Spin Cycle

Trying to get a book published, I have decided, is like sitting inside a washing machine.  You entrust your pride and joy to the machine and sit tight, the water trickles in, the cavity fills up. 

Then the drum starts to turn and you go with it.  Why not? It’s all you really know what to do – submit, wait, submit, wait.  The repetition is quite soothing, gratifying, submissionville becomes a land you start to know. 

But after a while, the constant slap of your cheek against the window starts to gall.  The drum keeps on turning.  A button inflicts pain from the right, a zip scratches on the left.   You wonder whether you should stop the cycle mid-way through, open the door and climb out.  The world outside of the washing machine looks calmer, less harsh, more certain.

But just when you think nothing ever changes, a black sock in the white washing takes you by surprise. You take a look.  ‘We like it, we want to see your whole manuscript,’ the black sock says.  You sprint to the post box, put the bubbles on ice.  You take a step back, retreat to the gentle cycle for a few weeks, even peep a toe out into that other world you know you should frequent; that of the clean and tidy house. 

Unfortunately when that rejection comes, it slaps you from the side, throws you particularly violently onto the sides of the drum and forces you into a tumble.  You pick yourself up, of course, but wonder if you’ll be loading the machine for ever, never making a dent on the laundry.

Let me tell you about my washing machine week.  I wasn’t successful in getting through to the final of the Brits Unpublished.  I didn’t expect to be but while the shortlist wasn’t available, I could still hope.  I got through to the third round, I should be pleased with that – but still a towel creeps up behind me and wraps it around my neck so that we travel the next cycle uncomfortably together. 

I waited all Sunday to hear that I hadn’t been successful in the Novel Beginnings competition at the Write Helper and then an hour later, an email popped in to tell me that a certain publishers didn’t want Glass Houses.  They liked the idea, they said, but didn’t like my style, my use of short sentences.  I had to smile, oh how one of my English teachers toiled to force me into a grudging respect for punchy sentences. I guess it’s true across the board – you can only please 50% of the people, 50% of the time.   There I was, being buffered from both sides again, the slaps were particularly hard as the submission had been away for such a long time that I thought the editorial team could, perhaps, be seriously considering it.

Then I get the loveliest note from my mum.  She has put a link to my blog with her email signature and received some wonderful feedback for me. 

And those fantastic people at Creative Edge www.creativedge.weebly.com seemed to like my blog, so much so that it’s won their weekly competition and will be featured on their website from 25 June.  This little blog! Who’d have thought? 

So I’ve decided, once again, to open the door and pop back in.  I expect another spin in the washing machine, several in fact, but the hope that I might reach the fabric conditioner at the end of the cycle one day, keeps me turning it back on.  

Ever wish you could rewind?

I had a funny day yesterday – funny as in ‘fun’ and funny as in excruciatingly embarrassing.  Let me set the scene. 

Children dispatched to friends, water bottle in holder, sat nav installed, engine on and I smile to myself.  It’s 7am and I’m on the road for my 11am meeting in Leamington Spa, 138 miles south of here and, according to Sat Nav and AA route planner, a two hour, thirty minute journey. 

I am not going to be late. 

In my bag I have a list of emails needing a response and my hard backed notebook, which is always to hand,  just in case I should have one hour 35 minutes to spare in which to write while I wait for a meeting for which I’m ridiculously early.  (For the pedants amongst you, I know we should be talking one hour 30 minutes but who doesn’t play beat the Sat Nav and who doesn’t come out on top by a good five minutes?)

I am not very good at ‘on time’.  I can do late (oh yes) and I can do early if it’s as important as this meeting is.  I’m the person who gets to the airport four hours prior to check-in and has to wait with the cleaners for it to open – ‘Why?’ my ever patient husband asks when he spends the rest of his life trying to pretend he doesn’t mind that yet again, he’s missing half an hour of his evening waiting for me.  ‘Because you just never know,’ I answer, visions of the motorway tarmac melting and curling below our wheels as a blatant attempt to sabotage our trip.  Mind you, we did once miss our flight by a whole day when I realised that the ten year passports we had for our six and five year old children were actually five year passports, like all children’s (does everyone except me know this?) and when I cried in the passport office the clerk simply handed me a tissue with a, ‘ hey up, another weeper, wipe your tears up after you go would you love,’ and the instruction to come back in the morning.

