Go on - surprise me!

Well - what would surprise me would be if the delightful JM had actually got back to me when she said she would.  I am coming to understand her quite well - I know she means well, but ... perhaps she isn't getting in touch because (a) she hasn't read it (b) hasn't got time to discuss it with me (c) it's very low on her priority list (d) she doesn't like it and wants to turn it down, but wants to do it properly - see (b).

It will be all right in the end... but the end seems to stretch into infinite distance, and sometimes I wonder if I might die first!

Last week....

...I didn't write - I wanted to, but the things on my mind are not really bloggable... I was not writing the work either - because I am in waiting for the agent to give her verdict.

I just heard a book called "Idiopathy" reviewed on the radio - it sounded a bit underwhelming - with less of a McGuffin than "The Romantic Feminist" and the reviewers were not overwhelmed by it, nevertheless it has been put on Waterstone's list of 11 most promising debuts of the year.... so perhaps there's hope.  It's published by Fourth Estate - I just read the first 3 pages, it took an effort - too many clever, but not very interesting effects, I didn't yearn to know more...But I think if they can publish "Idiopathy" which apparently lacks "narrative drive" then they can publish TRF!  Early sections of Idiopathy appeared in Granta - so clearly Mr (?) Byers is in the the in crowd.    Maybe linking life with a cattle disease is the funniest and cleverest trope and so it will trump TRF's premise eventually.  I don't know, perhaps I've made TRF into a mish-mash and it's neither this nor that... I still think "contemporary woman's literary novel" is a good idea though.  And I think it fulfils it.

Update

Really - there's nothing to add to the agent saga.  We had a brief exchange of delighted emails this morning, and now I am just praying that she'll find the new MS sufficiently altered to find everything different...

Meanwhile, I am not working - how can I possibly work this week?  Although I did a bit of research, and had thoughts about some of my historic ideas for work... I just don't quite feel up to diving into Vol 1 just now.  I feel I need to take a bit of a run at it - and this week is very chopped up in various ways: social events, BnB visitors, worried about a friend... which will take a little time I think - and the first editorial meeting for the local mag. which I've crazily agreed to be involved with... and Anette's premier at the club on Thursday - lots of itty-bitty things which will take time and energy - and now I think there's something happening tomorrow as well... an archaeology lecture, which M has to go to - and I think I said A could come around for a drink... how am I going to deal with that?  So writing is probably the one thing I won't manage to do this week - although given my nature I will probably get on with some.  Perhaps I should give myself a week off - and then I can start worrying about TRF on Monday... whoooo.... she said she would get back to me on 29th - now modified to "early next week"... half the time I think the book is great, at other times I think "why on earth would anyone publish that", but I'm beginning to think it does have one or two outstanding qualities...

I just feel utterly restless - about to slide into the next stage of this process?  Or not?  But I think this week there are pressing affairs which require my attention...

Agents... and superstitions

There are two versions of superstitions about "bad things" - the most common one is never to mention a bad thing, lest you bring it upon yourself by doing so.  I have always gone for the opposite version, which is Name Your Fear (or for younger readers, mention Lord Voldemort a lot!).  I feel that naming your fear takes a lot of the sting out of the bad thing happening, if it does.  You've already confronted it mentally so you are prepared up to a certain point.

On Friday, JM, the most esteemed agent and the one closest to my heart, had a look at the new synopsis and asked to see the whole book - again.  So crack open the fizz, let joy be unconfined etc.  but of course, there's a very real chance she will read it and turn it down again... my ever hopeful gut feeling is - this is it!  because I've always felt she was the agent for me... but I can't quite rejoice yet.  She promised to get back by 29th April so that I could submit to other agents - which is really nice of her.

If I wanted to act in a truly apotropaic way I would be drawing up a shortlist of other agents, and drafting a query email to be sent out on 29th-30th April.  But actually, I have a busy week ahead, and if I do anything I will be going back into Conscience Vol. 1 and turning it in to the Tolstoyan masterpiece it was always meant to be.   At the same time I will be bombarding the TLS with requests to inaugurate a list of the "Best New Writers over 50" which I will hope to be on as soon as TRF and Vol 1 are published...

I am not quite sure how I am going to get through this week - but I am insanely busy on the domestic front - so hope that this will distract me sufficiently.

The London Book Fair 2013

The London Book Fair is no place for writers, this is the business end of the process, the dirty, gritty, commercial side that is miles away from the little creative bubble in which we spend our days.  We all know it’s happening somewhere “out there” – but we don’t necessarily want to be involved in it.  Frankly, who does want to spend 6 hours away from natural light trudging up and down the aisles of publishers, foreign book organisations, and people offering services to authors and to the industry, in the hope that we can find someone helpful to talk to.

