KATE’S TOP TIPS

• Read a lot and, if you’re targeting Mills & Boon, make sure you study the latest ones in the line/series for which you want to write, so you get an idea of the themes that are popular with editors and readers.

• Write every day. Even if you have only half an hour, ringfence that time every single day until it becomes a habit. If you write 500 words a day, in six months you’ll have the first draft of a novel.

• Experiment with different writing techniques. If you’re a planner, try writing into the mist, and see what happens. If you don’t like planning, give it a go. Try writing straight on to screen, or by hand, or dictating.

• Craft books can be helpful. Susan Meier’s Crack the Code is the best I’ve read. It’s very practical and useful.

• Always remember that if a technique doesn’t seem to work, it simply means a particular way of writing isn’t a good fit for you. So don’t let it knock your confidence or freeze you.

Find what does work for you, and expect it to change as you grow and develop as a writer.

• Turn off editing mode so you keep writing the story rather than looking back and trying to make what you’ve already written perfect. The scruffy first draft is there for a reason: so you can check that the plot/conflict works, the characters are fully rounded, and there are reasons for their motivations. Editing is for the next draft.

• Depending on what you’re writing, leave some of the research until later. It’s fine to have a draft with notes to yourself to check things. If you really must do that bit of research right now, put a timer on your phone for fifteen minutes. Otherwise, you’ll risk being down a research rabbithole all afternoon, instead of writing!

• We all get rejections. But if there’s a pattern in what you’re hearing from editors, learn from that, and use it to make your book stronger. It’s also fine to put that book in a box under your bed and write a new one, using what you’ve learned.