The shaky start to my semi-illustrious career

Thirty years ago I was sitting in business class on a JAL flight from London to Tokyo, a glass of champagne in hand, a fat stack of three hundred or so A4 printout pages on the table in front of me. They amounted to the latest and, I’d decided, final version of the novel I’d written that summer, a thriller set in a fictionalised Seville. The work that would propel me from the comfy world of journalism with the Sunday Times into the career I’d wanted for years, that of an author.

If only. I’d spent that whole summer doing what they'd suggested in Writers and Artists Yearbook. Sending off carefully phrased letters to literary agents throughout London telling them who I was and what I’d written, and asking if someone might be interested in taking a look at the finished manuscript and perhaps think of representing me.

Every one drew a blank. Not only weren’t they interested but not a single agent wanted to see a page of the book I’d worked so hard to finish.

On that plane I decided I’d read the manuscript for the final time. If I thought it wasn’t worth pursuing any further, I’d go about my meetings in Tokyo then dump the pages in the bin and give up for good the long-held ambition I’d held of moving from journalism to fiction.

I did read it.

I liked it and, after a career of writing and editing in Fleet Street, I felt that counted for something.

The trouble was I had no one left in the British publishing industry to send it to.

What then?

What every writing career needs. A piece of extraordinary luck.

A few weeks later I was due to fly to New York for another assignment. I’d been spending quite some time in the US around then. Why not try to get an American agent instead? I sent off a bunch of queries to US agents by fax as a last and desperate attempt to find someone, anyone, to read the book I’d slaved on that summer.

Only one agent responded and she said no, being English I needed a UK-based agent. But she liked the idea I’d outlined and she’d forwarded it to a friend of hers in a big agency in London. An agency that had already sent me the standard rejection letter after I approached them.

Oh well. That, I thought, was that, and the book was headed for the bin.

But no, that London agent read the message from her friend in New York, called me and wanted to talk. In a rare moment of good judgement, I declined to mention the fact her agency had given me the bum’s rush already.

The agent, the lovely Vivienne Schuster of Curtis Brown, asked to see the first ten pages. Then the next thirty. Then the whole book. After which she said yes, she’d like to try and find me a publisher. Given she also represented authors like George MacDonald Fraser (Flashman if you remember him), Jeffery Deaver, and Margaret Atwood, you can imagine how I leapt at the opportunity.

A little while later I had a three-book deal with Harper Collins and not long after a film deal which would eventually lead to a movie, though not one many have seen. Thanks to Viv’s guidance and advice I was set on my current career, ditching journalism altogether after a while to become the author I’d always wanted. All from a book that so nearly got thrown into the bin in Tokyo and a chance fax to someone I didn't know in New York.

What does this story tell you? Firstly, that publishing is a crazy business that defies logic and understanding. Second, that the people who make or break your potential career know what they are looking for if only you can get your work in front of them. After that, I hope, that writing careers depend upon three things: hard work, talent and luck.

Hard work is essential. If you’re not willing to put in the time, getting up at six to write before you go to the office, editing into the small hours, sacrificing your weekends, then forget it. Hard work also encompasses persistence. If you give up easily, you’re not going to get anywhere in publishing. You need to be tough enough to accept criticism and rejection along the way too. This is not a business for the work-shy or thin-skinned.

Talent is a fuzzier thing, part instinctual, part nurtured. It involves listening to people who can guide and educate you along the way. No first-time author starts out knowing everything, even if they may kid themselves that’s so. For most of us, your first few books are essentially homework a generous publisher has paid for. It’s only when you have a few under your belt that you begin to appreciate the complexity and nuances of both storytelling and the prolix business of publishing. When there are people around you who know about these things – clever agents and editors – make sure to listen and learn.

And luck? That’s the joker in the pack, impossible to summon, eternally capricious, as ready to take away as it is to give. Sometimes I’ve been fortunate in my career. At others I’ve been dogged by some incredibly bad breaks and missed opportunities, some my fault, a good few that of someone else. Not that I dwell on them because there’s no point in looking back, only forward.

Nothing can summon up luck. It either happens or it doesn’t. The best any of us can do is focus on what we can control, the work we produce and how we try to introduce it to the world.

It's worth remembering the Italian saying 'in bocca al lupo', the standard way of wishing an actor good fortune before they walk onto the stage. It means 'into the wolf's mouth'. A very good invocation for anyone hoping to embark on a writing career.

If that's you... in bocca al lupo.