I’d been writing fiction – short stories, aborted novels, two complete manuscripts – for about seven years before I had the idea for what was to become my first published novel, Acts of Revision. It’s the story of a disturbed man who tracks down his former school teachers and takes various forms of revenge on them for the “wrongs” they did him in childhood.
I started writing it way back in 1994, on the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MA. When it was done, I sent a synopsis and sample chapters to several London literary agents, only one of whom asked to see the whole manuscript. I was no stranger to rejection – my two earlier novels were turned down around 40 times!
Anyway, weeks went by without a reply. Eventually, I phoned to see if the agent who’d asked to read Acts of Revision was still interested, only to discover that he had left the agency – and left my manuscript behind on a shelf.
The guy who took the call told me he was an agent (he wasn’t, I later found out, he was the departed agent’s assistant) and offered to read the novel. He rang me three days later to say he loved it and offered to represent me. “Don’t expect anything to happen quickly,” he warned me.
But then, the following week, I was with friends on a writing retreat in the forests of mid-Wales when I heard the news that two publishers were involved in an auction for my book. By the end of that day a deal was done and, somehow, I’d driven home to Yorkshire without crashing the car.
The assistant became an agent . . . and I became a novelist.
I started writing it way back in 1994, on the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MA. When it was done, I sent a synopsis and sample chapters to several London literary agents, only one of whom asked to see the whole manuscript. I was no stranger to rejection – my two earlier novels were turned down around 40 times!
Anyway, weeks went by without a reply. Eventually, I phoned to see if the agent who’d asked to read Acts of Revision was still interested, only to discover that he had left the agency – and left my manuscript behind on a shelf.
The guy who took the call told me he was an agent (he wasn’t, I later found out, he was the departed agent’s assistant) and offered to read the novel. He rang me three days later to say he loved it and offered to represent me. “Don’t expect anything to happen quickly,” he warned me.
But then, the following week, I was with friends on a writing retreat in the forests of mid-Wales when I heard the news that two publishers were involved in an auction for my book. By the end of that day a deal was done and, somehow, I’d driven home to Yorkshire without crashing the car.
The assistant became an agent . . . and I became a novelist.
Flip is Martyn's first novel for young adults, and is out now at Amazon, the walker website and all good bookshops. You can watch our book trailer below.
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