Where to start? A new year can give a opportunity to review the past year, decide where changes need to be made, and then, we’re off. By mid-January either I’m exhausted or I’ve given up and pretend my life was good enough.
This morning I’m beginning a new blog. Hence the question, Where to start?
Sign of potential in a mushroom kit I was given for Christmas
At the moment my blog reaches a small group of subscribers. I’d like to widen my readership, hence my blank mind. I know who I’m writing for, but to extend my range takes me beyond my comfort zone.
Perhaps a way forward lies in a novel writing course I’m almost in the middle of. It had taken me some time to work out the novel’s structure and the characters. I was relatively confident about the main and supporting characters, so why not stick with them? I’m being challenged to think again.
Ditto submissions to literary agents. Most ask for 10,000 words, a synopsis and a brief letter. This week’s agent wanted the whole novel. No toes in the water, no re-working the basic synopsis and cover letter. She would look at it all. That I found intimidating. I delayed. Looked around for someone more conventional.
In reality I have nothing to lose, except the thought – that if she doesn’t like it I’m rubbish. What persuaded my rational mind was her author’s list – it was varied. As far as I could see they hadn’t all won prizes, and her own reading including several novels I’d read, many I hadn’t and she read non-fiction as well. In other words, she was widely read and probably open-minded. So this Monday morning, off it went. The response was immediate: if I haven’t heard within 8 weeks she isn’t interested. A standard response. Nonetheless I’d taken the risk.
Success!From the novel writing course, I decided my wonderful main character needed to be less conventional, and more willing to be more like her true self. That is what I am now working on. Slowly and without total confidence that it will work.
Reading: The Land in Winter – Andrew Miller – recommend it. At times it was so realistic I actually thought it was snowing outside. The Longest Walk Home: the epic 2000 mile escape of WW2 Pow, Ray Bailey. He described his journey in a notebook which was found by chance years later. An amazing man. Still Writing – Dani Shapiro I dip into this from time to time. Both sensible and inspiring. Another poetry book I read – 44 Poems on Being with Each Other – edited by Pádraig ÓTuama. Another poem: A Man in His Life – Yehuda Amichai in Being Alive 2011. Can be read again and again – this time part of Amanda Smyth reading short story and a poem each week to a small group.
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