“It’s all about the serendipity!” one (sales)man told me.  “We were talking to an unpublished writer when a foreign publisher came up and wanted to buy the Dutch rights.”  Yeah, that sounds like estate agents telling you that they sold a house just like the one you want but with an even bigger garden/conservatory/garage just a few months ago.    You can imagine the stories: the writer who got an agent when she met her in the queue for the ladies, the writer who sold his Chinese rights, after a Chinese publisher asked him to take a photograph of her, etc.  Of course they’re true, and they nearly happened to me.

And where are the agents?  Ah, they are upstairs, busy negotiating international rights for their clients... you can go up there, but you can’t see them unless you’ve got an appointment and if you’re not interested in buying international rights, forget it!  Up above the main exhibition hall is this dark, dowdy place, filled with booths and tables – rows of agents, and foreign publishing houses have tables here.  You can’t go in without an appointment – but would you want to?  What would you do?  Introduce yourself “Hello, I’m a leprous pariah looking for representation.”

The LBF is not a place where authors go to feel valued: it’s a salutary way of making yourself realise how small and unimportant you are in the process.  For the first time this year the LBF acknowledged writers by introducing a place called the Authors’ Lounge.  Sounds nice doesn’t it?  A quiet spot with some sofas, a coffee machine perhaps – or at least a water cooler – somewhere to sit and chat to your fellow sufferers.  Wrong!  A flimsy structure, open to the rest of the exhibition, furnished with  padded benches, with a rolling programme of talks – many of which were being given by people representing companies with a commercial interest in helping self-publishers.  Author’s purgatory really.    However, due to the lack of anything else constructive to do, I ended up sitting there and hearing about Granta’s 20 young authors under 40 (which I can never be of course) and it was good to hear a couple of writers (Adam Thirlwall and AL Kennedy) talking about their experiences of being selected.  AL Kennedy gave a rather spirited attack on people who just wanted to make money out of unpublished writers which was refreshing to hear  (don’t start me on Amazon’s Create Space scheme!) and was very encouraging to the writers in the audience who asked questions.

Without the writers none of the rest of this industry, or this trade fair, would exist – but I realised that we are analogous to the workers under capitalism: our labour produces profit, but very little of it gets back to us.  In promoting Create Space, the Amazon speaker pointed out all the people who took a cut of the profits between the author and the reader... and how Create Space had changed that: they took the cut instead!  Perhaps one ought to find some way of working co-operatively with other writers to publish and promote books – but how many writers really want to go on the road, or even around the internet, to do that – come on, we’ve got books to write!

Synopsis hell

That's where I've been today.

I started with some ideas of how the synopsis tells the story (i.e. the emotional engagement) not the plot.  Then I read a vast amount of stuff about it on Ms Snark (which is a wonderful blog, sadly discontinued), then  I started writing the bloody thing.   It's nearly 1,000 words (industry standard in USA) and it managed to do a lot of things she suggests, and I think it tells the story.  But what do I know?  Does it make it sound attractive?  Well, I think it is more interestingly written than some of the offerings sent to the Snarkblog...

Whenever I write a synopsis I start thinking about things that I want to say in the book that I haven't been explicit enough about - so I am about to do and do some more re-writing - maybe not today, but perhaps tomorrow.   I really don't want to have any more worries about the story when I send it out... don't want to be re-writing and pissing about while agents beat a path to my door (hollow laugh).

I am taking copies of my synopsis and Page 1 (that 2 agent double-spaced pages) with me to the London Book Fair.  I don't have any appointments, but I am hoping to get somewhere, somehow and maybe hand out a couple of these things.  I notice there are strict injunctions against canvassing and leafletting... so better not take too many.

The Romantic Feminist Page 1

1

April 2000

Lucy expected him to be there, she wanted him to be there, but she was not going to think about him now: she sent her acceptance for the party at the gallery, a private view of a retrospective of his father’s work.  She was determined not to dwell on the issue, not to anticipate, not to imagine.   

We have so little control over the really important things in our lives, which is why all the political rhetoric about choice is nothing but a flattering distraction from our essential powerlessness.  And when we do exercise our ‘right to choose’ it may be many years before we discover whether we made the right choice or not – and by then it will be encrusted with the barnacles of dead consequences, and it will almost certainly be too late.

The route through Oxford was circuitous.  The sun illuminated the blossom against the stone buildings with a hyper-real brilliance for her nostalgia to play against.  An insistent crowd of memories from other times jostled and distracted Lucy from the imminent meeting, but these curiously poignant thoughts were interrupted by her husband’s irritability.

“Where the hell are we? I thought you said this gallery was in North Oxford – and we’ve just passed the Poly!”

