Part 5: Editing, editing and more editing

The importance of polishing before querying a manuscript

It’s 10 o’clock at night in January 2021 and I’m sat at my ‘writing desk’ (an old IKEA dining table) with tears streaming down my face. The tears are accompanied by uncontrollable cackling.

Reading my manuscript aloud in 2021

I’d just written a scene in which my protagonist – an awkward woman approaching 40 called Mally – had drunkenly vomited in the presence of her secret teenage crush who she hadn’t seen in decades.

I’d spelled out the vomiting word phonetically, which I decided was most accurately reflected by these letters:

B R E U R G H.

It was probably the most I’d laughed in months.

And I think this sums up why my story came along at just the right time for me. Because, at that dark, locked-down moment, there really wasn’t much to laugh about. And, because of the way my brain is wired, memes taking the piss out of governmental incompetence during a global health crisis didn’t hit my humour spot in the slightest.

So I decided to create something funny. And, for me, that involved writing a rom-com that helped me reconnect with my fond memories of growing up in suburban England during the 1990s.

But, as I quickly learned during the editing process, you have to learn to let go of some of your most beloved bits. To ‘murder your darlings’. Because, in commercial fiction, if they add nothing to the story, or to the characterisation of your cast, they’ve got to get the chop.

The phonetic spelling of vomiting was just one such example. And, while I was sad to see it go (though the scene as a whole very much remains), I’m still grateful that it gave me that moment of hilarity when I needed it most.

So, how does editing work? I can only speak from my own experience, but this is how the process went for me before I submitted to literary agents:

Edit-as-you-go
As a professional copywriter, I’m used to editing as I write. So, while I very much saw my first draft as precisely that, realistically I probably revised each paragraph at least a couple of times as I went along.

The printed readthrough
Once I’d typed ‘THE END’ (I rewarded myself with a massive bowl of Coco Pops), I got the entire manuscript printed and read it aloud to my husband over a couple of weeks. Each evening, once the kids were in bed, we’d get through two or three chapters and I’d make notes as I went along. My husband also shared his thoughts with me as he ate biscuits. This was a nerve-wracking yet special time for me, as it was the first time I’d read my fiction to anyone in almost 30 years.

A professional developmental edit
I’d connected with Georgina Green, an amazing developmental editor and writing coach, over lockdown thanks to her co-writing sessions. So I knew exactly who I wanted to work with for this. A development edit involves a professional editor or story expert reading your draft and identifying technical, thematic and characterisation issues that need tweaking or changing altogether. This stage can be daunting, with big rewrites required. In my case, George was so in-tune with what I wanted the story to achieve that her suggestions made perfect sense and was able to crack on straight away. Developmental edits aren’t cheap, but – as per the testimonial I wrote for George’s website – making that investment in my creative writing was the best gift I’ve ever bought myself.

Sensitivity read
Once the novel had been ‘fixed’ from a structural and story perspective, I decided to pay for it to be reviewed by a professional sensitivity reader. I think this is a really important part of the process, especially if your story is exploring complex social themes. If you want to tell your story as sympathetically and realistically as possible (who wouldn’t, frankly), sensitivity readers help you dig into it more deeply, as well as flagging potentially problematic language. More edits followed this feedback.

Beta reading
I nervously sent my novel out to around ten trusted and seasoned readers. Some of them were my closest friends and family, but many were contacts I’d made through various online writing networks. This feedback was incredibly helpful and even made me change an element of the ending (that has since changed again…many times!).

Line edits
Once the narrative skeleton of the novel is finalised, it’s time to go through the manuscript line by line to tighten everything up, remove repeated words, make the sentences flow with delicious rhythm and fix any remaining plot or timeline holes. I did most of my line editing on my Kindle app, as I could dip into it as and when I had a moment (often on my daughter’s bedroom floor as she fell asleep). Line editing takes ages, and it’s worth going through the entire manuscript at least a couple of times as there are always things you’ve missed.

And…that’s really as far as you can take the editing process as an unrepresented and uncontracted author. If you’re planning to self-publish, there are further editing stages to go through (copyediting and final proofreading) but that wasn’t something I was considering back in 2021.

Personally speaking, I loved editing as much as the drafting of the novel itself. I love finding and fixing problems, and working with experts who know what they’re doing, learning from them and developing my own craft.

So there I was back in November 2021: I had a manuscript that I knew wasn’t terrible. I’d made it as good as I could with at least five rounds of editing. And it was time to send it out into the world of literary agents…

My debut novel, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, publishes in August 2025. It’s a love letter to cheesy Christmas movies, British suburbia and nineties nostalgia. Click the book image to pre-order!

