One Endless Summer was published by HQ on April 20th 2017. It is available for Kindle and in Paperback.
Three best friends.
Three continents.
Three months to live.
How long can you keep a secret?
Three best friends are embarking on an all-expenses paid trip of their dreams. The only catch? Every moment will be documented on film.
Lizzie’s battle with cancer is coming to an end, and now she’s ready to embrace adventure for the very first time. There are only three months, but it is Lizzie’s time to finally start living!
Jaddi is known for her stunning looks, flirtatious attitude and many conquests. But Jaddi has a secret and on this last trip together she needs to decide whether her best friends will ever know the real her.
Samantha has always been the ‘grown up’ of the group, the one with a five year plan. What Lizzie and Jaddi don’t know is that Sam is trapped, and her perfect life isn’t quite what it seems…
As they trek across the globe Lizzie, Jaddi and Samantha must come to terms with loss, love and trusting one another. But will it all be too late…
One Endless Summer
My rollercoaster journey to publication
When I hear Ronan Keating singing: “Life is a rollercoaster,
just gotta ride it,” I always wonder if he’s singing about the life of a
writer, because for every high we have, a low always follows. From the
day-to-day feeling of writing a good or bad chapter, to obsessively checking
Amazon rankings, life for us authors really is a rollercoaster.
One Endless Summer (released on 20th April by HQ/Harper
Collins) is a journey in every sense of the word. It’s the journey by three
best friends to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, and America. It’s also
a journey of friendship and love and the unravelling of secrets. Just as there
are highs and lows within this story, the journey of its creation was also a
rollercoaster ride.
This is my
rollercoaster journey of One Endless Summer (so far!)
January 2015 High and
Low
A massive high came when I grabbed hold of the idea for One
Endless Summer. I knew straight away that this was going to be a very different
style of book and I was so excited, but there was also a huge amount of
self-doubt. Could I write it? Did I have the skills to convey the emotions I
knew this novel would need? In the end I
decided there was only one way to find out...I had to start writing.
April 2015 - High
A literary agent called me (for the first time ever!) to
tell me that she liked my writing but didn’t love it enough to sign me. This
was for a previous book, and whilst it was a rejection she gave me a crucial
piece of advice about my style - don’t be afraid to add depth. She loved the sound
of One Endless Summer and encouraged me to send it to her when it was finished.
I danced around the kitchen and sat back down to work.
May - August 2015
Highs and Lows again
In the thick of the novel there were days when I loved every
word that poured onto the page. Then there were days when I agonised over a
comma. I was desperate for feedback and any kind of validation that I was onto
something different, but for that I had to finish.
September 2015 Higher
and Higher and rock bottom
I finished the first draft! YAY! There are few better
feelings for us writers than writing THE END. I sent a submission back to the
agent and she requested the full manuscript (another first!). Then the no came, along with some extremely
harsh feedback which stung for a long time.
October - December
2015 Lower still
Suddenly all my confidence was gone. I tried a few more
agents but after more rejections I stopped and went back to the drawing board.
I needed editorial help; I needed to know if my gut feeling about this book was
right. So I paid a lot of money to have it edited.
January - March 2016
Climbing again (slowly)
The editorial feedback gave me something to work on. Again,
I wasn’t convinced the editor had grasped what I was trying to achieve, but I
felt I was making progress. I was also accepted for an agent one-to-one at the
London Book Fair, which would be my first ever face-to-face meeting with a
literary agent.
In March I plucked up the confidence to submit One Endless
Summer directly to a publisher who didn’t require authors to be agented. They
wanted the full manuscript. YAY!
April 2016 Lows and
scraping the sky
The agent one-to-one did not go well. “The concept of three
main characters travelling the world just wouldn’t work,” she said. I was about
to give up on the idea of traditional publication and self-publish when I
received a call from the publisher I’d submitted it to. They loved it. Really
loved it! Would I consider a two-book deal? umm YES!
The rollercoaster didn’t stop there, but at least I had an
amazing editor sitting beside me on the ride. Someone who saw what I saw in my
novel.
I’m still on the rollercoaster now and face daily highs and
lows with the novel I’m writing, but with the added nerves of having One
Endless Summer out there for everyone to read. Looking back, my journey from
starting my novel to signing with a publisher was a short one, but it came
after ten years of writing and submissions. Ten years of riding the
rollercoaster.
My advice to anyone else thinking of writing a novel or who
has made the leap and started - Hold on tight, persevere. Don’t get off!
Thank you Leah for having me as a guest on Reflections of a
Reader.
About the Author:
Laurie lives in a small village on the Suffolk borders, with her
husband, two children, and their cockerpoo, Rodney. When she is not
disappearing into the fictional world of her characters, preferably with a
large coffee and a Twix (or two) to hand, she is running through the
countryside, burning off the chocolate intake and plotting her next chapter.
To find out more visit www.laurie-ellingham.com, or find her on Twitter
@LaurieEllingham and Facebook Laurie Ellingham Author
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