Submitted

I hate this more than anything.  I have just submitted The Romantic Feminist to an agency of such great dignity and standing that I can barely do anything but gasp at my own temerity.  However, it's got to go there - and everywhere else I suppose.  I flipped slightly because I couldn't decide which of 3 agents to submit it to.  I nearly started to over think - so I went with the "inner voice" candidate.  Hope this was right.  There's always that ghastly feeling that one might have chosen the "wrong" agent in an agency and that if only you had sent it to the other one he/she might have lapped it up.  Do they discuss these things collectively - or pass stuff around?  Who knows?  I am in severe danger of over thinking now, so I think I will go and do something relatively novel - perhaps read a book?

Currently still re-reading Anna Karenina - I suppose her idiotic action in inviting Vronsky to the house is the tragic flaw that leads to their ultimate downfall and disaster - but at present I don't have much sympathy for her.  Karenin is a dreadful old stick, but his relatively decent behaviour in the face of humiliation is a redeeming feature which gives her the chance to continue with Vronsky (surely they would have got tired of each other imminently).  I wonder if any Russian writers write sequels to Tolstoy's novels?  There's a positive industrial sector in JA re-writes and sequels here, I confess I've never read any - although the Emma Tennant one sounded vaguely promising.  It must be tempting to write such a sketch - re-cycle an old Georgette Heyer plot, and work on your Regency slang and scribble "Lydia's Daughter" - who comes up crunch against into William IV's ambit - or a later daughter who falls among thieves and is reborn as a minor character in a Charles Dickens novel, or moves to Manchester, marries an industrialist and gives birth to a Mrs Gaskell heroine - there: multi-author spinoffs!  Have I invented a whole new genre?

The alternative reading just now is Fraser's Marie Antoinette - a bit late for me, but it's jolly interesting to see Versailles in post Louis Quatorze mode.

Finished - for the last time?

I have now finished a major re-write of TRF - it isn't as different as you might guess, even though I deleted 17,000 words, I seem to have added about 13,000 words.   It has taken quite a long time - and I am going to read it properly and then send it off....

Every time I do a re-write I feel that the newer sections are raw, not quite so well-written - but in this case I don't feel like that.  By the end I was writing pretty fluidly - it seemed to be arriving as requested, and I was able to kill assorted darlings.  I wish I had the feeling of tranquillity that I feel I "deserve" after the efforts of the last few weeks.  Actually, it's been a month, I think I started re-writing around about 10th February.  I have written nearly every weekday - not much at weekends.  As I write this I am beginning to feel a little bit excited again - I think it is better, but I am also disappointed that since JM's intervention what I have is a much more conventional romantic novel really - with a few more twists and turns in the plot.  I still like the early version in some ways.  But I really need to move on.  I am not sure how much more time and energy I can spend on this.  I need to start working on Vol 1 (after a few days off to do tax etc.etc.).  I feel that I have a stronger idea of what it needs now.

So what has happened to TRF?  Well - Lucy got a bit tough - but finally is won around - and Leo has an epiphany (as suggested by Tara) and thus is able to see his life and relationship with her in a new perspective and they unite in a positive manner, according to the best romantic feminist principles.

I fear a few babies may have got lost in the bathwater, and I will be just checking through the "dead darlings" document and seeing whether I have accidentally decapitated any really worthwhile trains of thought that I wanted to pursue.  It's not impossible - everything it seems - in the new version - has been scrutinised for its contribution to the "story" - well everything in the second half.  I fear there will be more changes and stuff... oh dear.

Story!

It's taken about 3 months, but I think I've got it.... when JM was wittering on about "story" in TRF I couldn't quite understand the full import of what she was saying... I thought I had a story - that the heroine was developing etc.   But I see now - after my tutorial with Tara - that the scenes have to be more focussed on "the story" - that the heroine has to change - develop - to have learned something by the end of the book.  It is not enough for her to get her old boyfriend back.   Actually, I thought she had changed, but apparently it was so subtle that no one noticed.  Clearly it needs to be hammered out with brawny, blacksmith like strokes!  So I am hammering away at the poor, battered old text.  It is a sad business - the more I hammer and bash it into shape, the more it loses its beautiful passages of exquisite writing.... Jeez.  I bet AS Byatt never has this trouble.  And actually, when did she last write a story?  I contest that The Children's Book while full of fascinating incident and anecdote doesn't really have a story - or does something happen to the mother character in the end - has she stifled her son in some way and finally realises it?  I don't remember anymore - which suggests that the story was not really very strong.   And as for Possession?  Actually it did have a story - but it was blighted by all the faux Victorian poetry.  I would like to like ASB's stuff more, but I secretly think that her sister's book The Radiant Way was more to my liking (even though I can remember nothing about that either - only that I felt full of love and recognition when I read it).  Even though ASB is meant to be the more "literary" writer - Booker prize an' all, doncha know.

