Novels

I wrote my first novel when I was thirteen. It was a fantasy epic about a girl who dies in a car-crash and finds herself stranded in a strange afterlife. It never got published – for which perhaps we should all be grateful – but it did do two things: it got me in touch with a literary agent who ended up representing me when I finally did get published; and it gave me a world to hide in, when the real world was particularly difficult for me and I felt I couldn't cope. I've written elsewhere that this novel saved my life; and I'll write some more about that in the blog. For now, let's just say that this was a gateway for me: that once I'd finished it, I knew very clearly I want to be a writer.

And I didn't stop. Over the next few years I wrote two more unpublished fantasy epics (when I should have been studying); and wrote After the Hole, my first published novel, when I was 18, during my gap year from school.

Writing came from a place of urgency then; and it still does. I wrote novels because I needed to. Although it probably sounds insufferably smug to say 'I had my first novel published at 18', the real truth is that it was my fourth novel. The other three just never saw the light of day, for good reason. But I couldn't (and wouldn't) stop. When people starting on their writing journey ask me for advice, the first thing I say is always Writers write. Getting words down on paper is the first step: over and over. (And after that, the real work begins!)

Below, you can take a look at the three books I've published so far, including After the Hole, the one I wrote when I was 18. Since these came out, my career has been in screenwriting; but I'm now hard at work on another novel. You can catch a glimpse of it in What I'm Working On... and I'll be posting updates on progress in the Blog.