Steps

Today I took the tablets, did some ironing, acted the taxi, cooked a meal, was cat slave at the back door for our mog and generally kept myself busy today.

Did go out for a nice walk.  One of the old paths I remember being a bit grotty and muddy to walk through, has been properly surfaced. It made it a very pleasant walk.  A lot of old scrub has been torn down too, and now you can see into some fantastic back gardens.

I know that it’s terrible to be nosy, but be honest, who doesn’t look when they can? Some of those gardens are just lovely – really beautiful.  And a lot of them are longer than they look from the front of the houses.  Rather jealous in a couple of cases. I may have been pottering with bedding plants and the like, but I’m not a good gardener.  More a minimum doer because I have to.

The walk was a good hour though, and at a reasonable pace (for someone who vaguely remembers exercise).  At least I got up the hill without collapsing, that’s a bonus.  Though I have to say my legs are rather achy tonight, in a good way.

Recent attempts at getting back into exercise fell at the hurdle of technology.  I know I must do better, or as a friend of my told me on messenger – grab it by the throat and get on with it. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I’m having a glass of wine (only one), then going to bed.

Also, had some bad news today. An anthology I was a part of has been dropped by the publisher. Shame, I really liked that story. So much so, it may become a new stand alone novel or at least a novella.

An Unforgettable Six Weeks

Well didn’t the last six weeks just whizz past?

After attending Bloody Scotland in September, I was utterly enthused about the writing, and have been over busy ever since.

Met some great people up in Stirling and will definately be going again next year, I even managed to get a publisher to agree to read my latest book.  I sent her ‘Locked Up’, and she came back saying that “I enjoyed reading this. It’s well written and engaging, and you write very convincingly about the prison setting and structure.”  Unfortunately she didn’t take the book, because she didn’t think it had the mass appeal that she and every other publisher are looking for.  Which might have made me feel dreadful, if she hadn’t actually been so gracious with the compliments above.  So the manuscript is with another publisher and I still have my fingers crossed for that, but I’m also planning for a crowd funding project to see if I can get the book published independently if the traditional route gets closed off to me.

Had to spend the swap over between September and October doing a week’s intensive course for work; that was tough – though I am now a register PRINCE2® practitioner.

However, as intense as that was, I still managed to write the second instalment of the Locked Trilogy, which I finished the first draft of on 19^th October, only 59 days after starting it, I’m quite proud of that. I wrote it long hand, and boy did it ever make my hand ache, so I have no idea how many words it is, I just have to type it up.

Still I’m happy with the story, of course it needs a lot of revision, but it’s a first draft and it did what I wanted it to do, so I have to consider that a success.

Also in October the writers club had Meg Kingston in to give a talk, on crowd funding at it happens, have to say that this was one of my favourite talks this year, yes, because I’m interested in the topic, but also because she was a lovely woman and a really good speaker.  Very inspirational.

On the success front, I also have two short stories being published in a World War One anthology.  ‘Unforgotten’ is a collection of short stories and poems to be launched on 24 November at Swansea Library.  The two stories take quite difference paths, both are about soldiers from the war, but one finds his worth, the other losses his.  Not the most cheery stuff ever, but hopefully the readers will at least feel something.

Well NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow, interestingly last year’s NaNo is when I wrote the first draft of ‘Locked Up’.  I’ve been vacillating between what story to write for this November, that’s included writing the third part of the Locked Trilogy, and a couple of other stories.  I thought I had decided to write a romance story, and I mentioned this to my husband, who then came up with this really brilliant idea for an unusually switch around.  In fact it’s so unusual that I need to really think about how to achieve it, but that rather throws the whole story line up in the air, and I’m unsure what to write now, so tomorrow in front of the empty Word file might be interesting.  Just have to wait and see what ends up on the page.

Another month, another rejection

Last month I was quite upbeat because an agent actually wanted to see a whole manuscript, that turned neatly around at the start of the month when the agent rejected the book on the basis “for crime series, they are looking for that original, one-line hook that’s never been done before and we’re hearing from them that they want these series to be set in big, exciting cities in order to appeal to a broad market.”

So maybe that’s it. 

Or maybe not.

I guess the first question should be: do I need an agent? I go to my local writers group, talk to established authors, read articles, go to conferences and listen to talks and the consensus is – yes I need an agent.  In fact the only people who routinely say different are the self-publishers and those who support the self-publishing market.

Which means I do want an agent.

But what if this one agent’s opinion is going to be repeated by all the others?

Maybe I should rewrite the story in London then.  Only I don’t like London, or any real big city.  I live in Swansea, which is technically a city, but it feels more like a big town. I moved out of the south east for many reasons, but not least of all to avoid the inevitable ‘job in the city’.  I commuted in and out of London for a term when I did the first degree I started – hated it.  Hated it so much that I only did a term.

So no point trying to re-write with a London biased, I just don’t like the place that well and I know it even less.  Can’t write what I don’t want to know (and yes the ‘want’ there in is the operative word).

Right, so going on that advice, that means I’ll never sell my series based in Merthyr Tydfil. Time to retire the pen then…

But wait; what about Eastvale, or Wetherton, Causton or the Hinterland of Aberwystwyth?  Are these crime series set in big, exciting cities?  Err, no.

Am I going to be put off by the opinion of one agent, well five who have actually seen this series?

Honestly, yeah a bit.  I’m human, rejection hurts, self doubt whispers in every ear.  But am I going to stop?  Like Hell am I.

One other thing I’ve learned about agents, in fact anyone in the publishing world, is that theirs is just one opinion.  If you don’t like their opinion, find another one.

Here’s something another agent told me, keep at it, get your stuff out there, and the bit I didn’t know was this – don’t wait to hear from one agent before approaching another, they all know writers make simultaneous submissions, so go for it.  Just research your target, personalise the letter and remember they won’t come knocking on your door before you’ve been out knocking on theirs.

And that’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to send my Murder Tydfil series to some Welsh bases publishers, see what happens with that.

But I’ve got another book that I wrote as a standalone piece, that I’m going to look to put on a crowd funding site and see if I can get any backing for it, especially as, now I’ve had time to stop and think about it, there are two more books to write about the same characters.

So that’s where I’m at this month, down in the dumps, but digging my way back out.