The Process of Writing UNCOUPLING: From School Secretary to Published Author

The Process of Writing UNCOUPLING: From School Secretary to Published Author

In September 2009 I started a job as a secretary at a school in North London and had one very clear goal: to leave within the year (two years max), by which time I would be the successful, working actress I’d always dreamed of becoming. Needless to say, things didn’t quite work out as I’d planned.

I’d been a late-starter to acting and hadn’t had the confidence to try until I was well into my twenties. After drama school there were highs and lows (mostly lows): I was on stage at the National Theatre (albeit with zero actual lines); I spent two months in LA having the time of my life (but getting no work) and I was unceremoniously dumped by two theatrical agents.

While my friends were flying high in more practical careers, I was broke and for the most part working as an office temp. The position at the school was an attempt at stability, but I didn’t want to be there forever and I’d soon had enough of demanding parents and office politics and thought that if I had to photocopy another Christmas carol service programme I might scream.

When my dad died in the Summer of 2010 I decided something had to change. I’d always wanted to write a novel, but surely I was setting myself up for yet more rejection? I signed up for a ten-week creative writing course anyway and from the very start it felt more ‘me’ than acting ever had – it was something I could do by myself, nobody had to employ me/choose me and actually, nobody even had to know.  

Over the next few years I took a novel-writing module at Birkbeck, finished my first book and submitted it fruitlessly to agents. One told me I could write, but that the book would be too difficult to sell. This felt encouraging, but I also realised I needed a different story. 

Inspired by something my brother had told me – he’d managed to lose his girlfriend on a trip to Europe and they’d ended up in different countries for a night – I started writing a contemporary love story about a couple on a train. This time I read lots of books on structure and planned my story meticulously, keeping in mind that I needed a strong ‘hook’ to pique agents’ interest.

I wanted to focus on making the relationship between the two lead characters believable, and on writing realistic dialogue – as an actor, I’d always noticed when something felt clunky. And I wanted to set it somewhere I loved: my first thought was Paris. I dragged a friend over there on the Eurostar for the day so that I could research locations, wanting to make the city come alive in my book.

I was about 40,000 words in when a colleague told me about the Bath Novel Award. ‘You should enter,’ she said. ‘They take all kinds of genres.’ I submitted my opening chapters and to my utter disbelief, I was longlisted. I had a month to finish the manuscript and made the deadline with thirty seconds to spare. It was a shoddy first draft at best and I didn’t move forward in the competition, but they did send some very helpful feedback, quite rightly pointing out that the book had started as a psychological thriller and had promptly become a love story! 

I did another draft and applied for Penguin Random House’s WriteNow programme, which aims to launch the careers of writers from backgrounds currently under-represented in the publishing industry. Being of mixed-heritage and from a working-class background, I sent off my opening excerpt. After several rounds, I was chosen for the 2018 scheme and paired with an editor who would mentor me for a year. This was the point at which I began to believe that getting a publishing deal might not be completely impossible. 

We worked on the book together and began submitting to agents that November. I received rejections across the board, often hearing nothing at all. One very useful piece of feedback, though, was that the book still wasn’t quite hitting the mark for the genre. I read all the women’s commercial fiction I could get my hands on and did another re-write. 

By this point we were half-way through 2019 and I’d booked three one-to-ones at the Winchester Writers’ Festival. I arrived on a sunny June morning feeling shy at first – everyone seemed to know each other and I had to force myself to strike up conversation around the tea and biscuits table. The first two agents I saw asked me to send in my full manuscript. This was progress. I submitted to them as well as to two other agents. My work days at the school were spent surreptitiously refreshing my emails. 

In August I went on holiday, determined to switch off from book news/lack of book news. One afternoon I received an email from an agent. She had read my novel and said that it needed some work but would I like to meet? Later that month, on a balmy Summer’s afternoon at Somerset House, she offered me representation. 

October 2019 brought with it a rollercoaster of emotions. One minute I’d be at my desk at work, buzzing parents through the door so that they could collect their child from Judo club, and the next I’d be getting emails about a German auction for my book. I took the call about my American deal in the medical room, the only place you could talk without being disturbed (unless a child happened to fall ill at that precise moment, of course).

In March 2020, more than ten years after I’d started, I left my job at the school and became a full-time writer. I finally have a career I love. It’s taken me a while, but I don’t think that matters.

—

Lorraine Brown previously trained as an actress and has just completed her final year of a postgraduate diploma in psychodynamic counselling. She lives in London with her partner and their 8-year-old son. Uncoupling is her first novel and is out on February 18th, 2021. You can connect with Lorraine on Twitter @LorraineBrown23, on Instagram @lorrainebrownauthor and on Facebook @lorrainebrownauthor

UNCOUPLING

Could one split second change her life forever?

Hannah and Si are in love and on the same track – until their train divides on the way to a wedding, that is. The next morning, Hannah wakes up in Paris and realises that her boyfriend (and her ticket) are 300 miles away in Amsterdam!

But then Hannah meets Léo on the station platform, and he’s everything Si isn’t. Spending the day with him in Paris forces Hannah to question how well she really knows herself – and whether, sometimes, you need to go in the wrong direction to find everything you’ve been looking for…

Pre-order at:- https://amzn.to/382IHqJ

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing