2015

This is the situation.

TRF is in a metaphorical drawer; I keep having ideas about returning it to its purer "literary" form, but think this would be a waste of time.

TAG is still in the US - but I have really no hope that either of those agents will take it up.

GATD is in disgrace.  There's nothing really wrong with it - or nothing I can work out, but there is a big empty feel about it, and I don't feel the urge to re-write/edit or do whatever is necessary...so I won't submit it again just yet...the advice I have had is (a) Focus, and (b) don't send it out until it's absolutely right.

I am now writing The Malice of Fairies - I wrote a little in November, then left it until now.  I have already written 4,800 words this week - so it's up to 22,000 now.  I am pretty happy with it, I have almost got the hang of writing novels I think.  I have also been editing a bit as I go. I am trying to decide whether I feel so positive about it because it is good, or because it is not GATD or because I am enjoying writing it.  I just feel so much better about it than I have about anything...except perhaps TRF - but that was more novelty value.

Looking at this list, I feel it is rather sad that I have all these unpublished novels - how many do I have to have before I finally give up?  Or will I just carry on until I get bored, or too gaga to write, or feel such a failure...

In a way things are good because there aren't any books out and under scrutiny - that makes me very happy.  Nothing to look forward to, but nothing to dread either.

The Malice of Fairies - Making a start

Well - I have been researching, and reading and getting involved in someone else's project, and generally being dissipated in the last two weeks - no submissions, no "progress" and I have felt thoroughly at a lose end... I realise I am happiest when I'm writing... and so, although I didn't intend to think about writing "The Malice of Fairies" for a while, I was at a thoroughly loose end this afternoon - and as a result, thought I might just try a scene - so now I have 2,500 words - which might be the beginning of the book.

I like them.  I am pleased,  starting GATD was a slow business, and no reason why this shouldn't take a while to get going either...Actually, damn it - I am really excited and happy and feel like proclaiming it to the
world....

I am also pleased that I am not repeating the mistakes of other books (writers):if at first you don't succeed, try again with something similar... I suppose my heroine Deirdre is like Anastasia a bit - not as nasty though - differently neurotic!

Very happy making - and I don't HAVE to do it, since I have the other prospect to console me - but I am not discussing that here until I know for sure.

Change of direction

Since I finished and sent Gospel According to Darren off to agents I've been feeling a bit up and down, the 2 least likely agents have already rejected it - I expect the third will shortly, and then I will just have to do a mass post out in the hope someone will like it.  I feel a bit despairing... no reason really, just that I can't quite get up too much enthusiasm for it.

The Ash Grove is still with the 2 US agents, but in the meantime two or three others have rejected it.  I am quite bored with this.

So, am I dashing ahead with Last Things?  No.  I am doing the odd desultory bit - but I am increasingly aware of two things (1) how dull I am becoming (2) how restricted my palette is... I began a little list of things I would like to be able to write about - and later in the day I had an idea... to write a book about............

FAIRIES!    Arrrrrggggghhhhh.   I suspect that this is being done by every half-witted fantasy writer - but I think I have an idea about it which could work - I mean to make it a book about belief, rationalism - understanding the irrational - and so on - as well as having a great deal of jeopardy...

The great thing is, it gives me the opportunity to research something - to have a structure with rules - the human-fairy relationship has to exist within certain bounds.  It's enjoyable to read it all up - and just spending a couple of hours on Wikipedia jogged my memory and gave me the beginnings of a bibliography!

I would illustrate this article with a picture of a Ganconagh - a womanising male fairy - but all the web images for that were unbelievably icky... still, we'll see if I can manage romance and intellect all rolled into one ball... not too much of the romance though.

Now what?

There is one thing to report - the NY agent who has had my book since May (!!!!) says she's been weeding out all her full MSs by reading the first 30 pages - but had decided that mine is a keeper and she hopes to read it shortly.

Fingers to cruciform!

Meanwhile - everything is very quiet - this has been like a week off - not much social life, not much anything... just some light editing and a bit of writing - a couple of thousand words on the new book - but also a sober look at GATD.   As usual when you think you've edited, you've lapsed in concentration somewhere... but I am rectifying that.   I had a bit of feedback from Tara - she commented on the use of the present tense in the last scene... but I have slipped into it elsewhere - and thought there was too much about the children early on.   Perhaps that indicates that the scene isn't really working... but I wanted to establish how much his children meant to him... on the other hand she is writing rather faster paced books... crime novels - so I think a different pace might be allowed, but I can see, going over it, there are places where it drags and it's over-narrated...with luck I should be able to put this right before I get asked for a full read.  I think I'll send it to a few other agents in a fortnight's time.   I don't feel able to get totally into Last Things until I've heard from an agent... had some feedback.  A part of me thinks I will be re-writing both of the books in a hurry soon.  I sort of hope so...but I'm not sure, logistically how that will work.  I daresay in six months time I may look back at this and laugh!

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!