No Escape
My next book, No Escape, is due to be published within the next couple of weeks, so I'm busy editing it at the moment with the help of my wonderful editor, Linda, at Walnut Springs Press.
I started writing No Escape in 1993 or 1994, I think. I was working as an Estate Agent (realtor) next door to the police station in Bangor, North Wales. A couple of the drugs squad officers would occasionally drop in to look at the houses available and we - my colleagues Debbie and Karen and I - got to know them. I can't remember how it happened but Debbie came up with an idea for a book involving a Welsh woman and a New York cop on exchange to Bangor, and I started writing it. (You may be interested to know that I promised Debbie I'd pay off her mortgage with the royalties. Unfortunately with so many years elapsed from inspiration to publication I suspect her mortgage is long since paid. Sorry, Debbie!)
In many ways editing is the most fun part of writing because the difficult part is over and the best part - holding your new book in your hands for the first time - is drawing closer. I haven't read No Escape in about three years because when I finish a book I tend to just move straight onto the next one while sending it off to various agents and publishers, so it felt very fresh as I went through it, and in many ways I felt like a reader, not the writer.
I was nervous starting out, however, because it's my first non-LDS book, so whereas my first four were sweet and optimistic and inspiring, this is a little darker. Bereavement, the effects of child abuse, suicide and drugs are all part of the story. I was also a little worried that, since I wrote it so long ago, it wouldn't be as good as my more recent books, given that every writer is constantly learning and improving.
But I was pleasantly surprised - and relieved. I need to believe in this book in order to sell it, and having read it again, I find that I do. I like it and I think readers will too. I'm happy with it. I still think Easterfield is the best thing I have ever written, but No Escape is an entirely different genre and should appeal to a wider audience. I'm looking forward to seeing the cover, and the backliner, and generally getting to grips with all the little bits which make the last few weeks pre-publication so exciting.
I started writing No Escape in 1993 or 1994, I think. I was working as an Estate Agent (realtor) next door to the police station in Bangor, North Wales. A couple of the drugs squad officers would occasionally drop in to look at the houses available and we - my colleagues Debbie and Karen and I - got to know them. I can't remember how it happened but Debbie came up with an idea for a book involving a Welsh woman and a New York cop on exchange to Bangor, and I started writing it. (You may be interested to know that I promised Debbie I'd pay off her mortgage with the royalties. Unfortunately with so many years elapsed from inspiration to publication I suspect her mortgage is long since paid. Sorry, Debbie!)
In many ways editing is the most fun part of writing because the difficult part is over and the best part - holding your new book in your hands for the first time - is drawing closer. I haven't read No Escape in about three years because when I finish a book I tend to just move straight onto the next one while sending it off to various agents and publishers, so it felt very fresh as I went through it, and in many ways I felt like a reader, not the writer.
I was nervous starting out, however, because it's my first non-LDS book, so whereas my first four were sweet and optimistic and inspiring, this is a little darker. Bereavement, the effects of child abuse, suicide and drugs are all part of the story. I was also a little worried that, since I wrote it so long ago, it wouldn't be as good as my more recent books, given that every writer is constantly learning and improving.
But I was pleasantly surprised - and relieved. I need to believe in this book in order to sell it, and having read it again, I find that I do. I like it and I think readers will too. I'm happy with it. I still think Easterfield is the best thing I have ever written, but No Escape is an entirely different genre and should appeal to a wider audience. I'm looking forward to seeing the cover, and the backliner, and generally getting to grips with all the little bits which make the last few weeks pre-publication so exciting.
Congratulations on your new book, Anna! So exciting!
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