Part 4: How trauma stopped me from enjoying fiction

And the genre switch that got me out of my slump

When I was heavily pregnant with my second child, I decided to start an online book club for people who – like me – were once avid readers but had fallen out of the habit.

Hugging my printed manuscript in 2021

There were plenty of things I thought were to blame for this shift: social media and the hours of mindless scrolling…sleep deprivation since having kids…the lack of a commute while I was on maternity leave…

But it was only after I’d had about three panic attacks while reading Maggie O’Farrell’s masterful memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death, that I finally figured out what was preventing me from engaging with fiction: my unresolved trauma.

In the case of this particular book, the writing was so sublime that I pushed my way through until the blisteringly visceral end. Finishing it felt like a relief, but at least two of her ‘brushes with death’ were so close to my own experiences (in relation to childbearing) that reading about them had, at the time, felt like I was reliving the most terrifying and upsetting moments of my life. The fear and dread that consumed me as I turned those pages are testament to the power of O’Farrell’s writing, but were such physical and real feelings that, for a long time after, I began to shun books (and certain films and TV shows) altogether once more.

My virtual book club fell by the wayside, and I felt like I’d never be able to connect with literature and stories again.

But then a few things happened.

Firstly, I finally sought support for birth trauma and began to process what had happened to me in 2015. I began to understand that things like O’Farrell’s book were ‘triggering’ my PTSD, and that ‘avoidance’ was a common reaction. It was just sod’s law that I was avoiding something (stories) that had always brought me such happiness and stimulation.

Next, I began to pick up a different kind of book. I realised I’d always been subconsciously snobby about my reading material, always opting for more literary novels than commercial. As soon as I started reading more ‘uplit’ and rom-com books, I began to fall in love with stories again. I started seeking out TV shows that made me smile instead of shudder. And I leaned into my ‘guilty pleasure’ of enjoying made-for-TV Christmas movies, intentionally removing the ‘guilt’ element and truly embracing my love for them instead. After all, why should we feel guilty for things that make us feel good?

The final thing that happened was the big old global reset: covid. As I wrote last time, in the depths of 2020’s winter lockdown – and over Christmas as I filled my brain with formulaic yet cosily familiar festive movies – I began to write my own Christmas rom-com.

I never intended the novel to explore all the themes I’ve just mentioned above in relation to trauma, comfort and joy. Yet the very act of writing it taught me something fundamental as the words poured out of me: what brings me comfort doesn’t necessarily bring others comfort – and vice versa.

Each of us is likely dealing with our own difficulties and traumas – known or unknown. Some people find comfort in horror stories that shrink their own problems in comparison. Others love documentaries about plane crashes (I still can’t get my head around this one – is it because the aviation industry always learns from the tragedies I wonder? Does that subconsciously provide hope about the human capacity to evolve and improve?). Others love the human drama of Love Island. And I love the predictability of made-for-TV Christmas movies.

Funnily enough, so does my novel’s protagonist…

I finished the first draft of the novel in seven months and printed it out so I could hug it – just like it had hugged me all those nights I’d written it while my children slept. But, even though I was incredibly proud of myself for writing 90,000 words of escapist comfort, little did I know that I still had a lot of work to do…EDITING. More on that next time!

My debut novel, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, publishes in August 2025. It’s a love letter to cheesy Christmas movies, British suburbia and nineties nostalgia. Click the book image to pre-order!

Part 3: Writing my way out of parenting lockdown hell

2020: The moment everything swivelled

It’s March 2020 and I’m on the floor, lying among the tangled, unspooled tape of our lives.

Covid has arrived in the UK and we’ve entered lockdown. Schools are closed, the kids are at home and we’ve got no childcare while we attempt to work remotely.

I know how lucky we are compared to most, yet my anxiety is through the roof. All my brain and body want – need – to do is shut down and sleep. But they can’t. I have to keep going. I have to keep caring for our kids. I have to hide my fear from them. Apparently I have to educate them whilst also working from home. WTF. I have to keep the food coming in and my family fed. I have to keep us, and those we love, safe.

Ads targeting me with messages about how much “spare time!” I must have feel like a slap to the face. Because I’m desperately craving some time to myself. To do something for me. Or, ideally, to do absolutely nothing for a while. I try joining a couple of virtual choirs but it’s impossible to concentrate with the kids running around and wanting to ‘sing’ along.

So my mind does its default thing: it tells me to write. And the only chance I find to do this is at night, once the children are in bed and I’m close to collapse. Yet writing feels instinctive, as if it’s a requirement. It feels as natural to me as worrying.

