'I wrote FOUR novels across TEN years that weren't published... now I'm a multi-million copy bestseller!' (You can do it too!)

Author Teresa Driscoll candidly shares the highs and lows of her writing career, how it feels to write a book out of contract, and what success looks like after a decade of rejection...

Hi all,

We made it through January…hooray! Welcome to February, and to kick off the month I have a very inspiring, brilliantly honest interview with bestselling author Teresa Driscoll. Teresa faced years of rejection before her break-out novel, I Am Watching You, was published, and here she tells us the ups and downs of her career and why it’s so important to keep going.

Hi Teresa! Welcome to The Honest Editor. Please could you tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming an author?

Great to be here, Phoebe. When I started out, it was a very lonely place. I didn’t know any authors and knew very little about the industry, so I wish there had been a fab space like this where I could learn from others. It was all very much trial and error and I ended up taking the, ahem, scenic route which is code for ten years of rejection and four unpublished novels before my first deal.

My story is that I was desperate to write fiction from a very young age but was wisely steered towards journalism (writing PLUS a regular pay cheque) by a careers adviser in my sixth form. Such a good call. I LOVED journalism and worked for decades in newspapers and television, ending up as the BBC regional TV news presenter in the South West for 15 glorious years. But the longing to write books never went away so when I left telly in my mid forties, I shaped a freelance career as a writer – columns and features etc - and started my fiction ‘apprenticeship’ on the side.

At first I wrote short stories for magazines very successfully, then tried my first novel and secured an agent immediately. I honestly thought I had made it straight out of the gate. (How I laugh now. If only!) I had really great feedback from lots of editors and a few near misses but no offers.

I ended up writing FOUR novels across TEN years that weren’t published. Dark and very difficult days.

A lot of editors were saying they loved my ‘author voice’ but my books fell between women’s commercial fiction and psychological suspense. Too dark for some lists. Not dark enough for others. It was only then I realised I hadn’t been sufficiently genre aware. As a journalist, I was always on the lookout for STRONG stories. It didn’t matter if they were human interest or crime. I made the mistake when switching to fiction of failing to ‘categorise’.

I finally had my light bulb moment, realising I actually had two author voices. One warm. One much darker. Once I separated those voices and wrote more intentionally to genre expectations, I got publishing deals for BOTH genres.

I moved to the lovely and very dynamic agent Madeleine Milburn who had recently set up her own agency. She secured my first two-book deal for women’s commercial fiction. There was even an auction for the titles in Germany! I’m very proud of those first two books, Recipes for Melissa and Last Kiss Goodnight. I worked with a superb editor and the reviews were great. BUT…the sales were disappointing.

I wrote a third book in the same genre and that was rejected by my first publisher. To say I was devastated is an understatement. I …cried …buckets.

But after ten years, no way was I giving up. I pitched an idea for a darker book (that second, psych suspense voice) to my agent and she loved it.

So I switched genre and wrote I Am Watching You out of contract (and to be frank, out of desperation; we thought we were going to have to sell the house and downsize). My agent found me a new publisher and astonishingly I Am Watching You became my breakout book. To date it’s sold 1.5 million copies in English alone and is published in 20 territories.

How bonkers is that? To write one book that’s rejected…then another in the very same year but in a new genre that hits the jackpot.

(Reader….I’ve now sold nearly 3 million books worldwide. We didn’t have to sell the house after all!)

What advice would you give to those dealing with rejection?

I would say – try to see rejection not as a dead end but as a roadblock, telling you to find a different route. Sadly, rejection is a part of being a writer. It hurts and we’re all allowed to have a weep. But picking yourself up after rejection and learning from rejection is also a part of being a writer. If I hadn’t pushed through rejection, I wouldn’t have had the joy of seeing I Am Watching You win the dream ticket of word-of-mouth success. (Thank you, readers!)

What has been a real high and a real low of your career thus far?

The high was seeing I Am Watching You hit the top of the charts in the UK, the USA and Australia and pass one million sales. Surreal!

The low was that rejection of a third book by my first publisher.

I naively thought that once you had your foot through the door as a signed author, you were sorted, so it was a shock. Now I am much more realistic about the business side of the industry. But I should add that I’ve now also come to feel strongly that the business approach has to cut both ways.

I try always to be professional, hard-working and open in my approach to my work. I get that I need to be delivering commercially for my publisher…but I also feel strongly that a publisher needs to be delivering for an author too so it’s lovely to have an agent as a go-between for all those business negotiations.

What was it like writing your book, I Am Watching You, while out of contract?

It was intense! I felt really passionately about the story and LOVED writing it, just me and the page. But I knew it was a make-or-break book so that also felt a little scary. And a lot of pressure. I do remember sitting at my desk and being absolutely determined to pour everything I had learned from past mistakes into the book.

