There’s a lot in my head right now but this won’t be long. Hopefully?

Getting onto #WriteNow was the confidence boost I needed. Finally, someone, in some professional capacity, liked my work and thought it was good enough to submit to Penguin.

I entered the programme in 2020 and it has been quite slow since then, that’s not an issue in and of itself, but when you’ve been writing a story for ten years, submitting for two years (to much rejection), you get accustomed to thinking yourself into a ditch, talking yourself out of confidence, and succumbing to self-deprecation.

My mentor used the word “angry” to describe my book the other day. He said it in passing, but it reminded me of how often I felt misunderstood when submitting my work, as well as all the crap I went through on the masterclass.

I’ve been desperately writing the first instalment of an urban fantasy series set in London. It’s been a breath of fresh air to get into another world, but I had always envisioned that by this point in my life TWENTY-NINETEEN would be published and dealt with, and the as-yet Unnamed Fantasy would be making its way into the world.

TWENTY-NINETEEN is a racial dystopia set in the near-future, but I did not write it for white people, to try to convince them or make them sympathise with me. I did not write it to make doomsday predictions about the future. I wrote it as a metaphor for what it feels like to be Black and British now: misunderstood, a part of my identity constantly criminalised, my Britishness just an act of courtesy and tolerance, but at the same time, it speaks of endurance, celebration, fun and laughter, and the revolutionary act of self-love.

There are a lot of white people involved in the publishing world, and from the first day I sent this book out (albeit with an inferior draft), I have had to fight against the crippling feeling that the text isn’t being understood properly, or read correctly. This has led to a bit of literary exhaustion: I’m editing a book with a lot of heavy things in it, and then in the real world I feel like I have to fight to be understood yet again.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Apart from that throwaway comment, my mentor has been kind and encouraging. But I don’t want to return to all those dark feelings from way back when, back when I used to look at all those drafts in my USB and say “this might not ever happen for you”.

So, this November I’m joining NaNoWriMo to finish off the fantasy draft. It will be fun and silly, and I’ll remind myself that I can do this, and that soon enough, TWENTY-NINETEEN will be on a bookshelf, along with all the wonderful books of my fellow WriteNow classmates. I’m nearing the final stretch now. I just have to believe in myself.