Not The Darling / Peaks and Troughs / Fail Better

 

I wrote my first book when I was nine. My mum tried to get it published. This is it, I thought. But it was a NO.

I finished my first novel in 1993, aged 25, and – from the first batch of agent queries – I got a full request. I cried to my sister on the phone. I got an R&R. This is it, I thought. But it was ultimately a NO.

I got further full requests for my second novel, around 2005. I got my best ever, most in depth and encouraging feedback (sustaining me ever since) from Felicity Blunt. This is it, I thought. But it was another NO. A very low point.

I was offered in-house critiquing by Curtis Brown, but the editor - for some reason - never produced the report. Another low. I shelved the book after an appraisal I paid for shot too many holes through it.

Let's add a cat - This is Moo, sunning herself 😍

In 2018 I was one of 150 shortlisted from over 1300 for the Penguin WriteNow Scheme. At the workshop, the editor told me I’d likely been discriminated against throughout my quest for publication due to my Asian maiden name. Eye-opener. I was longlisted for the Hachette Future Bookshelf scheme around this time too. This is it, I thought. But was it fuck.

Let's have another cat - this is Loops 😻

In 2019 I won Arts Council mentoring for, I think, my fifth novel, which I fought to keep when COVID hit. This was a big deal; highly competitive, I was one of only three writers chosen. This is it, I thought. Think again.

Positive agent feedback on first novel

In 2021 the same (fifth) novel was longlisted for the BPA First Novel Award, judged by Hellie Ogden. I was commended for the Laura Kinsella award too. But I knew this wasn't it.

In 2023 Mslexia published my piece on writing with chronic pain, a condition through which I subsequently medically retired from the NHS. In 2024, I succeeded in bagging a selective Curtis Brown Creative Writing Your Novel course with Suzannah Dunn. Its many benefits included agent liaisons. I had my fingers crossed, but ultimately no interest. Was it down to luck, timing, genre?

Since I was young I've collected stones with holes through them. I have loads of them, not just this one, lol. Hagstones. They're supposed to be lucky. 

In between these peaks and troughs, I gave up writing. Restarted. I paused to take up painting. I mourned and resumed writing. I attended conferences, drank myself into many stupors. I entered competitions, for their crumbs of feedback, for slivers of mentoring. I joined Nottingham Writers Studio for community and support. My invaluable betas laughed and cried at my work, sometimes called it stunning. Everything indicated impending success. During covid I indulged in online courses, workshops, events, by the bucket-load. My sister built my website. I built my blog. I shouted about myself from every social media platform and reluctantly got sociable on Facebook again. I religiously wrote a novel in instalments, over two years, online, attracting two stalwart fans and two small publishers. But I knew, by now, it wouldn’t catch.

Poster I saw on the train

To become a published author is all I’ve ever wanted. (You’ve maybe gathered.) But writing is more than just a vocation. Every writer knows this. All partners of writers regrettably, woefully, learn this. It’s like a personality disorder. You’re bleeding your soul on the page, after all. It’s like being possessed, obsessed. And I’ve noticed, in myself, a curious blend of tenacious self-belief juxtaposed with the ragged insecurity of a mayfly. My brain is a fucking battleground. Consequently, I’ve had shit jobs and no career. Who would be a writer? What other job interview takes thirty years to complete? Thing is, we don’t choose writing, do we? It chooses us. (That sounds healthier.)

This was instrumental advice I got decades ago on a form rejection. It made me keep going! Very enlightening, interesting, encouraging.

I’ve had sufficient praise from literary professionals to know I’m a good writer and that I shouldn’t give up, painful as it is to continue whipping my bare arse with nettles. 😁

You may notice my frankness. I’ve wanted to say all this for ages. To offload, to prove I've tried, I suppose. Because I'm sensitive about failure. And I KNOW most writers suffer this way. I feel for us all, and hope to reach some of those writers with this diatribe. Because it's devastating, humiliating, depressing and heart-breaking. It makes me cry my eyes out, sometimes. 

I have to be honest, I've been broken, like slow torture breaks a prisoner (but I can heal). It's wrecked my mental health (but I'm re-rising). It's crushed my brittle layer of self-esteem. (It'll pop back) and consumed me all my life, baffled me, kept me drunk and unfulfilled. (But I've quit drinking so I'm far more resilient 😂) 

Would I have it any other way?

Pass on that one, lol. 

This circuitous journey has stopped me pursuing a normal job. I might even have gotten wealthy. 

This is a tiny fraction (from just one year) of the many submissions I make. Inside and outside these folders are folders within subfolders and on and on forever.

The other night, I couldn't sleep. And all my focus turned on my failure to become a published writer. This happens sometimes, though mostly it's buried too deep. But that night I cried like I'd never cried before, like I'd never stop, as if the decades of trying to succeed suddenly crashed over me, like a motorway pile-up. I was despairing and full of self-pity. Everyone who knows me knows how hard I've tried. 

The next day I got up and I was fine. Picked up the pen. Plugged in the laptop...

