Winning Short Story: Living Space (and other updates)

It’s been a while since I posted an update. The good news is that I have something positive to share: my short story ‘Living Space’ came first place in a Fiction Factory Flash Fiction Competition. It has been published online, and you can read it for free here.

In other news, I’m working with my agent to edit the YA novel that I drafted in September last year. It is now in its third draft, which is a much quicker editing process than running it through a site like Critique Circle (where it takes about six months to run a single draft in weekly chapters). I’m not sure how many more drafts will be required before we pitch the novel to the publishing houses, but I’m hopeful that the next step will occur at some point in 2025.

In the gaps while I wait for feedback, I’m also slowly moving towards bringing a new YA novel (a thriller) into fruition. It is still in the planning stage currently, but I’m hoping to be ready to draft at least a few chapters later this month. I’d like to have this novel ready for my agent to read while we wait for news from the publishers about the fate of the current one.

It’s nice to have a little prize winning coming in, but the quest to earn enough money from writing is still very much in the works. In the meantime, I’m exploring part-time work. I started a teaching assistant job (two days) in December, which is helping me to cover my living costs. The downside is that it doesn’t give me enough flexibility, so I don’t expect to continue the job after the temporary contract expires in July. My next move will be into private tuition for students wanting a boost with English (ages 11-18), including A Level. I’m happy to offer online tuition, so do pass on my name if you hear that anyone is looking for tuition!

Blood of the Giants: Published Novella

My time with Fiction Express draws to a close. All five chapters are available for readers of the site.

It’s been a blast. One of the nicest things has been interacting with readers in the forum, which isn’t an experience I’ve had with my writing before (beyond receiving feedback to improve). Each week, I’ve posted topics for them to respond to (an opportunity for them to practice their English skills), which has involved them commenting on an element of that week’s chapter. For example, in the final week, I asked them what they thought happened in a conversation between two characters, which is alluded to in the last chapter but not shown. Many of the responses were fun to read, especially the ones where the students wrote out their own conversations, showing a great understanding of the characters! It’s been encouraging to know that readers have enjoyed the reading experience and to see how they have engaged with the story.

At some stage in the future, the novella may become available to purchase through Amazon. I’ll post a link in this blog if that does happen.

The big question for me now is what happens next. I’ve finished a draft of the YA novel that I’m sending to my agent later this month. When I receive her feedback, I will be moving into a stage of revision with that story. In the meantime, I’m outlining a couple of other ideas for Fiction Express. I would love to write for them again at some stage, although I know it won’t happen soon – they already have writers booked in for the next two half terms, meaning the earliest I could possibly write for them is in March. It’ll be back to Critique Circle in the short term with those projects, to hopefully get some feedback to make them attractive to the Fiction Express editors.

The reality of the tax year 2024-2025 is that I won’t earn enough from writing to cover my living costs. I’m not likely to be booked in for Fiction Express again, and the new novel, still in its rough first draft, is only at the beginning of a journey towards the editors at the big publishing houses – an advance is likely to be years away, if it happens at all. As such, I’ve applied for a part-time (ten hour) teaching assistant role this week. I’m hopeful that I can find a balance with a job like that which allows me to keep pushing forward with my writing projects.

The good thing about the Blood of the Giants novella is that it is my longest publication to date (at 12,500 words) so hopefully it is a sign that I’m moving in the right direction for the publication of a longer work. I’m grateful for the opportunity and for everything I’ve learned from the process.

Upcoming Activities

With the summer drawing to a close, here’s a roundup of everything that will be keeping me busy from September onwards…

The first is that I will be working with Fiction Express at last. This commissioned writing partners me with school students (mostly in Spain and Latin America) to write a story in five chapters. The students vote at the end of each chapter to determine where the story goes next. It’s a fun way to help them develop their English reading skills, and I’m excited to begin.

Another thing that I’m going to be doing (on a voluntary basis) is working with Grimm & Co. This is a charity that helps young people develop their creative writing skills. My agent recommended that delivering some writing classes could be another good thing for my overall portfolio, and it’ll be good to be around my target audience again. One of the things I miss from my teaching career is interacting with the kids.

The biggest project I have on the go (which will hopefully make some progress concurrent with Fiction Express) is the latest novel draft. I’ve reached 25K, so it feels like it’s taking shape. My rough estimates for completion put it somewhere in the 50-75K range, although I can’t say with any certainty while I’m still relatively early in the process. It’s still a first draft, and I expect I’ll need to make big changes (as always) once it’s finished. My hope is to have a full draft by the end of October – that’s when I’ve arranged to send what I have to my agent for feedback.

In other news, the story that was published in print is now freely available online here. It’s in a collection with lots of other short stories about how scientists are working to reverse the ongoing climate crisis, so it’s well-worth a read.