Some people will know that I do like to extend a journey by an average of 50% by travelling in completely the wrong direction whilst engrossed in Chris Evans on the radio or someone of that ilk.    I have a turbulent relationship with Sat Nav, granted it would help if I could totally trust it rather than mouthing, ‘oh don’t be so ridiculous’ when it demands I take a right turn. My most famous example of Sat Nav rage was when it took me to an isolated part of the A1, just South of Scotch Corner, equidistant between junctions and told me I’d reached my destination of a race course in Thirsk (in reality twenty miles away) for a race starting in twenty minutes.  ‘Oh no it isn’t my destination,’ I cried, not quite so politely, only narrowly missing throwing the Sat Nav out of the window as I remembered it didn’t actually belong to me. 

So yesterday, I had a thorough print out of directions and a stern resolve to listen to the Irish lilt which gave the Sat Nav commands.  Leaving at 7, I knew I would miss the traffic around Leeds and sail down the motorway, looking forward to my first team meeting in three years, happy to have ventured out of my little office for once.

It’s raining. Proper rain.  The rain that forces you to drive at 50 rather then 70mph down the motorway.  Quick calculation and I reassure myself that even if this continues for the whole trip, I will still arrive with over an hour to spare.  I turn up the radio.

'Severe queues on the M1,' Sally Traffic says, 'between junctions 27 and 28.'  Typical! I think, but oh well, it’s only a couple of junctions and I’ve got at least an hour in the bag.  Oh dear.  The rest of the journey I will let you imagine, but suffice it to say, I arrived half an hour late for the meeting after a couple of frantic messages to Dave who was, as ever, very cool about it but told a colleague that I’d arrive completely flustered and guilt-ridden. 

What he hadn’t reckoned with, was the next bit.

I fly through the door of the health club, past the lady at reception who, with one look at me, clearly needing no introduction, announces that ‘they’re waiting for you’ and its right, first left.  Right first left.  Two bags on one shoulder, wet (frizzy) hair, I  breeze through the first double doors, clock the notice above the meeting room: yep, Leamington Spa it’s called, (clever) and force open the very narrow, left of two doors armed with my apologies for stalling the meeting.  Except I don’t force open the left of the doors because it won’t open, or rather, it won’t open any further than the head’s width I’ve already managed - just enough for me to say, ‘Oh, what’s happened? Why can’t I get in?’ (Or words to that effect, I can’t actually remember in my acute mortification exactly what came out.) 

The door is open enough for me to see Dave, standing there, mid presentation and the other eight people, only two of whom I’ve met before, all in a kind of freeze frame, like those sets you get at the theatre where everyone’s mid pose while the attention is all on one person: me.  I try to force open this exceedingly narrow door, thinking (I can only suppose) that as I’m quite small, I might be able to push myself through the six inch gap.  However, with my diminished height, does not come the force of ten men and consequently the door was not, I repeat, not, going to open any further.  Dave, bless him, after what was probably a few seconds but clearly ten minutes of my life, rushes to the adjacent, normal adult size door and opens it for me.  He bustles me into the room to a round of applause from the awaiting team members, bemused and amused by my attempts to enter the room through what I can only imagine is a fire escape for visiting pets (very strong, visiting pets).

Fiercely sympathising with my chagrin, Carol hands me a strong coffee.  I force myself to focus on the rest of Dave’s presentation, the meeting starts to take on a more normal course.  Mobile switched to mute, I start to take notes.  The meeting’s really informative, I understand my role, am impressed with my new colleagues, the doorway incident has been filed to that part of my brain for later retrieval over a glass of wine.

Somebody’s phone is going off.  Tut tut, I think.  I have varying deafness in both ears.  One of the problems it brings it that I can’t place sound very well.  Tut tut, I think again, why don’t they turn it off?  Apart from the fact I can’t tell whether the sound is close to me, the ring tone is also entirely different to mine.  Still it rings.  The thought did cross my mind that my children may have changed my ring tone without my knowledge, as has been done in the past, much to their great hilarity, but my phone is on mute, isn’t it? 

Well, the phone was indeed on mute but somehow, because the powers that be had picked me out for their day’s entertainment, the timer I never knew existed, had switched itself on, counted down and was now alerting me to the fact that allotted time had been spent.  I still don’t know how that could work if the ringer has been switched to off.   But what does it matter?  All I know is, in the middle of Tom’s presentation, and to everyone’s great relief, I was forced to retrieve my phone, fumble about with a few buttons and somehow silence it - with a silent prayer that I’d done enough to stop it happening again.

