I was writing an earnest novel about cruises in the Caribbean and I just started writing 'Bridget Jones' to get some money, to finance this earnest work, and then I chucked it out.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I sold my first short story while I was home on maternity leave, then began working on novels. Since I was reading and enjoying romance novels at the time, the first two unpublished manuscripts I wrote were both romances. I sold my third novel, 'Call After Midnight,' to Harlequin Intrigue after submitting it unagented.
The first thing I did when I sold my book was buy a new wedding ring for my wife and asked her to marry me all over again.
As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.
In college, I wrote newspaper articles and songs. Then, on my 21st birthday, I sold my first book. It was a nonfiction book about women pirates - 'Pirates in Petticoats.' After that, I was a book writer for good.
As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.
I think I made my first short fiction sale in 2005. I had been writing unsuccessfully before that.
I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out if me with steel pipes.
A publisher saw one of my historical novels and thought I would write an admirable detective story, so she offered me a two-book contract, and I grabbed it.
Never before had I been offered a contract and advance before a word had been written... I went home and began writing 'Julie of the Wolves.'
Bridget Jones is part of literary lore now and actually to be a part of it is enormously flattering.