Ten questions with Carole Johnstone
What an inspiring story! Carole Johnstone put in the time and hard work, facing multiple rejections only to have her debut novel Mirrorland spark a bidding war among publishers and garner acclaim from some of the biggest names in fiction like Stephen King (“I loved Mirrorland. Dark and devious…beautifully written and plotted with a watchmaker’s precision’) and Ruth Ware (“[a] dark, twisty and richly atmospheric exploration of the power of imagination.”)
1. Please tell us about your debut novel.
Mirrorland is a gothic thriller set in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Cat lives in Los Angeles, about as far away as she can get from her estranged twin sister El and No. 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where they grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband Ross.
But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to the grand old house, which has scarcely changed in twenty years. No. 36 Westeryk Road is still full of shadowy, hidden corners, and at every turn Cat finds herself stumbling on long-held secrets and terrifying ghosts from the past. Because someone—El?—has left Cat clues all over the house: a treasure hunt that leads right back to Mirrorland, where she knows the truth lies crouched and waiting...
2. I’ve read that only 4% of the people who start a novel, finish writing it. Why do you think you beat the odds?
Well, for a long time I didn’t! In my twenties and thirties I started and didn’t finish numerous novels for a variety of reasons. Either I’d get bored, or have what I thought was a better idea, or I’d write myself into a corner and have no idea how to get out of it. Writing a novel really is a huge learning process. In the end I gave up and turned to short story writing instead. For over ten years I sold short stories and novellas all over the world, particularly in the US, and that taught me so much about the writing process, enough that eventually I felt ready to try writing a novel again. And this time, finish it!
3. Was your debut novel the first book you wrote? (Any prior efforts hiding on your hard drive?)
See my previous answer – absolutely not! Although I only actually finished one novel before Mirrorland. It was kind of a practice run, I think. When I finished Mirrorland, it was the first time that I truly felt like I’d written a book. I do, however, have a lot of unfinished manuscripts on my hard drive that will probably never see the light of day!
4. What helped you become a better writer? Any books or resources you found helpful?
It’s a boring answer, but practice is what made me a better writer. Short story writing made me a better writer. And, I think most importantly, being edited by many wonderful editors over the years because of my short story writing made me a better writer. I became a good self-editor: I learned how to be critical of my own work, how to edit it, how to be brutally honest about it, and most importantly, how to recognise that something isn’t working and how to fix it. I know now that not having those skills is why I could never finish a novel.
In terms of resources, I remember reading Stephen King’s On Writing in the mid 2000s. I have been a lifelong Stephen King fan – his brilliant short stories are why I started writing short stories of my own – and this book was full of fantastic insights into the writing and publishing process. But other than that I’ve never really read any how-to books on writing or publishing, and I have no qualifications in writing. But what I have always done is read, read, read anything and everything!
5. What was your process like getting an agent?
Getting an agent was, for me, the hardest and most longwinded part of the whole publishing process. Once I finished Mirrorland, I started subbing to agents in big London agencies, and within a few weeks I got my first full manuscript request, soon followed by half a dozen more. I pre-emptively celebrated, somewhat naively thinking that was it – but weeks and then months went by and I heard absolutely nothing. And then the rejections started coming in. I think on one awful day I got three in a row!
I coped by doing what I’d always done with my short story writing, I just sent out more submissions to more agents. But after about six months, I was feeling pretty deflated. I remember thinking to myself that Mirrorland was the best book I could have written, and that if I couldn’t get an agent on the strength of that maybe I had to face the fact that I never would. About a week later, I got an email from one of the very first agents I’d initially subbed to offering me immediate representation. And then two more subsequent offers from other agents. I ended up travelling down to London and meeting them all before signing with Hellie Ogden of Janklow & Nesbit. I’ve subsequently found that this is a recurring theme in publishing – absolute crickets for months on end during which you begin to think that you’re probably the worst writer in the world, followed by absolutely everything happening overwhelmingly at once!
6. How did you celebrate when you learned your book would be published?
Ironically, the process of getting published was so much easier than getting an agent! I was really lucky in that I sold the TV rights before the book itself which generated a lot of interest and it ended up going to auction in both the UK and the US. It was such an exciting manic time. I went down to London for the final bidding round and the last three publishers gave pitches as to why they should be the publisher of Mirrorland. In the evenings I was speaking to US publishers on the phone as that auction went on too. It was utterly surreal. For years, I’d been subbing to slush piles, editors, publishers, agents, quite often hearing absolutely nothing back. And all of a sudden, publishers were effectively subbing to me! I can’t describe how strange that felt. Amazing, but completely bizarre!
My husband and I were actually driving back home to Scotland when Hellie phoned with the final UK and US offers, and once we decided on both, we stopped at a service station and Iain bought me a mini bottle of champagne which I had in the car park! I’d always expected that if I ever got a publication deal, the moment I found out would be so happy. But what I overwhelmingly felt was relief. I don’t think I’d realised just how much pressure I’d put on myself through the whole process, or how terrified I’d been that this was my one and only chance at ever being a writer and I would fail.
7. What was the most exciting moment involving the publication of your debut novel? (The moment you first saw the cover? The call when you learned when it was being published? When you cashed your advance check?)
I think the first one was when Hellie got in touch to say that we’d had an offer for the TV option rights to Mirrorland before the book even had a publisher. It was a fantastic offer from Heyday TV and NBC Universal. It was a real WHAT??!! moment, is this really happening?
The second would be a tie between Stephen King reading and enjoying Mirrorland enough to give me a quote for the cover, which I still very much haven’t processed, and the moment I got my publishing contracts from HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. Until I’d signed on the dotted line it was hard not to believe that it might all be taken away again!
8. What’s your best advice for someone who wants to be published?
The simplest thing, but often the hardest thing, is to never give up. You’ll want to a hundred times. Whether because you think your writing is crap, or because you’re blocked, or because you’ve lost count of the number of rejections you’re racking up, or the lack of responses you’re getting. There are so many reasons to give up, and most of them start in your head. Try not to listen and just keep writing, keep submitting. For every rejection you get send out another sub, and just keep going.
9. What are you currently reading? Or, what's one of the best novels you've read lately?
I’m lucky in that I get sent a lot of proofs from publishers so generally they are what I read more often than not. I’m currently reading Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward and The Drift by C.J. Tudor. Both are amazing writers and I’m really enjoying both! I also recently read Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney and The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves. I generally don’t read a lot of detective crime fiction, but I’m a huge fan of Cleeves’ writing!
10. What are you working on now? Any projects coming out soon?
My second book, a gothic island suspense set in Scotland called The Blackhouse is out now in both the UK and the US:
Robert Reid moved his family to the Outer Hebrides in 1993, driven by hope, craving safety and community, and hiding a terrible secret. But despite his best efforts to fit in, Robert is always seen as an outsider. And as the legendary and violent Hebridean storms rage around him, he begins to unravel, believing his fate on the remote island of Kilmeray cannot be escaped.
Maggie MacKay has been haunted her entire life. No matter what she does, she can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with her. And maybe something is…
When she was five years old, without proof, Maggie announced that someone in the remote village of Blairmore on Kilmeray had murdered a local man, sparking a media storm.
Now, Maggie is determined to discover what really happened and what the villagers are hiding. But everyone has secrets, and some are deadly. As she gets closer to the horrifying truth, Maggie’s own life is in danger…
Other than that, I’m halfway through writing my third book, another – you guessed it – gothic thriller! I’m keeping everything crossed that my publishers love it, although of course that’s never guaranteed. So much of writing is feeling the fear and doing it anyway!
