Write Your Own Book in 2010

So, you're going to write a book are you?

Is this the same book you've been intending to write for 10 years and never got around to? I see the excuses because I've been there, "I can never find time", "Once I get home I'm too tired", "What's the point? People like me don't get published". Stop blaming the agents you write to for not recognising your genius. Writers write, everyone else makes excuses.

Like a lot of people I used to think writers were born, not made, but I got published when I was a single mother-of-two, in my 40s and holding down a day job. I won't say everyone can do it, because there's a little more to it than writing 100,000 words and cashing a cheque for a million. But if you can tell a good yarn and are willing to work hard at it, you've got as good a chance as anyone of catching the eye of an agent.

A word of warning though. To have a career as a novelist you'll need to have perseverance as well as talent because it's a hard game. Writing the book is the easy part. You'll be editing more than creating and selling your soul to get publicity because your book needs to stand out from the crowd.

A single agent can get over 14,000 submissions a year, but only take on five writers. And agents aren't looking for people who can only produce the one book. My agent, Darley Anderson, takes a 10-year view of a writer before taking them on. Incidentally that's about the time it takes to earn a decent living at this game. There's a reason why most authors have a second job – and it's paying the bills. If you just want to write just one book or want to see your own memoirs in print there are plenty of really good – and inexpensive – vanity presses out there, like blurb and myphotobook. It also means you're guaranteed to see a final copy – if not a future career.

Here are my top ten tips to coax you on the road to being an author.

1. Read a lot. You'll absorb so much vocabulary and writing style without even realising. Read the genre you're interested in writing for tips.

2. Procrastination really is the thief of time. Writing 250 words per day equates to a 91,000 word novel at the end of the year. And if you set yourself that target everyday, I bet you write more. Use a word counting gimmick to help you like writeordie.drwicked.com if it helps.

3. Keep the pace fast. Lots of people read in snatches these days and that's easier to do if the chapters are short.

4. There is no "set way" to write a book. The thriller writer Sophie Hannah has everything planned out before she starts, others set off writing and see where it takes them. I get down my first draft as quickly as possible – the skeleton. It doesn't matter that dates don't tie in or names change, they can be altered in the following drafts.

5. Keep your characters real. Readers want to identify with, love and hate the people you write about. Your story, fiction as it may be, should always be believable.

6. Dialogue drives books and keeps it lively, description slows it down. It's all very well being able to handle your adjectives but don't show off to your reader and bore them rigid. Read aloud what you have written too. That will show you how your story paces. If it isn't interesting to you, it's not going to thrill your readers.

7. Edit, edit and edit again. And if you think you've edited everything to perfection, leave your manuscript alone for a fortnight then go back to it. You need some distance in between edits to spot errors. Make sure every word counts. Stephen King's On Writing is the best guide I have ever found. He advocates throwing every word out of your manuscript that doesn't need to be there. Especially adverbs - like "He said wearily", "he said happily".

8. Work hard on your first chapter. If you can't engage your reader in the first few pages, they'll give up. Hook them in from the first. It's no good setting the scene and intending the hot action in chapter 3 - you'll have lost your reader by then.

9. Be prepared for rejection. Writers have to be fearless creatures willing to learn from their mistakes and keen as you may be, make sure that you don't send your first draft to an agent. With 300 submissions a week they deserve to see you at your best. Get the Writer's Handbook to find out what agents ask for – and follow it. If an agent wants a letter of introduction first, don't send him your whole manuscript. You'll only annoy them.

10. Don't give up. Out of those 14,000 annual submissions, most of them are not good. If you have got talent and a never-say-die spirit, you just have to keep knocking on doors and taking advice where agents give it. BUT fairy tales sometimes do happen – millionaires are made overnight with film deals, careers take flight and zoom into orbit.

It's a mad, wonderful, frustrating, crazy job being an author. And I wouldn't want to do anything else.