One in a Million

Good evening blog-luvvers!

Well, I came back for more, and if you're reading this, so did you, so let's just pause for a little moment of mutual gratitude...

...

There! That was nice.
Since this blog is primarily about my writing in all its fascinating, frustrating, god-forsaken glory, I think that's where I'll start this evening.
I am struggling with this one, The Barefoot Gardener, in a way I've never struggled to write a novel before. I know this is true because I even Admitted It to Emma, my agent, today. I think she took it rather well. (Hm, just occurring to me that she had probably already realised this. Hm...)
Anyway, having written my first novel in a month, my second one in a matter of about 4 or 5 months, I think I kind of expected to always write at this pace. But I'm not. I started it earlier this year, and am still only 10 chapters in. Considering that this is the novel that we are leading with (ie the one that Emma is submitting to publishers now) it's a little frightening to think that going at this rate I'm unlikely to finish it before my ruby wedding anniversary. UnACCEPTable, Alison!

The reasons for my painful inertia are something to do with allowing life to get in the way of writing (but really that's just a handy excuse), and partly to do with the subject matter, which i must admit has me slightly out of my depth and which I have convinced myself requires an archaeologist's gentle hand and a librarian's painstaking attention to detail. Another reason I found to stall in recent weeks was my rabbit-in-the-headlamps response to an email I received from Emma a while ago. I had asked for some facts and figures on the publisihng industry with which I could furnish my students of the upcoming creative writing course, to help them be realistic should they wish to go down the publishing route. What I received back from her was so startling, so sobering, like a rookie tightrope walker I took my eyes off the place where i wanted to be...and looked down.

About 17000 new (just new) books are published in the UK every month. What's even more incredible than this, is that this 17000 represents less than 1% of all submitted manuscripts every month. Holy crap. In the face of these type of odds, surely only a lunatic would continue to write novels in the vain hope of publishing them? Well, keep that comfy padded cell on hold, tempting though it is, I've got me a book to finish!

I let Emma know how I was feeling today, how impossible and unlikely it all seemed suddenly, and as always she had the perfect thing to say to set me back on my precarious rope, newly determined to reach the other side. She told me that the part I hadn't seen is that roughly only one in every million authors get to be represented by an agent in the first place. Astonishing.

So, time to count my blessings, recognise how far I've come, and move move move forwards.

Triona, you'll be able to tell us this: one of the seven laws, or four agreements, or someone somewhere said that action, maybe inspired action, not sure, is the only way to get results? Well, I'm working to this principal to jolt myself out of my malaise. I've set myself a target of mapping (sketching, jotting snippets of dialogue, reminding myself what day of the week it is in the novel etc) 10 chapters a night until I reach the end of the novel, from which point I am going to write 1000 words a day. Not much of a plan, I know, but in essence the story is there - I just have to bloody well write it! Grrrr.

Good start made this evening, 12 chapters mapped, and what's more I felt that little thrill come back to me again; the one i get when I'm writing properly. Will keep you posted, and include some exerpts as I start writing, probably around the weekend.


In Other News, it was time to clean the upstairs of my house today. I clean upstairs about once every 3 to 4 weeks, whether it needs it or not. Now, I'm not a zealot about this or anything, and if something distracts me around this timeframe, which is fairly likely, then it may get put off for another little while. I get no satisfaction at all from cleaning something that is already or even nearly clean, so in order for housework to mean something to me, it must be in an awful state so that in cleaning whatever-it-is I can really stand back afterwards and feel very proud of my accomplishment. Well, it was time for the upstairs today, no excuses really, and added to that a certain short, pink person who shall Remain Nameless had carried upstairs half a bucket of grit from outside, which she had then evenly distributed between the boys bedroom and the bathroom. It's quite amazing how much grit a couple of bathroom mats can hold quite unseen to the human eye, as I found out today.

Last snippet: lovely example today of an Irish-ism which always makes me grin. You're having some exchange of opinions with someone about something like the state of the country / banks / weather, fairly lighthearted enough: you say something, they say something, you concur. THEN, quite out of the blue, they put forward their own opinion in slightly stronger terms, only to follow it up with: 'says you!', making it seem as though you said something, when in actual fact you didn't. You didn't even think it. This faces you with the dilemma of agreeing and laughing along, or of saying something ungracious, like: 'No I didn't!'
So the postie pulls up this morning and calls me over, as getting out of the van while I'm on the driveway seems redundant to him. He has a registered envelope for me, so gets my signature for it and hands it over.
Postie: Bad news, is it?
Me: Ah, hope not!
Postie: Not getting any better is it?
Me: (grasping at the recession straw) Well, I don't know, they keep telling us we're out of it.
Postie: Well, it'll get worse before it gets better - SAYS YOU! Haha.
Me: Oh! Uhm, ah....hope not!
Postie: Hahaha (and drives off)

Classic.

Night night.x