“No – it’s not, well, sort of.  I don’t know, somewhere near the canal.  Look, I just got a bit thrown by the one-way system.”

“I thought you knew Oxford!”

“There’s a difference between wandering tipsily around between parties at night, over 20 years ago, and driving around it nowadays!”

When they found a parking space, he turned to the children, Ben and Max.

“Listen guys, if you want to go to a proper museum, rather than this family thing, we can do that instead if you like.”

“It’s OK Dad” Ben said with care, “it’s nice to meet more cousins.”

They entered the gallery, Lucy first, her sons drifting shyly behind.  She hadn’t planned how to approach this event – usually she’d find and greet the host – and then move around as the situation dictated.  Instead she headed immediately towards the first people she recognised, her oldest friend Alice and her husband; she hadn’t expected to see them there.  There was an exchange of pleasantries during which Lucy performed a delicate scan of the room. 

That’s him – there; I’ve walked straight past him without noticing.  He doesn’t look how I expect him to; but I don’t really know what he looks like any more. Tall, broad, brown hair – no grey? - and grey eyes – hardly unique features.  Familiar but not unmistakable.   Would we recognise each other if we met somewhere else by chance?

There is no eye contact, so Lucy watches him for a little while: he’s standing with a rather beautiful blonde woman, chatting desultorily.  Must be a guest he’s being polite to.

Gradually it dawns on her that they are actually together, having one of those conversations that occur when you haven’t begun mingling.   

And this shall be the last time....

... she sang uncertainly, hitting the tambourine on the off-beat.  

I have sworn that this will be the last re-write I shall do of my own accord.  I sort of hoped to finish it this week - but I'm still about 80 pages off... and it's all rather hard... I hope the pace is OK - I'm not sure if I'm capable of assessing it... I've cut a lot, I've found repetitions and removed them, and it's about 5,000 words down - i.e. around 110,000 rather than 115,000 - so that's a good thing.  I've decided to send it to JM again, but to send it out to the masses...  

I honestly don't think there's much point in re-writing Conscience until I've cracked the story issue - as a result of what I now understand Conscience will probably become as long as Anna Karenina, and only slightly funnier.

When I start sending TRF off again, I will settle down to do a bit more research for C - and maybe look at Islanders again... I re-read it the other day, and I was amazed in that "did I really write that? How did I do that?" way one sometimes has when presented with the products of one's unconscious mind.  It works for me - but will it work for everyone else.... the grim experience of reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has made me wonder whether I can ever manage to get the common touch...   Anyway, that's a problem for next week.

Exhilaration + more slow writing

It's going.... it is much more difficult in some ways - and frustrating.  I wrote from 1.00pm to 6.30ish today and only covered 22 pages - i.e. re-writing, thinking, consulting notes, trying to see what needed to change further down, checking whether I'd already said stuff - I am attempting to eliminate a bit of the repetition...  But it is also exhilarating, because I know it's clicking into place (Oh, how I despise books that click into place!)  When I finished today I calculated that I'd done about 40% of the book.  I think the rest should be a bit quicker, because I have already re-written quite a lot of it... then again, I want to avoid certain slips, so everything needs to be carefully read.   I am planning a good stint over the weekend - to avoid another "neurotic weekend".

I took a break to go out and get some visual art today - a fantastic Howard Hodgkin exhibition, and I got filmed answering questions about what I thought of his art.  Also a good talk to Steve Mellon - the sculptor... he does great work in bronze - a set of fish all caught locally.  Wonderful,  Shelly Goldsmith was showing a couple of pieces too - and there was barely a thing in the gallery that I wouldn't have liked to buy... sometimes I find the visual arts scene here a bit annoying - but thanks to Updown there's always something great at the end of the street...and it is a great antidote to writing too much. 

Vorwarts!

Well, TRF was rejected in double quick time (3 days I think - a record) in the best, impersonal large agent style - no friendly comment, no encouragement.  I went through several degrees of misery... then I woke up. Suddenly it was Easter and I had no time to write: I was furious.  Today - after my father left c. 3.00pm I went upstairs and wrote and re-wrote and did all sorts of wonderful things which give me great faith.

TRF is now Pride and Prejudice plot: two people love each other - they have "form" and personal characteristics to overcome... but don't worry, they will.  Oh dear, it sounds quite boring put like this.  But the great thing is that I have spent nearly 6 hours writing today - and I think I have actually cracked it - no more distractions now, straight through until p 419 (not in real pages, just in silly double-spacing) - I seem to have been stuck around p 129 for a long time, but oh the difference (to me!)...

Instead of wanting to go to sleep, I just want to write on - but stertorous grunts indicate a husbandly desire for lights out.  I must start writing somewhere else!