Postscript

I started this blog with the story of my skiing accident. In the interests of full transparency, I should add that the mishap took place on my first ever skiing holiday. On the first full day. On a nursery slope. With an instructor. The turn I took too fast was the first turn I ever made. At a speed of approximately 0.1 km/hr. I was about as good at skiing as I was at writing – boundless enthusiasm, zero skill.

Publication in Spring 2019 will make it just over 7 years since I started writing The Chemical Detective.

Here’s the thing. Like all things in life, to do something well takes practice.

And luck.

Juliet Mushens told me that if I had approached her earlier, she would have rejected my submission. Knowing she was moving on, she wasn’t taking on new authors. My query just happened to land at exactly the right time, after she had settled in to her own agency and was looking for something new.

I can now ski down a black run, turn on a sixpence at high speed, jump over ice crevices, slew, stem and glide, soar off cliffs with a parachute billowing out behind me, all from the safety and comfort of my own study.

And if my writing is not yet as good as Jaq Silver’s skiing, it will only get better by doing more of it.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to writing the next adventure in the Jaq Silver series.

And then re-writing it.

Fiona Erskine’s debut thriller “The Chemical Detective” is published by the Oneworld imprint, Point Blank Books, available in all good bookshops and online here.