From Conception to Publication: Finding Frank by Rachel Townsend

Almost exactly three years ago, I was nearing the end of a Therapist’s Supervisor course in West Sussex in England, when a throwaway remark by one of my tutors planted a seed which has, ultimately, lead to the publication of my debut book, Finding Frank. I really must remember to send her a copy and thank her personally.

That day, I was sitting outside the classroom with my tutor, discussing an essay I had written. It was during this tutorial that I casually mentioned how much I loved to write, sharing my longing to one day pen my memoirs. She asked me what was stopping me. I clearly remember looking up at her and being briefly lost for words as my mind raced for an answer. The truth is, I had no answer. There was absolutely nothing stopping me, except fear and a very real doubt in my ability to write.

The seed was sewn, however, and I could do little, it seemed, to stop the darned thing from sprouting. Where on earth to start? I would wake up and, almost instantly, this question would skip around inside my head looking for an answer. I thought long and hard about what to do and eventually, I decided to venture (cautiously) into the world of blogging. I did a little research, found a suitable platform on which to blog and, with my heart racing, I began to write…

The Long Road Home

There has been an unwritten book living inside the confines of my head for as long as I can remember. Today then, I embark on a new adventure and a journey into the world of the novice blogger.  It’s not quite a book but I hope to share some of my thoughts and musings with you and I trust that my technical abilities will prove adequate for the purpose of this exercise. We’ll see.

I’ve learned so much in my 50 short years about life and about living and I fully intend to learn even more in the next 50 if I am fortunate enough to be around for that long.  The icing on the cake will be to have you on board with me because a writer, after all, is nothing without you, the reader.

Welcome.

This was my very first blog. Since then, I’ve written several, but by the time I’d written my third blog, I realised that this young seedling had already buried its thin roots deep into fertile soil. I was completely hooked. 

It was also around this time that I began to realise that I wasn’t really writing for anyone else. I was writing for me because, the truth is, I felt so passionate about the different topics I was writing about and I simply could not stop. Nor did I want to. A torrent of words tumbled out of me, unencumbered. I had so much to get out — out of me.

It wasn’t long before the book which had lain latent inside of me began to take shape. There was so much I’d experienced in my life. So much that needed purging. I sat down at my laptop and my journey began.

Initially, in its infancy, Finding Frank was threaded through what will eventually be a completely separate writing project. I was so keen to get everything out onto paper, that I didn’t think much about structure nor about my reader. Ten months and over one hundred and twenty thousand words later, I’d finally completed the first draft and I was delighted. I sat back, took a long, deep breath and smiled to myself. The job was done! Little did I know that this was only the very beginning.

As luck would have it, my husband (Frank), in his younger years, was a proof reader. Therefore, he happily proof read my manuscript for me before I eagerly (and a little naïvely) sent a sample to almost one hundred different literary agents. I felt confident that someone would love what I had written. Sadly, I was wrong. I suppose I was fortunate enough to receive replies from most, but without fail, the replies echoed the same message and that message was, essentially, ‘thank you but your manuscript is not quite right for our agency…’ I was crushed.

To be more accurate, my ego was crushed. I’m ashamed to say that I moped about for quite a while feeling extremely sorry for myself before I was able to dust myself off and start over again. One of the agencies who turned me down suggested that I seek the advice of a professional editor. This seemed like a sensible way forward and so I decided to take their advice. 

I soon found a wonderful free-lance editor in Yorkshire who took me on. I emailed my manuscript to her and remember literally counting the days until I received her reply. She told me (kindly) that I had a solid memoir which needed developing and very likely enough material remaining to create four further books. I was flabbergasted. I was also extremely pleased that she liked what she read. She left me with one final suggestion and that was the name of a publisher who, she believed, might be interested in what I had written. I thanked her profusely and immediately set to work extracting the memoir parts of the original manuscript.

Ten more months passed and finally, Finding Frank was complete. I was pleased with it. All that remained was for me to polish it, ask my husband to proof read everything before I sent it and draft a covering email so that I could begin the process of sending it out to my long list of literary agents, once again. 

In the very first batch of ten that I sent out, I included a submission to the same publisher my free-lance editor suggested. Almost immediately, I received a reply from them. They were interested! My heart skipped a beat. Somehow, I knew that this was it. — The seed which had been planted by my tutor years before, had finally grown large enough to bear fruit. 

—

Finding Frank is out now

Rachel Townsend ~ Author, Therapist and Therapist’s Supervisor.

Find out more about her on her website https://www.rachel-townsend.com/

FINDING FRANK

How do you find love when all you’ve known as a child is violence and abuse?
How do you find your way back from the clutches of a terrible drug addiction and stop yourself sinking deeper and deeper into a dark and debilitating depression? How do you carry on when you finally open your heart and then lose the one you love in the most tragic of circumstances?

Rachel’s story is a tale of triumph over adversity. Set in a tropical island paradise in the West Indies, Rachel’s journey takes her away to boarding school in England and on to the Middle East for the school holidays, where she first sets eyes on Frank.

Remarkably, Rachel not only finds a way to make peace with the terrible traumas of her past, but she manages to turn her life around completely and along the way, she finds love… a love she once believed was lost to her forever.

 

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing