Emma White

Sounds good.

So I can't believe it's been five years.

It feels impossible.

I started seriously writing back in 2020, very pandemic activity, taking it seriously.

I'd been interested before and had this idea for a story, but never had really spent the time, butt in chair, writing it.

And so between 2020 and 2021, I wrote my first manuscript, which was what I queried on The Shit No One Tells You About Writing.

I think we recorded an episode in June 2021 and got a few full requests.

I got rejections for those full requests, which was devastating because I didn't understand at the time.

I thought, you get a full request, you've basically got an offer.

Not true.

And so that was...

That was an important learning curve.

But what was really helpful was that the entire time that I was querying the first book, I was working on the second manuscript.

So I wrote a second book.

I would say 2022 to 2023.

Started querying in 2023.

Again, got a few full requests, got the same rejections back.

And in that same time, had been working on my third.

So Venom Lake is actually my third manuscript.

And I wrote that between 2023 to 2024.