Alea iacta est....

Well, I beat my own deadline... I expected to finish editing The Gospel According to Darren by 30th September, but actually I finished editing on Monday, late at night - that was 22nd.  It then took most of Tuesday and Wednesday to roll it together into one big document, which involved reading it and touching it up here and there...on 24th (New Moon!) I started scribbling a few notes for the synopsis.  This morning I got up early and wrote a quick synopsis and sent it to 3 agents, one of whom has already replied just to say "this looks interesting".

It is a pleasant situation to be in - when the book is out there and there's nothing you can do and you haven't yet started receiving rejections.   It's the excitement of having agents having a full read and knowing that they may get back to you - eventually...

I am excited and enjoying the sensation - but it's all a bit angsty - I've been here before.  Then again, perhaps I have begun to build myself a "platform" so that there are agents who know of me and are receptive to me... I am beginning to feel that this might be it!

Family Opposition

I find individual members of my family lovable but recently some of them seem to have taken it into their heads that writing is an unworthy activity - a sort of hobby, a pastime.   It is true that for the past 3 or 4 years we have been astonishingly hard up because of the economic climate in the UK - and until recently we were receiving benefits.

I have written before I think about how my first husband urged me to go out to work rather than write, at about the time a publisher had expressed interest in my first non-fiction project.... and how marriage and starting a family happened almost as soon as my first ever work was published.  I have been writing full time since January 2012 - that decision felt briefly "vindicated" when TRF was noticed by an agent - see earlier posts.... after a long wilderness period of writing, trying things out, losing faith and so on, I have two New York agents interested in The Ash Grove - and I am immediately told by my father (87) and a sister (48) that I must go out to work!  I tell them I am broadly faced with a choice between being a carer at £7.00 an hour, or perhaps getting on the tills at Aldi for £8.65 an hour.  I would not be able to choose my hours...I don't think they believe me, I point out all the other things I do for money (odd bits of catering,.hosting students, B&B and even the odd bit of writing) but they don't seem to realise that this does add up.

Ironically these two family members are the ones who are strong on being encouraging - both have repeatedly said "If only you could find something worthy of your talents"... do they really think I should take ANY job... do they understand how disruptive of the work this is?  Arrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh

I think what I find so oppressive is that they should have chosen now - when, objectively I look like I might be going to get somewhere...it creates the impression that they don't believe in me or my abilities - maybe I should write to them and tell them that.

Anyway, it is rather a shame at my advanced age that they should decide I need to be whipped into line.  I know my father thinks I am going to squander all the money he gives me - and his idea that he is going to live to 112 is rather absurd... if he does he will certainly have to use all his funds to go into a home.  Unless I take him in to so that he can spend more time being unhelpful about my writing. 

September

It's the 6th today - I have not done anything on GATD yet... Tara said "oh, just a bit of touching it up" - I think it's going to need a bit more than that.  I will definitely start on Monday.  What I have done is 6 submissions to NY agents and - gaudete! - been asked for a full read by another agent - this is a happy moment, never had 2 agents on the case before, and Naomi R has suggested another, her cousin... Perhaps all I have to do is just a hell of a lot more submissions.  Of course, they may just rapidly find the defects and bounce it back.   Curious the way the two agents who have picked it up did so within a couple of hours of my querying them.  This new agent is a man, at a rather large agency, the name of which for the moment escapes me.  He comes from Iowa and looks a bit like Garrison Keillor (spelling?).

I am feeling a little bit bored - but I shouldn't really - there is a lot happening, and I am wondering how I will fit the writing and the increasing pace of political activity together. I think Stand up to Ukip is going to eat up a lot of time - I want to keep it under control.  I have learned to do this over the years, and I am congratulating myself for not having got involved in council matters and that I am managing to keep aloof from other campaigns.  SUTU will have an intense period of activity - but it will come to an end on 5th May next year (well, the intense phase will)..

I am hoping that writing and activisim will complement each other - the sociability and sense of purpose of the one, feeding into the isolation and the slight rootlessness of the other.   There is something very unanchored about this life when I'm not writing.  I could do anything - but I tend to just drift about doing very little.   It doesn't help that I'm not very well at the moment - I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm having blood tests to check my platelets inter alia.  The rootlessness has exacerbated since it is clearly the case that I will not be going back to tutoring in the foreseeable - which is good in a way.  I loved doing it, but it did interfere with my writing, although it gave me some valuable insights into the marginalised....and some language hints.   Anyway, although the money would be nice, earning it on one day a week would be better than the way I was doing it.  So I will have plenty of time to write now - especially once Ned has gone back to UEA and Finn is settling down in school and M is actually doing some work - which involves going away!