The end of the slushpile?

Saturday the 22nd September saw nearly 250 aspiring authors queuing around the shelves of Foyles bookshop in Charing Cross waiting to meet one of Curtis Brown's agents. All of them nervous and anxious and muttering their pitches under their breath.
Standing in the line for Children's authors I asked myself repeatedly why I was putting myself through such torture. It had seemed like a good idea at the time - practice my pitching, meet an agent, get a little feedback on my work and all for free etc etc.
 But now I was here, minutes away from going in I was deciding it was actually a very bad idea, I had visions of a) falling over as I approached the agent, b) my mind going completely blank, c) being told by the agent that I should not give up my day job and d) crying.
 I'm very pleased to say that none of those things did happen and in fact the whole process was far less traumatic than I'd been imagining. There was no small room with a stern faced agent across the desk looking bored as I stumbled through my words, instead there was a long gallery space filled with about eight to ten desks behind which sat agents, all of whom were friendly, welcoming and very considerate of the nervous and trembling authors they were meeting.
 I was slightly disappointed not to be able to meet their Children's agent, Stephanie Thwaites but her assistant Catherine Saunders was lovely, charming and very easy to talk to. I managed to pull off my pitch without any disasters and was hugely relieved when she told me it was "Well delivered." She then read the first page of my novel, gave me her thoughts and then asked me lot's of questions about what happened next. We spent about ten minutes chatting and when we were finished I felt a large sense of relief that a) it was over and b) she hadn't laughed at my idea.
 Next we were directed to the cafe where we had ten minutes to ask more general questions to some more very friendly agents. It was here that I discovered that the Discovery Day linked in with the launch of Curtis Brown's new website http://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk.
 Here you can look at their writing school, where many courses are on offer including one on writing for children which starts at the end of this month and includes a one to one with Stephanie Thwaites as well as several workshops. It costs £900.
 They are also claiming to have got rid of the slushpile by asking authors to use their new submit on line tool which they claim is "quick, efficient and responsive." Rather then send in attachments they want you to answer a few questions and then copy and paste in a covering letter, a synopsis and the first three chapters of your work. There are short biographies of each agent as well as info about their new writing team (made up of agent assistants) so you can send your submission to the most appropriate person. They promise to reply to everyone within six to eight weeks.
 There is also a blog where you can read posts about the industry and what the agents are looking for and the new writing room offers insights into the craft of writing, interviews and guest blogs from agents and authors.
 Of course how this all works in practice remains to be seen but I was impressed by the effort that had gone into the day and by their passion for new work and now I've survived that pitch I do feel more confident about doing it all over again  at the SCBWI agents party on Thursday. That is until I get there when no doubt the nerves and anxiety will kick in and I'll wonder why I keep doing this to myself...

A visit from the "What's the point?" Fairy

"What's the point?" She asked me.
"The point is I want to get published."
"But you'll never get published. Look at the statistics!"
"I have but they're not really representative. I mean, they apply to the masses, not to people like me who take it seriously. After all I've done courses and workshops and read books and blogs and booked a place at the SCBWI conference, that must improve my chances!"

 The fairy raises her perfect eyebrow at me.

"Maybe slightly but it's still nearly impossible so why are you bothering?"
"Because I want to see my books on shelves in bookshops that's why."
"But that's a dream and how many people actually get to live out a dream? Hardly anyone that's who."
"But it could happen one day, if I work hard."
"Not necessarily. You could do everything right, you could work hard for years and years and STILL never get published so what's the point of trying? Why don't you just give up? Make your life easier, save yourself from the pain..."

She smiles at me beguilingly and a small part of me responds. Maybe it would be better?

"But I came close, I nealy found an agent, I must have a chance surely?"
"But you failed. You messed it up. You weren't good enough then and you'll probably never be good enough."

In case you thought fairies were cute you were wrong. They're mean.

"I need to keep trying, every time I write something I get better and I learn from the rejections and I think I'm improving."
"But even if you do get published you probably won't make any money and your book might flop and no publisher will take you on again and really why put yourself through the heartache?"
"Because I want children to read my books, I want them to love my books."
"But most children would rather play computer games and books will probably die out soon."
"Oh just shut up you annoying fairy!"
"Oh that's nice that is! I'm just trying to help. Trying to save you time and effort and pain, trying to help you face the facts about getting published,"
"I know the facts! I know it's hard and painful and I might never ever get there but I'm doing it anyway alright!"
"But what's the point?"
"The point is I enjoy it. So there. Now B****r off and annoy someone else!!"

Split Personality Author Disorder

 It seems to me that attempting to become a published author can be somewhat dangerous to our mental health.

 When I'm writing I'm filled with excitement and joy. I'm thrilled with my own brilliance, the perfection of my story, the beauty of my dialogue and convinced that very soon agents and publishers will be queuing to sign me up. I call this stage - confidence dismorphia - a distorted sense of confidence brought on by the creative surge.

 Next, it's the revision stage, and now you become convinced that your work is absolute rubbish. You are riddled with self doubt, you wonder why you ever started and you know that no one will ever want to publish such dross. This stage is psychotic doubt and can lead to tears, tantrums and over indulgence in ice cream and chocolate.

 The submission cycle is a source of real anxiety, a roller coaster of excitement and depression I like to call the email paranoia stage.

 But it doesn't stop there. Once an author has finally found an agent/publishing deal they need to change from an introverted loner to a gregarious salesperson so they can market their books, visit schools, talk at fairs etc all while going through the above stages with their new book.

 It's not easy. Coping with the highs and lows of a creative life is a difficult emotional journey and yet, I sometimes feel as if it's an addictive thing. When I don't have anything on submission I almost start to crave some drama in my life,  am I masochistic I wonder? Are we all? Or simply so in love with writing that all the pain and doubt and fear become unimportant when compared to the excitement and the joy and the hope?

 All I know is that my life has become richer since I started writing and the journey has been  remarkable so whether I ever each my dream destination or not I won't ever regret my choice to set off in the first place!

What's the rush?

I am ashamed to admit that I am a hypocrite. Why? because I tell my son to have patience. When he can't do something first time and he get's annoyed and fed up I say to him in a motherly tone - "You can't expect to do everything first time. It takes practice. Just have patience."
But do I follow my own advice? No. I have no patience.
I get cross in queues, I get fed up in restaurants and I always want things to happen straight away. And when I finally made the decision to write a book I was the same way. I wrote my first novel and sent it off in a rush of excitement, imagining publishing deals and fame and fortune. It was of course rejected, by everyone and rightly so. It was rubbish.
The next time I managed to hold off a little but still sent it off to agents before anyone else had even read it. Yes, I admit it, I sent off a first draft. Why? Because I wanted it out there, I wanted things happening, I wanted an agent and a publishing deal and everything else before I even really knew what I was doing.
It was rejected again.
Slowly I started to learn that I needed to work on my ideas. More then I ever thought possible. And I have learned about patience.
Each time I submit something  I must practice patience as I wait for the torturous process to move to the next stage, each time I finish a draft I must practice patience as I put it aside and let it rest before I rework it yet again and I think it's working. I believe I can see improvements in my work and in the responses I get but it's hard.
It's hard for my son and it's hard for me.
We live in a culture that promotes instant success, got a talent? Go on a talent show and find instant fame and fortune instead of striving for perfection and working for years to improve your craft. Don't have a talent? Get on the telly somehow and become a celebrity famous for having no talent.
Working for years to achieve what you want almost seems to be an outdated concept but I wonder what method is really more fulfilling?
Does instant success make you happier? Probably not. Being thrust into a world you barely understand, being asked to perform beyond your capabilities and possibly failing to live up to the expectations are all possible pitfalls.
Achieving that success after years of effort though, that's the ultimate rush and the benefits are huge. The experience you've gained, the battle scars you've earned mean that you understand what you're doing and you have the skills necessary to sustain a career.
So, really, what's the rush? The agents and editors aren't going anywhere. Send in your best work, work that shines like a polished gem. That's my new motto.
Can't guarantee not to get annoyed in queues though...

Pitching pitfalls

The pitch seems to be a ubiquitous part of a writers road to publication. There are different types of pitch, the standard one we put in our submission letter to try and tempt the agent/publisher to keep reading. Generally this is relatively easy to write. If you're having problems can I recommend Nicola Morgan's ebook "Dear Agent" which covers everything to do with submissions.

 The really hard pitch is the one you have to do in person in a short space of time. The very thought of it is enough to send most writers (including me!) into a tizzy of stress and worry.

I'm not quite sure why, I speak in front of lot's of people every day for my job so it's not public speaking that bothers me. I think it's more the actual SELLING part that I find hard. I do feel enthusiastic about my work and I do think everyone should read it but I find it incredibly hard to make that come across.

 I think it's partly a British thing. A sense of reserve if you will. After all I don't want people to think I'm arrogant or anything. I'm more likely to say "it's quite good, you might like it but don't worry if you don't, it's probably not that good after all..."

 The reason I'm worrying about it is that I have a few pitching opportunities coming up, I'll be at the Foyles event on the 21st Sept doing a one to one pitch to a Curtis Brown agent and then a week later I'll be at the SCBWI agents party where many agents will endure many pitches from many a desperate author.

 So I've been trying to think of how to do a good pitch and have come up with some useful points;

1. Stay calm. Panic makes you talk faster.

2.BREATHE. In between sentences. Very useful.

3.Focus on your story, give a short, two or three sentences that sum it up and will entice someone to read more. Let your enthusiasm shine through.

