What's the story, Sam?

If you enjoy visiting Strictly Writing (other coffee break venues are available, but that's not important right now), you have Samantha Tonge to thank. She's like our very own James T Kirk, who first captained this Enterprise*

Sam and I traded emails recently and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to find out what she's been writing and where that writing has taken her.

Howdy, Sam. I have visited your new website -  http://www.samanthatonge.co.uk/ - and found out everything there is to know about you, so I plan to ask all sorts of pertinent questions.

Hi Derek, nice to be back on SW. And if the questions are too probing, I’ll just teleport myself off the ship!

Q1. What's the best thing about having an agent and what's the most challenging aspect of the relationship?

There are lots of best bits – having someone independent of your family believe in your work! Plus being able to hand over the submission process to a professional person who won’t nudge and alienate the publisher every five minutes – writing brings out the worst aspects of my personality, top-of-the-list impatience. Plus having a sounding board for the next project is very reassuring. No one wants to spend six months on a project that should never have been started in the first place.

As for the challenging aspects… Well, for me that comes back to my impatience. Whilst it’s great having someone else submit work for you, at the same time that means the process is out of your control – so you can’t nudge, off your own back. This is good and you know when the agent is right about just sitting tight for a while, but can still be highly frustrating!

Q2. What made you first submit stories for The People's Friend and other magazines?

I’d written novels for several years, without success, and everyone kept telling me I should write shorts - but I could never think of a beginning, middle and end. And then a chick lit writer ran a competition and for the first time I managed to come up with a complete story. It was dreadful, looking back, but I believe the brain is like any other muscle – the more you use certain areas of it, the better they get. Writing that one story helped me crack on with another. People ask me, now, how I come up with so many ideas, but the more short stories you write, the easier it becomes to find ideas and see inspiration in everyday life. The women’s magazine market always suited my writing style, so I joined a very helpful online writing group which pointed me in the right direction. Finally I started to sell and make money from my writing, which has always been an important goal of mine.

Q3. Congratulations on having your work selected for The People's Friend 2014 annual.  Have you ever considered producing your own anthology?

Thank you! Yes, I’m very excited to have two stories in the annual which is published today. And no, I’ve never considered self-publishing by myself – I am something of a technophobe. Recently, I bought a Kindle and what joy just to have a diagram for instructions! I wouldn’t know where to start with cover design, etc, and I’m in awe of authors who do put together their own collections.

I am thrilled about a collection of my feel-good stories that is being put together by up-and-coming publisher Alfie Dog Fiction. This anthology should be available in the autumn.

Q4. Did you set out to write Romantic Comedy novels and is there any other genre you feel drawn to writing?

No, my first novel was more serious. It was in my second that I introduced a comedic tone and through the process of writing this, and the next novel, really found my writing voice. In real life I am something of a jokey, one-liner kind of person and it took a while for my work to reflect that.

As for writing other genres, the great thing about writing stories for the Womag market is that you can indulge yourself. I’ve just sold a cowboy story and in the past, horror. Once or twice, though, I’ve had to rewrite stories for the People’s Friend because my chick lit tones have crept in. I still write humorous stories for them, but the comedy is gentler.

  

Q5. What's next on Sam's writing To-Do list?

Well, us womag writers always have to think three months ahead, so now I’m moving on to autumn stories. Also, a paranormal idea for a novel is flirting with my muse…

Q6. What's so special about the Poseidon Adventure - I'm assuming we're talking about the original version? (Check out Sam's website and you'll know what I mean.)

Ooh yes, the original, although the Kurt Russell remake is great, too. I love the drama and the romance; the visual contrast between the glitzy dinner dance at the beginning and the burnt, shredded clothes of the survivors… Like any reader, as a viewer I want to be moved in some way – made to laugh, shed a tear, get a lump in my throat… It’s all there in this film. Um, well, perhaps apart from the laughs…!

Q7. A hypothetical question. You can choose three literary people to be stuck in a lift with for an hour. Who would you choose and why?