Short Story Successes (and Other Updates)

 Last week, I received an exciting package in the post: three copies of a book in which my winning story ‘From the Ashes’ has been anthologised. It’s the first time I’ve ever been paid to feature in print media (rather than published online) and it feels amazing to have my words in a physical form. I can clear a shelf on one of my bookcases and hope that one day I will fill it with a range of published stories.

Another success came through via email a few minutes ago. My story ‘Observation’ has been selected as first prize in another competition and has been published. You can read it online for free here. 

When the small prize comes through (£100), it'll be my first fiction earning for the current financial year. I’ll still be a long way from matching my living costs, but I’m hopeful that writing for Fiction Express this year will help with that. My first story will feature there in September, a novella called Blood of the Giants, which is loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. It's starting to feel ‘real’ (after a very long wait) since they have sent me a proof of the digital cover!

In other news, I’ve sent the openings of both novel projects to my agent. We’re meeting up in London on Friday to chat about them, and hopefully then I’ll have the clarity I need to develop a full draft before the end of the year.

Small steps, but each one is a hopeful sign!

Why I Don’t Give Up

Since the last blog was a bit bleak, I thought I’d counteract it with some truths this time.

How many times it took me to pass my driving test: 4

I cried in the car after every failed test. The woman who failed me on my second test went on to pass me on the fourth.

How many Cambridge colleges interviewed me before I was accepted: 2

After the first one, I entered what was called the ‘pool’. They liked me but not quite enough to offer me a place, and another college fished me out to give me a second chance.

How many attempts it took me to pass my PGCE (teaching qualification): 2

I took a year out to work as a teaching assistant before I finished the course successfully.

How many times I applied for a teaching job at the school where I eventually worked: 3

I first applied early in my PGCE and was (understandably) passed over. I applied again later, after my year as a teaching assistant, unsure whether they would give me a second chance. The third application turned my temporary contract into a permanent contract.

How many times I sent out a query to an agent before I finally got representation: 34

That’s if my records (which go back over two decades with three different novels) are accurate.

So, the fact that the main publishing houses in the UK looked and passed over the first novel I worked on with my agent is consistent with how my life has progressed so far. And hopefully there will be more success with the next novel.

I’m currently drafting proposals and opening chapters for two different novels. One is probably best described as a Young Adult Speculative Psychological Drama (same target age as the last novel, but a very different genre) and one is Adult Crime Fiction (if YA fails, the rationale is to try an entirely different market). I’m still in the early stages (4000 words with the Crime novel, 1000 with the YA novel), but hopefully I can finish a first draft of one of the two complete before the end of the year.

Drafting is always a pleasurable part of the process.

I also had a small piece of good news that I'm on another longlist this week. The judging process isn't finished, so perhaps the short story can go further...

Death of a Novel

Remember when I wrote that Garth Nix once compared sending a novel out to publishing houses as being like a merchant sending out a ship, where it could either return with great fortunes or founder?

Well, from my experience, it’s more like this…

 

Imagine you’re stranded on an island. You’re the only person there. All you have with you is a packet of cedar seeds. You know that if you can cross the strip of water, you’ll reach the mainland, where the people are. So, you plant a seed. Days turn into weeks. You toil every day to survive yourself while you create conditions for your little tree to grow. You desalinate salt water to nourish it, you check on it each day, you carefully measure its progress. All the while, you look out over the sea, dreaming of the day your little tree will carry you over the water to the people on the mainland.

Years pass and the tree grows. You sharpen a blade of rock and cut it down. You split the trunk into planks and carefully shape and plane and bow the wood into a dinghy. It’s a labour-intensive process, and you often hurt yourself in the process, but one day, finally, the little boat is ready. Its sails snap in the winds and for the first time you feel something like hope. You climb into your dinghy and the wind is strong, true, carrying you directly to the mainland. You imagine what it will be like, to connect with people after so long.

But you realise as you approach that jutting rocks bar your way. The wind of expectation is too strong and when the boat strikes, the impact severe. As your precious dinghy splinters around you, you sink into salty water. The tide carries you back to the island. Everything is as it was before. But one seed is gone from your pack, and you’re not quite as agile as you were once, when you were first stranded on the island.

 

That’s the story of Spirit Bound, a novel I’ve been working on for over a decade. I’m grateful that it broke against vast rocks like Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, and Scholastic – over twenty big publishing houses in total. I never really expected it to sail so far, even after I convinced an agent to take me on. To have feedback that shows that these editors read my work is far more than I’ve ever achieved before. But the sting of salt is real.

