Write Smarter with Sheena Wilkinson

Today, for my final Write Smarter Blog post, I am delighted to welcome Sheena Wilkinson.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank every writer who willingly shared their advice with us all. It’s very much appreciated and I do hope you all discovered some nuggets of wisdom to assist you on your writing journey. Don’t forget all the Write Smarter blog posts are available to read at any time so do drop by when you are ‘passing’.

Described in The Irish Times as ‘one of our foremost writers’, Sheena Wilkinson has published twelve novels for children, teens and adults. She has won many awards for novels, short stories and memoirs, including the CBI Book of the Year in 2013 for Grounded. Her most recent books are the Fernside series, a homage to the girls’ school story, and the ‘briskly witty delight’ (Irish Times) Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau and sequel Miss McVey Takes Charge. Star by Star (a Booktrust ‘Future Classic’, 2018) has just been reissued in a new edition by Little Island. Sheena is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and teaches writing in many contexts. She lives in County Derry.

When my first novel, Taking Flight, was published in 2010, bringing multiple awards; great reviews; festival bookings and general BUZZ, I was thrilled. Though not as thrilled as I should have been. I simply thought this was what being a writer was like. I remember thinking, Now I’ll never be rejected again. I have made it! Oh, the naivety! And I was forty, a shiny debut but surely too old to be so naïve!

Sixteen years and twelve novels later, I’m a multi-award-winning writer with a great agent, and a much better writer than I was in 2010. I was able to leave my day job in 2013 and have made a steady if modest living ever since, partly from royalties and advances, but mostly through giving writing workshops. I am well established.

Yet, in those years I have had more rejections than acceptances. More ghostings than rejections. I self-published my most recent book, Miss McVey Takes Charge – something past me would have been shocked at. At the moment, I have no commissions, no contracts, no deadlines except what I impose on myself.

But I haven’t stopped being a writer. As a child, I loved the book Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh, 1964). When Harriet’s notebook, containing ‘honest’ observations, is discovered by her friends, they are horrified. The book is confiscated, and a terrified Harriet sent to Coventry. On the way home she buys a new notebook. Because writing is what Harriet does. Being a writer is who Harriet is.

I feel the same way. Real life is grand, but since I was nine I have always had a fictional world marching alongside it, a story I could escape into. Without that, I wouldn’t be much fun to live with. When I’m not writing, I’m not me.

But writing isn’t the same as publishing. And publishing, as anyone who isn’t a shiny debut can tell you, is a strange business. It moves scarily fast and infinitesimally slowly. It doesn’t always know what it wants until it gets it. And then it might not want it anymore. Or it might want it, only with dragons. It can’t always explain why some books sell millions and other, perhaps better books – though that’s always a subjective judgement – don’t. We writers often believe that the books with the biggest marketing budgets are the ones that succeed. But it’s not always that simple.

My first adult novel, Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau (HarperCollins, 2023) was one of those novels that readers loved – only not enough readers, which is why HarperCollins declined to publish the sequel, Miss McVey Takes Charge (Writers Review Publishing, 2025). The me of fifteen years ago would have cried, sworn and raged against the vicissitudes of fashion. The me of today did all that, and then, being smarter and more proactive these days,self-published the book, investing in top-quality editing, proofreading and cover design, for which I was grateful for support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. I was thrilled last week when the book was long-listed for the CAP Aware Awards for independently-published books.  A glance at that long-list reveals that, nowadays, all sorts of people self-publish, for all sorts of reasons. I am by no means the only established, mostly traditionally-published writer on that list.

Do I want to self-publish the book I’m working on now, a mystery for adults set in a 1920s girls’ school? No. I want a traditional deal, where the publisher does their job, and I do mine. But we don’t always get what we want, and if I have learned anything in the last sixteen years, it’s that writing smarter means being prepared to pivot, and try different ways of doing things.

And hoping. Like many writers I’m all too capable of imagining the worst. But that means I am also capable of imagining the best. What does the best look like for me? A wonderful publishing deal, a TV or film deal, more awards? Yes please to all of the above!

But deep down, what I really want is to keep writing, and being published. Because like Harriet the Spy, that’s who I am, and that’s what I do.

https://www.sheenawilkinson.com

[ Latest Books by Sheena Wilkinson ]

It’s 1936. April is now in charge of True Minds Marriage Bureau, finding futures for the lovelorn of Easterbridge and beyond. After two years of matchmaking, she thinks she’s seen it all. But when a young nun consults her, even April can have no idea of the consequences, especially when an old friend arrives from Ireland, with a broken heart that’s well beyond April’s experience.
Meanwhile, the menace of fascism marches ever closer to Easterbridge. Will April have the courage to stand against it? And even if she does, at what cost?

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Fernside House, nestled at the end of a quiet road, is waiting for eighty girls to disturb its holiday peace … Cousins Robin and Linnet are back at Fernside and school life is busier than ever – with the animals at Rowanbank, a new science class, netball rivalry and fun in the dorms. But the end-of-term exams are not the only test for the girls. As the lower fourth face the good and the bad times of growing up and the cancellation of the Christmas Show, a surprise ‘new’ girl challenges them to understand what it really means to be a true friend at Fernside.

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