... is alas not yet ready for the slightness of the story of The Formative Year. For a first novel one needs a hook of some kind. So writes the latest rejecting agent. It was a very nice email, very complimentary, and the kind that makes one want to keep trying - but can I re-write my pitch to make it more 'hooky' or shall I just forget it. Another thought is that Conscience has a much better pitch than TFY. So should I blaze ahead with that, and try and get agent/publisher to accept TFY as my second novel - i.e. retire from the world of pitching for a bit? C is going "quite well" i.e. I have now got to about 30,000 words, he's made his first proposal, and when I write it is all coming out nice and smoothly.
Latest agent (Gaby Banks of Shiel Land) described my writing as "smooth" I believe this is a good thing - but I don't quite like it - someone else has described it thus - so it's obviously a term in use. What's wrong with being smooth? I don't know, it suggests a faintly boring/predictable nature. Maybe it just means grammatical or lacking any unpleasant syntactical surprises? - and she liked the characters too. That was reassuring, I feel I concentrate too much on the central character - and no complaints about the 1st person/3rd person shifts either.
Other markets - well, there was the Margate Bazaar - I made £30 - which is about £2 per hour for the work involved. That said, there wasn't a great turnout - although the weather was good : no banana buns, no croissants. Maybe banana bread - maybe fruit cake. Next week more savoury stuff - quiche, flaounes, sausage rolls? Pasties? Pasty bolognese? That could be popular. Better have a look at some books. Need something to draw the eye to the stall. Foccacia not a great seller. But I might make some tomato foccacia because that, with a glass of white wine, makes a good lunch while one's on the stall. I'll take my own bottle next week - a glass from the pub is only a quid less than a bottle (actually, I got some really good cheap Soave for £3.29 the other day).
Needless to say, having managed to lose 4kgs in the last 2 weeks, this past weekend has not been great for dieting, especially as we went out to dinner at Anette & Neville's last night - and then to Alex's for drinks and snacks on Sunday. Generally, we had an amazingly sociable and hardworking weekend. I have decided to start having Sunday night soirees, preferably in the garden, over the summer - we'll try and have 3, June - July and August, but we must also arrange the next Midsummer Picnic.
No comments:
Post a Comment