My main tip would be to enter writing competitions! When you’re starting out as a writer, the hardest thing can be just FINISHING something, so competitions are a brilliant way to impose a deadline on yourself and get to the end of a draft. I started out writing Young Adult books, and my co-author Lucy Ivison and I decided to enter our first book into The Times/Chicken House children’s fiction competition. We were both working full-time, and it was so hard to motivate ourselves to write on the weekends and in the evenings after work, but the contest’s looming deadline gave us a reason to keep going. We would tell each other, ‘We HAVE to get this finished in time for that competition’, and honestly I think that’s the only reason we got it done! We ended up making the shortlist, and although we didn’t win, the book was still published anyway. So, I’d really advise having a search for any contests that cater for the kind of book you want to write, and then putting that deadline in your calendar as a goal to finish it by. You’ve got nothing to lose and so much to gain!

Can you tell us what you’re working on next?

I’m working on another novel for HQ called The Start of You and Me, which is inspired by volunteer work that I do on a crisis telephone helpline. It’s another uplifting romantic comedy, and you can read an extract right after this very interview! Aside from that, I’m finishing up an illustrated children’s book – based on some cartoon characters I invented when I was about nine – which should be out some time in 2021!

Extract

Did you fall in love with
All About Us?

Read on for an extract from Tom Ellen’s
uplifting and emotional new novel,
The Start of You and Me.

Disclaimer: this extract may be subject to
further editorial revisions before the final
version is published.

Will

Green Shoots Crisis Line: Evening Shift, 6pm – 11pm Thursday, 3rd March

It could be him.

That’s the thought running through my brain in this dingy little ground floor office, as the phone bursts into life for the first time this evening. It’s a ridiculous thought, but it’s there all the same.

It’s always there.

I push aside my Tupperware containing tonight’s dinner – a gluey clump of leftover tuna pasta – and feel my chest tighten as I lift the receiver: ‘Hello, Green Shoots?’

‘Oh… Hi. Sorry. Hi.’

The tightness slackens. It’s a woman’s voice. A voice I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard before. She sounds almost surprised that someone has answered.

‘Hi,’ I say. ‘How are you doing tonight?’

‘Sorry,’ she repeats. ‘This is weird. I don’t really know why I’m calling, actually.’

‘That’s OK.’