One of the qualities I admire most in people is a can-do attitude; those people who when life throws down an obstacle don’t give up but work out a way around it. Louise and Mark are these kind of people. More importantly, they’ve shared their story honestly, talking about the ups and downs they’ve had, not hiding away and pretending it’s all been plain sailing. Mark’s story about how The Magpies saved his bacon, is perhaps my favourite.

Having read several of Louise and Mark’s self-published books I wondered why they hadn’t been snapped up by a publisher, but I suppose it’s very difficult to predict the market and to see how well their books would sell.

Their writing career hasn’t been easy. Both started out as solo writers but when that began to falter they teamed up. But I challenge you to try and work out which bit was written by whom. I’m guessing you can’t because there is no sign of a seam showing where the chapters have been sewn together. So there’s that can-do attitude – when avenue one closes down, look around you and open up avenue two.

After the success of their self-published work, they were taken on by an agent and a publisher. I understand that’s been a bit of a rocky road but rather than get down-hearted they’ve both picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and got straight back on the writing horse, working not only on joint projects but also solo ones as well. This means they have a total of four new books being published this year in about as many months – that’s what you can achieve when you have a can-do attitude. Oh and Mark’s found time to get married too!

What I hope I’ve learned from Louise and Mark is to keep my own can-do attitude, not to let a small set back set me back permanently; to look at the rough and the smooth and take the best from both of them.

So thanks Louise and Mark, for helping me to see that there are many different avenues to getting published and not to give up when the going gets tough! I promise I’ll try and see that through.