I became familiar with the three-act structure and the five-act, the hero's journey and meaning of midpoint and inciting event. I gobbled up every book I could find on structure. It was time to learn the hard work of writing and I tried. What I had wasn't a book but a character in search of a story. But without the glue of a story to hold the whole thing together it was a waste of time. And some of the characters were promising. Then I reread but even I could see what was left was no good, a weak tale, full of unlikely coincidences and plot holes. I eliminated the worst of the excesses: the woman who lived in a tree in Hyde Park the stolen and hidden baby and many other plot delights.

I took a deep breath - I am nothing if not tenacious - and rewrote. 'All over the place' is another phrase I remember. While readers loved Jen, the plot left them cold. The truth when it came was difficult to swallow. And I was ready to tackle them, to perfect my book before sending it out to the agents and publishers who I was sure would be eager to claim it for their own. I was still not that far along my 'learning to write' journey, so I honestly thought there'd be a bit of prose finessing to do and maybe a couple of scenes that didn't quite hit the mark. A bit of tidying, no, a LOT of tidying and On The Edge Version ONE was ready for beta reading. A few months later the first draft was on paper. What more did I need? I started writing the next day letting my imagination take me where it will and it took me to a lot of strange places. Anyway I had an opening scene and a character desperate to talk to me.

On the edge jane jesmond