Debut Teen/YA out this September.

Posted on February 23, 2025 Updated on February 23, 2025

I lost my writing mojo a few years back. It happens. I think it might happen more to those of us who have full time jobs, kids, homes to run, and barely time to brush our teeth, so writing and editing books seems an unnecessary add on. Writing them is fine. It’s fun. It’s hard. It involves hours of laptopery and screenery. But it’s fine. Not quite so fine are the seemingly endless days, weekends, half terms, holidays, evenings and sunny beach days spent editing and rewriting – that is a massive pain. You think to yourself, I swear, if something significant doesn’t materialise from this, like enough income to give up the day job so I can enjoy this writing malarkey as my main and only gig or … actually, no, just that … then I’m making life harder for myself for no reason and that, in English, is known as masochism and I, in English and in all other languages, am known as a giant idiot. So I stopped. Gave myself and my hurting arm a break. Maybe forever.

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash.

But in October 2023, I went on an Arvon course with sixteen kids (none of them mine: I have lots but not quite that many) and continued writing a chapter I’d started years before. I came home, tentatively carried on, went to Thailand over Christmas and kept writing it, and I dunno, a book materialised from the ether, as they sometimes do. My agent loved it, which is always a happy scenario. The rest of the year, my beach days, weekends, half terms etc etc were eradicated with editing and rewriting.

Last year, something exciting happened, which is leading to something even more exciting happening this year. Three publishers were interested in my I-am-not-writing-anymore-possible-never-but-somehow-a-story-has-materialised-from-the-ether novel, and I signed a contract with one of them. This September, my debut teen/YA My Name is Jodie Jones will be published by David Fickling Books.

This is honestly a glorious feeling and I’m so grateful to Jessica, my agent, and to the team at DFB. Can I give up my full time job to write? No. Not yet anyway. Maybe never. Can I go down to four days? Risky. Do I love the new book? Am I thrilled? Was it worth it? Am I keen to introduce Jodie Jones to the world and the world to Jodie Jones? Definitely.