There are a few possibilities at this stage. I could choose to self-publish the novel. It’s not part of my current plan, but it remains a long-term possibility. Short-term, the novel will be shelved. There’s a slim possibility that in years to come, editors may be more likely to take on the risk – if I establish my name in some other way, for example. So, the short-term plan is to develop a new novel and begin the process again. I have an agent, which will save a lot of time when I have a polished novel ready.

If there’s a lesson to be learned in all this, I suppose it’s that there’s no point spending over a decade working on a single novel. I didn’t really have a choice, or I didn’t think I did. But I could have chosen a job that wasn’t so demanding (of both creativity and time) than teaching to pay the way. I could have created better conditions, day-to-day, to draft a novel over a shorter span of time.

So, the interesting thing will be how long it takes me to draft a new novel. If it takes longer than a year for me to let it set sail, I will know that I’m doing something wrong.

Short Successes

January was a busy month as I was editing the sequel to my first novel (I'm still waiting to see if any publishers are interested in the first book). I’m currently receiving feedback on the sequel's second draft from members of my writing group, and my current plan is to work on more revisions in March.

As the sequel was taking up all my attention last month, I haven’t submitted to any short story competitions for a couple of months, but I need to get started again. In the last couple of days, I’ve received some news worth sharing: a story that I submitted in December reached second place in a competition. It’s called ‘A Book Report’ and is available to read for free (along with the other winners).

While I was researching competitions today, deciding what to enter next, I also discovered that I’ve been longlisted for another competition. It’s too early to know which story caught the judges’ attention (I entered two) or how far it might get in the competition, but it’s good to know that I’ve received some recognition. Fingers crossed!

In other news, I’ve written an opening chapter for Fiction Express. I’m going to get some feedback from my writing group this week, and then I’ll be sending that off to my agent next week. Hopefully, the organisation will like the concept. I’m not sure I’ll begin writing for them in February/March (given how soon their next batch of stories will go live), but hopefully they’ll slot me in for their April books.

Steady progress overall, but the shorter works have a much quicker turnaround!

2023 Roundup

As the year draws to a close, I can safely safe that 2023 has been my most successful year as a writer. Not only have I signed with an agent, but I’ve proven that I can earn some money from publication. I’m still far from earning enough to cover my living expenses, but this year has given me plenty of hope for next year.

Here’s a roundup of every tangible success from the year:

 

Free to Access Online Publications:

‘The Slumbering Dragon’ (first prize)

‘Enduring Love’ (first prize)

‘Lost Property’ (short list)

 

Anthologised and Available to Purchase:

‘Baby on Board’ (short list)

 

Other Competition Successes (but not published):

‘From the Ashes’ (first prize) – and will hopefully be anthologised at some point!

‘Another Man’s Treasure’ (long list)

 

To anyone who has read and engaged with any of my stories, I can only say a huge thank you. Writing is a solitary process, and it’s been an entirely new (and humbling) process to connect with readers. You are the community who really makes this occupation meaningful.

In 2023, I entered 29 competitions (which translates to a success rate of 20 per cent). I’d like to increase this number in 2024 with the hope of similar fortunes.

While I can’t control what happens with the novel, I can edit the sequel (now drafted) to make it more effective. I’m in the process of sharing it with readers to help me gauge where I need to make improvements. I hope that process will be complete by the middle of the year.

If I can’t find a publisher for my first novel (even with an agent), one thing I can try is to appeal to a very different reading market. I have a concept for a new novel (adult fiction) that I hope to write before the end of 2024.

Another exciting thing which I mentioned in the last blog for next year is the possibility of writing for Fiction Express. If I complete three or four projects with them, that should give me enough money to cover my living costs for the year. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, to earn enough to live and keep writing. Anything beyond that is a huge bonus. It seems like the destination is in sight.

Whatever you hope for 2024, I wish you a successful and fulfilling year ahead!

 

Doors Opening

My agent contacted me today with some potentially exciting news: an organisation had contacted her to see if I was interested in being involved in their writing projects. The organisation is called Fiction Express, and it aims to encourage young people to develop a love of reading. Over a half term, they release a chapter of a new book each week, and the young people involved have the chance to read and vote on where the story will go next. 

From the writer’s perspective, it sounds like an intense experience, but I have been involved in short story competitions this year that have also required very tight turnarounds, so I’m up for the challenge. I also believe, at this stage in my career, that it’s important to say ‘yes’ to any opportunity that comes my way. This is the first thing that I’ve seen in addition to my own personal novel projects where I believe I could earn enough to cover my living costs for the year. 

