About me...
Like many people I suppose, I have been a writer for a very long time – long before I was published in any form what-so-ever.
I did always want to achieve my dream of being a published author, but along the way I was distracted by many important and exciting things. I completed two degrees [BA (Hons) in Literature and an MBA], I traveled, worked, got married, worked a bit more, and gave birth to two wonderful children. But during this time I never stopped writing in one form or another.
In the very early days, writing was my way of working out the world. As a child I would write down those things which worried me, moved me, disturbed me. Often these writings were in narrative form, sometimes they were fictionalised. I vividly recall writing one piece from the point of view of a foetus who was just about to be aborted. Not long before, I had seen a picture of Evard Munch’s classic painting The Scream and I remember that his work was very firmly in my mind as I wrote.
Another short story that I wrote in primary school was entitled The Girl Who Loved Apples. The protagonist of this story, a primary school girl, loved apples so much that she would do anything to find the perfect source of her favourite fruit. One day in the park, she met a kindred soul, an old man who possessed the source of the perfect apple – a tree in the garden surrounding his ramshackle house. The story ended with the girl going to live with the man so that she could have constant access to the tree. In my story the two of them, young girl and old man, were perfectly happy with the arrangement. Following her desires seemed to me to be a much more interesting story than if the girl had given them up in order to be a "good daughter".
Exploration of the concept that Jung called the "shadow", or what could simply be called our dark side – those repressed desires and impulses that most of use work so hard to hide and which are actually so important in understanding our motivations – is a large part of what has driven my work to date.
In this way, writing is still my method for working out the world and for fully developing and exploring ideas. It’s just that now some of the things I want to explore are more serious and complicated than they once were. The other difference, of course, is that now I can look forward to other people reading and discussing some of the ideas which my books and short stories raise.
In terms of my path to published author...
In 2001, I began writing the book that would become Still Waters. From the very first, it was the intriguingcharacter of the narrator that captured me.
My anonymous narrator carried me along and the majority of the book was written very quickly. By 2002 I had a book which I knew was nearly, but not quite, right.
In 2003 I was lucky enough to be chosen to attend a manuscript development program run by the amazing Peter Bishop at the equally amazing Varuna – a writers’ house in the beautiful Blue Mountains. With Peter’s insightful reading and comment on the novel, it developed further – to the extent that in 2004 I was the recipient of Varuna/HarperCollins Award for manuscript development. This was a 10 day residential program where I, and four other writers, were given the opportunity to work with an editor from HarperCollins who had chosen our manuscript as being a work which they wanted to help develop further.
What an amazing experience that was! It was the first time I had been exposed to the workings of the publishing world and doing so in the environs of a place like Varuna, with an editor who truly loved my work, was surreal. The editor who had chosen my novel to work with was Vanessa Radnidge. Vanessa is a highly skilled and professional editor and beneath her unerring gaze, Still Waters developed further.
I would like to tell you that Still Waters was published the following year to thunderous applause and highly favourable reviews, but that was to come later – much later as it turned out!!! Because at that point, my dream run ended for a little while.
While Still Waters floated in the twilight world of being "not quite accepted for publication and not quite rejected" I continued to write. Which was a good thing! In 2005 I attended Varuna again, this time to discuss my second novel, Double Exposure, with Peter. Based on his support, feedback and lots of hard work on my part, by 2006 Double Exposure was ready to go out and face the world.
It was on the basis of Double Exposure that Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown agreed to represent me as my agent. And thanks to Pippa’s hard work in showing my work to publishing houses and generally supporting my work, Hachette Livre (where Vanessa Radnidge now works as a publisher) decided, in early 2007, to publish Still Waters the following year. WHEW!
In the mean-time I have been working on my third book, but more on that another time...
Anyway, I hope that gives you a bit more background about me and my path to publication. It took many years and some side-tracking, but as I said at the beginning, I never stopped writing in one form or another. Hope you enjoy the result of my years of work!
Happy reading!
Camilla
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