Fairytale Bubbles, Pricks and Rejections

If you're one of my 'friends' on Facebook you might have noticed that over the course of the past few weeks, culminating in a freebie giveaway this weekend, I have edited, designed a particularly beautiful cover for and e-published my latest 'baby' onto the Amazon e-book/Kindle site.

Only 'Reconstructing Jennifer' isn't  strictly my latest baby.  This book was the first book I ever wrote 'the end' on and was completed probably something like 10 years ago. 

It spent a further year being hidden in my document files on a very prehistoric pc (I even have the original on a floppy disc somewhere) before I summoned up the courage - aided superbly by the lovely writerly interweb friends I'd made at the same time and to whom I have dedicated the book at the start - to send it out to agents and publishers.

Which made the following year a very very fraught one indeed.

You see I hadn't planned on writing a whole book to begin with and when I started to get such positive feedback from the writing group I belonged to, I quite imagined it could be plucked from relative obscurity (a.k.a the slushpile) and jettisoned into the dizzy heights of publication.

Oh how simple were my beliefs back then.

I even did the ridiculous thing of printing off my chapters, writing my covering letters and synopsis and sending it trepidaciously off to ONE Agent at a TIME - not fully appreciating the length of time it takes an Agent to respond.  I got very little sleep that year, I can tell you.  And if it hadn't been for some sensible suggestions from my dear writerly friends then I'd have gone quite insane.  I'm not the most patient of people.  I may appear calm on the outside, but it plays havoc with my internals.

At the last count, 'Labrats' did 2 rounds over the course of 18 months and met with approximately 58 rejections.  Some of them were lovely and encouraging, some of them came back with a "NO!" scrawled in blood *could've been red ink* on my original covering letter  but none of them came back complete with pubic hair (that actually happened to somebody but I can't tell you who).

'Reconstructing Jennifer' was called 'Labrats' back then - titled such because it's how the main character feels, being trapped in a marriage where she has a cheating husband, a new baby to contend with and parents you couldn't rely to pass you a piss-pot if you happened to catch fire. Just like a Lab Rat. Only then some TV people called a new and lame sitcom the same thing, so I felt obliged to re-name mine.

And I never thought that Jennifer would see the light of day until the other week when I thought, bless her and flip it all, she deserves to get some fresh air about her pasty cheeks, let's see what the world will make of her.  As I started to read through it and re-format it and edit it here and there, I found I loved her and her story as much as I ever did. 
And so she was revealed.
I do hope you've managed to have a wee 'look inside' as the Amazonians like to tempt.  And if you like what you read, then do, please download it.  I'm crap at marketing and terrible at encouraging people to do things they really don't want to do, just because I say they should, so don't feel bad will you - if you don't like it or want to buy it I mean.Okay?

300 downloads this weekend.  I'm very cheered by that.  And I love that my Labrats is finally 'out there' - it's been a long time coming.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Writer

Okay, here’s a little teaser for you:
What have Chopin, James Blunt, Rameses II, Kenneth Williams, Sheila Hancock, Arthur Schopenhauer, Bruce Forsyth and Me got in common?
That’s right. We were all born on the same day. And, for me, this has been my ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card for as long as I can remember. With a hand to the brow I have escaped many a sideways remark with my claim to arty fame. We’re a very sensitive bunch, us Pisceans – although I’ve heard that anyone born between 19-22nd of any month could reasonably be termed a Cuspian because it’s such a close call, day-wise. Anyway, we are the creative Cuspians of the Zodiac.

I’m actually more than a little disappointed that Tony Hancock, Lord Byron and Sylvia Plath weren’t born on this day because at times I feel a total empathy with these people as well. And whenever Brucie’s on the TV, I always get a warm glow. But that could be more to do with the sofa; there’s probably a small empire of hitherto undiscovered life-form living in the depths of that and none of us would know.
Arthur Schopenhauer, as we all know, was the quintessential Philosopher of Pessimism and for that reason alone, I respectfully doff my creative Cuspian Cap and I bet even HE tried to be a bit of a laugh on the quiet.
You see, for all the hard skin we writers have to develop, and be seen to be sporting, we’re nothing but a bunch of totally tormented artists, deep down. And this is what I find the toughest thing to cope with in writing. To harden my fragile, approval-seeking skin to the rigours of this very subjective pursuit.