It’s great that my agent has passed this on to me, and I feel again so incredibly grateful that she decided to offer me representation. I’m officially on the DKW website’s list of authors, which is a big confidence boost as well. I think that the organisation may have approached my agent because of that profile, so it’s excellent that even though the novel may not yet have interest from publishing house editors (only three rejections so far), having an agent is opening doors in other ways. There have been times when I’ve weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of going for traditional publication versus self-publication, and this is one of those moments of definite ‘advantage’ for the traditional route, something I didn’t know about until now. 

 Anyway, I’ll finish by taking the opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Always Check Your Junk Mail

The title says it all... I happened to check my junk inbox today and discovered that I'd come in first place in a story competition. For eight whole days, my work has been published online, and I've been none the wiser! Anyway, you can check out the story ‘The Slumbering Dragon’ here.

According to my records, there should be a £300 prize for first place in this competition. Hopefully, this should come my way now that I’ve responded to the email from the competition organisers. If it does, it will be a dream come true, as I will be in profit from my ventures into short story competitions.

Reaching a longlist was incredible, but perhaps a fluke. Reaching a shortlist and being published was amazing, but perhaps just a one-off. To win a competition and be published a second time suggests that people do actually want to read what I have to write.

It’s still early days, but I’d love to make a career from my writing. My agent is currently approaching editors at publishing houses for my YA Fantasy novel. It will be at least six weeks before we hear anything about it. Garth Nix (a fellow writer!) wrote a post comparing this stage to 16^th-century merchants setting out in their ships across the sea, uncertain whether their venture would lead to profit or shipwreck. To keep busy, I’m at work with the sequel. But if nothing comes from the novel series, I have plenty of other projects to consider in future years.

Representation

It’s been quite a week. First came the news I’d reached the shortlist in the flash fiction competition, and then the conversation with the agent who had read the full manuscript for the novel. I’ve been sitting on exciting news since Thursday, hardly able to trust its reality, terrified it would be snatched away, but now that I’ve signed the relevant documentation, I can share it: I have accepted an offer of representation!

It’s been a long journey. I first embarked upon the quest for publication in 2006 with a novel that I shelved several years later. Two full novels later, various concepts that never made it to completion, and six drafts of my current project later, I’m now a client at DKW Literary Agency under the representation of the lovely Camille Burns.

This is a bigger step than I ever believed I would take. Secretly, I expected, when I quit my paid job last summer, to be back in some sort of educational setting (probably tutoring) part-time after a year out without any glimmer of hope. I wouldn’t give up, but I’d shelve the current novel (having exhausted the list of agents that I thought might take an interest) and write a new novel, to begin the long process again. I have a novel already conceptualised, that I was planning to draft in January 2024. I was working to a five-year plan that would eventually lead to self-publication of several novels. It would be a route into publication, and maybe I would find some success, but it would not be my dream path…

However, gaining an agent means I have access to the traditional route into publishing and all the benefits in terms of connections and industry experts. Just in brief conversations with Camille so far, I’ve received feedback that I’ve never received elsewhere that has been transformative for the novel (and right now I’m planning out a major redrafting of the final third), and her works have also made me consider areas of publishing that I’ve never considered, things like overseas and translation. I don’t know if my novel will ever have the level of success to require those kinds of services, but I know that it’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t have occurred to me if I were going it alone.

This has all come about because of the Bradford Literary Festival sessions where writers could pay to meet an agent and receive a critique of their work. Meeting an agent face-to-face, in a setting where that agent was paid to consider your work (rather than look for excuses to skip over it since they have another thousand hopefuls to also consider that day), really did make all the difference. And it makes such a big difference to have someone who is really enthusiastic about your writing, who believes that what you’ve written deserves to be read. If you are reading this as an aspiring writer, I strongly encourage you to check out Jericho Writers – a website that facilitates conversations between writers and agents, similar (if more expensive) than what I was lucky enough to be involved in at the literary festival.

Telling people that I have written a book is often a process of ‘expectation management’, since people who don’t know the industry often believe that reaching ‘the end’ means the book will be published the very next day. Even with an agent, it might be years before a publisher takes interest in this novel, if at all. However, it’s a palpable step, and I’m very excited to see where this road will take me.

As always, I can’t thank enough the fellow writers on Critique Circle, who’ve always given me such valuable and thoughtful feedback on my work. And thanks to everyone who has celebrated my small successes over the last twelve months: I’m so grateful for all your support.

Buns for Tea

 

I have exciting news: I can finally call myself a published writer!

This month, I reached a shortlist on The Bi-monthly FreeFlash Fiction Competition, which results in publication on the website and a small prize of £20 (minus the £3.50 entry fee, of course). A real earning from my writing! The story itself is only 300 words, so it ends up at about six pence per word. But the validation is priceless.

The shortlisted story is called ‘Lost Property’ and can be read here. Warning: it is a very dark story exploring how aspects of modernity may enable predatorial behaviour.

