When I finished Masters in education in 2009, I was absolutely itching to get back to writing. Serendipity moment, a friend on a Regency/historical writers chat group mentioned an opportunity with a book packager called Working Partners - they do all the Beastquest books and a lot of other children's books. I wrote off with my CV, they got back in touch, sending me full character list and plot outline - literally chapter by chapter, and asked me to write the first three chapters. I was offered a contract. We shared rights 50-50, they owned the plot and characters, I owned the manuscript. This allows them to develop a series with different writers producing books so that they can hit a book every 4-6 weeks.
I wrote the book - my husband described it as the Write-by-Numbers book, like those paint by numbers oil paintings you used to be able to get before we all had Nintendo and iPads to occupy our time. It was a really fun experience, definitely got me back into the swing of writing long. I started in September, had draft ready by end of the year (about 75,000 words) and edited/revised/rewrote through Jan with daily exchanges by email with editor. All was ready and submitted on deadline by 1 March. Then I went to visit WP during the Easter hols, and it turned out that the woman who had commissioned my book and was planning to set up a historical line had done a bunk (she ran away to Texas to set up a drama group for small children in a bus

) and they really weren't going to bother to continue down that route. Haven't heard a dicky bird since, although they did pay me an advance, which I kept, because I'd fulfilled my side of the contract, and then they sent me statements and little Xmas presents (mini hamper, mini bottle of champers, mini box of chocs).
It was the first time that my work was really thoroughly edited. It was extremely rewarding and useful to learn that process. I've been an editor - I started my working life as a journalist and ran a newsletter on energy economics until I threw it all up for love and teaching, but I was not a fiction editor, and it was really instructive. I'm quite sad it was never published, because it was a cracking tale (18th century political scheming and louche aristos, duels and seductions, highwaymen etc etc), but hey ho!
