thought of all – what if I just couldn’t do it?  What if it was beyond me? 

But Judith is so experienced and so well-respected in the profession.  If she said that this was what the book needed, then who was I to disagree?  If I wanted to sell the thing, I told myself, I’d just have to stop fussing, believe in what she said, and get on with it!  

The fizzing excitement I was feeling at the fact of having actually secured an agent bubbled away alongside my fear of even starting this re-draft as I sat on the train on the way home, notebook and pen at the ready.  Staring out of the train window, I pondered on how to begin, and as I did so, Dave’s wise words came back to me.  

‘Use it as scaffolding.’ 

So I did just that.  Of course, Judith had been absolutely right and, as it turned out, the re-drafting turned out to be an extraordinary experience.  The scaffolding worked.  Having originally explored my story in the first person, I found that I had a far more acute awareness of my characters’ thoughts and motivations than I would have done had I only ever tackled the story in the third, but on top of that, the new approach was challenging, and entertaining to write.  That ‘first-person-scaffolding’ paved the way for the discovery of a sort of ‘third person immediate’ – a new idea for me – using the detachment and flexibility of third person, but grounding it within particular characters’ thoughts and experiences.  I loved it!  And even on that hour-and-a-half’s train journey home from London, writing and writing in my notebook, I felt the embers re-ignite, and knew I was going to be able to do what Judith wanted.  It felt as exciting as a first draft, even though it was actually about the sixth.

Before getting this book deal, I would never have even imagined how fluid and changeable a manuscript is allowed to be, right up to the final moment when you hand it back to the publishers, to be sent off for typesetting (and even then you can tweak a tiny bit when you are sent the flat-page proofs!).  It simply doesn’t have to be ‘just right’ until the very last minute.  The structural edit (where you follow any suggestions your editor has made) gives you huge scope to make changes and to keep improving things, and then once the manuscript been copy-edited, you get it back in your clutches yet again.  All sorts of things jump out at you as you re-read it, and at that point you can make yet more alterations and additions.    The professionals know when a story has to be told, and they’ll nurture that story through all sorts of changes, just to make sure that it does.

Re-writing ‘His Last Duchess’ took me about four months, I seem to remember.  Judith approved the newly drafted manuscript, and duly, after a clutch of rejections, secured a deal for me with Little, Brown – something she would never have been able to do with the mis-matched jumble of narrators I had initially presented to her. 

Oh, I do hope Ernest Hemingway would have approved.

Several lovely writers I know through Twitter have been blogging very candidly about their various experiences on the road to publication – I’ve decided I’d like to join in and tell you about what it was like for me a few years ago, finding an agent, in the hope that it will be of help to anyone in the process of search for an agent of their own.  

I think it’s only fair to warn you before you begin reading that it’s quite a long story! 

I decided that I was ready to send ‘His Last Duchess’ out into the world for the first time in 2006.  A very experienced writer-friend of my sister’s – a retired professor of literature and creative writing – told me to “pack a bag, and prepare for the long haul.”  Ever the enthusiastic optimist, I thought he was just being cynical and Eeyore-ish.   But of course he wasn’t.  Pack a bag?  Hhmm.  In the event, I needed a blooming great wheelie suitcase.    

Looking back now, my inexperience and my totally unreasonable expectations seem just plain daft,  but I suppose they were fairly normal for any writer at this stage of their career.

To try to give you a proper picture of how it all happened, I’m going to tell you everything, including how it felt at the time.  

How did I start the search?  A very good friend of mine has a very good friend who is a literary agent.  Annoyingly for me, this agent, Jane, only deals with non-fiction, so I knew she was never going to take ‘Duchess’, but as a favour, having once worked in fiction publishing, she agreed to read the book for me and offer an honest opinion.  Knowing now how busy agents are – that was some favour.  A couple of weeks later, Jane and I spoke on the phone.  She told me that she liked the book a lot, and she suggested two fiction agents whom she thought might be interested.  She was happy for me to drop her name, too, which gave me a bit of confidence as I wrote my synopsis and covering letters.  

At this point in the book’s history, I had written my narrative with a series of six different first person narrators (which at the time I thought was very William Faulkner-ish and courageous) but Jane warned me that any agent who took the book on might possibly want me to re-write it in the third person.  I’m afraid I just laughed at this idea – appalled at a) the notion of changing what I thought was completely finished, and b) the prospect of all that work! 

I sent the first three chapters of ‘His Last Duchess’ to the first suggested agent, and within a couple of weeks she emailed me and asked for ‘the balance of the material’.  ‘Hurrah!’  I thought.  The first agent I try, and she likes it!  She’s taken me seriously! Who needs to prepare for the long haul!  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Eeyore!  A couple more weeks down the line, however, the aforesaid agent politely declined, popped my manuscript into the self-addressed jiffy bag and sent it home.  It’s not quite ready for publication, she said.  

