I had been thinking about writing a suffragette novel for sometime, certainly since 2010 anyway and I had made a couple of starts writing it, but the voice didn’t seem authentic. I’d bought a couple of books – ‘Suffragette Sally’ by Gertrude Colmore and ‘No surrender’ by Constance Maud to see what other people had written. I began my novel as it is now in 2011 when I was on a buddhist poetry and meditation retreat in Scotland. I don’t write poetry, however, Dhanakosha, on the edge of Loch Voil provided me with the space and inspiration to begin my novel. I then continued with it in fits and starts, sometimes even writing during my lunch hour at work!
Throughout the following months, I presented bits of it to my writing group for comment. Over the years which I have been a member of the group, I have found it very valuable to receive feedback on my work, and for their enthusiasm and insightful comments, I am very grateful. In this case, feedback involved looking at some of the accent – a lot of research into cockney followed. There was also analysis of my characters and depiction of events. When I thought I’d finished it, I went back over the whole work amending and making changes.
Then came the terrifying part, submitting it for publication…