Draft to Agent

First update of 2026!

It’s been busy since the start of the new year. I reached the tutoring hours required to quit the teaching assistant job and that’s been keeping me busy Wednesdays to Fridays. Several of my tutees will be arriving at their exams in about three to four weeks, so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for them.

The biggest news today is that I’ve shared a draft of my YA technothriller with my agent. Its working title is currently Death Encrypted after a big decision to split the story into a duology. There are a lot of reasons why continuing the story in a part 2 (working title: Death Decrypted) makes sense, so fingers crossed that my agent also likes the idea. The current draft is 60,000 words and incorporates a lot of early reader feedback (obtained through novel swaps via Critique Circle).

The exciting part of getting a draft to my agent is that it starts the process that leads to publishing houses seeing the novel (and hopefully ends in publication in a couple of years' time). There’s still a lot of work to be done before that point (including drafting the second part). However, I’m hopefully on track to discovering this novel’s fate by the end of the year.

I’ll not do any more work on it for a couple of weeks while I wait to hear from my agent, but hopefully that will give me a chance to finally tick off some of the novels on my to-be-read list...

Hope you all had a lovely Easter!

Publication News: New Novella

It’s been a busy couple of months, but I have now published a brand-new novella with Fiction Express: Crash Course. It was nice to work with the platform once more, and the feedback from readers has been lovely as always. Whenever I’m feeling bruised by silence and rejection for my longer novels, writing for Fiction Express is a real balm... Here's the gorgeous cover for the book:

I’ve not had much time to rework the YA thriller. It’s still on the to-do list. But that’s my next job, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a second draft finished before the end of the year. I have done a little more research, and I’m excited about all the changes that I want to implement.

In other news, I’m up to five hours of private tuition, so I’m getting close to my goal of quitting at the school. Thanks to everyone who has shared my posts advertising the tutoring service! Ending the teaching assistant job will also free up time and flexibility which will all be helpful for getting the writing projects off the ground. I’d also like to get back to doing some voluntary work for Grimm & Co soon, which hasn’t been possible while I’ve been managing about four different jobs since September! 

Drafting (and other updates)

Many people think that the process for publishing a book jumps from writing ‘the end’ to hitting the printers. The real process is more laborious, because first drafts are rarely the finished product. My current novel is now in its fourth draft, with different ideas being tried and tested along the way. Sometimes new ideas work, sometimes they open new opportunities, and sometimes they take the novel in a problematic direction, and they need to be unpicked. I sent the latest draft to my agent today, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it might be ready to pitch to publishers soon...

Last time I updated the blog, I mentioned I’d been busy researching and outlining for a new YA project. I also started to draft it last month (and completed the first three chapters). Now that draft 4 of the other novel is with my agent, I can return my attention to the new project. I’m hoping to get a good chunk written before I hear back from my agent – perhaps even a full draft.

The dream remains to earn enough from advances/royalties to cover my living costs while I’m developing a new novel. I’m not there yet, and sadly, I don’t have any updates in terms of getting work as a private tutor, either. I signed up to an agency that I used before, but they’re still processing my details. Today, I started a Facebook page for a bit of self-promotion. Hopefully, I can establish this before the end of this academic year, as it should be something a bit more flexible to cover my living costs in future.