In the garret

I've been struggling away in the garret for years now...this blog provides me with a useful record of submissions (slightly blighted by my annoying coyness about exactly whom I have submitted to), and my various states of mind about various works.  Perhaps, to continue my archaeological fantasy, some future generation might find it a useful historical document... if we still have the technology to read this sort of thing.



But what do I do it for?  The other blog, Quotidiana, gets readers, not many, but a few regulars with occasional spikes when I write about someone famous.  I'm happy with that.  But this blog is meant to be my calling card, my self-publicising blog - my wonderful writer's blog that everyone wants to read.   Really?  I've never had any illusions that this would become an earth-shattering blog that is cherished, a blogosphere must-read.  It's too solipsistic - even people who know me, don't really want to read even more about me, and really, it is extremely dull in places.   While I often enjoy looking back over the Quotidiana blog (ooh, what a misnomer, haven't done an entry for 9 days) and seeing what I was thinking about, I don't think I've ever browsed the archive on this one, unless I actually want to find out something.

It may be that this sort of unread blog is the equivalent of the solitary writer in her garret, just scribbling away, unregarded.  If I were a Grub Street writer I would be Tweeting as I soared like a skylark...I would be like all those slightly dubious hacks sent up in Victorian novel.   I've always liked the mother in Trollope's The Way We Live Now Lady Carbury is always writing sensational novels and trying to adapt to the market and squeeze money out of her publishers... but I'm not even at that stage, and may never be.  As for the image above, it's not what I'd call a garret, but most of the images were of well-appointed writers' studies - not a shred of garret about them, so I've decided that's Lady Carbury.

As long as I have new, decent ideas, I am not unhappy about not being published, but at the same time there is definitely a "How long, oh Lord! How long?" element - one has no idea, the email or phone call could come tomorrow.  But an agent is no guarantee, although I am comforted by the idea that it is harder to find an agent than a publisher.  However, a couple of weeks ago I met a very nice poet called Michael - I didn't get his surname, but he was very interesting and I liked him and his wife a lot - he lives off journalism, and he said he'd had an agent, and the agent hadn't managed to sell either of his books.   How must that feel?  To see other people getting taken on and just not quite getting there.  I think he said a couple of publishers were interested and then changed their minds.  That must have been even worse.  I wonder how many people that happens to to?   I never asked whether he would consider a selfie - but I would guess not.

I understand that there is no guarantee that finding an agent will lead to a publisher will lead to sales, will lead to income.  This is not a "as night follows day" scenario.  A new set of problems will arise.  I think the annoyance I feel is about other people's attitudes: they think it is that scenario.  If you've been writing for 5 years solidly, WTF are you not yet published?  The idea that it might be a learning process, an apprenticeship, whatever, does not seem to occur.  One either writes or one does not - there comes a point when you could not give it up even if you wanted to. I am not sure if I've reached that point yet, but the fact that I have two fairly decent novels on the laptop suggests that I'm reaching tipping point - I will go on trying to get them published...and write more, if I can't get them out there.  

The Romantic Feminist - episode 97

A fantastic cover design by Tara Moore. Occasionally I have queried the wisdom about having a cover design for an unpublished book - but after 5 years (since I started it) I think I might indulge myself.  I like the heart charm bracelet - but I don't see Lucy wearing it. However it gets the point across perfectly.  Tara designed it for my putative website - which I really must get together and do!  Perhaps I could also include those useful crits I've had like "dangerously well written".

The current progress report now follows:  while The Ash Grove is on a tour of US slush piles, TRF is wandering the highways and byways of UK agents (well, two).  I've got into a bit of a routine now - arround about the time of the New Moon (I'm using the Steiner system here!) I send a few submissions - they usually return at the Full moon if the agents are quick, or the following Full Moon if they are a bit slower.

As I adjust the TRF text once more (I wanted to say more about how romantic literature and indeed literature in general was not always a helpful guide to life!) I am slightly angry - because really, this is a well-written, perceptive book with much to say about life and love... I don't want to keep adjusting it, but I can't help tinkering with it whenever I read over the first 10,000 words/50pp.  I am still convinced that it will be published, but I had a horrible thought - maybe not in my lifetime?

Then I indulged in an archaeological fantasy - in the post-apocalyptic world, humans who speak a debased form of English come across it - it is virtually the only book they have access to. Painstakingly copied it becomes the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress of their era....  God, as self-aggrandising author fantasies go, this is a doozy.