4. Remember that whoever you are pitching to is a real person. Treat them as you would like to be treated. Be polite and courteous. Don't pounce on them while they're eating, going to the loo or otherwise occupied.

5. Keep an eye on the glazed eye scenario. If your agent is looking tired, fed up or cross, don't approach them!

6.Be yourself, you're  lovely person, let them know that by not harrassing them, demanding immediate feedback or thrusting your entire m.s into their hands.

7. RELAX. No agent or publisher is going to judge you entirely on your pitch. It's your writing that counts always. But you could put them off wanting to read it if you let panic get the better of you.

 I hope this helps you and I hope I can follow my own advice when the day comes round! If you have any other advice please share it.

The Cliffs of Insanity

 Those of you who've read William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" ( or seen the very excellent film) will understand what I mean by my title. To those of you who haven't, why not? It is  AMAZING! Anyway, the cliffs of insanity are, to be brief, enormously high, almost impossible to scale cliffs and sometimes that's how writing feels to me.
 Not every day of course. Some days are positively glorious.  Some days words flow from my brain to the paper in an effortless stream and I stay up half the night writing chapter after chapter. Some days I feel as if my characters live and breathe, my plot sings and my prose shines. On those days I believe with every fiber of my being that I am a writer and that one day I will be published.
 But then there are days like today. Days when each word I write seems a chore. Days when I stare at the screen with no idea of where to start. Days when I read through months of work and decide it's all rubbish and I've no chance of ever being published. Days when I imagine agents would laugh at my delusions.
 They are not good days. Obviously. They are hard and horrible and enough to make me want to give up entirely. They test my beliefs and my commitment to the core.
 But it's always useful to use some perspective at this point. A bad day writing is still in comparison to most other occupations a wonderful way to spend my time. And let's not forget that in some jobs a bad day could mean something truly awful happens.
 So, with that in mind it seems churlish to complain about the anguish and pain that comes with creation. It is, I suppose, a part of the process and something we must all learn to cope with but it's certainly not something I was prepared for when I began this journey.
 The problem is that when you read a book it's impossible to tell how many months or years of work have gone in to it and now that I know a bit more I am amazed at the time and effort that is necessary. Amazed and terrified it must be said. Can I really do it? Do I have the perseverance to keep going, draft after draft, rejection after rejection? It seems to me that it's that very ability that in some ways counts even more then talent and skill.

 So I can't guarantee that I'll be here five years from now. But I very much hope so, I hope I can keep the faith despite everything. For now though I will carry on climbing my personal cliff and cling to the fact that everything worth having is worth fighting for.

How do you cope with bad days? How do you keep going? Leave a comment and let me know!

Revision Fever

You're excited. You're ready to revise your book. To polish it into a gem that no agent will be able to resist. You imagine it will take no more then a couple of weeks, after all it doesn't
need much work does it? The hard bit was writing it, getting all your thoughts down on paper. Editing it will be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

And then you get your manuscript out from where you hid it many weeks ago, you sit down to savour the words, to read through your masterpiece and ...
All you can see are problems, enormous plot holes, one dimensional characters, shoddy dialogue...

This won't take a couple of weeks to fix, it it will take months, years, forever!
You have a minor breakdown.
Consider burning your m.s.
Contemplate a change of career...the circus perhaps? Easier to be fired out of a canon or to wrestle lions then to revise your book.

After some therapy (otherwise known as several large Vodkas) you calm down. You can do this. All you need is a plan.

1. Print off m.s -
2. Read m.s aloud (preferably when alone as sniggering can affect creative juices)
3. Scribble all over m.s with red pen.
4. Make notes on what needs to be done, chapter by chapter.
5. Start Revision.
6. Several weeks/months/ decades later you finish.

 Absolutely. Positively. Finished.

Allow brief celebration. (Also known as vodka)
Spend some time catching up on life, talking to your family, reminding your friends you're still alive.

A couple of weeks later take out your m.s, get ready for a final polish, but then, what's this?
Plot inconsistencies? Weak protagonists? Soggy middle? Unsatisfying ending?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

After much more therapy (also known as getting pi**ed) you calm down, you remember your plan.

Repeat steps 1 to 6.

At some time during this process you will question your sanity. You will decide that the revision is worse then the original. You will scream and shout and pull out your hair. You will look at your m.s and have absolutely no idea if it's any good or not. You may consider becoming a llama farmer in tibet.

This is revision fever. It is a disease. As a writer you will go through it many times. No medicine can help (well, except for vodka, obviously) and the only thing that may save you is your crit group/ supportive writer friends who will at least understand. Who can assure you you're not entirely mad (just a bit) and will be there at the end when you're finally ready to submit. They will warn you of the next disease you will encounter - submission psychosis....

More on that next week dear friends.
Till then, have you any revision tips? Words of wisdom?