Of course literary novels have stories -  but they are not quite so blatant, and I think JM was trying to get me to do something much, much more commercial.  I realise I could, but is this what I want to do?   I am pretty sure that with what I now know Conscience Vol 1 will be a much better book.   The other day I heard some lovely person saying "Of course there are lots of writers who write beautifully and never make it" and I felt very irritated... yes, it's possible, but I've only been at it a couple of years full time - David Almond said it took 20 years before his breakthrough - I reckon I might manage a bit quicker.  Sometimes I feel like a very slow learner - but the good thing is, I didn't need to go and spend £400 on the Faber Academy - it was enough to get a decent critique...that finally jogged my understanding onto the next level.   The downside of this epiphany is the awareness of the amount of work that's still needed on TRF before I present it to the next agent.

The Miracle of Wine

Last week I had an ace critique from Tara Moore - a friend and well established writer.  First I felt glum - would HAVE to re-write TRF - there's nothing else to do, then I felt a few good tweaks would do it.  In the last few of weeks I have really enjoyed re-writing - but the feeling that I must kill my darlings - the historical scenes - is depressing me a little.  I have enjoyed making Leo more sexy and "romantic" - two people had said he was a wimp - I had an interesting little frisson - the man on whom he's based is clearly less exciting than my heroine thinks.  So I've had to "man up" the hero - for the purposes of fiction - but my anxiety is that, the more I write towards the conventional format, the more I lose what I'm trying to say... and the more I look at it in that way, I find that I should lose a lot of the insights... oh God!  I'm not actually writing a romantic novel - I was thinking of pitching it as an "anti-romantic romantic novel".  But I'm confused.

So I went downstairs in a bit of a gloom, but somehow, polpettone, salad and courgettes with pesto had the effect of perking me up - or was it the very good bottle of wine we had with it.  We had one of the James-and-Polly wines: Ch. Mirefleurs 2007 - a pleasant claret.  The theory is that we drink a nice bottle of wine once a month - to make the case last.   After the wine, the cheese and a bit of bread I felt immediately more cheerful, almost as if I was going to make a success of the book.

Is this the final version?

I spent last Tuesday getting pleasantly sozzled with Tara - the sozzling didn't start until after she had given me a really thorough and helpful critique of TRF.  One of her suggestions involved such a major re-write that I couldn't countenance it - even though I feared she might be right.  Actually, she suggested returning to a strictly chronological version - which was what JM told me to unpick, so although I didn't think Tara was wrong (she says, writing this carefully in case Tara is reading it!) I thought perhaps this was a matter of taste... what her critique did was to start a few hares running in different directions.  She said Leo was a wimp, why did Lucy take him back?  Good question, and that gave me some ideas, to "man up" the character a bit more, to make Lucy have a big row with him, and perhaps add some more jeopardy for both of them - hers of a domestic nature, his involving something jungly... we'll see.  Lucy has to be different at the end - not just wimpily accepting the situation... but... but... it may not be so easy.  Pride may be involved - as a theme I mean, not my own pride.

At the moment I am working on the re-write, slowly and carefully - and I think I've got it... rather like my discovery that "slow writing" works best, a really slow, careful re-write/edit is a wonderful thing... I am hoping to spend most of March doing this and researching agents/publishers.  In my dreams the next submission will be "the One" - well, it might be.  Anyway, she also lent me the current W&A yearbook - so I am well equipped to do battle.

I have stopped feeling frantic about Vol 1 - because I can't work on them simultaneously, at least I don't think I could.  I expect the interest in WW1 won't disappear just like that, as soon as 2014 is over... so a calm re-do of TRF - send it off and return to Vol 1 - which I am sure will benefit.  Although it needs less work, the structure is pretty conventional - and David really does change in the course of the book - it may need more engagement/dialogue between the two of them.    But enough - sufficient unto the day....