EMILY’S TOP TIPS

• You need to love the process of writing. If you love to write and focus on that as your goal, it won’t matter so much when you get a huge publishing deal or a small one, if you get shortlisted for an award or your book totally flops.

• Finish the book. The odds are stacked against us all when we say I want to be an author because so many people say that same thing. The odds get better when you actually start writing. They improve significantly when you get half way through the book. But, if you finish the damn thing, you are really getting somewhere.

• Allow yourself to write a rubbish first draft. Put a sticker on your notebook, laptop or above your desk saying something to that effect. My first drafts are shockingly bad. But, once I’ve ploughed through to the end (which I try to do quite quickly) at least I have something to work with.

• Celebrate all the small successes. Someone in your writing group said they liked a particular sentence? Pat yourself on the back. Print that sentence out and stick it above your desk. Print it on a T-shirt. You’ve finished a terrible first draft? Take yourself out for lunch. Eat chocolate cake.

• When you read a book or watch a TV show or a film, think about what the writers are doing. How have they made you cry? Why have they included a particular detail about a character? Make notes about everything you are learning.

• There is no reason why you cannot self-publish your book, poem or short story. There are many people who like to have the control over their own work.

• If you want to be commercially published, though, it might be tough to get your foot in the door. It will take hard work, late nights, difficult feedback from writing group buddies, hurt pride and disappointment. But I’ve done it, and thousands of others have, too. Why shouldn’t you?