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.

Talking about "What is a writer?"

We were talking about whether another friend was "a writer" - and it was an interesting question.  He has ideas, an imagination, turns of phrase, poetic images, but is the novel the place for him?  I've seen his work, a bit - it is a classic example of having ideas, but no idea how to connect them, how to make a narrative, a story.  The plot's all good - excellent events, plenty of action, but do we care enough about these people?  These talents and ideas don't make you a writer, what a writer needs is a ghastly amount of tenacity, and buckets of supportive self-criticism, i.e. the ability to look at your sentences and think "Christ!  How could a piece of shite like that have been typed without me throwing up!" One needs to experience the utter boredom and frustration of re-reading something you know to be good(ish), yet wondering if it isn't somehow a little thin, and wondering how to put flesh on it.... 

Being a writer is not about being published.  I've said for years that no one recognises your creative work until you are being paid for it, I used to believe you could not call yourself a writer unless you were paid for writing.  I still believe that to a certain extent, but but really "being a writer" is so not about the money, kudos (ha!), or being published.  It is being able to fail and do better, fail and do better, fail and do better until you get to the point where you can't see how to do better.  At that point, if you know the work is not yet right, you need advice, and you need to take some of it. 

A friend said to me the other day "we all really admire the fact that you've kept on going with the book".... a more cynical me might have imagined she was saying "even though you keep failing dismally!" but she is a kind friend, and I think she was saying that "we" would just have "melted" by this stage.  But as my dear friend Tara Moore would say, "writers go on regardless, how can we not?"  I'm not sure if it's genetic, there's nothing like it in my family, but it does seem that what makes one write is a feeling that "there is no alternative".  I cannot melt now, and resign myself to housewifery.  I shall carry on sending out TRF while continuing to re-write Conscience 1.  Once all the agents in London have rejected TRF I shall start sending them Conscience 1. I am about 10% through the re-write... and marvelling at how much shite I managed to sneak into the first draft!

So I shall continue to "fail better"!

la lotta continua.

Hanging on in there...

I think the fact that I haven't been writing in a sustained way for about 8 weeks is a BAD THING - but not a hopeless one.  In this period my husband has effectively become unemployed - which necessitated a certain amount of input on paperwork and finance from me, two friends have been diagnosed with cancer and one has subsequently died, I have entertained a number of foreign visitors, seen a few friends, been to a lovely family book launch... and tried to make some money selling advertising.  I have also submitted TRF to four agents, so far one has kindly refused with the "try other agents" line - a sign that one's book is a book - and one isn't wasting one's time.

I had hoped to spend June revising the first volume of Conscience but this simply hasn't been possible, there has been a great deal of fire-fighting on all fronts (including youngest son's emotional/educational career).  So far, in mid-June, I have revised 10% of it - but I'm happy with what I did because I feel I know now what is needed to make it stronger (thanks to Tolstoy!) so it remains as my project for the summer.  What I wanted to do this summer was put my head down and write Islanders - I have this feeling I could steam on with it and finish it in a few weeks a la Stephen King - I can feel it within, gestating quietly, limbs lengthening, organs functioning, central nervous system building - just ready to be laboured onto the laptop as soon as I have a moment.  As for TRF, irritatingly, whenever I do a submission and read the synopsis I find myself thinking that the book should be stronger in certain ways - points should be emphasised... but we'll see.

Sadly in the last two months I have sometimes been overwhelmed by waves of depression - not sure if it's really "mine" - it seems to come out of nowhere and burst like a raincloud.  It can sometimes be warded off by a nice meal or a conversation, but sometimes it just returns regardless. In these periods I find myself thinking of giving up writing and forgetting all about it.  In those moments, if I had any alternative, I probably would.  But I have been forced to stop writing so often that I don't think I will this time, this is not exactly my last chance, but it sometimes feels like it.