Jane Austen – I’d like to be the one to tell her just how much her literature still means to women, decades on. Barbara Cartland. I think, fundamentally, she understood the importance of romance in people’s lives. I’d like to find out how she managed to “write” books by dictating them to her secretary. I could never imagine doing that. And as a huge fan of the Romance with Bite genre, Stephanie Meyer, of course!

Q8. Yes, given that, in your own words, you're a vampire geek girl, what spoils a vampire tale for you?

I’m a fan of the modern genre, where the vampires have redeeming qualities and don’t just see humans as prey. So the old school tales, where the vampire is more likely to be portrayed as an amoral predator, wouldn’t really do it for me. I need romance and poignant scenes where the vampire understands what he has become and misses his mortality. Ahem, yes, time to ‘fess up, I’m a diehard Twihard!** (fan of the Twilight Series).

* Yes, I do know that it was Captain Pike first, and one could argue that, chronologically, it would really be Captain Archer. But nobody likes a sci-fi show-off... 

** Here at Strictly Writing we like to be informative. That's a new word for the spellchecker!

Dear Mr Agent

Dear Mr Agent

It’s taken me a while to muster up the will to write to you again, as I’m sure you’ll understand after that debacle of a Dear John letter. I got in from work (note – 12 hour shift) to find the brown envelope on the mat. Anyway, I opened it and there it was. A freaking rejection. You didn’t even have the courtesy to put my name on it. ‘Dear Nellie’ would have been nice. I’m not saying it would have mended my broken heart, I’m simply pointing out that a little personalisation would make you more attractive as an agent.

It’s not for us, you said. Just like that, Without a thought or a care in the world. You simply keyed in those callous words, printed it off, asked your assistant to put it in the ‘out’ tray and went back to drinking your latte at your desk, in your office, where expensive paintings adorn the walls and the bathroom is smelling of roses, the toilet roll dispenser is filled with Andrex, and the kitchen has its own Aga.

So, I’m writing to tell you that you’ve ruined my life. I want to give up my job, because quite frankly I hate it. I mean, do you really want to be scanning soup tins, spring onions and frozen peas through a supermarket checkout all day? Would you like to be taking people’s orders all night in your second job…no onions please…no wait…I’ll have onions….actually give me sweetcorn, ham and mushrooms instead love? Do you really want to be waiting tables at night in a drab café with netted curtains and plastic ketchup bottles on the tables, the rims caked with sauce? No, I bet you don’t. I bet you don’t want to spend all night wiping down the red and white checked plastic tablecovers, serving truckers, frying their eggs and dipping their bread, then presenting them with the greasefest, all in return for a 50p tip.

Let me tell you this, Mr Agent. And I’m going to say it loud and clear You suck. Because you hate my book. You said other agents may disagree. Like you care! While you’re driving your Bugatti round and round the M25 (and I sincerely hope you get stuck on it) you really should spare a thought for me*. Nellie the waitress by night, part-time supermarket check out girl by day and wannabe novelist. My book is awesome and some day, some agent will come along and say so. But for now, I’m going to try to be happy in my two minimum wage jobs. Until my big break comes along*1 JK Rowling did it and so can I.

Please don’t feel sorry for me. Just go back to doing what you were doing before you opened this envelope. In fact, shred it. Forget about me. Forget you even read this.

Yours

Nellie xxxxx

* Nellie doesn’t own a car and even if she did, she wouldn’t give Mr Agent a lift. If she saw him coming out of Marks and Spencer in the pouring rain with his six bottles of champagne in the cardboard carrier, she would toot, make a rude gesture, then drive on.

*1 Anything is possible. Nellie will soon secure that agent and sign a book deal. She’ll walk away from her two jobs and buy a house in the countryside where she’ll live happily ever after. And she’ll be the greatest author who ever lived.

The moral of this is don’t give up. Whether you have had six or sixty rejections from agents or publishers, keep calm and carry on writing. Practice makes perfect and remember, all authors were once unpublished nobodies.

