I have spent the past three years or so living in a kind of dream world. I’d found an agent. I imagined my debut novel on the shelves of Waterstones. I believed I could do it. I stopped sending off so many short story competition entries. I worked hard when my friends were walking the moors, or enjoying the Cornish coastline. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I felt hopeful. Hard work will pay off, I thought.
I wish I could tell you that it was worth it, that my dream is about to come true.
I can’t.
My agent couldn’t find a publisher for my first book. OK. I wrote another. She loved the second one, she said. She made me feel I was going to make it in the big wide world. I didn’t. She couldn’t find anyone who thought my novel about the sixties worth investing in. People said the writing was good, but… I wrote a third novel, set in the fifties. Not what people wanted to read about. Not going to be what anyone wants. Not the sort of book that will be in Waterstones. Not ever.
Now I have no agent.
I am back at square one. It’s not a lonely place. I know others who have had the same experience. I am not angry, just disappointed. And sad, too, of course.
Stick with me, kids. I’m finishing a non-fiction book very shortly, and I’m going to start writing a novel for children.
Am I going to get there in the end? I don’t know any more, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
I was cheered recently when I read on Twitter that my flash fiction Kirianna had made the list of finalists in the Storgy competition. It is to be published in a paperback called Exit Earth. I felt a faint glimmer of hope.
The future may well be bright.
Don’t give up, writers. Our time will come!
Frog: Today I am smelling the roses.