A better mood!
After my last, melancholic, entry I am happy to report that my mood has improved. Well, if I must be honest it’s gone both up and down over recent weeks, but all that means is that I am a perfectly normal woman. Thank you Sarah Wormall for my comment, it was both needed and appreciated!
I heard back from the interested agent, we’ll call her Valerie (because it’s her name) very quickly. She would have received my manuscript on a Thursday and by the following Monday morning I had an email waiting in my inbox. I was a little loath to click on it, it was almost like opening exam results, but I forced myself and it was a relatively positive response. I have typed it verbatim below:
“Good morning. I’m not quite sure how you are going to sustain this to full length but I’ll happily look at it if you’d like to send it in terrestrially.
Best wishes,
Valerie.”
I know it doesn’t look like an amazing email, but actually you need to be a semi-desperate aspiring writer to properly appreciate it. I shall list the reasons why:
1. She replied at all.
2. She will actually read it (an unbelieveably hard battle with agents)
3. She replied quickly.
4. It is now a hundred times better than the version I sent to her and she accepted those chapters!
I bit the bullet as far as changing the manuscript goes. I read it and thought I know this isn’t my best work, I can do better. So I was ruthless in cutting and re-writing and it worked, I have ended up with a far better manuscript. I also employed the services of my sister, Kimberley (thanks Kim!) to read it chapter by chapter and offer editorial advice. I must be honest, she isn’t exactly qualified to do so as she is a marine biologist, but when she offered me the biggest compliment of my career to date, namely that she put down a Marian Keyes book in order to read mine, I was indebted. She keeps me on track, points out problems in the plot and gives me endless encouragement. If she had the necessary connections then she could actually be my agent. Hmmm, there’s an idea….I wonder if she’s up for a little networking?
However, Valerie’s email did leave me with one overwhelming problem – what does ‘terrestrially’ mean?? After a fair few hours of debate with some quite intelligent people, we deduced that it means via the Post Office and not the internet. Which makes a lot of sense but the word she used caused me an unnecessary dilemma. Why didn’t she just say “post the manuscript”? It did occur to me that perhaps it was some sort of test, if she received my work through the correct medium then she would give me a contract. But I don’t think literary agents play games like that, it would border on the masochistic.
As things stand, I haven’t finished the manuscript yet, I am 65,000 words through it and the rest is planned. I have an end, a goal, a target – and about 30-40,000 words to go. I reckon I can do it in a week. I may end up blind but I have always known that there will be sacrifices to be made on this rocky road to becoming a published author.
Holly and Lizzie are both fine. Apart from the vomiting bug which had them confined to the house for a week. The husband had it too, I was the last one standing. Which was a real shame actually, after days of playing nurse and clearing up sick I quite fancied a few days in bed myself.
Lizzie turned two last weekend and I can’t believe it. She’s turning into a real little toddler now and her most impressive word to date is “Eleanor”. Holly is mastering the basics of playing the violin, which is torture for all concerned but it will be something that she can put on her UCAS form so we must suffer. Me, a pushy mother? Ha!
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