I should also give a huge shout out to all the critters on CritiqueCircle who gave feedback on an earlier draft of this story. I made a lot of substantial changes based on their input before I entered the story into this competition.

Write, edit, submit: the strategy is beginning to work.

The results are in...

 I have a small bit of news: I can now say I’m a longlisted writer.

A short story I wrote earlier this year called ‘Another Man’s Treasure’ made it onto the Frome Short Story Competition Long List 2023. You can click here to see the list, but it’s nothing exciting - it doesn't even say my name.

However, a longlist is a glimmer of hope. It means that a judge liked the story sufficiently to recognise it. It doesn’t mean that I’m published, though it does mean that I can try the story elsewhere to see whether a different judge in another competition would like it more.

It also means I can add this to my writing CV to hopefully make me stand out a little when querying agents for my novel. I don’t know whether I will have any success with the agent who is currently reading my full manuscript. I have to be prepared to be back in the usual position, with no agent, trying to reach out to others across the cybergulf. But if that’s where I am in a few months’ time, at least I’ll be able to tell agents that I am a longlisted writer.

How to Meet an Agent

 I have a little news: an agent has asked to read my full manuscript.

This is a tiny step that has never occurred before. It’s still very early days because the agent may read the entire novel and decide it would be too hard to sell. I’ve accepted that. However, she has promised to give feedback, so even in that scenario, hopefully her advice will make it more attractive to other agents. She’s already given me some excellent feedback on the opening chapters that I’m working to implement before I send it back to her.

Getting a full manuscript request has always been the stumbling point, the point at which I put my novels on hold and write something new. In some ways, the last ten months have been harder than when I was submitting to agents in my teens. Back then, I received a nice piece of paper with a generic rejection after a long wait. These days, the best I have received is an email, and in most cases, nothing at all.

It turns out that submitting work to the slushpile (the inbox of an agent) isn’t the best way to approach an agent. The route into communication with this agent came from a very different avenue: my attendance at Bradford Literary Festival.

I don’t know how typical this is of literary festivals, but I should note here that Bradford Literary Festival 2023 was an amazing event for emerging writers. They had many sessions which were pitched to unpublished writers, and as well as offering encouragement, real stories and practical advice, they also had a 1:1 event to meet an agent.

I booked onto this event through luck. I had no idea it was happening until a writing buddy on Critique Circle told me that she was doing it, and then I was lucky enough that I was in the country to attend, because the day before we arrived home from a holiday in Europe. Anyway, after wrestling with my own insecurities briefly (the terrifying prospect of receiving verbal feedback), I decided to go for it, because that must be the attitude to make something happen.

I had no expectations for the event. The website description simply said it was a chance to receive feedback from an agent. I thought it would be helpful to know which elements of my pitch were off-putting, and more specifically if the novel concept itself just wasn’t saleable and I should work on something else. So, it was an amazing experience to be told by someone in the industry that my writing style is good. It’s a huge validation of all the efforts I’ve put in over the years.

A third piece of luck I should mention is the agent I originally booked to meet was unable to attend, and the agent I met replaced him. From researching her, I was already happy, because her bio expressed her interest in Young Adult, while the original agent (from a pick of three not yet booked up) seemed only partially suitable due to his interest in Adult Fantasy.

The lesson I have taken from the festival generally is that this is a much better way to get in touch with agents. Meeting them in person begins a dialogue, allows them to see your passion and understand your aims much better than a sentence or two bio in a query letter ever can. Another statistic I learned from another session at the festival is that a big agent receives 700 to 1000 submissions every week to their inbox, of which they might accept just two new clients a year. I always knew the chances were slim, but statistics like that really hammer home just how infinitesimally slim the odds are. A really good question was asked in the general agent meet, when they referred to how most of their clients are not unsolicited. Someone asked how they find new writers, then, if they don’t find them in the slushpile, and the answer was: events like this one.

If nothing else, I know to look out for future events which involve agents. And that my writing is good.

Drafts and Redrafts and Redrafts

It’s been a busy few months, especially November, which became my editing month (as opposed to NaNoWriMo, which traditionally turns November into the drafting month). Each day my target was to edit one chapter, from the feedback I received on Critique Circle. I knew that I had time to edit the entire novel if I stuck to that target, and I managed to speed up towards the end (sometimes able to edit two chapters per day), meaning that I finished the entire draft on 24^th November.

So, as a reward for ‘gaining’ time, I can now give the blog a little attention…

This is the fourth draft. When I talk to people about the process, people fall into two camps generally: those who don’t understand drafting and those who wonder how you ever stop drafting. So, this blog can be about the drafting process.