Lick it and stick it

I hadn’t a clue what to write about when I switched on the laptop to compose my post, so I gazed toward the calendar for inspiration. None was forthcoming. However, it did occur to me that we're almost half way through the year and so far I haven’t revised my New Year resolutions to see if I have fulfilled them. To be honest, I can’t even remember what I’d pledged in the first place, but I think it had something to do with finishing the current novel, which I’ve done, and to write more short stories which I’ve not done. The fact that it’s April 30th is also a timely reminder to buy stamps before the post office closes today. The stamps I buy today will be licked and affixed to the rejection envelopes which will accompany the recently completed ms.

It saddens me that most agents still ask for postal submissions. And quite a few still demand the little brown envelope in which they will place their rejection. In the age of new technology, I often wonder why agents still insist on having the mss posted. ‘Save the trees,’ I hear you shout. I must admit that I prefer to read from paper than I do a computer screen. And that is my one reason for the strong dislike of the e-reader. But I imagine that it’s easier to store fifteen manuscripts in a device than it is to stuff paper into a briefcase, the latter conjuring up images of a post-holiday suitcase crammed full of bargain buys. On the other hand, it’s probably easier to make notes on paper. So I see the argument both ways.

Many writers are put off by the inconvenience that postal submissions often entail. I can say assuredly that I’m certainly not. If that’s the way my preferred agent wants to receive them, then that’s the rules I will follow.

I will bid my manuscripts farewell this afternoon as they are shepherded off in the Royal Mail van. I hope the stamps on the enclosed brown envelopes are steamed off by the agents’ assistants as soon as they arrive, and that they put them to good use on this year’s Christmas cards. I don’t want any rejections, thanks.

It’s April 30 – remind me of your 2012 writing resolutions. Have you followed them through? Are you even half way there? Or what do you think of postal submissions? But be quick because I have to get to the post office before the end of today because stamps are going up as I mentioned…quite a lot!

A Scribble of Writers

Writing Groups in my neck of the woods are very few and even more far between. In fact I think the only one I’ve heard about has been running for over 35 years in a local hostelry of dubious custom which I had the courage to telephone decades ago when I felt hungry for validation and that conversation scared the bejeesus out of me (though easily done). I felt like I was being interviewed by a cross between Laurence Olivier and Margaret Thatcher.  After said phone call I decided I didn’t have the requisite credentials and became a ‘no-show’ on their register.  I probably stayed in and watched Eastenders instead – only slightly less scary than getting my prose out in front of complete strangers at the back of a pub.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I agreed to ‘join’ the writing group that the receptionist at my Osteopath’s office told me about.  In fact ‘trepidation’ kind of went off the scale a bit when she mentioned she’d been ‘watching me closely’ to see if I was the kind of person they wanted to be let into their Writerly circle as they were ‘a bit choosy’.

Have you ever felt wary and yet thrilled?  Thrary? Warilled?  I nodded a lot and kept my smile from morphing into anything too maniacal and asked her a bit about it; bearing in mind the fact I already knew she wrote and once  even asked her if she knew of any writing groups in the area and she’d said no, she hadn’t.  So not just selective but secretive.

They met, she said, every three or so weeks at the back of a well-known local bookshop and the other member of the group (I know, member singular) was the bookshop owner.  ‘So it’s more a duo than a group then?’ I smirked.  ‘Trio if you’re in,’ she smirked back.

She went on to tell me that they’d both written a book or two and that they’d had nice rejection letters from several agents whose names I recognised because I’d also had the same.  Along with discussing writing, she said, they also took it in turns to buy fresh Danish pastries and cappuccinos from across the road and occasionally they got ‘flashed’ at by a naked man in an upstairs window opposite.  Invariably, she went on, discussions about writing tended to end up as dissections of the local neighbourhood ‘characters’ from which they’d sometimes drawn their own.