Sigh.

Well, that was my funny day.  You may, like me, be concerned to know that I haven’t actually signed the contract for this work yet...  

I don't know why...

... people get upset about being 40.  It seems like one long excuse to party to me.  I first started celebrating fortieth birthdays about three years ago, mine came in the middle, my husband’s followed last week.  Our next party is in June. It’s like Four Weddings and a Funeral all over again.  I’m sad to say that I  have been to funerals too, three of people who didn’t make 45.  I think the least I can do is be grateful for being one of those who didn’t get to see the alternative to being 40.      

And nobody could claim it comes as a surprise.  There’s no cackling imp on your shoulder one morning, hissing the words to Happy Birthday before announcing that, although you thought you were 20 with no dependents, no money and no cares, the harsh reality is that you’re double that. 

I didn’t feel any different when I tipped over into the forties, save for feeling a little more special for a few days because all my lovely friends and family had made such a special effort for me, but my hair didn’t suddenly sport a grey hue, nor did, alas, my spots disappear back to my teenager years where they really should have stayed in the first place.  My dodgy hip didn’t sort itself out as a good will gesture but nor did it get worse over night.  The things I ‘hadn’t done’ at 40 I also hadn’t done at 39 and the things I have on my to-do list (ahem, getting published is up there in lights), well I’m a whole lot closer to them happening in my forties than I was two years ago.

So you see, I think it’s all a big con, an inspirational ploy by the greeting cards industry.  I propose a counter move.  I shall set up my own niche market, the Fearful Forty-Ones.  Surely 41 has the potential to be much more depressing?  When do you ever hear anybody ask more than a day in advance, ‘What are you doing for your 41^st?’  or, ‘Are you planning a surprise party for [insert beloved’s name]’s 41st?  Let me know if there’s anything I can do.’  Do you ever see anybody collecting photos in a clandestine manner for an embarrassing 41^st slide show?  Or having them enlarged to A2 and giggling with excitement at the result with the printer? 

No.  And this needs to be rectified.  My best selling card will be, ‘no surprises, no big presents, no bubbly...’ and as the chintzy music plays on opening, the words, ‘but we still love you all the same,’ will spring out.  Corny? Oh yes.  But if you can’t be slushy on somebody’s 41^st, when can you be?

Happy Day to all of you!  (That's my second niche greetings card market idea)

Jackie

PS I had one of my 'nice' rejections last week and I'm through to the third round of the Brits Unpublished.  It's good being 41, five months and two weeks old.  

Absent

I’m sorry, I’ve been a little absent of late.  I’ve been busy talking to myself.

I haven’t read out loud so much since Magdalene Lower Secondary School when I went kicking and screaming to my role as Lady Rowena in the play which for the life of me I cannot remember the title. I do remember my long, blue cotton dress, however, with its flouncy Edwardian sleeves and a crocheted head band calming my frizzy tresses. And I also recall talking a lot of rhubarb in hushed whispers as my fellow ‘ladies’ and I held court at the edge of the stage.

Destined for stardom I was not.

Yet there is something quite invigorating about speaking out loud.  My characters have taken on a new life again. I haven’t read my whole book in great chunks like this for months, so obsessed have I been with le mot juste, eradicating my abundance of semi-colons (where, pray, did they come from?), checking my indents and crucially extending the white space from two lines to three. 

But these past few weeks I’ve been re-acquainted with my old friends who make up the small society of Glass Houses.  I’ve been worrying about Main Character, Tori, again, crying for her predicament (yes, real tears) and have been reminded that if I wasn’t married to my wonderful man (who lets me write while he does proper work, you’ve got to love him, haven’t you?), Doug would be the one for me.

Submitting is a lonely business, tiresome, I find - all that waiting to hear something, anything.  I swear I’ve developed a nervous twitch in my forefinger, clicking on the mouse every two minutes to speed up Send/Receive in the hope that this time my in-box will display the wonderful words, ‘Yes!  Send the rest of your story now, goddamnit!’

But reading Glass Houses has been great therapy.  It’s reminded me that these characters have a story to tell and that they’d really like somebody to listen.  For their benefit, because I love them all, their foibles notwithstanding, I will keep plugging away.

Happy reading (out loud) everyone!