Stephen King’s memoir On Writing compares the drafting process to excavating a dinosaur skeleton. The skeleton is the fragile story concept, and each draft is about trying to reach it without destroying the entire thing. He completes a novel in four drafts, if I recall the details correctly.

My process for this novel can be more aptly compared to swinging a wrecking ball and then collecting the rubble for the basis of the new building. There was nothing fragile about the movement between the first and the second drafts, which I suppose was because the skeleton was far from exposed after the first draft, buried in a primordial sludge of misdirection and misjudgement. A necessary sludge, I should note – because without a first draft, you can never go any further.

That hopefully explains why drafting is necessary. From the second draft, I received feedback from people on Critique Circle. Feedback comes in all forms, but the best feedback allows me to reconsider elements, and key world building elements came to light in this draft, which again significantly altered the novel.

Perhaps it’s better to think about redrafting as a series of earthquakes. Draft one to two was perhaps an 8 on the Richter scale, whereas two into three was more of a 7. From the feedback on draft three, the impact of the seismic shifts has significantly decreased. There was one major character decision that altered things, but overall, it was probably more a magnitude 5 shake up.

It's too soon to know what it’s like while the dust is settling. At the end of every draft, I inevitably think ‘yes, this is it!’ and then realise later (through reading myself or letting others read) that there are still major problems. However, I feel confident from the diminishing damage reports that it is moving towards its final draft.

My plan going forward is to submit to CC what is known in the industry as a ‘betaread’. The purpose of this is to receive overall feedback, which is different from CC’s usual week-by-week, chapter-by-chapter process. It should help me to know how well the novel as a whole is working. CC only brought this function in part way through this year; it may have been helpful, probably, at an earlier stage in the drafting process – something I will consider for future novels.

January 2023 will be the beta month, and from that feedback I’m hoping to be finished with this novel by the end of February. I feel like there are no more substantial changes to be done, though I’m happy to be proven wrong. However, if the Richter scale continues to diminish, I think the February draft (number five) will be the final one.

I’ve also been putting my ‘gained’ time to use to research short story competitions (the plan for 2023), but I’ll say more about that in another blog.

Submission Time

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but I’m now at a stage where I am ready to submit my novel to agents.

An amusing digression that highlights the passage of time: back when I submitted a novel in 2011, the convention for indicating italics in a manuscript was to underline. Naturally, I imitated this with the current novel submission, and then thought to myself, when preparing the emails, this is a hangover from the typewriter era that probably no longer exists now that everything is digital. A little research proved my speculation to be correct.

Nothing much else has changed. I wish I were in a stronger position with my ‘Writer’s CV’ but perhaps next year, I might be able to do something about that (more on that in a future blog).

Anyway, the current novel has been through three redrafts to get to this stage and is now entering its fourth draft. The feedback I have received so far from Critique Circle has confirmed that the fourth draft is more a refinement of the third, rather than a complete rewrite. This gives me the confidence to feel I can submit the first three chapters to agents to see if they are interested.

The wait time for a response from an agent varies, though the shortest promises a 6–8-week turnaround. At this stage, they will either reject you or ask to look at the full manuscript. I’ve never been beyond the stage of a simple rejection, so that’s currently what ‘success’ will look like for me.

I plan to use the interim period to keep working on the refinement of draft four. I’m in the process of digesting the feedback, although I won’t have the full picture until the beginning of November. However, the feedback so far has given me plenty to work on, week by week.

Another thing I plan to do is continue reading current Young Adult Fantasy to find new agents to query. I have compiled a list so far of about eleven agents, which is relatively small still (ideally, I’d like to submit to twenty agencies). My usual process is to let the book guide me to the agent, so it does take time to widen the net. However, the pleasure of this is being able to discover new authors.

What chance, realistically, do I have? All I know is that my current novel is my strongest to date. Should I receive twenty rejections over the next six months, I have various alternative options to consider, so it won’t be the end of the story.

How NOT to be a writer

It has been a long time since my last post.  Seven years, to be exact.  Much has changed in my life since the previous post, such as a stable teaching job and home ownership with associating interests like cooking.  One thing has not changed: I'm still no closer to achieving my dream to be a published author.

The progress over the silent years can be summarised through a series of snippets from letters of introduction that I write for new school groups each year:

September 2014: "I was busy writing a new story in the summer, and managed to reach 19,000 words. That might sound like a lot but it’s barely a quarter of the novel!"

September 2015: "This summer, I managed to write about 18,000 words of a children’s fantasy novel, taking it to about 37,000 words."

September 2016: "This summer, I managed to write about 24,000 words of a children’s fantasy novel, taking it to about 61,000 words."

September 2017: "This summer, I managed to write about 28,000 words of a children’s fantasy novel, taking it to about 89,000 words."

