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getting published Joshua Files writing

In the Oriental Reading Room, Editing

The oh-so-peaceful, non-glamorous Oriental Reading Room of Bodley’s library in Oxford.

I could have picked any part of the Bodleian Library in which to edit my ms for Joshua 1. Like the Duke Humfrey’s Room, where they filmed Harry Potter (don’t ask me what scene, but I direct all the tourists that I meet who ask for Harry Potter hotspots, to this part of the Bod.)

Truthfully though, I can’t be bothered schlepping all the way there. It’s, like, a bit further away and up some stairs!

So I chose the Oriental Reading Room, in the New Bodleian Library. Like New College, it’s not especially new, unless you were born in the eighteenth century.

The Oriental Reading Room turns out to be the perfect place for the total concentration that editing requires. I don’t have this trouble writing a first draft – the story sucks me in. Editing, you need to have half your mind in the book and half of it on the editor’s suggestions. Which often say, in a much kinder, more helpful and more specific way than this: Write this bit better.

No through-traffic to somewhere more interesting; a long, peaceful room with a window on the Broad. Nobody asking for the latest journals or the latest anything (which is why I won’t go back to the haunt of my student days, the Radcliffe Science library; lots of activity there). Just scholars working intently on deciphering their manuscripts, in lovely exotic scripts. The woman who works opposite me seems to be reading something quite spidery and pictographic. Yummy!

You aren’t allowed to take bags in, so I have to unpack my laptop and the box with my marked-up manuscript. The Bod Squad (library security) have to check the box, every day. Today I told the guard that I had my future best-selling first novel in there.

He laughed and laughed and laughed.

(Okay, I was going for the laugh…)

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getting published ice shock Joshua Files writing

Title Dilemma

On the phone to Agent Cox this morning, we muttered words about my title suggestions for Joshua 2.

None of them are on the money. Hmm, but why?

I’ve been through about 15 suggestions by now. I came up with a new batch this evening. Avoiding words with ‘fantasy’ connotations, heavy on the ‘adventure’ connotations.

Hopefully I’m getting closer. We’ll see!

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getting published writing

Waiting, waiting, waiting-waiting-waiting

If you’ve seen the DVD of ‘Finding Nemo’, you’ll understand the title.

Agent Cox reports that the publishers have finally agreed on the last-wafer-thin-mint of a clause he wanted for the book contract. We should be signing next week.

Meanwhile, my editor and I are still whupping the ms into shape.

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getting published Joshua Files writing

And the publisher is…

Well now, that would be telling.

We’re keeping this project under wraps just a leetle bit longer. They will reveal their identity when we’ve good ‘n edited the manuscript.

They sent me flowers, bless ’em. Lovely ones, too!

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agents getting published Joshua Files writing

Best. Week. Ever.

What a week it turned out to be.

About two weeks ago I received an email from my agent, Peter. Could I come to London to meet some publishers?

I hadn’t let my hopes get up. I didn’t realise that Peter had only recently gone out with it – he’d been waiting for the right moment.

So when Peter began with all the phone calls, I didn’t take it too seriously. I was deeply into my new project – working title – ‘Realm of the Jaguar’.

Monday rolled around. I met Peter at his club and we chatted for half-an-hour, mostly about a certain press story involving him and a well-loved celebrity, which had caused Peter to be chased by paparazzi.

Then I started to meet publishers. One in particular had some excellent ideas about how to improve the book. Peter sat by and said very little. Later he told me that I’d been a tad too business-like. “It’s not a business meeting,” he said.

We jumped into a taxi and drove to yet another publisher, where I had one of the major surprises of my life. As we sat down with the editor, I was presented with a suede-covered box, on which a sticker decorated with Mayan glyphs pronounced something about a prophecy from a codex… Inside was another sheet, continuing the story…

(I’m honestly too embarrassed to write the contents of those sheets, but in short, it said that in 2008 they would like to launch my book.)

There was a marketing proposal stuck onto papyrus, and a separate sheet (folded concertina-fashion, like a Mayan codex!) with the ‘Offer’, which I passed straight to my agent. Everything was gift-wrapped and tied with a bow. There was a box of Maya Gold chocolates on the table, I realised. I frankly could hardly believe my eyes. It was one of those situations where there’s a two-second gap between perception and reaction. “Wow,” I said, nodding, struggling to comprehend what I was seeing. I was banking on ‘wow’ being the appropriate reaction, but I wasn’t exactly sure.

Then I met the rest of the team. They told me how much they liked my book, asked me some questions about what inspired it and where the story was going…

Well, I used to tell anyone (who’d listen) anything I could about my books, but for the past year I haven’t. Guess I’ve realised that unless you’ve read and love a book, it’s no fun to hear about one. And sometimes even then…yanno. So to suddenly have a crowd of people being so fascinated, was pretty overwhelming. As we left their office, I had the sense of being slowly disconnected from reality. What the hell is going on? I thought.

Back at Peter’s club, we met even more publishers. One carried a large aluminium tube decorated with stickers made up in black and red, with the book title in a logo. This ‘offer’ came gift-wrapped with six bars of Maya Gold chocolate, toys that tied-in with the book and the financial and marketing proposal printed on glossy, “Joshua Files” logo-headed paper. They’d actually knocked up a logo! More enthusiastic chat about the book, favourite films and TV shows, writers, influences, things in the story pipeline, plans for how to sell and launch the book.

I simply didn’t know this kind of thing happened. “I need to take a moment,” I told Peter after they’d left. “This is a little overwhelming.”I wasn’t kidding. I worried that I might actually burst into tears…I was having a pretty unprecedented experience. The last time I remember feeling anything close to it was when I was interviewed for a place at Oxford and my soon-to-be-tutor put me out of my misery and told me that he would be offering me a place.

Peter was sympathetic. When I told him that it was beyond my wildest dreams, he said, “This is just the beginning.”

So…that’s how it begins. Who knew?