Confidence

Still no news....

But, I found this great blog and had to post it here to pass it on.

As writers, confidence is so important simply because writing is such a solitary activity, (unless you co-write but that's a different story). I find my confidence can evaporate quicker than morning dew, especially here in Submission Hell. With so many "No's" coming at us, it's hard to keep our inner voice saying "Yes".

And I suspect the more sensitive you are as a writer the more of an issue this is. There are always loads of reasons not to do something - it takes courage above and beyond the call of duty to do it anyway.

So, writers everywhere - I salute you!

Getting the jitters

It's been cold this week. Very cold. And the snow finally caught up with me. Now, I'm no killjoy - it's very pretty and all that - but it stops being funny when you can't walk the dog without breaking a limb and have to get rescued by someone in a car. And snowmen are ok for about 20 minutes, but after that I'd rather be in the warm thankyou very much.

So, I really hope we've seen the last of snow this winter.

And I'm still waiting...

By Thursday night my nerve cracked and I shot off an email to the agency, asking nicely whether they got my full and phone number. (Joking aside it wouldn't be funny to find the email had gone astray - yeah, I know it's unlikely but you never know!)

So imagine my surprise to get a reply within the hour - jeez, what hours do these guys work? - to say he's still reading it and he'll phone me next week.

Good news, but now my nerves are twanging like overhead cables in a snowstorm.

Watch this space...

What's Cookin'?

Odd week this. On Sunday my cooker exploded - nothing serious but needing a new element. Long boring story ensues about fly-by-night repairman ripping me off for a callout charge and trying to extort more money to come back and do the repair; heated telephone exchange (not as much fun these days - I definitely am getting old!) - upshot of which cutting my losses and calling in manufacturer's engineer.
Weather has been bitter and miserable, and dog managed to lose his dog-tag so I had to track down a substitute.
Son at university discovered his overdraft facility was £200 less than he'd been told and he had no money left.
Just when I was starting to give up on February and go back to bed for the rest of the winter I received a letter from an agency. No, not one of the ones I just subbed to, although that's what I first assumed. This was from the second batch I sent out in early November - three months ago - and I'd given up on. And get this - they wanted the Full!
Needless to say I'd printed it off and got to the Post Office before you could say "return postage". So now that's two fulls out there in Submission Land. Maybe February won't be such a lousy month after all...

Amazon Reviews

Like most people, I put a lot of business Amazon's way. One reason for this is their customer review system. On the face of it, it is a useful gauge as to how good a book is, particularly if it's a subject (non-fiction) or author (fiction) you haven't tried before. So up until recently I've relied on it a lot in making a decision about whether or not to buy.

Until recently when I came across a thread on a writers' site where a newly published author was complaining about a bad review she had received and urging members to go and vote the review as "unhelpful". Then it occurred to me, poor naive fool that I am, that anyone could solicit good reviews from friends and family - even themselves, if they faked their identity.

The idea shocks me, to be honest. Shouldn't your work stand or fall on its merits, rather than this dodgy networking? It debases the whole system and makes all the reviews - well, pretty useless, really, unless you know who gave it.

Of course, as an author I can sympathise with the idea of getting bad reviews. But I don't think getting your mates to vote for you ever made anyone a better writer. And I'll be taking all Amazon reviews with a much larger pinch of salt from now on.

I must be getting old

Nearly a week since my last post. Where is the time going? Seriously, we're nearly through January and I'm starting to sound like one of those Old Dears making small talk in the Post Office.

(No news yet so I'm trying to ignore it!)

In the post today I got my copy of a newly published How To book:

How Not To Write A Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark. I bought this because of an article someone posted on one of the writers' websites I frequent and it looked like a light-hearted take on the whole novel writing business. As I've said before I'm something of a How To Write book junkie. It's been a few weeks since I had my last fix so I'm looking forward to reading this one.

Meanwhile the writing goes on apace. I'm now onto chapter 7 of the new mystery. Managing 1000 words per day which I'm very pleased with (of course it is the first draft so who knows how much of it will survive!) Don't know whether anyone else will like it but I'm enjoying writing it immensely.

Still waiting...

...is this what they call purgatory? I'm starting to wonder if it was a practical joke.

Ne'mind, duckie. Just keep writing and try not to dwell on it.

I've now written five chapters of the new mystery, started the sixth yesterday. After a lot of deliberation on the software front I've decided to give Liquid Story Binder a road test and so far so good. The great thing is you can open dossiers for every character/location/whatever and import images as well as fill in a lot of background info. It's new for me to be so organised at the outset, and I don't really know whether it'll work in the longrun. We'll see.

Do take a look at Edie Tor's blog (listed on the right) for the lowdown on the flip side of publishing.

Trying not to panic...

Well, the responses are starting up again here in Submission Hell. Got one yesterday morning, as brief and dismissive as they come, enough to cast me into another Well of Self-doubt. In the afternoon I got an email response from a new agency I approached in November - clicked on it, expecting another kick in the crotch rejection. Imagine my delight to find a request for the full manuscript AND my phone number so he can call and discuss it!

After picking myself up off the floor I sent both by return. Now I'm in waiting-for-the-phone-to-ring mode. I know I shouldn't complain as anything is better than rejection, but now every waking moment (as well as a few sleeping ones) is full of self-doubt and anxiety. What do I say? What if I blow it? What if he finds me out - not the sparkling talent he first thought, but some babbling idiot who can't even remember her name?

Oh, God. Where did I put the valium....