Fairy Dust in the Air

Fairy Dust in the Air

Picture the scene: my lovely writer friend, Jared, who has written a fantastic thriller, writes to say that he is a hair’s (he hasn’t got much to spare) breath away from hooking himself an agent.  I read the agent’s letter and a transcript of the phone call.  Trust me, it sounds like she will be paying HIM. 

Jared’s niece died last week, unexpectedly, aged only 29.  Jared has been holding the family together ever since. Yesterday he told me he was thankful the funeral was now over and everybody could think about moving forward again. 

I think his niece is smiling and sprinkling well-earned fairy dust over him.

Then I click on my emails to see that the Brit Writers’ Awards Unpublished 2010 people have very kindly written to me to say that I am through to the second round of the competition.  Unbelievably, Glass Houses gets to fight another day.  I have no idea how many other entries are still jostling for position with Glass Houses. I’d rather not know for now (which is good as it’s impossible to find out, believe me, I’ve tried). I am simply happy to be in this state of shock, happy shock, wondering if deep down, I still believe in fairies.

Dragon’s Den for Wannabe Authors

Last week I practically read my whole book out loud. Yep, (almost) all of the 95,000 words. It was illuminating. People always say you should read your work out loud and boy, does it show up those howlers. It felt a bit weird at first, sitting in my little study, in the empty house, feigning a cockney accent and moving quickly back to one from Northumberland. But after a while I was gesticulating with the best of them, get me a stage and I’d have cheerfully paced every inch of it, throwing my hands into the air in an alternating show of dismay and elation.

My reason for this? I needed to find the best 300-500 words to read out at the York Writers’ Festival during the weekend of 9 April. It took me to chapter twenty one to find a section which I felt had all the requirements: energy, dialogue and a hook to pull the audience into wanting more. A few more runs through on my stage and I was happy. I cut and pasted the extract, reworked my single paragraph synopsis, composed my two sentences to set the scene and emailed them all post-haste to the festival organisers.

Nervous? Terrified! If I get chosen to participate I will be given one of about fifteen, five minute slots on the first evening of the festival, to pitch my book to an audience of a few hundred fellow wannabe authors (happily drinking) interspersed with those magical beings: agents. They say it’s just a bit of fun. But who doesn’t harbour the smatterings of a dream that an agent pricks up his/ her ears and secretly scribbles down the name, away from other eyes because they don’t want you, this sure thing, to be stolen from them?

But human beings are funny creatures. I had mixed feelings about entering. I batted around the question for a few days. After all, this has the potential to give my book that bump up the ladder of writing that it sorely needs. Read badly, choose badly, and I could do myself more harm than good.

But as soon as I found out that I might not be chosen to read, I wanted to be on that stage more than anything. Isn’t the best way to find out whether you really want something, to take it away? It is in my case, if I don’t get chosen, I’ll always wonder. If I do get chosen and make an idiot of myself on stage, I’ll simply have to use a pseudonym, have a face transplant and emigrate to America.

Excessive Attention to Document Posting

It appears I am not alone in my neuroses which is very reassuring. Thanks for your many and varied examples of obsessive attention to detail which have come through in comments, email and even phone messages – clearly there is a need to share. Any more? Feel free to divulge here. Sympathy and support await all responses...


When I was writing my earlier post, I was comforted with the memory of my friend, Helen, also falling afoul of Excessive Attention to Document Posting. This time it involved her secondary school preference form for her eldest born.

After handing the envelope to the post master for placement in the grey, sorting bag, she quickly asked to have it back to check that she had included the form itself. She had. Excellent.

When she re-folded the seal however, she was concerned that it might not be quite as secure as the original fastening. But not wishing to bother the postmaster when there was a queue forming behind her, she smiled meekly and left.

Outside the post office she turned on her heel and re-entered, joining the back of the queue. Her long-suffering children, incidentally, stood quietly with her, a little perplexed. Eventually, she reached the counter again and explained her predicament to the post master who replied with a smile that it wouldn’t be the first time in his thirty year history that somebody had asked him to empty the sorting bag.

It was near collection time. The bag was full but no matter. The postmaster would have to look through himself, however, on his side of the counter, to respect other people’s privacy. Contents upended, he apologised to the new queue forming behind Helen while he rifled through the letters and parcels spilled on the floor to retrieve her package. It wasn’t a particularly easy job, with many of the other parents’ secondary school submission forms making up the bulk of the post bag, as they were in their identical pre-printed envelopes. Helen could only point helpfully through the glass.

She apologised a lot. The postmaster apologised a lot. People tutted. And coughed. Between them, my friend and the postmaster located her envelope. The seal, incidentally, was stuck like super-glue.

Could he, Helen wondered before finally leaving the counter, just to be triply sure, possibly place a piece of sellotape over the seal?

Queen’s Head on an Angle

I sent two submissions to agents today. Off I toddled to the post office, two squidgy A4 envelopes in hand. The first was weighed, stamped and placed inside the large, grey posting bag without incident.

I placed the second envelope on the scales. The package was identical, costing 90 pence, but with the addition of an SAE or rather, an AE; it needed the stamp.

I leaned over to retrieve the Addressed Envelope and affix said stamp but before I could whisper, ‘No, let me goddamnit,’ the post office manager behind the counter had taken the envelope from my fingertips. Without a word, in front of my rapidly widening eyes, she helpfully stuck on the stamp, with ultra efficiency, in the right hand corner. The Queen’s head, however, was tilted slightly to the right.

Oh dear.

Humming an indiscernible tune, the lady roughly folded the now SAE in half and with the sides not quite meeting, and thus rendering it slightly too wide, wrestled the SAE into the main envelope. There it lay, slightly dishevelled in front of my otherwise pristine submission.

It’s a small thing, but I always put the SAE to the back. I prefer the expectant agent’s first point of reference with me not to be the SAE for notification of unsuccessful applications.

By the time the lady came to seal the envelope I could only stand and pray. Please God, I asked, let the seal be flat. I watched with horror as two creases appeared. I smiled to the lady, she was only trying to help, of course, and at least the envelope was secure.

Maybe it’s the Virgo in me, being forty, a middle child thing. Or maybe it’s OCD. But I’d have put the Queen’s head on straight. I’d have folded the SAE perfectly in half and laid it behind my submission, managing to slide it in without so much as a flutter of the piece of paper above. I’d have adjusted the envelope flap to ensure all sides touched equally, before pressing the seal shut.

It’s packaging, I told myself, once the envelope had been tossed into the grey sack, alongside my first submission. I fumbled in my purse for change. I agreed that it was indeed getting a bit warmer and with the evenings getting lighter, everyone seemed a bit happier. Even though a dark cloud was firmly ensconced around me.

An envelope does not make or break your career, now does it?

But I couldn’t reconcile the fact that on the presentation front, the submission was no longer perfect. And with the content ever far from any state of perfection, I was rather relying on it to be so.

But I like to think the glass is always half full. I like to think that soon I'll be laughing at the irony that the first time (to my knowledge) I send a submission with sub-standard presentation, it gets picked up.

I think you have to think like this, when you're trying to get published...

Life as a Pac-Man Evader

I have decided that my life bears a striking resemblance to a Pac-Man game. There I am attempting to advance, trying to forge a way through to a finished short story, a satisfying piece of editing, a start on my new book and a submission... but these odd shaped, seemingly inconsequential lumps of frustrating to-do-ness keep hurling themselves at me.

It isn't the mundane, every day tasks which have to be done to somewhat justify my existence in this family as the other potential bread winner who doesn't earn any bread. But it's those annoying little extras. Weren't they red or blue blobs called 'ghosts' which came hurtling towards you to prevent you from gobbling up any more dots? Well, my ghosts come in the form of: taking the car in, taking the car in again because they couldn't get all the parts, mums asked to help at school, mums going to extra little assemblies at school, (I know, I know, they are lovely really, just limiting them to once per term would make them even more special), moppping up the flooded kitchen where the tap left on was exacerbated by a pan covering the plug hole, extra cleaning of the fridge because the forgotten from last month cream leaked, 'cleaning' up the computer because it's running slowly, kicking the computer because it's...I could go on.

Still, when the writing forges out in front, it does make it all the sweeter.

A ‘Great Rejection’, is that an oxymoron?

Picture the scene: I log on, the emails flood in. I can buy oil cheaper if I wait five weeks until everyone in the village also needs some. The organic company invite me to view the suggested contents of this week’s vegetable boxes (but pray, they’re the same as last week’s aren’t they? And weren’t they the same as the week before?) Fly (dodgy) Cheap Airlines.com would like me to book our family holiday flights with them. There are no guarantees they’ll fly on the given date of course, or even that the airline will stay in business long enough to bring us home, but nonetheless they’d like me to take a look at their website.

