My Road to Publication

My crime fiction novel The Forgotten will be published on June 13th 2018 through Crooked Cat Books and its follow up, The Departed, will be published at the end of the year. I can’t wait!

But this has been a long journey for me fraught with crippling self-doubt, generalised anxiety disorder, and dyslexia. I was helped through this by a couple of people that believed in me. There is something in me though, I just can’t give up writing.

Even at school I was always writing in some form or another. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do for as far back as I can remember. I’ve always scribbled bits of stories or scripts and when I wasn’t writing you would usually find me with a book in my hands.

My road to publication started in 2008 when I enrolled in a creative writing course at the Open University – something I did in the evenings while also working full time. I was feeling stressed from the sometimes monotonous 9 till 5. Through the course, I met likeminded people, one of whom I’m still very good friends with today. It also gave me the discipline to sit down and do the coursework because I was working to a deadline.

I think I did a short story, a script, and a novel excerpt throughout the course and I got feedback which was extremely helpful. For a few years after that, I started to read any kind of creative writing magazine/help guide that I could get my hands on, and got to creative writing events to listen to published authors in awe.

I developed a plan – I would write a novel, a crime fiction one! The short story that I wrote as part of my Open University coursework was previously published with a now-defunct American publisher, Pagan Writers Press. If you fancy reading it, also free on my website. (Go, on you know you want to)

From there life started to get in the way and after doing no writing for three years, I was living somewhere horrible, working full time, sometimes 6 or 7 days a week, progressing in my field. I was too tired to write and something cracked. Overworked, I developed anxiety, it was like a cloud came over me and I didn’t want to do anything and day-to-day things were now fraught with worry about the horrible things that could happen to me. I took a short break from my employment and sitting watching TV while flicking through my collection of writing magazines, an advert for a master’s course in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University jumped out at me. It was a three-year course and the best bit was, I would have to write a full-length novel!

The course started off with ‘Reading novels’ some of which I enjoyed, others not so much for various reasons. I also realised over the course of this module that I read books fairly slowly and I struggled to finish the novels within a week before we moved onto the next. We then went onto developing a plan of my novel. I also met an interesting bunch of people online and we still share work now. Sharing work is invaluable to a budding author, so if you can’t afford a course, you can still find like-minded people on social media.

At primary school, I received the diagnosis of dyslexia but that was it. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t want to be different from anyone else, so I ignored it. On this course though if I wanted to improve my work I was forced to face up to it and I soon learnt that it might take me a lot longer than another writer to proofread or make something grammatically correct, but I’m very creative with my writing and that keeps me going.

I accept my dyslexia, and now I’m proud of it. I think it makes me more creative, and Agatha Christie was dyslexic among many other famous authors, so I’m in good company. I started working full time again during my second year of my masters and I had to pause a year because I was pregnant and I needed a break.

When I started my third year I was on maternity leave from my employer and I was looking after my baby. I wrote every time my baby slept and I worked on my book in the evenings. It was hard work but it was doing something I loved which made it easier. I also had the goal of finishing my book before I went back to work. I was lucky to have a great support network around me who would supply me with endless cups of tea and moral support as I wrote.

As the months away from my employer progressed, I came to the realisation that my confidence was at rock bottom and that I was working in an unhealthy environment for my wellbeing. Truly, I didn’t feel like the hopeful person I was a few years before. So I took the plunge and sent the first three chapters of my novel and a synopsis away to Crooked Cat. It wasn’t long after they asked to see the whole manuscript and the rest, as they say, is history. I’m now a stay at home mum and an author and I couldn’t be happier.

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Website: https://jvbaptie.com/
Twitter: @jvbaptie
Facebook: @AuthorJVBaptie

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J.V. Baptie graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2017 with an MA in Creative Writing. When not writing, she is also an actress and has appeared in a variety of children’s shows and stage plays. J.V. Baptie lives near Edinburgh.

J.V. Baptie’s debut crime fiction novel, The Forgotten, is being released on 13th of June 2018 through Crooked Cat Books. The Forgotten is set in Edinburgh in 1977.

About  The Forgotten

What if everything was a lie?

Newly-promoted but not welcome in CID, Detective Sergeant Helen Carter is tasked with investigating a murder in an old abandoned picture house. The case takes a chilling turn when the business card of an excop is found at the scene. Helen must piece together the case before the bodies mount up around her, and before the killer strikes closer to home…

Delve into the underworld of Scotland’s capital city in this fast-paced thriller!

Praise for The Forgotten:

“Fast-paced and gritty Tartan Noir. A Brilliant Debut” Bestselling author, Frances Di Plino
“Fans of Rebus will love this.” Thriller author, E.A Clark

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips