25 years - before 1984 - the journey

I’m often asked about my ‘journey to publication’. People who are now trying to write for Harlequin Mills and Boon and are getting rejections or requests for revisions and then not quite making it, often want to know if an established, successful author ever went through the same traumas and struggles, if I stumbled on my way to acceptance and if so how I finally made it.


Well, the answer is of course yes. Yes I did stumble, yes I did experience rejection before I finally made it. My first attempt at writing a romance was a a book I titled Double Love. It was all about a heroine who was torn between the hero and his almost identical cousin and it was – I freely admit it – pretty dreadful.

The biggest mistake I made was that I hadn’t read any of the recently published Mills & Boon books – and anyone who’s read any of my advice about writing romance knows just how big a mistake I consider that to be! I had read the books written by Marguerite Lees - a friend of my mother when I was growing up and the recent discovery of Anne Mather's Witchstone reminded me how much I'd enjoyed those books. But I read that as a reprint, almost ten years after it had originally been published in 1974, so I wasn't exactly up to date. I really shouldn't have been at all surprised when Double Love came back with just a rejection slip – no comments, nothing. And I know now that it didn’t deserve any.
I still keep that manuscript to remind me of the mistakes I made back then.


My second attempt – which I think I titled Garrett of Stoneroyd - was better. It had to be because it earned me a letter from a Senior Editor no less. And there were comments and advice in that letter. Here again, I was much like so many others – they liked my story but it lacked ‘emotional velocity’ (aka emotional punch) and failed to reach the emotional climax they were looking for. But this letter did contain three very important words. The editor suggested certain authors I might like to read and said ‘please try again’.

So I did.

I went away and I read lots of Mills & Boon stories – particularly the authors suggested in the letter. (Carole Mortimer and Penny Jordan, two authors I’m now amazed and honoured to call friends.) And this time I read the books that were currently being published, not the older ones I could find in charity shops etc. I read lots and lots and lots of them. And I tried to think of a plot that would have that vital ‘emotional velocity.’ In order to do that I knew that I would have to stop imagining my mother – or indeed on of my sisters - reading over my shoulder as I wrote. I would have to let go, go deep into the world of my imagination and just write.


And then I had a dose of flu and a raging temperature. And while I was trying to sleep and finding it impossible I had an idea and that idea became The Chalk Line . . .