I was devastated!  I had been SO convinced she was going to take it.

 The second suggested agent (who shall remain nameless) told me rather irritably, when I emailed to see how much of the manuscript he wanted to see, that he would like the whole thing as a hard copy, as he hated being kept waiting for manuscripts he had decided he liked.  I of course obliged – at Special Delivery rates which cost me about £25(because I was frightened of its getting lost in the post).  

He returned it unread.  

I know he didn’t read it – because I know how I had packed it and that’s exactly how it came back.  He had read the synopsis – I could see where the paperclip had been moved – but he didn’t bother with a single page of the book itself.  You can imagine my feelings. And some of the comments I made.

 I won’t bore you with the next eleven rejections (yes, eleven!) – a couple were return-of-post, pro-forma letters, but the rest were unbelievably frustrating versions of ‘we really like this but are not in the position to take you on just now’.  One, whose reaction I still really love, said she couldn’t take the book on because she found the central character too disturbing!  Each one took between six weeks and three months to turn around, and each wait involved day after day of soaring and plummeting hopes, and thudding heartbeats as I approached the bloody wheelie bin every day, to see if the dreaded self-addressed jiffy bag had been tucked in behind it.  And eleven times, it had.  I found the whole thing emotionally exhausting and began to hate the sight of my own writing on the front of envelopes.

 Remember, this is pre-Twitter (at least, pre-my-discovery-of-Twitter).  I didn’t know any other writers in the same position and I felt very much alone. 

Each time, though,  I went straight back to my list from the Writers and Artists Yearbook, and moved on to the next agent, taking suggested edit ideas from the previous one into account, tweaking the MS where I agreed with the proffered ideas.  Although I felt miserably flattened by each rejection, I’m SO grateful now that they happened.  The agent I am with (more about her later) is SO right for me and for my writing, that I can’t imagine being with anyone else – I’m really, really glad no-one else took me on before, or I wouldn’t have ended up where I have done.  Does that make sense?

 I was doing an MA in Creative Writing at the time, at the University of Chichester.  The Creative Writing department puts together a Publishing Panel every year, whereby several agents, editors, publishers and other professionals come to talk to the students and offer advice and services.  That year, 2007, I listened carefully to everyone and decided to send my precious manuscript (by now in its fourth draft, but still with the multi-first-person narration) to three of the people there.  One I knew would hate it (he’s a very blokey sort of bloke and mine’s a bit of girly book) but you can’t turn down an opportunity.   Another was an editor from major publisher, and the third was an agent called Will Francis – at that time from the Greene & Heaton Literary Agency (he is now with Janklow & Nesbit).  I spoke to him for some time in the interval and by the end of the conversation, I felt (as they say) ‘quietly confident’.  He was very enthusiastic about the idea for the novel and sounded keen to read it.  And I liked him. 

The blokey bloke turned me down by return of post.  That much I was expecting.  The editor also turned me down, quite quickly, though with lots of encouraging critical comments to go with the rejection.  Will Francis, on the other hand, kept the book for what seemed like ages.  I think it was about three months.   I agonised over what this meant, but I felt rather diffident about chivvying him, because what do you say ?  ‘Could you hurry up please?’ sounds so rude!  Not being a very patient person, though, the waiting was killing me!

 Then something significant happened.  The opening chapter of my second novel was shortlisted for the Impress Prize for Fiction, (http://www.impress-books.co.uk/prize.html) so I thought I might use this as a tactful way to contact Will Francis, without seeming harassing.  I emailed him to explain, and asked him if he might like to have a look at the opening of this second novel as well.  He said he would, and I duly emailed the requisite pages.  Within a week he emailed to say that he ‘would like to talk to me about both books.’  Oh blimey, did my stress levels soar!  This is it, I thought.  An agent wants to take me on!  It seemed a foregone conclusion.  We arranged a time to talk on the phone.  

The phone rang, and my hands were shaking so much I almost dropped the phone when I picked it up.  However, my hopes instantly plummeted when the opening gambit went something like this.  ‘I really, really enjoyed both books, but …’ 

 How devastating can that word ‘BUT’ be? 

What do I have to DO??!! I asked myself silently, near to tears as the conversation went on.  Why, why why, when these people keep telling me how good they think this book is, will they not take the bloody thing on??!!

 Will said that although he very much liked what he had read of both books, they were not really his ‘thing’ and he would like to pass them to one of his colleagues, Judith Murray, whom he thought would be very interested in them.  I thanked him and said I’d look forward to hearing from her.    I was absolutely gutted.   Why on earth would another agent be interested in his cast-off?  “It’s not good enough for me, but you have a shufti at it.”  That’s what it felt like.  But I simply didn’t understand how these things work.  As you will see. 

