Tasha Harrison's Blog

It’s a long time since I’ve written a blogpost. I meant to write one in the months prior to Clementine Florentine being published. Then I totally meant to write one for my publication week back in January. But both times I lost my nerve. At a time when I thought I’d feel nothing but euphoric that the dream I’d been chipping away at for over 20 years had finally come true, I instead felt slightly paralysed and my head went to a bit of a dark place. Instead of feeling like shouting from the roofto...

I’m really excited to be mentoring again this year with the WriteMentor Summer Programme. Last year, after reading such a variety of brilliant applications, I mentored Philip Kavvadias, who went on to find representation with Amber Caraveo at Skylark Literary Agency. While I was torn between so many well-written and enjoyable entries, Phil’s story, Agents of Steel, Mission: Dinosaur, just struck a chord and had me chortling from the very first page.

What I’m looking for

While last year I was open...

My last post (about my 20 year rollercoaster journey to publication) seemed to strike a chord with lots of people – particularly this idea:

Failure and rejections aren’t painful. Craving and aversion is.

The concept that craving and aversion cause suffering is a Buddhist one. The more you desperately want something that seems to elude you (whatever that thing may be), the more suffering it causes you. Likewise, the more you don’t want something that you seem to be stuck with, the more suffering i...

It’s taken me 20 years to sign a traditional publishing deal. I’d love to shout from the rooftops about it, but as the release date isn’t for another year, I’ll have to wait a bit longer. However, I can talk about the journey I’ve had reaching this point. Mainly that it’s taken me a lot longer than I ever imagined, with lots of ups and downs.

I thought it might be helpful to share my experience with others, because I know how much endless rejection, shattered confidence and months of hard work c...

In my previous two posts I talked about how to write a strong cover letter and how to write a strong synopsis, using my own cover letter and synopsis for my teen novel, The Reinvention of Rolo Rawlings as examples. In this post I wanted to share what happened to The Reinvention of Rolo Rawlings after it got shortlisted in The Bath Children’s Novel Award 2017, found me a wonderful agent, underwent a few rounds of edits and then got sent out on submission in 2018.

My agent sent it out to 24 publish...

Writing a synopsis often feels harder than writing a novel. Just because it’s short, doesn’t mean it’s easy. On the contrary, a synopsis is a slippery little bugger that just won’t do what you want it to do. So here are some tips to help you, followed by the synopsis for a teen comedy I wrote a few years ago and found representation for.

(See my previous post on how to write a strong covering letter, and watch this space for my next post on the variety of responses that manuscript received from p...

I wanted to share a few tips on how to write a strong covering letter to agents. I signed with my agent in 2017 and you can see below – after my tips – an example of the covering letter I sent her. I hope you find this helpful.

Tips

You must tailor your covering letter to the agent you’re submitting to – regardless of whether you’re doing it one submission at a time, en masse, or somewhere in between. You should always research the agents you’re submitting to, investigating who and what they repre...

I was editing a manuscript recently and found myself making the point that the author’s protagonist hadn’t changed much between the first chapter and the last. This protagonist had been through a lot and their circumstances had changed radically, but despite that, their emotions, outlook and behaviour had not evolved or been much affected by what they’d experienced. They’d taken everything on the chin and kept their cool from start to finish.

It took me a long time to realise how significant a ch...

Finishing a first draft feels like a momentous achievement – for about five minutes until the angst sets in. Because when you read back through your manuscript, all the half-baked characters, plot holes, repetitions, inconsistencies, unnecessary details, missing details, superfluous scenes and general waffle will taunt you from the page, making you feel inadequate, unskilled, a FAILURE.

Scenes and chapters are in the wrong order. Some things don’t make sense. Other things aren’t plausible. The ...

I’m really excited to announce that this year I’ll be mentoring for the #WriteMentor Summer Mentoring Programme – whoop, whoop! Here’s a bit of blurb about myself, my experience, and what I’m offering.

Agent: Lauren Gardner at Bell Lomax Moreton Literary Agency

Published books: Middle Grade comedy Clementine Florentine currently on submission (and has hopefully found a home – fingers crossed, all being well!).

Genre: upper MG/YA contemporary comedy

Bio: For the last 15 years I’ve worked as a copywri...