***

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always had an extra-curricular, non-fiction writing project on the go. Whether it was my daily diary I wrote between the ages of 13 to 33 (entries abruptly stopped when I had children), a blog about my favourite London drinking holes, or a hodgepodge collection of random thoughts when I moved to the capital as a (retrospectively annoying) twentysomething, I’ve always needed a channel through which I can organise and express my experiences and ideas.

During those early lockdown weeks, I felt the urge to document the period by writing a journal. It was disjointed and rough and a parenting memoir of sorts, capturing the moment our lives instantly swivelled.

It was around this time I found an online group that felt right for me to join: a brand new virtual community for writers who happen to be mothers. The idea was that we’d come together online every Sunday evening to chat for a bit before spending an hour writing in companionable silence. The imposter syndrome was real when I introduced myself for the first time, but I immediately felt at home thanks to the calm and welcoming vibe created by writing coach George, who ran the group.

During 2020 and beyond, these weekly co-writing sessions became my refuge. Some weeks I’d continue writing my pandemic journal. Others I’d work on complex essays, like this one about the role of social media in our increasingly polarised society. And, on more than one occasion, I’d rage-write angry letters to my MP about the government’s corruption and mishandling of an unprecedented public health crisis.

My writing was all over the place, but it always had one thing in common: the subject matter was dark, intense and anchored to the reality of my anxiety-riddled existence. And, after six months or so, I realised that, while writing as an act was helpful, I desperately needed to find a more upbeat subject matter. And that’s why, at the start of the winter 2020 lockdown, I started writing something completely different. Something that practically came out of nowhere. And something that immediately made my brain fizz with joy instead of magnifying my misery.

I began writing a piece of fiction. A book. And it was unlike anything I’d ever written before. It was a festive rom-com. But little did I know that it would have its own story to tell right back to me…

My debut novel, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, publishes in August 2025. It’s a love letter to cheesy Christmas movies, British suburbia and nineties nostalgia. Click the book image to pre-order!

Part 2: Why couldn’t I call myself a writer?

Even though I was being paid to write

I couldn’t say the words to myself, let alone out loud to others.

Back when I was a Guardian spokesperson in 2014, I worked alongside investigative journalists as part of a Pulitzer-prize winning team. My eyebags speak volumes.

I always thought I’d be content as a stay-at-home mum after having kids. After all, having time to myself at home has always been one of my favourite things to do.

But the thing about having kids is that they crack you open. And not just physically (sorry!). Once they arrive, out spills every single in-built physical and mental crutch you possess: especially those that you’d been able to successfully hide from the world – and from yourself.

And, very soon after having my first baby, I learned something pretty basic about myself: it wasn’t that I just enjoyed time to myself. I needed it. A lot of it. And often.

Let me spell out the obvious: when you have a baby you get very little time to yourself. Even at night. Especially if that child happens to be wired in exactly the opposite way to you and enjoys human company Every Waking (And Sleeping) Moment.

Six months into motherhood and, on the surface, I was having the best maternity leave I could’ve wished for. I’d lucked out with my local NCT group, my baby was thriving and I was getting plenty of support. But inside I was constantly exhausted, overwhelmed and overstimulated. I knew what I needed: I needed some time to myself. I needed to just be, with nothing but my brain for company. I needed to exercise my thinking muscles again.

I believed the solution was to return to work. But, as I mentioned last time, I knew that going back to my previous role as an on-call media spokesperson wasn’t an option. So I decided to search for a part-time job: one that I could leave at the office at the end of the day.

I sat at my laptop, navigated to Guardian Jobs and set the filters for any part-time role in London to get my job hunt off the ground. And there it was, the very first result: a part-time copywriter role for a charity that was hugely relevant to my career history.

I knew in my gut that this was the job for me. Yes, it was a huge step-down responsibility-wise. Yes, it paid much less (and I was in a hugely privileged position to even be able to consider this). But it felt right. Fateful, even.

I applied and I got the job. And, just after my baby turned one in the spring of 2016 – and at the age of 34 – I was finally being paid to do nothing but write. No more phoning up journalists who (I’d always convinced myself) didn’t want to hear from me. No more being called at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon by a Sunday paper wanting an urgent comment which would absorb my entire weekend. No more mopping up media crisis after media crisis.

This time it was just me and the words.

WORDS! STRAPLINES! CAMPAIGN NAMES! EDITING! IDEAS! SPEECHES! SCRIPTS!

STORIES!

Don’t get me wrong: no job is perfect. But, for the first time in my life, the work felt right. In fact, it didn’t even feel like ‘work’ most of the time. And maybe this was why – even a few years into the role – I still couldn’t call myself a ‘writer’.