I emailed Judith straight away, to thank her for taking the time to look at my books, and asked her politely how long she thought she would be, so I could switch my anxiety-monitors off for however long it might be.  About a month, she said, as she had a backlog of reading to do.  Fine, I thought.  That’s good.  I’ll give myself a fortnight off.  Then, when she says no, which I was certain she would do, I won’t send ‘Duchess’ out again.  I’ll wait until I’ve finished the second book, and then send them out as a pair.  Making that decision felt positive – it helped me not to feel too despondent.

 I was teaching the following day, and I came home at tea-time, picked up the phone and listened to my messages.  One boring piece of rubbish, and then … one from Judith Murray.  ‘I just needed to let you know that I haven’t finished it yet, but I can’t put it down.  I’m really loving it, and I’d like you to come up and discuss it with me.’  I’m not sure why she had started reading it before the rest of her backlog, but – well, you can imagine how I felt.

 The meeting we had went on for nearly three hours.  I liked Judith immediately, and knew straightaway that she really understood my book.  She is editorially very astute and was full of the sort of praise I could hardly believe was being aimed at my story.   Despite all the positive feedback, however, she was adamant about one thing – the six first-person narrators had to go!  She loved the story, she loved my writing, but the structure wasn’t working, she said, and wouldn’t sell in its present form.  I felt terrified, but equally certain that she was right.  (As had been that first non-fiction agent, of course, whose advice I had so summarily dismissed!) 

So I left that meeting, almost bursting with excitement, with both a literary agent and an enormous task.  I could hardly believe it.  I had an agent!  She had agreed to take me on, despite the need for a re-write.  And so, buoyed up by her trust in me, I re-wrote the whole of my book.  From page one to the end.  All four hundred and sixteen pages of it.  It was really, really scary doing that.  But it was the best thing that could possibly have happened to my story. 

 I’ll tell you the story of how Judith got ‘His Last Duchess’ into print another time.  It’s another long story. 

Agents will tell you that a story that simply has to be read, will be read.  A book that has to be published, will be published.  Their job is to help those books rise like cream to the top of the pile.  For the writer, it’s a question of maintaining a belief in your work through the inevitable rejections, and holding out for the agent and the publisher who will do best for you and your writing.  It wasn’t until I saw just how much energy and enthusiasm Judith has put into championing my book that I realised why it simply isn’t enough for someone just to ‘see the potential’ in a submitted novel.  They have to love it.  Really love it, the way you do yourself, and unless they do, they simply can’t get it out there for you.  Will Francis, for instance, saw and understood the book’s potential, but he didn’t love it and therefore he knew that he wasn’t the right agent for it.  Judith, on the other hand, did and she was.  It’s seriously worth waiting until you find the right person.  But, that might take time, and, as my professor friend said right at the outset – you’ll need to pack a bloody big bag and prepare for the long haul.

I was so pleased when I saw that Alexander Masters’ wonderful biography ‘Stuart – A Life Backwards’ was on the list of World Book Night titles.  It’s a fabulous book – a biography of a true original.  Stuart Shorter was a damaged, complex, extraordinary and unforgettable man, and Alexander Masters paints a memorable and strikingly honest portrait of him in this book.   This is a funny, tragic, shocking, informative and haunting story.

The book opens with Stuart pronouncing that the first draft of Alexander’s proposed biography is ‘bollocks boring’.  Why not tell it like a murder mystery, he suggests.  Tell the story backwards.  Tell them who murdered the boy I was.  Wow.  How could you not read on?

Stuart Shorter was a heroin addict, an acoholic, had been in prison, and frequently ended up sleeping rough.  Once I had been picked as a ‘giver’ for WBN, I began to think about who should be the recipients of my chosen books.  Why not give them to the homeless, I thought?  For me, books are not a luxury – they are a necessity.  I am generally able buy the books I want to read without too much worry about the cost.  But for someone who has nothing, I expect that buying books comes pretty far down the list of priorities.  And that thought troubled me.

How to set about it though?  How best to make sure that the right people got hold of the books?  Stonepillow.  That’s how.  Stonepillow (www.stonepillow.org.uk) is an organisation based in Chichester, West Sussex, that  ’  offers shelter, information and support to empower homeless and vulnerable individuals to make positive changes in their lives.’  They are an inspirational organisation, and much to my delight, they leapt at the chance of getting hold of these books. 