At this point, I should note, I am starting to worry about the length, as shown in a follow-up clause: "...but it's only about three-quarters complete!"

September 2018: "This summer, I managed to write 37,000 words, in order to complete a children’s fantasy novel that I’ve been working on for five years. The entire book is a bit too long right now (126,000 words), which is longer than the third Harry Potter book, so now I need to edit it to make it shorter!"

September 2019: "This summer, I have been editing one of my books, because I need to make it shorter before I send it to publishers. It’s a fantasy story called Spirit Bound and the first draft was longer than the third Harry Potter book. So far, I’ve edited the first fifth of the novel and have cut 4,500 words, so there’s still a lot of work to do!

This final letter doesn't truly reflect the level of despair I felt at the beginning of that summer when I realised, on reading the entire novel, how much significant structural work needed to be done in order to make the book more akin to its "true" conception.  A decision was made in 2014 to introduce an antagonist, which resurrected this novel and allowed me to keep working on it to the end of the completed draft.  In that sense, it was a good decision.  But even as I wrote it, I knew the antagonist came across as superficial and would need to be removed.  The bloating of the word count simply solidified this conviction (for those of you not familiar with the YA market, the upper word count for first time writers is 90K).

It was incredibly demoralising to reach the end of the summer holidays in 2019 and to know that I was only a fifth of the way.  To know that it was likely to take me, if I continued at that rate, another four years before I had a draft I might feel happy to present for micro-editing.

I tried to commit more time to my novel.  In the autumn term, I determined to free up at least one day a week to my writing.  I succeeded, to a certain extent, and managed to rewrite another 20,000 words.  However, as the spring term arrived, the precarious balancing act started to tip.  I dedicated too much time to writing in the Christmas holiday and, as a result, struggled to keep on top of the neglected planning for the spring term.  I abandoned the Sunday of writing but even this didn't free up enough time to feel 'on top' of things again.  I began to grow sick, from stress and insomnia.

Then something strange happened.

Coronavirus.

In a matter of weeks, as death tolls around the world began to creep up, the UK government took the decision to close schools and ask teachers to work remotely.  Overnight, my work load more than halved.  To explain, you should understand how the work can be divided into three main areas: planning lessons, delivering lessons and marking work.  With delivery gone and marking (sadly) dramatically reduced (as few students were submitting work for feedback), I could actually finish the school day at the normal time, rather than working into the evening and all weekend on planning, which for me, has always taken almost as long as delivery.

Suddenly, I could rewrite about 1000 words a day.  By the end of that first week of lockdown, the rewrite had reached 51,000 words.  I believed the final count would be somewhere between 90-100,000, and so, unlike most people, who anxiously watched the news wondering when the lockdown might ease, I watched for the opposite reason, knowing that if it could just last for about seven weeks, I would have enough time to finish the rewrite.

The associated guilt, I should add, was huge (and still is), to know that I was benefiting from something so terrible, which was (and still is) causing so much loss and grief to so many people, whereas I was feeling more well than I had for this entire year, simply because I could breathe.

This brings us to the present moment.  We are now at the end of the sixth week of the lockdown and I have completed the novel rewrite at 101,000 words.  It is still too long, but I feel the new version fixes the structural problems of the first draft.  I also believe there is room to cut 10% when the prose is sharpened, which will hopefully take it to nearer the upper YA limit.

Steven King wrote in his memoir about how he abandoned his teaching career because it was incompatible with his writing needs.  I can understand this.

All I ever need is time.  The last six weeks (in spite of the guilt) have been idyllic: long periods of creative energy punctuated with walks into the countryside (around our surprisingly rural home).

Moving into the next phase might be more manageable, even when the lockdown does ease.  Editing is a less intensive process, and easier to compartmentalise.  As the restrictions start to lift, I might be able to manage to dedicate an hour a day to the editing process (which involves renewing my membership at the online writing circle Critique Circle).

One day I will resolve this tension between earning money and writing.  For now, this is definitely not how to be a writer.

Tales from Stocksbridge

Hello, hello, hello!

It has been a long while since I updated this blog, which as usual, means that I haven't done much writing.

I have been doing something rather exciting, however, in the last couple of months: leading a short story writing competition at school, and then sorting out the publication of all the stories in an ebook!

This is what the finished product looks like:

How exciting!

You can now download the ebook from Amazon, by just clicking: HERE!

Please do download it! It's a great ebook, which really shows off the budding talents of young writers at Stocksbridge High School (and hidden talents of staff and parents!). And I suppose it's the first school ebook of its kind, which is really rather exciting. :D I am a pioneer of sorts, hehe.