When I left with the date of their next meeting scribbled onto my frontal cortex, I couldn’t help thinking that the whole setup sounded far too mad and far too within my own realms of fantastic imagination for it to really be true.  Maybe I’d made it all up. Perhaps this was how tortured I’d finally become and now it would be better for everyone if I just signed on the dotted line and took myself off to “HappyFields” for the duration.

When I got home, enthusiastically I Facebooked my news and was met with comments of concern and caution.  Was I not worried about the ‘watching you closely’ bit?  Um… no, not until you mentioned it, actually.  I was warned about meeting strangers in places I hadn’t been before and reminded of the security measures involving public areas etc.  Now… now I was a little bit worried.

But it didn’t put me off. In fact I couldn’t have been more excited if it had had a blue ribbon tied round its neck and was covered in caramel coating.

At the first meeting I felt as nervous as any first day at a new job and declined a Danish for fear that it would crumble all over me and I’d end up looking like a flaky fool in front of them.  But I needn’t have worried.  They are just lovely.  Both as writers and as people.  They are dedicated to their craft, have produced books worthy of immediate publication and I’m delighted to be in their acquaintance.   

There is something very rare that sits in a room with writers and that is the spirit of Understanding; of Knowing and of Getting It that just doesn’t happen anywhere else.   And as if I even need icing on this particular cake, we sit surrounded by thousands of beautiful books spilling from the shelves on the walls and covering the floor … a place where it feels like home.

And one of us has just signed a contract with an Agent so this year is beginning to feel very special indeed. Oh, and the crazy characters and the naked man in the window?  All true!

Merry Christmas, Mr Agent

Dear Mr Agent

I’ve wanted to write to you since receiving my Dear John letter and finally I’ve got the time to pick up my pen and tell you how I feel. Some time ago I sent you my book and you wrote back and said you didn’t like it. Well, you said it was a fantastic story worthy of being told, held your attention, blah blah blah, the characters were believable, but you just didn’t love it enough to take it further. So, I’m writing back to tell you I LOVE the book and so do all my friends. In fact, a publisher loves it so much, he’s gonna print it and make me rich. As filthy rich as JK Rowling and Dan Brown combined. He said I’m gonna make millions from this book and he’s gonna turn it into a big Hollywood Blockbuster.

So have yourself a merry Christmas. When you’re chomping on your mince pie, and sipping on the brandy on December 25th, you can think back and wonder how it could have been. You could be rich now. You could be pulling out your wallet, flashing the cash, ordering a Ferrari and holidaying with Richard Branson. You could have bought a nice bottle of Bollinger and some fancy nibbles with your cut of my earnings. I bet you’re sitting there right now, watching the Queen’s speech with your paper crown on your head, thinking: ‘Crikey, if only I’d signed Mrs Writer.’ Well, this is your annus horribilis and you deserve every minute of it. I hope you choke on a brussel sprout.

I should also point out that, if I am invited to the Booker awards this year, I may just ask you to come as my partner, because quite frankly, I really want to see your expression as you sit in your seat while I collect my award. I may even thank you for not signing me, as I’ll get to keep the extra 12 per cent. With that, I’ll buy myself an Aston Martin. You’re not allowed in it.

All that’s left for me to say is Merry Christmas and a happy new year. I’m off to stuff my vegetarian roast and put on my expensive crown, not the ones you buy in supermarkets. I buy the really expensive ones which have gifts such as Mont Blanc pens and Breitling watches inside. And I’m actually pulling one of the crackers as I write this. I’m putting on my watch, and putting the finishing touches to my submission with my Mont Blanc. Are you jealous? I bet you are!

Yours sincerely

A Writer

To E, or not to E? Now there's a question...

