How Deborah Masson crushed the first-time novelist myths
Deborah Masson meets me with a giant bosie and loads of warmth, a typical Aberdonian greeting. She is glowing with light for someone who spends so much time conjuring up nasty events for her novels.
Her first of three published novels in the DI Eve Hunter series, Hold Your Tongue, was written while she attended an online Faber Academy course, looked after young children. The finished draft scooped her an agent, multiple publishing deals and a Bloody Scotland literary award.
While the road to getting published is haunted by belligerent advice like ‘an author’s first novel never gets published’, or ‘you need a gazillion Twitter followers to catch the attention of an agent’, Deborah’s story proves that the most important thing for a writer to have is a superb story.
We met at the Ferryhill Hotel for lunch and a chat about her first blood moments with writing and where she’s at with her journey now.
Where did it all start?
When I had my first child and my husband was away offshore for half the year, I needed something to stop me from cracking up. So I thought, ‘what did I really used to enjoy but lost sight of because life gets in the way?’ I liked writing as a child, so I bought a writing magazine that set competition stories. You had…
