My Journey from Law to Literature

As a debut novelist, I am still finding my feet in the labyrinthine world of publishing, and am keen to share my experiences and insights so far, for the benefit of other writers currently in the position I was in, until recently.

In 2015, when I retired from operational policing in London, where I reached the rank of Superintendent, I began looking for an outlet for my suppressed creativity, and embarked upon a series of creative interests with varying degrees of success. It wasn't until a box of ancient family photographs came into my possession several years later that I developed an obsession with genealogy and became addicted to investigating and unravelling the family secrets of the past.  My policing skills of evidence gathering and cross-checking facts stood me in good stead to uncover my paternal family tree, dating back to 1420. What I discovered lead to me to become fascinated by the concept that our lives today are so profoundly shaped by the choices made by previous generations. Fast forward to January 2022, when my husband encouraged me to take an online  course in creative writing with the University of Oxford, on the basis that I could never find a good book to read. His solution? Write my own! From that point onwards, my two passions collided, eventually resulting in my first ever manuscript - 

Under the Hickory Tree was born on the Oxford University online 'Introduction to Creative Writing' course, coming into the world as a short exercise in character creation. The first character I ever created was Greer Garland, a Country and Western superstar, and as the story began to grow, exercise by exercise, I imagined she would be the hero of the tale. But it was not to be. Other characters came into existence, and suddenly the story began to take on a life of its own, and took me in entirely unexpected directions.

It took about a year of stop-start writing to pull together the first complete draft, at which point I innocently thought 'Hurrah, the book is finished!' My first error (of many to come) was to start sending that unpolished, unedited raw material to agents.

Unsurprisingly, my rejection rate was 100%!

Armed with professional advice, I began the lengthy and repetitive task of re-drafting and editing my manuscript, with a new understanding of technical issues such as Narrative Point of View (specifically the cardinal sin of 'head-hopping'), book mapping, and timelines. I started to study my craft using free online resources, and discovered concepts such as the distancing effect of filter words and the negative impact of reliance on adverbs to convey emotion. It was revelatory stuff! With each edit, applying what I'd just learned, my writing became increasingly polished. I also realised that an introductory Creative Writing course was insufficient to equip me with the range of skills needed to create complex, engaging characters and multi-strand narratives, so I signed up for the Advanced online Creative Writing Course.

Studying with other writers from almost every continent, encompassing a vast array of genres, was hugely rewarding and broadened my literary horizons. The talent was breathtaking, and I learned a great deal from the other students, under the skilful tutelage of the course instructor, a highly regarded published author. I also gained an appreciation of the value of networking to learn new skills, which led to me becoming part of the Bournemouth Writing Festival (BWF) community.

The final influence that helped me achieve my goal came entirely by chance. I stumbled across a copy of Stephen King's 'On Writing', a semi-autobiographical work by the undisputed greatest thriller author of all time, aimed at sharing his wisdom and experience for the benefit of unpublished writers. The book confounded my expectations by being side-splittingly funny and searingly honest about his own early failures. Most importantly, it was also a 'how to' manual, containing a series of lessons in what elevates writing from the mundane and ordinary, into the gripping and memorable.

Equipped with Stephen King's advice, I re-edited my manuscript for the 999th time and submitted it to The Book Guild. It was a hit! I finally had my publishing contract.

It was at the BWF that I gained my first insight into the complex world of publishing, and the scales of innocence fell from my eyes. I quickly realised that if I wanted to get my novel into the hands of keen readers, I needed to learn to swim in a tank full of sharks! I attended as many presentations as possible, and came away with a new appreciation of the number of alternative routes to achieving my goal of publishing my novel. In particular, the Book Guild presentation about hybrid publishing resonated with me, and I stored their contact details for future reference.

I put the story aside for six months and got on with life, but the characters remained with me in my head all summer. As the temperature dropped and I headed indoors to hibernate

for the winter, I decided to give the story another go. It was at this point that I made a crucial decision. I invested in a professional historical fiction editor to read my manuscript and identify areas for improvement. It was  game-changing.

Writing My Story

Under the Hickory Tree.

Now the hard work really begins - getting my novel into the hands of readers who share my passion for genealogy and family sagas.

Authors are often asked about their source of inspiration, and each writer's is different. For me, my love of genealogy and its secrets of the past is where I look for ideas.

Under the Hickory Tree is richly woven with threads from my family history, adding authentic details that enhance the narrative's realism.

This first image is of my great-grandmother, Florence Harradine.  It was the inspiration behind the photograph of Lowri Evans, the Evans family matriarch, that acts as a clue to link the secret past with the present, at a moment of great emotional impact.

The second image is of the wedding day of my grandparents, Bill and Hilda Lee. It inspired the description of the treasured photo of strapping Alwyn and ill-fated Ffion, the youthful bride who sewed her own wedding outfit from the bell-bottoms of her brother's Royal Navy uniform trousers, owing to the post-war shortage of fabric.

My inspiration