MY PATH TO PUBLICATION
JULIE MA
The comic novelist runs through the long slog before a big competition win changed everything
Iwracked my brains to think of what PP-me (pre-publication me) would want to get from an article like this. I’m very sorry, PP-me, but it’s not necessarily what you want to hear: there is no shortcut to getting published.
Every author’s road to publication is different. You’ll have heard about the direct route – write a novel, find an agent, agent finds a publisher, reader finds your book – but, as they say, the road is long with many a winding turn. And diversions and dead ends!
I have wanted to write for as long as I can remember, ever since I worked out someone had to think up the stories. The magical thing back then was that almost as soon as I decided to be a writer, I was one! Children don’t give any thought to being published, only to having written it down (good) and – judging by a quick review of my ‘juvenilia’ – they don’t care too much for editing either (bad).