Best advice

It was almost a year ago when I was travelling with a group in Serbia that I received some sound advice from a Journalist (also travelling with us) at what was a critical time for me. I was in the throws of doing market research for Little Child to figure out where it would sit genre-wise on the book shelves in the real world. To be honest, I was losing the plot a little prior to my conversation with Roger. I'd written the book, I was still assuming the publishing industry was as it had been 15 years ago and I was struggling to fix my genre. I had a reading list lined up that I'd put together to help me decide, which consisted of a romantic suspense, a true life abuse novel, a couple of thrillers (one really fast paced, the other longer with many characters and sub plots), and two commercial fiction I'd bought on a whim because the story lines appealed to me - but I hadn't started yet. I wouldn't say I was doubting Little Child would sell at this point, but I was questioning whether I'd been too bold with the style and would it really appeal and grab people the way I'd intended it to. Roger said to me I should write for myself first and foremost and then consider the markets. If the story isn't coming from the heart, the end product will be stilted and artificial words on a page that no-one connects with. I'd always believed this and had written Little Child exactly as I wanted, so I guess Roger was just helping to reaffirm in my own mind that it was OK to be approaching this the way I was. He also said I'd make it in the end - and I did 6 months later. Thank you Roger!