Do not, dear reader, be surprised if this post contains at best shonky or no research at all into the subject matter. After all, this is me here; I don’t do much in the way of research (unless it’s to check out 21st Century Heroes and their pectoral presence of course – see ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ a couple of posts back. But I digress. Which only works if you’re Ronnie Corbett. And a National Treasure).
Anyway...focus, woman.
E-books and E-book publishing. It’s very ‘on-trend’ right now isn’t it? There’s stuff about it EVERYWHERE. Especially on-line *ahem* obviously. This blog made me nearly need to change my underwear twice whilst reading it: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/02/02/why-your-self-published-book-sucks-a-bag-of-dicks/
And for the most part I kind of agree with everything it says. I know it denigrates the whole idea of e-publishing and spins such a negative on it that it’s difficult to know how an average human being could believe anything like this is worthwhile. But, bear with me, I’m trying to be impartial.
For instance I’ve never considered Self/Vanity Publishing. In fact I get very heated at the word ‘vanity’ – I think it’s a throwback from my childhood and actually, isn’t Vanity one of the Seven Deadly Sins? BUT (and this is only since I’ve begun to approach A Certain Age) I have decided to weave into my Last Will and Testament the stipulation that should I die unpublished, I want three of my books to be posthumously printed so at least my daughter can show my grand/great grandchildren one day. I’m also hoping that the adage “never speak ill of the dead” also applies to being posthumously self-published; CAN you be vain AND deceased?
{Aside… okay then, digression… just had a small ‘lol’ moment imagining my e-book review on Amazon reading something like this: “…was crap. Thank god she’s not around to write any more sh*te like this one”}
And speaking of scary reviews, I’d NEVER want to be in the position where I’d feel I had to deliver a ball-breaking response to a (not even bad) review of my e-book like this one: http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html
Once you start getting heated in defence there’s really no going back for some people, is there?
And this, I believe is the crux of the whole e-matter. I think it works for certain people - people with the right kind of character; the strong, the determined and the unfathomably brave.
All of which, I’m sure you’ve sussed by now, are qualities of which I have none.
I am an anxious, feeble-minded coward who needs somebody to hold her hand and kick her up the arse, whichever is the nearer. And I could no more promote any product of my own making than I could fly to the moon and back. Unless I had somebody – a Proper, Professional, Qualified somebody behind me one hundred and ninety five percent who was willing – and being paid a percentage of course – to stick their neck out for me and declare me a creative literary genius (or similar… just a Good Writer would do for now to be honest).
Of course it DOES help if you are an excellent writer. It helps if you can work happily and constructively alongside spellchecker, it helps if you’re a first-class Proofreader who can spot a typo at fifty paces, a consummate Editor who can find a plot-hole without falling into it.  And I imagine it would also help to have a couple of hundred quid as a cushion/starter block for things like cover-production, initial set-up/registration fees and soforth. (Can you tell here’s where my research falls a little flat? I don’t have precise figures and I hate maths so can I please be excused if “a couple hundred quid” is wrong in any way... I’m just hazarding. Phew, thanks).
And it must all be so very… I don’t know, stressful. Going through this whole process pretty much on your own, with the unswerving belief that what you’ve written is Good Enough to be out there… even if Agents and Publishers have already told you there is No Place for it. Half of me is in total awe of these e-authors who have flown in the face of rejection and self-pronounced  that their work is publishable, whilst the other half of me is hiding behind a cushion wishing they’d just bided their time a bit longer and given any feedback they may have had from professionals, the proper considered thought it warranted before launching their babies into the ethosphere.
So I'm on the fence.  Which is probably why I walk this way.
Oh, and during my 'research', I also found this site: http://theselfpublishingreview.wordpress.com/ where a lot of self-published/e-books are reviewed and I found myself especially drawn to the 'tags' section on the left hand side which felt rather like looking out for a car-crash, which I know is all kinds of wrong but reading these makes me feel more sure I'm doing the right thing with my game of patience.

There’s nothing worse than waking up with Lemon Drizzle Cake stuck to your pyjamas

Any kind of Feedback is Good. And for a writer, feedback from an agent is precious. Whereas straightforward ‘Not for us, thanks’ tells us absolutely NOTHING, a reply containing words of kind but critical encouragement is a thing to be cherished.

