2013-05-22T06:52:15-04:00 Rachael Lucas http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=rachael-lucas Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rachael Lucas Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3236496 2013-05-10T19:00:00-04:00 2013-05-10T11:47:06-04:00

Rachael Lucas http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachael-lucas/
The last month has been completely bonkers. There I was marvelling at the fact that Sealed with a Kiss was still number one in the Amazon romance chart, and floating in and around the top ten of the overall Amazon chart. It's been downloaded over 60,000 times since I hit the publish button on the 10 of February. That's an impossible number to imagine (believe me, I've tried).

I hadn't really had any thoughts about what would happen next - I thought I'd get on with book two (and three, because they seem to be coming at the same time, like twins). People were asking for a sequel, to find out what happens next. The thing about Sealed with a Kiss is that it's only 64,000 words. That was a deliberate choice: I wanted it to be rainy afternoon length. As it is I love that reviewers have said they've ended up staying up late into the night reading it.

And then the emails started arriving from agents. My instinctive reaction was to steer clear - I was quite liking the whole going-it-alone self-publishing thing.

But one of them caught my eye. Dear Rachael, I love your book and your writing, it said. It was from Amanda Preston at LBA, a literary agency. (It said loads of other stuff too, which didn't really go in at the time because I was too busy saying "OOOH", and remembering that they represented my blogging chum Cherry Menlove). I spoke to some writing and publishing friends and said 'what d'you think?' and they all said Do It. And I messaged Cherry and said "Is she okay?" and got a resounding "YES!!!".

So we met up whilst I was in London. We had coffee in the (very lovely) Charlotte Street Hotel and talked about books and self publishing and our favourite authors and how much we loved Mary Wesley and I thought "I like this person". But I was still a bit wary of signing away my freedom. It's the strangest thing. I'm sitting in a hotel talking books with an agent who has come looking for ME and I'm thinking well, she seems nice, but I'm really not sure. It's the literary equivalent of someone offering you a brand new Porsche and you saying 'thanks, but I'm more of an Aston Martin girl, I'll leave it'.

So I went out for tapas and wine with my sister and my friend Vic, and mused about it. By 10.30 I emailed Amanda and said okay, send me the contract so I can get Vic to read it over. (Luckily almost all my friends seem to be in the book world, one way or another.)

And that's how I found myself the next morning waiting for a bus in the rain.



A bus to Notting Hill, like someone from a Richard Curtis film.

And then I was walking past Bloomsbury Square. Bloomsbury! Honestly, it couldn't be more like something out of a film.

We'll gloss over the fact that the reason I walked past Bloomsbury Square was that I was so enthralled with the whole I'm Actually In A Film thing that I completely missed the LBA office and had to walk back again.



And then there I was, in the gorgeous, booky, just-how-you-imagine-it-should-be offices and I met everyone and they were all awfully nice and then Amanda and I (who were both a bit excited, actually, which is JUST why I knew she was the perfect person to be my agent, plus she likes gin, so that's A Good Thing) signed the contract.

And now the hard work starts...

(originally posted at http://rachaellucas.com)]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1946028 2012-10-07T19:00:00-04:00 2012-12-07T05:12:02-05:00

Rachael Lucas http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachael-lucas/
"I think that politicians do have to think about what we say, and the trouble with Twitter is, too many Tweets might make a twat."




I know, you thought you'd backtrack on that with a little quip (I promise there won't be "too many Tweets...") And I imagine you thought you'd maybe follow the usual suspects, like @stephenfry and @barackobama





and maybe @thetorygraph and then you'd pop up once in a while and tell the world what you were having for breakfast, and send us an instagram or two of your cat in amusing positions.

Except your cat doesn't think much of your plan:




And people (like fellow Huffington Post UK writer Sian S. Rathore) will ask awkward questions:





Because the trouble with Twitter is it's full of real, opinionated people. The ones you're shafting on a daily basis. And the #askdave hashtag on there is full of everything that's good about this country. not that you'll read it, of course. Which is a shame.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1503972 2012-05-09T16:48:52-04:00 2012-07-09T05:12:04-04:00

Rachael Lucas http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachael-lucas/
The trouble with an amicable divorce is this: without the twin spurs of anger and hatred, what you're left with is a lurking shadow of guilt. It doesn't matter how much you know you're doing the right thing for yourself - and ultimately your children - it's hard to escape the feeling that you've failed at being a grown up. The clear sight of children can help: sat on the floor surrounded by ancient holiday snaps and ancient school reports, I was weeping silently with nostalgia for a past which I was rewriting as perfect. Could we have tried harder to make things work? My ten year old son sat down and put his arms around me.

'You're sad about you and Daddy splitting up.'
Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I nodded, damply.
'But it's much better now, because you're friends. And if you'd stayed together you'd have just kept fighting and then you'd have been enemies.'

If my four children could see it, it was time for me to do the same and pull myself together. Painful as it is, we're lucky to be in this situation. We both want the best for the children, we want to work together, and we're going to do our damnedest not to do a Philip Larkin ('They f*ck you up...').

Strange as it seems, I consider myself lucky to grow up with divorced parents - they were the most cohesive parenting unit I knew. They were also the best of friends, a relationship which lasted right up to my father's death. I'd like my children to grow up feeling the same way. Let's face it - none of us plan to get divorced, but with the divorce rate continuing to rise, showing my children how to manage an amicable split might prove to be a vital lesson in life.]]>