My Writing Journey by Jane Costello

Way back in 2005, one day after submitting the first three chapters of what would become my debut novel, the phone rang. I was in my pyjamas. My three-month-old baby was in a bouncer next to me, having closed his eyes for the first time since 1 o’clock that morning. I hadn’t yet brushed my hair. Or my teeth. It was 3pm.

I answered to a literary agent called Darley Anderson. I already knew he was a big deal — the man who’d discovered Lee Child. I muttered a silent prayer that my small son wouldn’t choose now to cry, vomit or release one of those pterodactyl screeches he liked to show off his voice with, and so began a conversation that would change my life.

Darley explained that the agency was receiving 300 submissions a week and, while he never usually read unsolicited manuscripts, his assistant was off sick. He’d spotted mine while walking past her desk and liked the first three chapters very much.

“Send over the rest this afternoon. We’ll take it from there,” he concluded.

This was exciting, but a challenge: I hadn’t written the rest. Any of it.

When I’d read that agents wanted “three chapters and a synopsis” I’d thought that was all I had to produce, not that they merely wanted a small sample of a finished manuscript.

This illustrated two things. Number one: if anyone ever tells you that success in publishing doesn’t need some luck, they’re wrong. Number two: at the start of my writing career, I was completely clueless.

To be fair to younger me, I didn’t know any other authors. I hadn’t gone to a posh school. Nobody in my extended family had even been to university.

But that book — once I’d completed it during the final months of maternity leave — became a surprise bestseller (i.e. I received a tiny advance and everyone was astonished when people actually bought it). It was called ‘BRIDESMAIDS’, went on to sell more than 200,000 copies in the UK and launch a 20-year career in which I would reach millions of readers worldwide. Now, the latest instalment of this wide ride is being able to bring my new novel to the US: ‘FORTY LOVE’, a rom com about a woman in midlife who reinvents herself through tennis.

For a long time before this, I’d considered writing a book to be a magical undertaking that would never be achievable by someone like me, despite being obsessed by books from an early age.

I have my mother to thank for my love of reading. She’d been in a car accident in her twenties, in which she’d become permanently disabled. As a toddler, the two of us were effectively housebound when my father went to work each day, but I never felt like I was missing out. My happiest early memories involve whiling away hours devouring The Very Hungry Caterpillar or the works of Beatrix Potter together.

I started writing stories early on, about talking animals and Enid Blyton-style adventures set in my hometown of Liverpool. As a teenager I produced personalised romances for my friends, featuring ourselves as the main characters and various late-80s heartthrobs as the love interests. (Why Keanu Reeves and Michael J Fox might have been hanging around our town centre ready to ask us on a double date was a plot point I never felt the need to explain).

But it still never occurred to me to try and become an author. As an ambition, it felt unavailable to the likes of me, as outlandish as telling a careers advisor I wanted to be a movie star.

So I left school to study a History degree, then a postgraduate diploma in journalism, before working as a trainee reporter on my local newspaper, the Liverpool Echo. A sensible path, though the urge to write stories never left me.

But anyone who has ever tried to write a novel will vouch for the fact that it’s harder than it looks. It took me a decade of false starts to reach the point of having produced those first chapters of BRIDESMAIDS.

It meant that, by the time I did become a published author, I felt like I’d won the lottery. No, it was better, because this winning ticket come about entirely as a result of my own endeavour.

My baby son is now 21 years old and 6 foot 1, but he’s not the only one who has changed. In the two decades since that first novel I’ve published 16 books — 11 romantic comedies and 5 thought-provoking love stories, written under the name Catherine Isaac. I’ve seen changes in the publishing industry that have been challenging for all of us, but have still had the joy of seeing my work published in 26 languages, with several titles optioned for film.

I assumed in the early days that once authors had been writing long enough they’d find it easy. That is one thing that never happened. All you do is move the goalposts, strive to get better and better.

I’m sure there are easier ways to earn a living, but I apparently can’t help myself. Which leads me to the most important observation I have about my writing career. Even on the days when I hate it — and we all have those — I still can’t think of anything I’d rather do.

—

Jane Costello has written eleven books, with another five written under the name Catherine Isaac. Jane’s books have been translated into 26 languages, have been Sunday Times bestsellers, and have been selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club. She has won a Romantic Novelists’ Award twice. Jane was born in Liverpool, England, and still lives there with her husband Mark and three ridiculously tall sons.

Forty Love: A Novel

A fun, sexy rom-com about learning to swing big―and finding a new passion―just when you thought it was game over.

Jules has lived next door to the local tennis club for years without picking up a racket. As a full-time buyer for a national chain of lifestyle stores and a single, widowed mother of a teenager, she doesn’t have time for a hobby. And then, there is the matter of that run-in with her old school crush, Sam, who recently joined the club.

In a surge of boldness, Jules decides to stop playing it safe and accepts an invitation to join the amateur tennis team. Soon enough, she has fully embraced the tennis life and finds herself loving the game and her teammates, but that’s not all. Her intense attraction to Sam is gaining an advantage over her. Now Jules is facing a whole new kind of match with her insecurities, her desires, and maybe―just maybe―a second shot at love. And boy, does it have some spin on it.

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers