I've moved

to http://laura-wilkinson.co.uk/

please follow my adventures (ahem!) there.

So close and yet so far, and other clichés

I heard today that my first novel, BloodMining, (yes, the one I'm trying to sell) was short-listed in the 2010 Cinnamon Press Novel Competition. I’m delighted and gutted all at the same time. Delighted (and a little amazed) that I made it that far, and gutted that I didn't make the final hurdle given that there's a cash prize and publication for the winner. Publication being the main thing, naturally, though cash isn't to be sniffed at in these recessionary times. Or are we officially out of recession by a cat's whisker now? I'm hoping that the novel isn't going to be one of those ‘also rans’, 'almost published' etc. By way of consolation judge and Cinnamon editor Jan Fortune-Wood said, ‘The writing in this competition was the best we’ve ever seen to date and all the novels in the final list of ten were of an excellent standard – any of them would have made it into the final five in previous competitions.’
Excuse me while I just scream… (the finals usually get published by Cinnamon)

Thank you ABCtales...

for choosing my piece as your Story of the Week. It gave me just the lift I needed yesterday morning. I've been in a weird place this week. Not feeling great, health wise, and a big dip in confidence and faith in my work. In a dark moment I picked up the first novel and read a few pages. Ohmagod! Think it's more than deeply flawed; I will give it another once over when two more rejections come in, or once the first draft of number two is complete. Also, I am starting to feel that the second one is going the same way, after what felt like such a good start. I need to get a firmer handle on one of the supporting characters; I feel like I've lost her and it's troubling me. Anyway, what a moaning minnie I am today. Didn't get enough sleep last night after a very interesting art event - Pecha Kucha, meaning chit-chat in Japanese - curated by Blank Studios and the wonderful Blast Theory. No doubt all will seem brighter in the morning, and thank you again Tony - ABCtales editor - you made my Friday!

Can't stand up for falling down

Well, here we are in leek and daffodil month and I’ve heard back from three of the six agents I wrote to in mid-January… All have said pretty much the same thing – No. Sign of how few new clients we’re taking on rather than your writing, personal, don’t give up, keep at it, other agents may feel differently… So with the three rejections before Christmas that’s a half dozen. Yackerty-schmackerty.

I understand that agents cannot, and will not, give reasons why something hasn’t ticked all the boxes for them, but it’s really hard to know whether or not to keep sending it out, especially given that, in truth, I’m not sure that it’s publishable. I’ve enough experience and I’ve had enough positive and encouraging comments from readers, writers and professional editors (not to mention the Virginia Prize long-listing) to know that I can churn out some nice prose when I put my mind to it, but whether or not I can produce a 100,000 word plus tale with a coherent plot, convincing characters that we care about, interesting ideas and that all important X factor remains to be seen. My big niggle is saleability, given that I’m playing with genre and I’m not Margaret Atwood or Susan Hill (I bloody wish), and agents and the big publishers like to put new writers in boxes. Ho-hum. Perhaps I ought to start approaching the independents given that although they publish far fewer books, they are said to take more risks (or some of them do). So, I’m sticking at it for some time yet – at least the entire year, I think - as well as scribbling away at my second novel, which I’m having far too good a time writing to trust it at the moment. There’s no pleasing some people, eh?
I read a Japanese proverb in this month’s Writers’ Magazine. ‘Fall seven times, stand up eight’. So here am I standing up for the seventh time.

Another day, another rejection

Strange one this. Or maybe not? Maybe this is common. I don’t know yet.
Anyway, I received a ‘thanks, but no thanks’ from a small Kent-based agent the other day. So what’s odd I hear you cry? Well, I received the email at lunchtime the day after I’d posted my submission package… So they’d had it for a maximum of four hours.
Either this agent doesn’t receive the usual gazillion MS a day like most others say they get, and hence their slush pile is so miniscule (non-existent) and they have so little to do for their existing clients that they have the luxury of being able to read each submission as it drops onto their clear desk, or they bin them straight away, unread. If so, fair enough, but why not make it clear on the website that they are not looking to take on any new clients unless they are JK Rowling or Dan Brown? The email was so standard that I wondered if the package had been read. (It must have been opened, they had my email address). It wasn’t even topped or tailed. No ‘Dear Laura/Ms Wilkinson/Misguided Fool. No ‘Yours sincerely/yours dying of boredom having just read the turgid nonsense you laughingly describe as the opening chapters of a novel’.
Perhaps the work experience kid charged with the daunting task of ploughing through the slush pile read it, chucked it on the ‘You’ve GOT to look at this’ pile, but it slid off, unnoticed, onto the ‘Chuck IMMEDIATELY’ pile? Ha ha. Perhaps someone read the synopsis and thought ‘Cobblers’, or read the opening paragraph and thought the same? After all, I will choose a book in a shop in this manner. Who knows? Perhaps many agents are, as the fabulous Mr Edit says, plain rude? I’d like to think not. In optimistic mood, ‘til the next time…