A day later, at any rate.

Because after your eyes  have scanned the response and sent the message to your brain from seeing words like ‘sorry’, ‘although’ and ‘but’ and re-written the reply to read simply "REJECT",  it’s all you can do to scour the house for a tub of Ben and Jerry’s you already know you don’t have and putting an imminent sleepless night down to the hog-wart that shares your bed. (Of course it could also have been the aftermath of the lone sausage you found lurking at the back of the fridge. Who knew it was extra spicy and would repeat for the next 48 hours? Who knew it was extra spicy and … well, you get the idea.)

And a writer who wakes up after a crappy night’s sleep is not a pretty thing.

But ‘but’s can be good. They’re a conjunctive, so it follows that, well, more words will follow. More information is going to be forthcoming. Don’t stop reading. After all, you can’t put a full-stop after a 'but' - you’ve learnt that much, right? Turn away from the e-mail/letter and take a deep breath. In fact, just take SOME breath and refuse to cry. It won’t help. You won’t even be able to SEE any more words let alone know what it is you’ve already decided they mean.

Start by ignoring the ‘sorry’ word. It’s overused after all. I had a friend who used the word ‘sorry’ before everything else she ever said. EVERYTHING. She’d stand at out doorstep after calling for me and say to whichever parent got there first “Sorry Mr/s Cooper but is Deborah there?” of course I blimmin’ well was, we were catching the school bus together. But she said it every morning without fail until it came to mean nothing. She even said “sorry” if she needed to use the loo. And her first words when she telephoned me…? Well, it doesn’t take a great imagination.

Actually I have been known to say sorry if someone steps on my foot in Sainsbury’s and I’m still not sure if I’m being facetious or whether I really AM sorry I placed my foot underneath theirs because I’m such a notorious doofus.

‘Although’ is not such a bad guy either. Although is another way of saying ‘even so’, ‘even if’, ‘whilst’…. you remember that book: Synonyms Can Be Fun? So you also remember the Good Guy coming through at the end - the full stop didn’t finish him off either, right?

Let’s try a nice analogy. Let’s say Aunty May made a Lemon Drizzle cake. Aunty May loves to cook and particularly likes to see other people enjoying her baking efforts. So today she waits with an expectant flush whilst her cake is nibbled and swallowed and then she hears: ‘Hmmmm…. that’s nice, but….’ No, No! NO! Not a But!
But…
‘…a bit less sugar would’ve made it sharper’ perhaps?
‘…maybe some grated lemon rind to give it that slight edge?’
‘… it’s not as moist as your last one.’

Okay, we’ll forget about Aunty May’s moistness conundrum for now, I’m sure she’ll sort that particular problem out herself. The point is that even though it got a but, she’s actually amassing a wealth of constructive advice (not criticism, that word can turn and bite your ‘but’ before you realise it) on how to improve her lovely Lemon Drizzle.
She’s either going to never make this cake again for as long as she lives and live in mortal fear of every future lemon she passes or else she’s going to have to bite this particular bullet and run with it (perhaps one metaphor too many).

After she's slept on it for 24 hours, of course.

On the ‘feedback’ I mean, not on the lemon cake. That would just be silly.

Why don't they just tell us?

It has been said many times [citation needed] that 90% of the slushpile is awful. And this doesn't mean 'not publishable in the present climate' – it means 'absolutely bloody God-awful; awfuller than Rebecca Black's Friday if it were sung in duet with Justin Bieber and accompanied by Ann Widdecombe doing an interpretive dance.'

I've never seen a slushpile and I have no idea whether this is true. I find it difficult to believe – surely it can't be that bad? And if it is, then wouldn't agents just tell people to give up and stop wasting everybody's time? While first getting rejected, I almost wished someone would just come out and say 'Look, this is rubbish. Stop kidding yourself. You'll be selling potatoes for the rest of your life and you've got to accept the fact that's all you're good for.' I just wanted to know, one way or the other, whether I was deluding myself.

