Part two of the story - Why I thought this book was lost at sea, how its journey to publication ended up being a bit of a voyage… and what that taught me about disappointment and resilience!
In the previous blog, I explained how I wrote this story in the first covid lockdown, and how it got put on hold for a year or so, due to the insecurity and uncertainty of those times. The hardest part was hearing that my publisher didn’t want the book, after waiting and hoping for a whole year. I didn’t handle that disappointment very well, making it mean lots of unnecessary things like: I’ll never write again, my writing career is over, etc. If I could change one thing, I’d go back and whisper to myself to have faith – and stop being such a flipping drama queen too! But I did also genuinely feel gutted that readers who’d liked the first two books wouldn’t get the chance to see how it all ended.
But, it didn’t take long for things to change. The Wildsmith series I’d thrown myself into as a comfort and a distraction was commissioned by a new publisher, and a contract was offered for a translation too. I started to calm down and feel more confident again. Inspired by the advice offered by Sophie Hannah in her wonderful Dream Author Coaching programme, I started to ask myself what options were available to me. I could self-publish The Pirate’s Dragon, or I could ask my first publisher if they’d consider returning the UK rights to the first two books, so the whole trilogy could be published elsewhere.
This is where I need to recognize what a huge amount I owe my first publisher, David Fickling Books, and especially Rosie Fickling, my wonderful editor there. My experience of being published by this small independent publisher was absolutely brilliant and everything I dreamed of as a writer – till the pandemic happened, and none of us could have foreseen that. I’m grateful to them for everything, including their generosity in returning these rights.
I’m also deeply grateful to UCLan Publishing, who have now brought out the whole trilogy - with these gorgeous covers featuring artwork from Joe Todd-Stanton, designed by Becky Chilcott - and I couldn’t be happier to see them lined up together.
So, what has this taught me? In a writing career, things don’t work out in exactly the way you expect. But, you can spare yourself unnecessary suffering if you have faith and find the resilience and determination to keep going. I hope that next time I have a disappointment, I can trust that it doesn’t have to mean the end for my writing - that only happens if I give up. And that’s definitely within my control, whatever else might not be!
The Pirate’s Dragon is published by UCLan Publishing on 15th Feb, £8.99 ISBN: 9781915235992