Writing update: exciting news!

Posted on by alithurm

Retreat west logoAmanda Saint founder of Retreat West Books writes:

Ali Thurm signed for debut novel

Thrilled to have signed the debut novel from Ali Thurm for Retreat West Books. One Scheme of Happiness is a story of desire, obsession and delusion and just how far you will go to get what you think you want. It was shortlisted for the 2018 Cinnamon Debut Novel Award and the narrator Helen is telling the story of her complicated and deceitful friendship with married couple, Sam and Vicky.
Friends when they were children, they are all now in their forties and haven’t seen each other since school. Helen has remained in their home town to look after her sick mother and when Sam and Vicky return to try and repair their shaky marriage she gets embroiled in their games, but she’s also playing some of her own and things spiral out of control. Ali’s writing is beautiful and atmospheric, and I am very much looking forward to bringing this story to the world.

Ali Thurm is a novelist, poet and teacher living in London. Her poems have been published in magazines and anthologies, and in 2016 she was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. Her first poetry collection was shortlisted for the Cinnamon Press debut poetry collection in 2015. In 2017 she was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award and shortlisted for the First Novel Award (Daniel Goldsmiths). She also won a prize in the 2017 Troubadour International Poetry Competition. Ali completed City University’s Novel Studio course in 2013, where she worked on the draft of One Scheme of Happiness. She is represented by Emily Sweet at Emily Sweet Associates.
Ali said:

‘I’m thrilled that Retreat West Books has taken on One Scheme of Happiness. I’ve been working on the novel for several years with the support of a group of friends from my City University writing group and with advice from my agent, Emily Sweet. I’m looking forward to working with Amanda and to benefitting from her expert editorial skills to make the story really shine.
My first-person narrative explores what can happen to a character when the lid is
taken off her deeply-repressed emotions and how, without support, mental-health issues can lead to destructive and disastrous choices.’

One Scheme of Happiness will publish in February 2020.

 

Writing update

Posted on by alithurm

Sometimes you need to go back to a piece of writing you thought was finished. I completed the nth draft of my first novel about 18 months ago, and my lovely agent sent it out. Some positive comments but no takers. So I worked on my second novel, and then the third.

But a couple of months ago something made me want to read number 1 again. Partly because revising and editing is so much easier than producing new stuff,  and the new novel needs time to work out where it’s going – but also from a sense of curiosity. What was novel number 1 really like? Is it any good? Would I buy it? So I sat down and read it through, as if I was reading any novel. An interesting experience: some scenes were so familiar I knew every word, and others I could hardly remember. But most surprising was the ending – I thought I’d made it very clear, but when I read it again I realised it was not what I’d intended, or even what I thought I’d written…

So, for the last 6 weeks I’ve been redrafting. It’s even got a new title! Which I won’t share at the moment because I’m going to submit it for a few of the debut novel prizes that are coming up. I guess the process of having written two and a half novels has given me a better grasp of how to write a novel. If this one is ever published, it will genuinely be my first, but i suspect a lot of ‘first’ novels are likely to be third or even fourth ones… You can learn a lot on creative writing courses (thanks City University for The Novel Studio), but the best way to really get to grips with writing a novel is, (yes you have to read and read)  sit there with your laptop or pen and paper and (as my dad used to say) just get on with it!