I’ve been wondering recently if Dickens had had access to the internet, whether he’d be trawling through Amazon listings and the Authonomy website hoping to see his rankings increase. And if Jane Austen had a Facebook page, if she’d be constantly fretting over how many ‘likes’ ‘fans/friends’ she was getting daily. And how tortured would Shakespeare have become if he hadn’t got any comments on the blog post he’d spent ages honing to his idea of perfection that morning?
 My internal meanderings even took me as far as finally understanding why and how and in what place Van Gogh must have been to have gouged off his own ear. Web-surfing will do that to ME at times. I guess it all boils down to the eternal struggle for artistic recognition, doesn’t it? Our readers. Our audience. The people that we hope we can entertain. The ones who will applaud our finer bits and perhaps ignore or heckle or reassure our bad. And if we don’t get the kind of support and recognition that we hope we deserve, that we strive to achieve, then at times it does make you feel like stuffing dampened blankets round the kitchen door frame and turning the gas up a bit.

My personal response to rejection disappointments is one of retreat. Much like the injured wild animal. I prefer to take my wounds away from societal scrutiny and go somewhere quiet and dark until I am repaired. Until I feel strong enough to try it all over again. Because this is an exhausting road we have lain before us - the road to literary success. And there are other, less scaredy-cats out there who seem to instinctively know how to bounce right back and keep on going for their particular kill. But then if all animals were all like that, Charles Darwin wouldn’t have had anything to research, would he?

Which is why Mother Nature invented Little (literary) Chefs.
I haven’t given up my journey; I’m just having a pit-stop and rethinking my route, that’s all.
And the All-Day Breakfast looks nice too.

Ugly baby alert!

 "Dear Deborah,

 Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I've had another read through your script, and it's skillfully written with a convincing voice for Madeline, but I just don't warm to her. I think this is a very subjective thing, and you may well find (or have already found) an agent or editor who takes to her immediately - she certainly comes to life on the page, after all.

I wish you the best of luck with her.

 Yours etc"

Now I know it's just me, but that sounds like somebody saying "Your baby looks like sh*t but I'm sure she has a great personality".  And I have to take it on the chin.  I carried this baby for several months, made sure I avoided all the usual suspects (raw eggs, tobacco, soft cheeeses, sleep - at times) and hoped for nothing but good things for her and now she'll be forever languishing in a bottom drawer somewhere without any daylight ever touching her lovely skin again.

I'm also not (yet) riddled with so much grief and angst and sheer upsettedness of this e-mail to realise that I am also very grateful to this lovely agent for letting me get this far in the whole Publishing circus thing.  I've never been asked for a Full in my life and it has certainly encouraged me to work towards even more requests in the future.

So my baby's not likeable, eh?

Do I say so bloody what - that's just the way she is (she is a bit of a madam but I think she was borne of PMS - if that's not too much of a dichotomy) or do I temper her down a bit and see if anyone wants to give her another shot?

Ah, I think she needs a rest right now.  She's been through a lot.

But she still has one more left to impress. 

Keep you posted.

Ahhhhh, if only every Rejection made me feel this good!

Dear Debs,

Many thanks for letting me see this. I really enjoyed reading it. You're obviously a good writer, and I think this story has lots of potential. But I also think that as it stands it has a few flaws. In the hope that you'll find it useful, I've jotted down some notes (attached) about what I felt wasn't working (and some of the things that did). They’re in no particular order…

I realise there are rather a lot of negative comments there, but I hope you'll understand that I wouldn't have written them if I didn't genuinely like your writing.

You may well not feel you want to tackle a rewrite of DOUBLE HISTORY, which I'd completely understand. But if you do, or if you're still looking for an agent when you finish HALF A WORLD, I'd be delighted to hear from you again.

With best wishes,
The Lovely Lovely Agent Person I sent the full Manuscript to 3 weeks ago.
I *heart* her.

See? I can write! She says so. So ne-er!