Self – Portrait, Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

No more writing. My keyboard is silent. Red, green and black pens rest in my tiny tweed pencil case with a tree shaped pin piercing its skin.

Knowing when to stop working on a project is much more difficult than keeping going. My perfectionist genes don’t help. Would another run through uncover a hidden error or a character trait that needs a touch more nuance?

No. It’s time to declare my first fully formed novel complete. Time to thank my family once more for putting up with all those hours at my desk, distant moments as I work through a plot tangle, frustration as I weigh up the pros and cons of killing off a character completely (yes, I did).

My debut novel is finished. I owe huge thanks to my beta readers and to my wonderful editor, Helen Fazal, who has given the book pace and wings.

So now it’s time for me to find a literary agent who can bring the book to life and to a much broader audience. Someone who can help me with what I hope to be the beginning of a long and enjoyable second career.

Alongside an immense sense of achievement sits a feeling of loss. After working on Finding Vincent for a number of years, nursing the book through too many iterations and edits to count, I am plagued by a disconcerting feeling of dislocation. That uncomfortable sense that I’ve forgotten something. But I know what that is, I simply need to write. I need another huge project to fill my mind.

As I begin the work to find an agent I know for sure that I will also start work on the next book. As soon as I finished Finding Vincent the plot for a sequel jumped, in an almost fully formed state, into my mind and luckily my notebook!

So no, I won’t stop writing. I don’t think I can.