Another Year

Any silence on this blog is a clear indication of how little writing I have done in that time, and I cringe to see that I last updated the blog in April 2013... but I have started again a bit lately. I'm rewriting Zack to take it into a completely new direction, because the last version didn't really work. It's around 12,000 words at the moment...

Though I haven't been writing much, I have been reading a lot. I'm currently reading a book called My Name is Mina, which seems to have been written to be used in a classroom. It's a bit polemical but it's full of creative writing ideas and would make a brilliant scheme of work for Y7 or Y8. I might have to develop it to teach next year when I go back to the PGCE... I still need to get to the end, of course, but I'm really liking it so far.

On that vein, I was looking into David Almond and I stumbled across this video. I haven't listened to it all, but a couple of minutes in, there is a wonderful quote from the man, which I have to repeat here:

“People say to writers: when did you start writing? But the question should be, for people who aren't writers: when did you stop writing?”

(David Almond)

He's making a point that all children have to write when they are at school. I may have huge gaps in my productivity, but I could never 'stop' writing! Perhaps the education system fails if it puts children off writing. So, if you are not a writer, when did you stop and why?

Easter Update

It's been a stressful sort of holiday, for one reason or another...

It started off pretty well, with a trip to Buckingham and beyond (!) to see a friend who has moved down there to work *sob*. My boyfriend and I turned it into a mini-road trip and we visited Thorpe Park, Warwick Castle (really recommend!), Legoland. In that order. No, you're right, the order doesn't make sense for travelling. But we had our reasons... Then, when I returned up North, I made the most delightful chocolatey goodies with another friend.

Unfortunately, I came down with tonsillitis in the second week of the holiday! It's been pretty rough. I could handle the sore, pus-infected, swollen tonsils but the constant headache and fever were awful. It was hard to do very much for several days, which was frustrating, since there was (as always) a lot to get done. Fortunately, I still had some of the mindless tasks left, so I was doing filing for most of my illness.

I'm still not fully recovered, but I'm feeling a lot better. I can almost swallow properly now!

Another stress has been the threat of moving internet providers. It still hasn't quite happened but THE BOX is in the living room (it has the new wireless router in it). Dad is saving money. He doesn't realise that our current company has been hosting my website for free for the last five years and that my hit count has been oh so steadily creeping up. That's why I've been so frustrated.

Fortunately, a kind benefactor offered to give me some of his webspace, which is ever so generous. Ordinarily, it seems that you have to pay per month! I've had to buy a domain, but now the site is fully transferred over: www.allinfo.org.uk. Please click and help me establish it, the poor thing.

Because I've acted in time, I've put some redirects from my old site to the new site. I'm hoping this will help the new site to establish itself... It's not going to be anywhere near as popular, but maybe just maybe if I'm lucky I won't have to go RIGHT back to one hit a day. Maybe.

Ah well. That's my life at the moment. I'm back to school on Monday, which I am looking forward to. I have various new ideas to try out with my classes. I'm doing Creative Writing with Y7, which should be a nice scheme of work. Which reminds me of my own writing. For some reason Shadow Lords is in my mind at the moment: it wants me to redraft it again. Or to write the prequel. o_O Not sure I have time for either of those things...unless I resurrect my Paragraph-a-Day on Critique Circle.

Free afternoon

I should probably make a start on some lesson planning, but I feel I've deserved a break, since I've just come back from another job rejection. Getting a job is so hard...

I thought my mini-lesson today went quite well, and thought I'd at least get through to the interview stage. But it was another lunchtime elimination. If I can take anything good from it, at least they said that no one 'failed' in their teaching...just that some people were better than others. Thinking back, I can think of areas where there needs to be improvement. At the time, the rejection did surprise me -- I was just so happy until that point, because I delivered well today in a number of areas that have previously been lacking.

I do feel that I'm making progress now, more than ever before. My mentor at my new placement school is simply fantastic; I just can't get over how wonderful she is. So I need to keep the progression going and I suppose I'll have to just keep applying. I'm lucky that I can, at least, get invited to job interviews: some people can't even get that far.

So I thought I'd just update the blog a bit about where things are. I'm so determined to be a really amazing teacher... A bit gutted because I would have just loved to have worked at that school so much, but oh well. I suppose I'll find somewhere else...eventually.

Until the next blue moon...

On Writing

Welcome to the New Year, almost at the end of the first month. Hmm.

Anyway, here's a good quote from an anime film called Whispers of the Heart:

"It’s a special kind of rock called a geode. When you first become an artist, you’re like that rock. You’re in a raw, unnatural state, with hidden gems inside. You need to dig down deep and find the emeralds tucked away inside you. And that’s just the beginning. Once you’ve found your gems, you have to polish them. It takes a lot of hard work."

I may share that in class at some point. Hehe.

It's a good film to watch, too. :D