On bad timing - Bologna

It seems that people don't expect you to be an expert in the Sitz im Leben* of the whole literary/publishing world when you're just starting out, which is a relief.  Obviously, if you're looking for an agent (as I am), then you might want to do things like study their submission guidelines**, and read the obvious canonical works (the most obvious one), but you can't be expected to know all the ins and outs.  I think that agents will cut people a bit of slack.  Well, I really hope they will.

There are, however, some huge pieces of misfortune that can befall you if you don't know some of the basics.  And I've just fallen into one of them.  As any new author would, I'm very keen to find out whether I can find representation and to get feedback on my efforts (which I have, natch, submitted according to the relevant agents' guidelines).  I realise that despite my sparkling covering letter and fascinatingly revealed personality, it may take a while for them to get round to reading my 2 chapters/3 chapters/first 20 pages/first 10 pages [delete as applicable].  I even realise that 6 weeks is pretty much the standard time that I should have to wait.  What I didn't appreciate was that I was sending out my lovingly (and painstakingly) crafted submissions just before the Bologna Children's Book Fair.

"But it's only 4 days long!" you cry.

"That's a working week or more including travel," I reply.  "And there's the week beforehand for preparation, and the week before that when they'll be ignoring anything new that's come in because they know that they've got a week of preparation due.  And after the week of the Book Fair (if my experience of conferences and trade fairs is anything to go by***), there will be several days required for recovery.  And the wine over in Italy is generally more than passable.  And then at least a week to catch up on all the important things that didn't get done at the book fair.  And then another week for them to read the manuscripts that they got from the many authors they met at the conference****."  And that's lots of weeks.  I can't be bothered to count them, partly because I've been exaggerating for dramatic effect, but it feels like I've made a newbie mistake here, and I probably won't hear back from any of them before sometime in July.  Next year.*****

Heigh-ho.



* Yes, I'm going out of my way to be somewhat pretentious here, and I'm also aware that it's not really the right phrase, but I nearly wrote Weltschmerz instead, so it could have gone a whole lot worse.

** Search online for using terms like "agent" "submission guidelines" and "ignore" if you don't believe me.

*** As I used to work for an academic publisher, I'm going to pretend that the children's book fair scene is similar, but it could be even more extreme.

**** There may be none, but I'm fearing the worst now.

***** I should point out that one agent, who shall remain nameless but is, in my brief contact with her, clearly brilliant and generally perfect in all aspects of her personality, contacted me to suggest that I re-sent****** the submission after the Book Fair was over, because she was very busy, and was having IT problems.  I salute you.

****** I first wrote this as "resent the submission", which made the whole sentence read rather differently.  See - re-reading your work is useful.

Being an author - first thoughts

I'm an author: there, I've said it.  I get the feeling that saying it - or writing it - takes you at least half way there.  I've finished 2 novels now, and I'm looking for an agent for the first one: "Hacking the Dragon".  The other one ("Big Brother's Little Sister") is currently resting - in the way of chronically-under-employed acting types - before I come back to it and edit it up. 

Hacking the Dragon has been through two re-visits, and now feels ready to face some agents.  I got some very good feedback on it just as I was starting BB'sLS, but was too far into that to risk working on Hacking the Dragon.  I'm glad I waited: BB'sLS was flowing very well, and I think interrupting that wouldn't have been good for it.  Equally, more time to let Hacking the Dragon stew in my unconscious let me come to terms with the suggestions, and give it a bit more space.

So - what's it about?  Well, it's probably fair to call it light cyberpunk science fiction for young adults.  That sounds awfully clinical, though.  Maybe best to explain who it's for.  To be frank, it's for my eldest daughter - let's call her J.  When she started to get really into reading, I looked around, and couldn't see the sort of thing that I like reading, but for children.  Particularly for girls.  That felt awful: my two daughters - J and M - enjoy science and watching geeky programmes on TV, and I was pretty sure they'd enjoy reading about it, too.  It turned out I was right.

I started writing it partly as an exercise in introducing the girls to Linux and geekery.  Which was a terrible, terrible idea.  I then carried on writing it because I thought that the plot was quite cool.  Which was better, but still a pretty bad plan.  I finished writing it because I'd grown interested in the characters, and how they were going to cope with what was going on around them.  The plot unfurled round them.  That was a significant improvement.

I'll save a synopsis for another post, but what I wanted to write about on this blog was the process of writing.  I really enjoy writing, and I find it fascinating.  I know that I've got better at the craft of writing between Hacking the Dragon (now around 65,000 words) and BB'sLS (currently around 115,000 words), and I wanted a place to reflect on the process of writing, and to get comments and feedback.

There may not be much in this post that merits comment yet, but if there's anything you're interested to say, or hear about, get in touch.  More will, as they say, follow.