There was no great fanfare when I typed the words ‘The End’ when finishing the novel I’d been working on for the best part of a year. No champagne corks popping, no balloons bobbing and tugging at their strings.
Just a quiet closing of the laptop lid, fingertips resting. It felt like getting in a car in a noisy city and slamming the door shut.
The next few weeks brought the editing, the proofreading, the little tweaks here and there, scrolling back and forth from page to page to check that the storylines thread correctly.
And then the queries to agents, the polite rejections, the reluctant realisation that silence from the others meant no.
And so, in April last year, I joined Substack and posted a chapter a week, every Monday morning. It took three hours to schedule them all.
Yesterday I published the epilogue, and now the car door has shut again.
I’m not sure what’s next. A handful of wonderful people who have followed ‘Vanilla’ from the beginning (you know who you are, and thank you) have enquired about a sequel.
Maybe. Until then, I’ll use my Substack to post my occasional thoughts, nostalgic views of identity and place.
Meanwhile, ‘Vanilla’ is now out in the world. If you read some of it, even a few sentences, I hope you enjoyed it.
I know it's hard to find unique ways to say thank you. I
had trouble telling you each week. Thank you again.
I did have one suggestion earlier that I think was valid.
I made it as a reader.
When he was rapidly changing bodies, I wanted to know more about the people he was inhabiting. And when he left them, what happened to the person who was ousted from the body? This may just be me. but it is me.
Your description of the atmosphere surrounding the events was gorgeous. I loved the story itself and the moral dilemma. I shall miss it.
I know it's exhausting to send your work out and not receive a response from publishers. But I hope you keep trying with "Vanilla" because it is truly a unique, fascinating and gripping novel. It deserves to be published. Just my two cents!