School have sent through some forms for consent to take photos of my babies, for confirmation of their non-allergy to life, for permission to watch a PG rated DVD in school time (ask me if they have my permission to watch a DVD at all in school time and they might get a different answer). They’d also like to know if I can bring in some of those delicious home-made (by the Farm Shop) scones for the fundraising and social cake bake event.

Next, I need to read my meter or I will be thrown off the discounted rate for on-line electricity. Somebody on Facebook is recommending I befriend a friend of theirs and I’ve got the date wrong for the karate grading, it’s actually on Mother’s Day (bang goes that cup of tea in bed, pah!)

But then, as my eyes scan, I flit back to see a name for which I’ve searched, oh, at least every five minutes. It’s Lucy Luck in the sender column. I remember that name anywhere, and you can see why I felt compelled to submit to an agent with a name like that. And yet I don’t open it. Instead I find myself searching for a different un-read email which is bound to warrant my urgent attention. I scribble down names of the people I must reply to in my to-do list and then I make myself a cup of tea. I guess while you don’t know, you can still hope.

However procrastination devices exhausted, I eventually click and there I see the words in lights, right in the middle of the email, ‘...but I’m afraid that I have decided against taking things further,’ she says.

Oh dear.

Then I read on. Lucy has ‘spent some time considering [Glass Houses].’ I start to open the one, half-closed eye again. It’s ‘a difficult decision,’ she says, but she isn’t ‘passionate enough about the book to feel confident in representing it.’ My heart lurches a little again at this point, what’s to say every agent isn’t going to feel this way? But then I read that there’s, ‘much to recommend’ in my writing and I’m back on the edge of my seat.

In that brief moment before printing out the letter and filing it neatly under ‘binned’, I believe that a ‘Great Rejection' is not an oxymoron for it’s a description making perfect sense. There are nice ways and not so nice ways to have your career stalled once again before it’s even in first gear and this was definitely the former. A rejection which leaves me positive and desperate to get straight back onto the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook to seek out where to send my next submission, has to be a Great Rejection.

So onto other situations in life where we find ourselves rejected and yet we still feel great. Are there any? It doesn’t feel nice in relationships and there’s nothing to commend being rejected in the work place. It never felt good at school and even in my forties I still don’t like the idea of everybody being invited out except me. The bank manager does it, even the cash point turns its back sometimes and there’s nothing to be savoured about running out of money. No, I think that a Great Rejection is a non-sensical oxymoron in every other walk of life to that of getting your book published.

But maybe I've missed something? Feel free to correct me if you can ...

The Mind of a Child

Today I hot footed it into Harrogate with the rest of the family and my eleven year old daughter’s best friend, to watch my first born perform her Michael Jackson number in the dance school’s bi-annual show. Of course I thought she was brilliant. (It’s my baby up there, she could pick her nose and I’d still get tears in my eyes.) But oh yes, the whole show was incredible. Even my husband managed to stay awake for all but the tiniest section of marauding ducks in the Peter and the Wolf ballet.

But what really struck me was not the massive amount of talent amongst the whole cast, not the amount of organisation that goes into ensuring 200 four to 18 year olds arrive on stage on time (with only one casualty, an over-awed sobbing swan who was whisked off stage before the tears had barely plopped onto the lily pad) but the amount of time my daughter was prepared to relinquish to appear in one dance, performed twice over a period of six hours and never again. She likes to dance, she had the chance to be in the show, so she did it. No questions asked about the time commitment, the cost benefit of the time spent practising versus time lost on her roller blades.

Oh to have the Mind of a Child.

For me, as an adult, this show, this dancing lark would become a mathematical equation. It’s the Theory of a Time Line: y=mx+ c where y=worth all the bother, m=hours on stage, x =months (six) of show practice before and c, the enjoyment factor. However life-changing the moment on stage (just another day in the office for my daughter, I have to say), however fulfilling the time spent with friends, I have to admit I’d have backed out months ago. I’d do that big picture thing, my life up there, a long red line with a marker slightly right of centre, saying that I didn’t have the time to commit to it properly.

But then I’d have missed out, wouldn’t I?

