Malorie Blackman on receiving 82 rejection letters from publishers

0:13Welcome to Desert Island Discs Postcards. I'm Lauren Laverne. We've cast away thousands of people to our imaginary desert island, among them many writers. Today's cast away, Malorie Blackman has written more than 70 books for children and young adults with her Norton and crosses series perhaps best known among them but getting her first book published was hard she told kirstie young in 2013 when i was in my mid-20s i had enough of computing and i thought okay what can i do and i tried acting classes for a while and i was a dead loss um absolute rubbish but i used to come up with sort of scenarios for our improvisations and after a while it was on mallory what do you think we should do so at the end of the course the tutor said to me, Mallory, have you ever thought about writing some of your ideas down?

1:01Because you come up with some really good ideas. And that's how I started on my writing classes and kind of try to get into it. So then when you wanted to take that step out of, I'm sure, a pretty well paid job in being a financial markets analyst and in full time into writing, did you worry about the cash? Did you think, how will I pay the gas bill? Yeah, it was. And I mean, but I was so unhappy. I mean, it was taking its toll on me physically and mentally. I started having really bad nightmares. Nightmares where I'd wake up screaming and I was so desperately unhappy because I wanted to write.

1:34I didn't want to work in computing anymore. And so in the end, because Neil, my hubby, could see how unhappy I was, we made a deal that I would take a year off and I would try and just write solidly for that year and see if I could make a go of it. But if I couldn't, then I'd have to go back to computing. So I'm right, It was 82 rejection letters. That's right, for about eight or nine different books. When letter 83 thudded on to the doormat and it said, yes, we quite like what you've written, tell me about that day. Oh, wow, I still remember that because every time the postman arrived, I'd go charging down the stairs and it was always, dear Mallory Blackman, not suitable for our list and no thank you.

2:13And then I heard the postman, I went charging down the stairs, tore open the letter and it was, dear Mallory Blackman, we would love to publish your story. and I just stood in the hall and screamed my head off. I was so thrilled. And my hubby came charging down the stairs going, what's the matter, what's the matter? And I said, oh my God, oh my God! And I just freaked out. And it was one of the best days of my life. And after my third book was accepted for publication, that's when I gave up my job. Mallory Blackman speaking to Kirsty Young in 2013 when she was Children's Laureate. She was made a Dame in this year's Birthday Honours.

2:48You can listen to her full episode on BBC Sounds Just search for Mallory Blackman Desert Island Discs.