More often than not, when asked what I did for a living, I used to say something vague like “I work in marketing for a charity”. But to define myself as a writer? I couldn’t say the words to myself, let alone out loud to others.

So, what happened? Covid happened, that’s what.

And, if having kids cracked me open, then the pandemic well and truly scrambled me.

More on that next time!

My debut novel, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, publishes in August 2025. It’s a love letter to cheesy Christmas movies, British suburbia and nineties nostalgia. Click the book image to pre-order!

Part 1: My path to publication

Let’s go back to the start

It's 1993. I'm an 11-year-old who's obsessed with Take That. And I decide to write some fan fiction...

I stood at the front of the class and took a deep breath.

And then I started to read.

My voice vibrated slightly at first, as did my entire body, but as soon as I could see that my classmates were hooked on my words I relaxed into it and found my flow.

I was 11 years old and had written a short mystery story at home, imagining that a child detective called Hayley (of course) had been asked by Take That’s Robbie and Gary to help them track down Mark, who’d gone missing just hours before a big concert. I think Howard and Jason only got passing mentions in the entire story – sorry, chaps.

I was proud of my tale and had brought it in to show my teacher. She’d enjoyed it, and had suggested I read it aloud to my class. Public speaking was way out of my comfort zone. But I did it. And the reaction of my peers had been worth it.

“Wow, I wrote a story and people liked it!” I thought to myself. And I’d like to say that I went home full of confidence and wonder and inspiration and that this became the definitive start of my journey to becoming an author. And, maybe in another timeline, it would’ve been. But, the truth is, my Take That mystery was practically the last piece of fiction I wrote for decades (with the exception of this shoddy short story I wrote in my 20s).

Because, in the years that followed that nervous primary school reading, I just…kind of forgot how much stories meant to me. How much my brain needed them. And how much I yearned to create them.

And I can’t even pinpoint how that happened.

Don’t get me wrong, I still engaged with stories on a daily basis. I read loads: Point Horror, Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley High books were my main sources of literature since YA fiction barely existed back then. I also loved films and TV, and English literature and media studies were by far my favourite subjects at school. But not once – like, literally never ever – did I pause to consider that I might actually be able to write or create my own stories when I was older. Because, well, a creative career wasn’t for people like me. After all, I was a sensible and conscientious child from a quiet suburb of Bristol who had zero connections or understanding of any creative industries whatsoever. And, frankly, I never even associated the word ‘creative’ with myself until very recently.

I never saw myself as creative because I was born old, cynical and steady (Yay Team Capricorn), and I assumed I needed an equally steady career to match my personality – and pay my rent.

My parents – both smart in different ways and avid readers themselves who’d left school at 16 – always encouraged me to pursue the subjects I enjoyed, which is why I never considered anything like law or medicine as my brain wasn’t wired that way. But I thought I could put my love for writing to good use in a journalism career.

So down the journalism path I trundled.

I got my journalism and media degree. Not long after graduating I landed a job at a local newspaper in Hampshire (as a receptionist – an invaluable insight into the industry in itself). I eventually plucked up the courage to make my ambitions known to the editor. I got given some freelance writing commissions. And I started to tell other people’s stories. I’d…made it?

But…I hated it.

And I never use the word ‘hate’ lightly.

I knew in my gut the first day I had to pick up the phone and interview someone (likely a D list celebrity) that this career wasn’t right for me. I’d always had strong instincts and my instincts were screaming ‘nooooooo’. I dreaded every freelance shift and, even though I churned out decent articles and features incredibly efficiently, I knew deep down that my efficiency was driven by my desire to get back home to my comfort zone – to my sofa and my telly and my books – as quickly as possible.

So my journalism ‘career’ ended before it really began.

What followed was a series of successful PR and media relations jobs. After all, if *being* a journalist wasn’t for me, surely telling other people’s stories *to* journalists was an alright Plan B? I knew how newspapers worked, found the media industry fascinating and enjoyed the stability of in-house roles. And, for 13 years, that Plan B worked out pretty well.

But…there was always that voice at the back of my brain, still. And it was saying, over and over and increasingly loudly: “Hayley, you know this doesn’t feel right”. And then I had a baby and the voice was no longer a whisper but an ear-piercing scream. There was simply no way I could go back to my high-profile job as a spokesperson for an international media company which involved being on call 24/7, since I was now also on call 24/7 for my child. It was just too much for me to contemplate. My rejection of the career I’d convinced myself I’d enjoyed before children felt almost physical.

So I resigned.

What happened next was a complete fluke. But a very fateful one.

But I’ll save that story for next time…