Another one bites the dust....

I think I have currently got my oeuvre in the inboxes of 5 agents - and one of them, to whom I submitted in early May, has just sent it back. "not, alas, for us".  I like that "alas" it hints at regret, that the individual agent might have, but "the system" or the in-house criteria forbade.  Or is it just the "alas" of educated cliche, of the kind I might use myself.   Heigh-ho, am not unduly shocked, I think, for some reason I hadn't had a "good feeling" about it.   Looking at my list of submissions, I don't seem to have made as many as I'd thought,.  Yet for some reason I have stopped.  I have this weird feeling that amongst this batch of submissions is the agent... but reason dictates doubt, wishful thinking promotes this belief.

Those whom the gods seek to destroy they first make mad!  But it is true, one does have "feelings" about certain agents.  One of the agents I really wanted to read my book may or may not have it - due to the vagaries of the submission system.  I never got an answer/receipt from the system.

My reason tells me I should continue to submit - there are at least another 30 I could quite sensibly submit to.  Let's see what happens.  I expect I will be moved to make more submissions in due course.

Work

"It was the hardest work of my life, and the best work of my life".

These words from a German gemstone cutter about the year or so he spent cutting a tremendous gem out of a crystal.  They could perhaps apply to any work.  Perhaps they will apply to Conscience

The re-write: the sub-plot

I started fiddling with the re-write of Conscience in June.  It was going rather well, when I worked on it, which wasn't often.  I was about one third of the way through it but last week I was overwhelmed by the conviction that I must have a sub-plot.  At first I thought about doing something with the under-age boy who runs off to the war.  I think I will do something with him, he's a good Finn like character - I could bring him back in vol 2 - but I couldn't engage enough with the child to make his story major.  

Previously I had toyed with the idea of using Gwen, David's sister, and contrasting her happy love affair with Frank with D's tribulations.  I have already made her a fan of suffrage, although not a militant suffragette...,and then I was listening to Woman's Hour - and taking notes, all about the suffragette movements, and I saw a way of marrying Gwen/love/freedom - with suffrage issues.  I am rather excited about this, but also heavy hearted, it means more reading, more research, more thought, and worst (because the other things don't matter) a great deal more time before I can submit it to any one.   So... I am now declaring myself a fortnight off for reading.  I am going spurn the computer - at least after 12.00.  I can do emails and work in the morning, then read and note in the afternoon... good!

Another submission

Today I spent the whole morning doing and undoing and re-doing tasks connected with the financial side of my life, so that by 3.00pm I was determined to do a submission.  I then decided I was pretty fed up with topping and tailing my usual "correct" submission letter.  So I wrote another slightly more freeform, mad one... it certainly gives them a flavour of me.  I submitted to a well-known international agency and actually received a confirmation that they had received it.  I am becoming increasingly paranoid about the agencies I have submitted to through their on line processes who have not replied... but maybe they just don't bother.  Perhaps they'll all get in touch tomorrow asking for a full read... ha!

One of the agents at this agency said she liked books with exotic settings - I wondered whether Ramsgate would seem exotic to US readers?  Or maybe she was just a closet Mills and Boon fan... there is a bit of an exotic setting: several pages set in Kinshasha...  Anyway, I achieved another submission.  Wonder if I can fit one more in tomorrow before I go out?

The house is now full of students, my father-in-law has been sent to the flames, and theoretically I could concentrate on getting on with the Conscience re-write...but I feel a couple of submissions before the summer hols will not go amiss.  And then if there's no response, I can start sending out Conscience again.Sooner or later, some other agent will want a full read...

The State of Play

Discouragement is an ever present threat.  Currently, because other aspects of my life are "less than satisfactory" (short-listed for the Understatment of the Year prize 2013), I could feel discouraged about my writing.  I could feel discouraged that I have submitted The Romantic Feminist to 3 agencies, not one of which has acknowledged receipt - how do I even know it arrived?  I suppose I have to keep submitting.

On the domestic front the death of my father in law and the imminent full-on Ramsgate festival season means that I am unlikely to have time to write.  However, I am determined not to stop.  I want so much to just let it all rip... and get on with some fantastic new ideas, but I know the sensible thing is to keep working on Conscience and keep plugging on, keep submitting to agents.  Part of me thinks "drop" TRF - but it would be such a waste of time and energy.

E-publishing
I am still being prodded about self-publishing - and every now and again the temptation becomes stronger.   But I know I don't have the energy to see about marketing it.  However, my cousin Alaythea in SA has a small publishing company, and she does a lot of electronic publishing and might have some handy hints for the earnest self-publisher.  It's crazy, if I wanted to I could put it out next week - advertise it as the ideal beach read (debateable)... but,but,.but....

One thing that keeps me going is knowing it is not my writing that is the problem as such, the state of the market is so tricky, agents are losing power apparently, nobody really knows where things are going, that caution has become more and more the way of things.  The idea that a reasonably good, fairly commercial book is now a risky prospect is interesting.  It is too late to fill it with S&M - but it has some sex in it, and a middle-aged love affair (another vaguely hot topic).   Actually, there are no real "hot topics" any more.  Everything peaks over about 6-8 weeks and then everyone loses interest again - there's no point trying to get  more of "the next big thing" out in a hurry - since by the time the books are out, the NBT will be over.  So, what is the future for the dear little book?  Perhaps I should try and look at the agent matching service on the internet - bet they ask you to pay though!  Off to check out LitFactor.