musing for fun – caeblogs

In this case, eighteen months, because the last time I posted here was all the way back in March 2022 when I was still riding the high of finishing my term on the HarperCollins Author Academy. Cue shocked gasps… Okay, no one is surprised. I’ve been rubbish at updating this blog in recent years, but so much has happened, I couldn’t let 2023 pass without dropping this. All I can say is, following through by acting on Aaliyah’s lyrics (if at first you don’t succeed, dust it off and try again – see my last post) really worked.

Back then, I mentioned I was outlining a YA sci-fi novel. I usually write fantasy/paranormal novels, and had only ever tried my hands on sci-fi short stories, but when I saw the competition announcement for Faber and Faber’s Imagined Futures Prize, I didn’t think twice about entering. This called for YA “fiction that shines a spotlight on the immense power and value of the natural world and explores the enormous number of potential outcomes for our collective future.” A year felt like long enough to get the 10,000 words minimum requirement to apply. I had no idea I would also use the first 5,000 words to land a place on an editorial mentorship programme. Back to that in a second. As I was putting my thoughts together for the novel, I saw an open call for dark sci-fi submissions for Dark Matter Magazine in April, and decided to enter. To my (very) pleasant surprise, my story was accepted. Although the content wasn’t geared toward my usual YA target audience, this gave me the confidence I needed to push through with my idea. I was able to get the first 5,000 ready to meet the submission deadlines for FAB Prize and the All Stories mentorship programme (mentioned before). I also dug deep and wrote the remaining 5,000 word to meet the Imagined Futures deadline for early September.

I don’t want this post to be overly long, so the summary for 2022 was that I got a place on the All Stories programme (started in September 2022) to work with the lovely Nicki Marshall, had my short story published in Issue 11 of Dark Matter Magazine that same month, and then got Highly Commended for my FAB Prize entry in November 2022. I spent the first few months of my mentorship working with my editor to get the rest of the novel (it came to 85,000 in the end) done by November, which I submitted to Faber in January after being told I was shortlisted. Manic, I know, but I had a lot of fun with it. I was still yo-yoing between surprise, and gratitude for all the literary blessings I had achieved in 2022 when I received the call from Faber Children’s in February 2023, informing me I had won first place for the Imagined Futures Prize which comes with a publishing deal. Me! Somehow, I won! Yes, there were lots of tears shed on that day. And after years of querying, I’m finally represented by the fantastic John Baker at Bell Lomax Moreton. I hope to write a proper post on this experience someday (ah, dreams), so I won’t go on too much about it.

See what I mean? A lot did happen in eighteen months, right? I think the moral of this story is, listen to Aaliyah, or whoever/whatever moves you to keep going. The truth is, this was (and still is) my wonderfully supportive family and friends who have always told me to dust it off and try again whenever things feel like they aren’t working for me. I know I’ll need to do this many more times in the future, and I’m extremely grateful for them having my back. I’ll try to do better and post more victories regularly. Maybe another one later this year. Maybe.