GATD week 3

340 measly words, but a very good session of research with DL - a probation officer who confirmed that the plot was feasible in terms of the conditions of probation - he wouldn't be tagged, or released home - so another green light.   I had been a bit cast down by E's estimate of Darren's likely restrictions, but DL was able to explain it in detail and what the implications of different sentences etc. were.

So - tomorrow - I hope - I will have a nice quiet day of writing - since M is going to Winchester to a conference - and our intriguing Swiss visitor will presumably be tracking down his grandfather.... but that is a whole nother story!

And the next book....

Well, for a while it was going to be Islanders, but then GATD got going - so although I still want to write Islanders it may be I will revert to the Musgrave idea.  I think it has a lot of potential - and I could even apply the "block buster" lessons to it.  Lots of jeopardy - moral conflict (Musgrave is a priest!) and so on.

I still have a very strong feeling that TRF will be published... but I need to put it about a bit more. 

GATD week 2

This post is not really about writing... it's about all the things I have to do which prevent me writing.  Arguably I could have written in some of the interstices between these bits.  I still find it hard to write unless I think I can have a good run at it.  If I only have 90 minutes before something has to happen I tend not to write... because I don't want to have to stop.  But this isn't a good approach.  At the very least I could use that time for a submission.   However, this is what I did last week, instead of writing.

We went to my father's on Sunday afternoon - and had a nice day out on Monday - sunny day, a walk around Eton and then to the Palmers Arms in Dorney, followed by a visit to the Garden centre, where I bought nothing (the garden is too full).
On Tuesday I did some shopping, and various bits and pieces and then we came home.  We all went out in the evening to celebrate Mother's Day, Easter hols and being together for once.  On Wednesday I attempted to deal with various things, but merely fiddled with stuff.   I also did an editorial review (critique) of my cousin R's YA novel which has some structural problems.  On Thursday I shopped for the weekend, for the Looping the Loop festival and began to prepare the house for BnB visitors.  On Friday we had 3 visitors, and I cooked and prepared for the great meal on Saturday (60 people allegedly - but it never is!)... when the visitors left on Saturday morning there was a brief opportunity to change the sheets for the next lot before I went out to cook.

There was cooking, a bit of relaxing chatting and drinking, then clearing up and going home.   On Easter Sunday we talked to the new visitors - a really nice Spanish couple.  I was pretty knackered and rested - until about 6 when suddenly it was time to cook supper - which was non-negotiable as Alex was coming.  He came about 8 - we sat in the garden, then had a very delicious supper and fortunately he went relatively early - c. 10.15 - as I was, again, knackered.


Today was mostly devoted to gardening, tomorrow will be devoted to domestic fiscal matters - on Wednesday there's school, then coffee with chum, then cooking for research supper with Probabtion Officer.  It's possible that on Thursday - after school - I may be able to write a bit.  Or do submissions.  Friday we have another visitor for the weekend - so lots of cleaning - he's Swiss!


I have written about 400 words of GATD during this maelstrom - and conducted an interview with E, who was recently in prison - which is really helpful background research for the book.  This week it will be the PO... and then I trust I can progress fairly confidently.  I may need to speak to a social worker.... it occurs to me I could speak to Helen A - must sort something out.  Anyway - there is progress, but not on the page.  

GATD Week One

This week I tied up all the sketches I had written, hunted down all the ideas I'd had and ended up with about 14,000 words.   This is a really good start.  I don't know whether I can achieve as much next week (being here, at my father's, and then having to have Easter and the whole day of catering for Looping the Loop plus the whole new wave of anxiety about money etc.   I realise I am often writing as a displacement activity.

The good thing is that I now have all the material - it's already a coherent first 4-5 chapters and I have a few moments of lightish relief... I don't have to present every dramatic scene directly, some of them can be dealt with as flashback or in retrospect - so that's good too.  I hope I can manage another decent tranche this week - there's every chance it will be quite short... but that may not matter.

The outline for a blockbuster?