I think I’d cope better with this submission thing if I had the Mind of a Child. I submitted my book to agents last March. I cringe now. It wasn’t ready. I’ve cut 30,000 words since then and added another 25,000 back in. But I wanted to get it published. It wasn’t an arrogance or a need even for a ‘tick in the box’ , it was impatience. It was that little voice telling me that the clock’s ticking and I want to be writing another book but I can’t do that until this one’s published (or rather I should say, I can’t justify doing that until this one’s published). If I could merely accept the process like a child; write the letters, accept the weeks of waiting, barely give the process a thought in between (and that means putting a stop to twice-five minutely flicks over to email to see if an agent happens to have got back to me in the last thirty seconds), the outcome wouldn’t be any different but the journey would be a whole lot sweeter.

Mind you, my daughter does have her own driver, bag packer and sustenance provider. Maybe that would help...

When I had my head stuck in the oven earlier (it's ok, we don't have gas here), my mind started wandering to one of my favourite places, the - Things I'll Do/ Buy If I Get Published -list. I try to keep it realistic (three hour lunch with friends seems reasonable, doesn't it?) and allow myself the luxury of pretending that any advance wouldn't really go on the mortgage. So, today, to the lunch, the boots and the electric grand piano (ahhhh, I have seen the one, the lady in the music shop knows the deal, trust me, she's as keen for me to get my book published as I am...) I added a, wait for it: whole house clean.

I know, I know it's so boring and yet...just imagine, in addition to the twenty minutes of sparkliness I'd get to enjoy before my lovely, busy, tidiness-not-at-the-top-of-their-priority-list family descended, I'd get days, nay, goddamnit a week of blissful luxury beforehand knowing that a team of fairy godmothers were going to fly in and SORT IT OUT. Meanwhile, as they scrubbed and guffawed in astonishment that 'people could really live like that', please take a moment to picture me, lunching with friends, arranging delivery of the piano... OHMIWORD right, that's it, off to edit...

Happy scribbling fellow writers. Have a great day people with proper jobs ;-)

Bytheway what's on your 'When I (insert topic), I Will...' list?

Me! A blogger?

Blogging. Chain letters, right? That’s where I was at and yet a tidgy part of me understood the need to chronicle... I wrote diaries, hundreds of them, yes, really, my entire life described from age 13 to 23. Stand the books up and they’d have stretched the length of my beloved yellow bedroom.
Then one day I had a Forest Gump moment – I didn’t want to write a diary any more. And so I stopped. Just like that. But once a diary writer, always a diary writer and although age has made me more self conscious, more scared of inducing the nodding dog in front of the pc screen , I couldn’t help but remember the therapy involved, the satisfaction of knowing that when those words are committed to paper you get to relive the highs again. And of the inevitable lows? Well, they never seem so bad in black and white, do they?
So when my daughter had a stroke when she was just a baby, what did I do? Write it down. Just like when my boyfriend and first love (god I adored him) died falling from Ben Nevis, I got it all down on paper. It might sound macabre to some, but to diary writers, blog writers, I think you know where I’m coming from.

So here I am, aged 41 and a quarter and I’m back. I’ve written a novel, my second actually (the first is woeful but yes, a learning curve she says with a smile full of attempts at a positive attitude) and suddenly, I’m not enjoying it so much anymore. I loved every part of the story-getting: the research, the writing (the chucking it down on paper, ah yes, that bit is particularly good fun), the re-writing, the cutting, the editing, the proofing ...And then stop! Then comes the synopsis, the research into the minefield that is the world of agents and publishers, the covering letter, the biography, the, should I have my own website? (But who wants a website about an unpublished novel I hear you (and me) cry!), the how many hours should I spend on authonomy (the wannabe author’s website) before I notice that 3am bedtimes are not good for anyone?

And all of a sudden it’s a bit serious. I’d like this bit to be over. I’d like to get published so I can justify writing another novel, so I no longer have to call on the better nature of my long-suffering husband and instead be a proper writer with a proper job. It’s safe to say that I’m not so keen on this stage of my journey. So what do I do when things get a bit tough? I write it down. So here you have it. My journey through Agenthood and Submissionville and whether I’ll get through it without throwing my books out of the window (ask my mother).
I hope it won’t read too introspective and will try to recognise nauseating in-jokes. I hope it will provide company to those in the same place as me and amusement to those lucky souls who aren’t. Any anecdotes, titbits of information or assistance, most gratefully received. Happy reading! Jackie.

Glass Houses is a full length novel about one woman, a stupid mistake and its massive repercussions – not your light and fluffy read, perhaps, but I’d like to think it was strangely uplifting. The first half of Glass Houses is posted on authonomy.com. My email address is there if you’d like to read the rest... http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=10426