The Debut Experience by Charlotte Paradise

My debut novel experience surprises people and, to be honest, it still surprises me.

Overspill is a novel about learning to love with a trauma history for fans of Sally Rooney and the film Sorry, Baby with extra yearning and complex-PTSD representation. While the book is a little shocking itself, the thing that really surprises people is that I sold it before I’d finished writing the first draft.

In January 2020 after having my publishing dream reignited by Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, I began writing about dating with vaginismus. Six months into a global pandemic with a third of the first manuscript I’d ever written, I hit a wall. It was time to take a break. I just didn’t realise it would last thirteen whole months.

A few weeks after beginning to flirt with the idea of picking the book back up again, I saw a call out from HarperCollins looking for pitches from un-agented and underrepresented voices. There was no clearer sign: it was time to jump (very slowly crawl) into the project. I sent off my application with three chapters genuinely expecting to hear nothing, simply grateful it provided an excuse to restart writing. So when I was emailed by a commissioning editor four months later, the real shocks began. I set off writing a few more chapters to send over to them, which was followed by an offer letter. Many joyful tears and screams later, it dawned on me… I had to actually write the first draft.

It isn’t until now that I realise how unique and challenging an experience it is to write your first ever draft of a novel to send directly to an editor at HarperCollins. There’s pressure and then there’s pressure.

One of the hardest parts of writing for me is trying to tune out the noise of comparison, competition and self-doubt. Having a publishing deadline meant I was embedded in the noise of the industry before having the luxury of knowing I could write mess that wouldn’t ever be read. What if the draft doesn’t meet the Big Five standard? What if they regret signing this unrepresented, very fresh writer? Talk about noise!

With the help of a twelve-hour book playlist, an intensely long moodboard, and what we called a “trauma informed writing process”, I turned in a 120,000-word manuscript and a lot of my soul. A good few edits after that, with 40,000 words cut and a new point of view added, the book went off to print and it started to feel real that I was a debut author.

A tip for the editing process: plan something to do for when you hand in a big structural edit. Handing over a manuscript that’s been your whole world is intense. I needed a bridge between realities and I’d encourage you to do the same. (Bonus points if it’s a little tour of the locations in your book. For me, that was a North London optician and vegan food crawl.)

I think it’s assumed that the writing of the novel is where all the work lies. But then there’s the marketing and everything that happens (or doesn’t happen) after you publish. And then there’s being a debut author and navigating all of that without experience. And then there’s being a Disabled debut author without any experience. I can’t pretend that the first year of being an author has been easy. Online, you see the very shiny parts, the dream-come-trues of speaking at the Women’s Prize Live and Cheltenham Literature Festival. The truth is that the fight for accessibility, the managing of unmet expectations and the relentlessness of posting online lasts longer than the fun events do.

So, what makes it worth it? Well, you do. I set out to write Overspill to help at least one person feel less alone and ashamed for living with vaginismus and c-PTSD. Getting messages from people saying they felt seen after reading the book have been some of the most rewarding moments not just of my writing life but my whole life.

Publishing a novel is exposing and challenging in so many ways but when you write to advocate, and when that story touches people, there is hope.