One thing I did really like about writing out of contract was the sense of freedom. Just me and my gut instinct. No deadline. In fact, I’m doing the same again right now out of pure choice as I have this passion- project book that I’ve been desperate to write. It’s a thriller but with a little ‘colouring outside of the lines’…and I didn’t want to seek early sign off because I was afraid someone would say – don’t write that, ha! My agent was on maternity leave at the end of last year so it felt the right time to press pause and experiment. Thankfully the passion-project book is now half done and my agent, who’s back, absolutely loves it ( phew and HURRAH!) so I feel exhilarated to finish it.

What do you think made that book take off so much more than your previous books?

I owe a lot to my publisher Thomas & Mercer for I Am Watching You’s success. They launched it in a big promotion and were very dynamic in responding to reader enthusiasm, especially in America.

But in terms of what worked with the story? Believe me, I spent a long time trying to figure out why that first thriller was my breakout. I even bought a shelf of ‘how to’ books, trying to belatedly work it out. To see what shape or formula or set of rules it followed.

You see, I’m a pantser rather than a planner, and I work to just a single page rough outline at most. No detailed chapter planning. I just set off with a strong premise, a theme, high stakes and a few big scenes in mind.

But when I tried to analyse I Am Watching You AFTER its success, it seemed to BREAK a lot of ‘ rules’ and formulas in the how-to books. So in the end, I gave up trying to figure it out and decided to just stick to being a pantser rather than a planner and to trust in my natural process.

When writers ask me for advice, I say there is no right or wrong way to write a book. Only your way. I know a lot of successful authors who plan. And a lot who don’t.

Now, I won’t even start a story until I have the hook. And the theme. I suspect I’m a sort of ‘secret’ and instinctive planner. I go for a lot of walks once I have the basic idea for a book. I ask myself key questions – are the stakes high enough, for instance - and I let everything percolate. Then scenes start to play in my mind like a film. It feels as if the characters are talking to me, telling me their story. That sounds insane, but I think it goes back to my journalism. My theory is my brain likes to kid itself my fictional stories are real…and it’s my privilege to write them up. Just as I did as a journalist. If I burst the bubble and sit down clinically to plan in detail, it all feels fake…and goes wrong.

Bottom line? Like it or not, my creative process is like an app that works brilliantly, updating in the background, but if I confront it and say – hey, let’s sit down and plan this new book – it FREEZES.

I should add that I’m also a huge film fan and of course a big reader. So I also believe we absorb the natural rhythm and shape of great storytelling and I suspect all that absorbed information about what works is firing away in my subconscious when I start a new manuscript.

With I Am Watching You, I also think my ‘two voices’ (which caused cross genre mistakes initially) helped the book to succeed because I finally learned how to bring them together commercially. I worked hard to ensure the story met thriller genre expectations i.e. pace, suspense, darkness, high stakes and twists etc, BUT I also allowed my love of emotional resonance to give the characters and story the emotional depth that I so love in commercial women’s fiction and book club fiction.

Have you ever shelved a whole manuscript?

No. Only when rejected! In fact, I actually managed to resurrect two old and much-rejected manuscripts and completely rewrite them to become very successful thrillers, once my career took off.

Looking back at those old stories, I could belatedly see exactly why they were turned down…because I had become a much better writer.

I still loved some of the characters and settings and themes, but I probably only kept a third of the original manuscripts and really enjoyed ‘fixing’ them. I now have a checklist before I write. Book with a hook. Flawed characters with something big to learn. HIGH STAKES. And some nice twists. I applied this checklist to the old books that weren’t working and could see instantly what was missing.

Where do you get your ideas from?

Anywhere and everywhere! I am terrible for listening in to other people’s conversations (sorry, not sorry). I got the idea for I Am Watching You because on a train ride to London, I overheard two guys with black plastic bin bags, telling fellow travellers they had just got out of prison. The bags contained their personal effects. I thought – oh wow! That could be the opening to a book. I started to imagine two guys released from prison talking not to other older adults but to two very vulnerable teenagers on a train. I wrote the opening to I Am Watching You as soon as I got home.

And for my latest thriller What Have I Done? a lovely friend told me an anecdote about helping a stranded young woman at an airport during an air traffic control crisis. Hotels were fully booked so she let this stranger share her twin room because as a mother herself, she was worried for the young woman’s safety. I thought…that could have gone horribly wrong! I asked her permission to write a fictional (and much darker) version as the opening to my new book and sent her a signed copy. She was delighted.

Did you ever try to write for a market, or just followed your gut?

I’m respectful of genre expectations but never follow a trend because I figure the trend is bound to be over before I finish a book. So I very much follow my gut. I have to feel passionately about the book I’m writing to stick with the story through the long, lonely months of writing.

And I still resist too much planning. For me, it has to feel a little bit like magic. As if the story playing in my head has been sort of gifted to me. That, for me, is the complete joy of it.

Thanks for having me, Phoebe! And best of luck to all the writers out there.

You can find out more about all my books here in the UK and here in the USA.

And I try to share tips on my Instagram, @tkdriscoll_author.

Thank you so much for this honest and open-hearted interview, Teresa - and to those reading, I hope this inspires you not to give up!

Happy writing.

Phoebe x