I’m delighted to post this author Q&A with super-talented journalist and author Michelle McDonagh. I absolutely loved her debut novel There’s Something I Have To Tell, which was released in 2023, and was very curious to find out about her path to publication.
Here Michelle spills the beans on how she got a two-book deal with Hachette Ireland after years of abandoning half-written novels. Read on and be inspired!
Q&A with Michelle McDonagh
Did you always want to be a writer? Do you think your upbringing played a role in your success as a journalist and author?
As a child, I loved writing stories and my father nurtured my love of reading and writing from a young age. He brought myself and my sister into the library in Galway city every Saturday morning as children, and often sat at the kitchen table helping me with my stories.
He was an avid reader of true crime books and murder mystery magazines which might be where the darkness in my own writing comes from as I was reading them far younger than I should have been.
I never imagined a career in writing until the career guidance teacher in school suggested I should go into journalism, but even though I enjoyed writing for newspapers, that compulsion inside me to write fiction never went away.
Did you experience much rejection before getting your debut novel There’s Something I Have to Tell You published? If so, was there anything in particular that helped you to stay motivated?
There’s Something I Have To Tell You is the first book I ever finished. I started a number of books over the years, but never got beyond 30,000 words. I would write myself into a cul-de-sac because I had no plan, or keep going back to try to perfect what I already had.
The thing that motivated me to finish my debut was the looming of my 50th birthday in the not so distant future.
I had spent years talking about how much I wanted to write a book, but never actually doing it and I thought if I didn’t do it then, I’d never do it.
I had spent years talking about how much I wanted to write a book, but never actually doing it and I thought if I didn’t do it then, I’d never do it.
Michelle McDonagh
I was extremely fortunate to have early interest from a publisher who requested the full manuscript, and to get an agent and a two book deal quite quickly after that.
You’ve mentioned in interviews that you took a number of creative writing classes and read countless books on fiction. Which of these courses and books were your favourites?
I joined the Writers Ink Facebook group on writing.ie which got my creative juices flowing again, and really encouraged me to keep going.
I then enrolled on an online novel writing course with the Faber Academy in the UK which taught me about the craft of writing, including, importantly how to plan. I was determined after that to get to The End for the first time after that.
The book that helped me most out of the many I’ve read is The War on Art by Stephen Pressfield. He explains that it’s not the writing part that’s hard, it’s the sitting down to write, and it’s resistance that keeps us from sitting down.
The only way to defeat resistance is to sit at your desk and start working.
Michelle Mcdonagh
Other books I found helpful were Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, The Right to Write by Julia Cameron and On Writing by Stephen King.
You’re represented by the literary agent Faith O’Grady (read more about Faith here). How did this come about and how has Faith helped you with your writing career?
Faith was one of the first agents I submitted to and she was passionate about my writing from the beginning.
I went to meet her at the Lisa Richards Agency in Dublin after she had read the full manuscript and she offered me representation. I was so thrilled.
She is such a great sounding board, and always has my back. Unlike me, Faith is not easily rattled, I’m hoping some of her calmness rubs off on me.
She has just negotiated a second two-book deal for me with Hachette Ireland which I’m really excited about.
Your debut novel was published in 2023 by Hachette Ireland. Can you tell us how this deal came about? How did you feel when you realised you were going to be a published author? Did you do anything in particular to celebrate?
I had been offered a one-book deal by another big five publisher, but Hachette Ireland were offering a two-book deal and the security of that really appealed to me. I liked the idea of having an editor to work on from the outset of the second book.
I was in Spain when the contract came through and I signed it out there and we celebrated that night, but it didn’t feel real. It had been my dream for so long that I couldn’t quite believe it had happened.
Michelle mcdonagh
I thought it would seem real when I saw the book in the shops, but it still didn’t for a long time. It was quite surreal.
The big celebration was the book launch in Galway with all my family and friends around me, that was a night I’ll never forget.
Working with Hachette Ireland and, in particular, my editor Ciara Considine has been such an amazingly positive experience.
Are you working on a second novel and, if so, could you tell us a little bit about it?
My second novel Somebody Knows is out in May 2024. It’s another rural drama, a story of dark secrets and the lengths people will go to keep them.
As her adoptive mother lies dying, journalist Cara Joyce overhears a shocking piece of information about her origins. The information connects her to an unsolved death – that of Lucia Casey, a young woman whose body was found buried in a Connemara bog over thirty years ago. To this day, the mystery of Lucia’s disappearance and death remains unsolved.
Cara’s quest to find out happened reunites her with the powerful Casey family. But as her obsession with the truth begins to take over her life, she finds herself increasingly at odds with those around her. Who is behind Lucia’s death and what are they hiding? And what will Cara risk in the present to solve the mysteries of the past?
What kind of discipline does it take to fit writing into your daily life? Do you have any rituals that help to inspire your writing?
I don’t write every day but when I am in the thick of a book, I do force myself to close my door to the breakfast mess and the laundry etc and to sit at the desk every morning until it’s time to collect my youngest child from school at 2.30pm.
I love lighting nice candles while I’m working and drinking coffee.
It’s great to get away every now and then on my own for a few days to focus solely on the writing, particularly if I’m coming to the end of a book, but with three kids, that’s a very rare luxury.
What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve been given?
The best advice I’ve ever heard is from the author Neil Gaiman whose quotes I have stuck to the wall around my desk. He says the biggest pitfall to avoid is not writing. ‘You have to write and you have to finish what you write and beyond that, it’s all detail’.
He also points out that ‘In a novel you can always go back and make it looks like you knew what you were doing all along before the thing goes out and gets published’.
Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring authors trying to crack the world of publishing, but who might be getting disheartened?
I would advise anybody who can afford it to pay a professional editor to look at your manuscript and get it into the best possible shape before you send it out.
And always remember that the vast majority of published authors are writers who kept going despite rejections.
Somebody Knows by Michelle McDonagh will be published by Hachette Ireland in May 2024