A number of things have kept me from making serious headway with GATD... research resources are about to be assailed, but one of the things that stopped me from writing was the sense that while I knew what the beginning  and end would be - and some of the things in the middle too I didn't quite know how I was going to receive redemption/comeuppance etc.  And there was an unexpected fear:  I usually rely on the process, the intuition, the "muse" or whatever to come up with the goods as I write, and usually it does.   That said, I did have a rough outline for The Ash Grove - and I wasn't too worried, and this was rewarded, characters appeared, played their roles, pulled the levers, changed the tracks of the other characters, and went their merry ways.  I had thought of doing the same for GATD but Tara kindly lent me an old book of hers, called Writing a Blockbuster - by a guy called Aaron Zuckerman (I think).

"How to" books
I usually shrink from these, I bought a few in the early days, and was fairly sure that I had learned all the lessons technically that I needed to know.  I think it was helpful - I read a lot, I was absorbing stuff unconsciously.  I have never thought consciously of writing a blockbuster - although like every (?) writer I've fantasised about making a lot of money.  So when Tara passed me the book and said "I thought you might like to see that",  I was (a) mildly sniffy  (b) paranoid - was she trying to tell me that TAG wasn't good enough and needed significant work (that could be true of course)?   She assured me it wasn't, and last week I suddenly had an urgent need to read it.

It is a most peculiar book - Zuckerman was Ken Follett's agent/editor... and large chunks of the book consist of a series of plot out lines by KF for his book The Man from St Petersburg (no, I haven't read it either - and no longer need to!) plus analysis of other epics such as Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, The Thorn Birds and a book by his wife, somebody Goudge - which sounds quite interesting but not in the same blockbusting category.  Anyway, he makes some valid points about structure, big scenes and light relief etc.  It all makes a lot more sense than trying to use a Syd French 3-act structure in a novel... and I think I might learn something from it, for GATD.

However, I am unlikely to put anything from it in the other two - I can't see either of them ever aspiring to blockbuster status - and the honest truth is that I'd rather write a really good literary novel than a blockbuster.  BUT there is the fact that you could reach more people with a "message" if you could wrap it into a blockbuster.  So one has to say, should I do something of that nature for GATD... I could certainly pimp it up if I felt minded to.  Of course GATD isn't written yet, but today I gave myself a 2 hour writing window and worked on the outline and came out - mirabile dictu - with a plot, a strong storyline about small people doing good - although in a rather ambiguous way at times, and it all ties up fairly neatly in the end...I think it has legs - and tomorrow I am going to make it walk.   I actually wrote the first few thousand words some time ago, and they will not need to change much, but at least I know where everyone is off to now!

Get going!

Right, we have had 3 months of 2014, and a good deal has happened one way or another, but I could not be said to have written very much.   I have been incubating GATD, and learning a certain amount, but now I think the planets are aligned.   On Tuesday I ran into PC Keith in the street - one of the people I wanted to talk to for research - and today Sheree sent me details of her probation officer friend, who is willing to chat to me.   So it's all set for a bit of decent research and talking the idea through...

I have commitments - the setting up of a webzine with the gang, and the Easter hols and the return of Ned, the necessity of dealing with my father and so on.   But I also have to start writing again soon, not just submission letters!   I have written about 5,000 words of GATD and am clear where it's going - the first half of it, but I'm not sure how it will develop - and I think talking to Keith and Donna and anyone else I can persuade will probably start some ideas out of their holes.  I am also going to do some wide on-line reading about people trafficking.

Is this the best rejection ever?

I have been submitting The Ash Grove - and had some hopes of a couple of the UK agents who had it... but today I received this rejection.

This is great and very well-written.  Sadly it’s not for me – this is a period I feel I’ve read about too much in novels – but if by any unlikely chance you don’t find anyone to champion you with the enthusiasm you clearly deserve, do think of me for your next book

Best wishes

Seldom has a pill been so well-sugared.

It confirms the thought that I am "nearly there" but it's worrying that even a "great and very well-written" novel cannot pass muster.  What a bummer!    It makes me wonder whether her opinion reinforces the idea that UK agents are a bit jaded with submissions about WW1 - even though The Ash Grove isn't a mud and blood book.  I never intended to write a book "about" WW1 - it just happens that these events occur in those years.  Perhaps it should be taken as a further hint that I should submit to North American agents who are perhaps a bit less jaded.

Plan B will now come into operation.  It started with me sending her my "last" book - first - last, what does it matter?  It will continue with a massive unrelenting onslaught on North American agents (i.e. at least 3 more submissions in the next month).   No - I must become ruthless and write the sort of businesslike, impersonal letter US agents expect - and receive a plethora of businesslike, impersonal rejections in return no doubt!  Heigh-ho!