“I was horrified. Ashamed. I was going to be THAT PERSON who failed utterly to deliver Book 2.”
Sometimes nailing a novel can be stupidly hard, says Phillipa East, but keep chiselling rock and you’ll get through it.
It was all going so well…
In Autumn of 2018, I was riding high. I’d recently signed with an agent for Little White Lies and we were soon to go ‘on sub’. Meanwhile, I was developing plans for Book 2, so that we could pitch for a two-book deal. I had a ‘hook’, I even had a synopsis. I had a first chapter and a pitch-y blurb. I entered both of these into the Jericho Writers competitions and was shortlisted.
This second novel thing? I was nailing it, man.
Then I spoke with my agent. ‘I’m going to be completely transparent,’ she said. ‘I like it … but it’s not the right genre. It just doesn’t fit with Little White Lies.’
One of the worst / best things about my agent (Sarah Hornsley) is that she is basically always right. She was right about this – and I knew it. ‘So… do you have any other ideas?’ she asked. I did. Kind of. I had a premise, at least – one Sarah liked. Within days, I wrote a pitch – four lines, five – with absolutely nothing fleshed out. Anyway, Sarah said it was ‘perfect for now’ – and so off we went on sub.
Two weeks later, I had a two-book deal with HQ/HarperCollins. Huzzah!
With my HQ editor, I continued to finesse Little White Lies, because – you know – there’s always more editing. But once that was out of the way, I sat down with Book 2.
I wrote a synopsis and it was BAD. Not a story I cared about at all. I tore it up (all 3,000 words) and went back to ground zero: new setting, new characters, new plot, the lot. This outline I couldn’t even finish properly. After about 2,500 words, it ended with: ‘maybe someone dies??? Ug.’ That one also went in the bin.
Time was passing; I had a deadline. And I had no plan, no story to tell. I was horrified. Ashamed. I was going to be THAT PERSON who failed utterly to deliver Book 2. But I had just enough belief in myself to keep going. Just enough dogged determination to try again. I started yet another synopsis. This time, half of it at least seemed okay. I sent it to my agent and we wrestled with ideas. We got there, and my editor gave me the green light too.
So, finally, I sat down and wrote the first draft. And few months later, I re-wrote the whole thing again, because (of course) I still hadn’t got it right. I could have given up after any of these ‘failures’. But I didn’t – I just tried to ‘fail better’ until better was enough.
Safe and Sound came out in February 2021. It was a book I once hated and which I now love. I had to chisel it, painstakingly, out of concrete. I’m glad to say that (so far) Book 3 has come a lot more easily. But no doubt with Book 4, or 5, or 7 or 9, I’ll flail just as wildly again. But now I know that chiselling rock can still get you there. It was stupidly hard, but I made it through.
Philippa East is a fiction writer with HQ/HarperCollins and she also works as a clinical psychologist.
Philippa grew up in Scotland before moving to Oxford and then London to complete her clinical psychology training. A few years ago, she left the NHS to set up her own part-time practice and dedicate more hours to writing. The result was her debut novel LITTLE WHITE LIES, which was longlisted for The Guardian’s Not-The-Booker Prize and shortlisted for the CWA “New Blood” Award 2020. Philippa’s new book SAFE AND SOUND is another twisty and compelling tale. Philippa now lives in the beautiful Lincolnshire countryside with her husband and cat. She loves reading (of course!) and long country walks, and she also performs in a local folk duo called The Miracle Cure. Alongside her writing, Philippa continues to work as a psychologist and therapist.
About Safe and Sound:
Home can be the most dangerous place…
In a small London bedsit, a radio is playing. A small dining table is set for three, and curled up on the sofa is a body…
Jenn is the one who discovers the woman, along with the bailiffs. All indications suggest that the tenant – Sarah Jones – was pretty, charismatic and full of life.
So how is it possible that her body has lain undiscovered for ten whole months?
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Second book syndrome and the power of failing better