I emailed Alexander Masters, and told him what I was planning, and he came back to me very quickly with a lovely personalised message for Stonepillow.  This is what he said:

This book comes with all my admiration and respect for the
residents and users of Stonepillow’s projects. Stuart was a
friend of mine who spent many years on the streets in
Cambridge — a heroin addict, an alcoholic, ‘a mad bad
bastard’ in his own words.  In the few years I knew him
and we worked on this book together, he taught me more about
human resourcefulness, decency and determination than anyone
I have ever met.  I am deeply honoured that this book
about him has been chosen to be given out in Stonepillow tonight. 

Reading ‘Stuart’ taught me so much about the realities of the life of a rough-sleeper.  I felt humbled by Stuart’s strength of character and inspired by his unique take on overcoming tragedy.  Everyone should read this book.  I’m really pleased that the residents and users of Stonepillow are going to have the chance to read it – thanks to World Book Night.

A few months ago, I was absolutely delighted to discover that His Last Duchess had been signed up by Sourcebooks – an independent US publisher (http://www.sourcebooks.com/ )  and just last night I got even more excited when my lovely US editor, Shana Drehs, sent through a draft version of the jacket for Sourcebooks’ edition of the novel.  And here it is!  I love it!

‘His Last Duchess’ is being also being published in Portugal, Brazil, Turkey and the Czech Republic.  I haven’t seen any of these jackets yet though – will post as soon as I do.

 What was it Philip Larkin said?  ‘Sexual intercourse began in 1963  which was rather late for me) – Between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles first LP.”  Something like that anyway.  I think that the general idea was that it wasn’t until the advent of effective contraception that people – well, let’s be more specific – women – discovered the sort of sexual freedom that western society takes for granted today. 

But, as I discovered in the course of researching my new book, ‘The Courtesan’s Lover’, women in the sixteenth century had easy access to what was in fact a pretty effective contraceptive.  Citrus fruit.
The central character of ‘The Courtesan’s Lover’  – Francesca Felizzi –was mistress to Alfonso d’Este in my firt book, ‘His Last Duchess’, but in this new book, she has moved to Napoli and is working hard to establish a position in the city as a courtesan.  It’s a dangerous game, and one she plays with a keen awareness of the many risks involved.   Contraception is one fairly fundamental issue for her:  she has nine year old twin girls whom she adores (d’Este’s children) , but she really, really doesn’t want any more.   I spent a long time researching ways in which a woman like Francesca might have tackled such a tricky issue more than four hundred years ago, as I was anxious to find out if any even vaguely reliable methods were available.   Francesca being the sort of character she is, I knew she would have little time for any methods that were in any way time-consuming, uncomfortable or fundamentally unreliable. 

I discovered – much to my surprise – that lemons and limes were a simple and surprisingly effective answer.  Not as a food of course – but as what amounted to a sort of citrus-based diaphragm.  Cut into shape, squeezed of most of its juice and picked of all of its pips, a half-lime could be popped into place easily, so I found out, and, happy to have discovered this fascinating fact, I quickly brought a mention of it into the book.  No more than a mention at this point. 

And then I discovered a wonderful (online) article in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care, written by an amazing woman called Lesley Smith.  Lesley is the curator of Tutbury Castle museum in Staffordshire – a place I now can’t wait to visit:  (http://www.tutburycastle.com/index.php)    She is my new heroine!  Lesley says in her article that, to begin with, she wasn’t sure about the feasibility of using lemons and limes in this way.   “ I was frankly sceptical:  it sounded like it would hurt and sting,” she says, “and I have come across many assertive women in the sixteenth century who simply would not tolerate something so uncomfortable.”  So, rather than rely on either written historical evidence or more contemporary theoretical knowledge – she decided to set about trying it out for herself, with the help and advice of a gynaecologist.   I’m just SO impressed!  

Lesley reports that she found using the lime very comfortable and not at all painful.  You can read the whole article here: http://jfprhc.bmj.com/content/32/1/59.full.pdf .  The science backs up the theory, in more ways than I expected – which is both interesting, and just perfect for my hard-pressed courtesan, who, let’s face it, in a world as difficult as the one she inhabits, needs all the help she can get!  

The lime-half works on several levels.  One,  its fierce acidity makes it spermicidal.  Two, the acidity levels make the cervix swell a little (painlessly) which creates more of a barrier.  Three, as well as killing sperm, the limejuice kills a fair number of bacteria, so quite a few venereal diseases would have been knocked out by the use of lime-peel too  (another useful consideration, if one is living the life of a courtesan!).    Check out the article – the statistics are pretty impressive. 

Armed with all this new knowledge, I brought a more detailed account of the process into the story. 

Writing about a courtesan has been fascinating.   In so many respects these women were way ahead of their time – they were feisty, independent businesswomen, financially autonomous, usually extremely wealthy, and they were often far better educated than even the most prestigious noblewomen. 

And certainly, it would seem from the research I’ve done, that in terms of family planning, they had things pretty well sussed too!