More positive feedback on my first novel

So, finally, here’s my question? Do I stop? Throw it all away? Drop-kick that stupid childish dream? The wasted set of skills? Countless unloved stories encompassing my soul? 43,000 odd Word documents buried in 1000’s of folders, four burnt-out laptops, a word processor and my Dad’s old typewriter? A shedload of paper and ink, three printers, how many biros? (if we're being pedantic. Which I am.) Ruined relationships, teetering marriages, discarded friendships? I could go on but I know you’re praying I don’t. So I'll answer my own question. It is what it is.  And I've got another novel to write.

QUERYING MY NOVEL

 

It’s high time I wrote something on this blog. And something cheery might be nice. 

So here’s a pretty picture to get us in the mood. This lake is close to where I go wild swimming :)

Now I’ll try and put a positive spin on the most stressful of writing stages (after writing the thing, that is)

QUERYING THE NOVEL

#amquerying is the current term being banded about on social media, particularly Twitter, (I’m still calling it Twitter) and it’s a term most writers are wearily familiar with.

Initially exciting, rapidly excruciating, it’s the protracted process whereby writers try and bag an agent (the person who they hope will get them published.)

The process is many things:

1. Hard on your mental health (and literally hard - in today's competitive climate.)

2. The odds are against you (chances of actually getting an agent sit somewhere between 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 6,000) (It's like playing hook a duck, without a hook, or a duck.)

3. The process is painfully slow 

4. Which makes it a confidence killer, a feeder of self-doubt. Negativity breeds in the silence

5. Positive spin! YOU CAN SOMETIMES BEAT THE ODDS, YEY!

Let’s have a picture of a cat. My cat, in fact, Moo Moo.

So, I joined the querying ranks this year, submitting my latest novel to literary agents. I tested the water in Spring after beta readers said I was ready to go. But my submissions, throughout March and April, sunk without trace, exposing weaknesses in my 'pitch package' (the goods sent to the agent)

Time for another picture?

Said package includes a pin-sharp cover letter (there are courses on how to write them), a slick synopsis (the nightmare of all nightmares), and the highly polished start of your finished novel. Your one-line pitch, to entice the agent, is arguably the most important factor in getting the agent to read on. It's my belief that, because agents have so little time to read submissions, they're actively looking for reasons to reject you, right from the Dear Kathryn… (so let's hope the agent’s name is Kathryn.)

Anyway, time for another picture to calm us down...

Ultimately, my first query period was a FAIL. I had one or two personal no thanks, but mostly form rejections and ghostings.

I stopped submitting, returning to work on my package again. Got more feedback/help, from wherever I could. Brilliant writer friends. JerichoWriters. Mentoring or offerings from generous authors on Twitter. Competitions. Whatever. I revised my package over six months. Took a one-day CBC course on pitching, wrote hundreds of elevator pitches till one rang true. I revamped my cover letter and synopsis, again. Revised the first hundred pages of the novel, again, sharpening the prose, ramping up the intrigue, conflict, upping the stakes, clarifying motivation, embellishing characters. The bally lot. I need a lie-down just remembering. Let’s have another picture.

I swapped chapters round, replaced the prologue, whipped it out, put another back in. Rewrote chapter one, chapter two, for the eleventh time. By the way, writing a novel is not for the faint-hearted, or the impatient. Or for anyone with another life. I've discovered, over many years, it’s a venture most suited to people beset with unnaturally obsessive tendencies, for those with meticulous attentions-to-detail and high boredom thresholds. I’d lean dangerously further to propose that writing novels is for the deranged, but that’s just my opinion.

Anyway. I finally felt the novel and pitch package might be fit to try again. During this process, my new hobby of wild swimming really helped. As we moved into autumn, the pain of cold water forged a nice parallel with querying agents. 

I started the process again. Submitting my newly titled novel to another batch of agents at the end of September. I was hoping to snag interest between the Frankfurt Book Fair and Christmas, the last window of opportunity in 2023. But maybe it's too late. Everything is slower than ever. Like  r  e  a  l  l  y   s  l  o  w. I've heard that no time is a bad querying time if your work is good enough, but the slow response rates make you think you're deluded. You go from imagining yourself at your book launch to imagining yourself dead in a river. Oh, just me?

 

HOWEVER, positive spin alert.... 

I got a full manuscript request!

😁

Which I know to be a major feat, so I was massively excited. I then lucked out with another full request. To capitalise on this, as I've been advised, I contacted a few agents who'd previously praised my writing, and gained another full request. 

So, in October I had three agents considering my full manuscript. This is now back down to one. I have queries still out there, one with my dream agent. Did I mention the word excruciating? Thought so. And now I don't want to talk about this any more, so here's another picture. That's me with the dark circles round my eyes. 

Now, I'll be shutting down my PC and heading for the summerhouse to paint. I need time away from the laptop, from my phone and emails. It's time to get covered in oils. 

I need the smell of turps, the bumps of paint on my palette. With the log-burner crackling, cats scratching the rug and the winter sunlight priming the canvas, I'll be dipping my brush. And forgetting about words. Pictures emerge more quickly in oil paint. My husband comes in and looks at whatever is on the easel and says he loves it. Just like that. 

Watch this space.  

     

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