get published

It’s been five years since I wrote SGTA and my writing has developed a great deal in that time. This morning I started a re-write of the manuscript.

This isn’t simply an edit to tidy up the rough edges, but a fundamental overhaul of the entire piece. Fortunately I still stand by a lot of it, but some of it … well I can do better.

10 hours later and ten pages marked up and I know what needs to be done. It’s exhausting work. I should point out that I was diagnosed with swineflu last week, and the last few days have been largely written off to painkillers and feeling sorry for myself, so this might account for the fact that the work is taking it out of me. I’m just going to need to do a little bit each day and then start to submit again when I am happy with it.

“Thank you for letting me read your work.

Unfortunately, the novel you submitted is not for this agency.

I hope you find an agent soon.”

So the manuscript has gone off.

I use padded envelopes with bubble wrap on the inside. that means that when the agent returns the manuscript with a polite letter saying that it was not for them but best of luck placing it elsewhere I can spend a few minutes popping the bubbles by way of stress relief.

In the mean time I am still writing. My theory is that if this one doesn’t get a bite from an agent, maybe the next one will, or the one after that?

I am wondering what the record for the greatest number of rejection slips is? Am I even close?

So I have got up off my metaphorical behind and sent another query out today. I sat down to do it. that rather breaks the metaphor, but I did have to scoop Marlowe (the cat) off my chair first.

(I’m still not sure if he is named after Philip or Christopher)

In the end I only sent of a query about The Morpheus Affair; the first MSS still needs some work done on it. Part of me feels I should take one page at a time, shuffle it, and re-write them individually.

Talking about writing (and writing about writing) has become a displacement activity here in S0B towers; that being said I did actually return to one of my unfinished pieces yesterday and wrote another four pages of it on the tube on the way home from work.

Anyway, yes, I just thought I would update and say that I had submitted again and I’ll update when I have any news.

L&H

So here I am, with two full length manuscripts ready for submission, more than one underway and, for the last three months they have just sat there on the hard drive … dormant.

You get to the stage after thirty or so rejections where it seems easier not to actually submit any more. I haven’t actually given up or anything, but by not doing anything with the bloody things I’m avoiding another rejection.

So … it’s time to get a finger out and send off another enquiry letter. I can give you several reasons why I can’t do it this week. I’m finishing work really late tonight, and I have loads to prepare for friday as I am running a club night and still need to burn loads of CDs and find someone to work the cloakroom and I need to pump up the tyres on my bike and -

I just need to send the manuscripts off … less talk, more rock.

More form rejection letters.

It’s really strange. I read a great deal, often three or four novels a week. There are books in every room in the house. I studied English Literature at university. I can write and I know that what I am writing is worth reading. It appears, though, that it is not “marketable”.

I’m getting quite frustrated.

I have that spider-sense feeling that there’s going to be a “thanks but no thanks letter waiting for me today”

Well I have had a request for the first three chapters; I read through themn again before I sent it off and found that I wanted to read on.

So fingers are crossed here that they will ask to see the whole piece.

The first query went off tonight, a second one to follow (by post) in the morning.

At the end of February 2009 it will be five years since I wrote my first book. In that time I have actually written two and a half other novels.

I have had a good sized handful of rejections, a few positive comments from paid editorial services, and a lot of positive comments from erudite friends and family.

I’ve been accepted on a Masters Degree in Creative Writing, and had to turn down the place because they moved it from the evening to the afternoon.

I’ve entered a number of competitions, but have not won any of them.

I have written a lot and re-written a lot. I have learned to write a synopsis, crafted a pretty good covering letter and I am a better writer than I was when I started.

Whether I am good enough to be published remains to be seen. I’m not submitting at the moment. I am writing still and I expect I always will. I love to tell a story you see. However they don’t all have happy endings and they don’t all get finished.

Much like this “thing”. I can’t bring myself to give up, but the fact it has been on my list, at the top of my list, for getting on for five years is rather vexing.