Except agents don't tell us anything of the sort – and now I'm very glad about that. If I were an agent, there's no way I'd be dictating who should stop writing and who might have some very carefully concealed talent that will emerge twenty years later.

This is not just because people might come round and boil me in a vat of green ink, and not just because composing individual letters would be boring and annoying, but because writing ability is not something that remains fixed from the moment we learn how to hold a pen. The writer who sends in a grubby hand-written tale with a narrator that turns out to be goldfish might wise up, work hard for the next several years, read hundreds of brilliant books in their genre, write something that hits the zeitgeist and find out how to submit it properly. (Or they might set up a funny Twitter account and get a book deal in two seconds.)

Writing is a bit like singing, in that people are expected (or expect) to be able to do it naturally, as though ability is doled out at birth and you either have it or you don't. How often have you heard someone state that they 'can't sing', as if that's the way it is and there's nothing they can do about it? And yet it's possible to learn to use your voice just as it's possible to learn an instrument. If you'd always wanted to play the violin, you wouldn't sit there and bemoan the fact that you couldn't. You'd save up for lessons and practise a lot. You'd expect a fair few tortured-cat sound effects at first but they'd all be part of learning and improving.

It's fine – indeed, inevitable – to have a tortured-cat stage of writing too, but this doesn't mean everything we ever do will be rubbish. By communicating with other writers, by reading everything in sight and studying how favourite and not-so-favourite authors do things, and most of all by sitting on our arses and getting hundreds of thousands of words onto the page, even the most unpromising of us can work on our craft.

It stands to reason that a lot of us are going to make a mistake and send something out before it's ready. It would be pretty grim if agents took it upon themselves to tell us to give up, just because we didn't know what we were doing, yet. At the time, I thought it would be a relief to know that my submissions were the pits – but I'm glad no one went so far as to say so.

A Proper Conversation-Stopper!

During a family gathering over one of the many holidays we’ve been inundated with recently (who’s getting fed up with them now and who’s lost track of time?  IS it Boxing Day again?) I had a ‘conversation’ with my brother-in-law about my writing.

*ahem* here it is - abridged and with many seethes omitted:

BiL:     ‘How’s the writing going?’

Me:      ‘Oh, well, I haven’t done much lately, haven’t really… um (…how DO you explain about shattered confidence leading to non-production of wordage without sounding like a proper precious ponce – especially when there’s another 15 or so members of your extended family listening in with bated breath?) I haven’t had anything positive back from an agent yet.’

BiL:     ‘You know, you should send it off to some publishers, forget about the agents, just send it straight to them, cut out the middle man and you’ll probably even save having to pay them a fee too.’

Me:      (No sh*t, Sherlock…) ‘Well, it’s not really as simple as that, you can’t approach a publisher without getting an agent first, and that’s not an easy thing to do.  I’ve sent off loads of enquiries already… I have still got a couple -’

BiL:     ‘- you should just print it off; take the whole thing to them, plonk it on their desks, and wait for a reply.  You know what… J.K Rowling didn’t -’

Me:  (I’m allowed one seethe, surely?) ‘- it’s really not as straightforward as that, agents are inundated with manuscripts every day and I don’t think I’d get to see a publisher just because I happen to turn up at the door with a printout of my book, it doesn’t work like that.’

BiL:     ‘I think you’ve got to be more proactive.  If you believe in what you’re doing, your confidence will shine through and they’ll take you seriously.  If I didn’t believe in my work then nobody would be interested. That’s the way it goes I’m afraid; if you want to make a success of something you’ve got to be determined.’

Me:      (trying not to cry… or seethe too much) ‘Well… okay then, maybe that’s my problem (translation: can we shut up now and drink some wine please?).’

BiL:    ‘You know what you should do?  If you published it on line, that’s where yo’ll find your audience, you’d be out there and they’d see how good your writing is.’

Me:     (fascinated to know how he knows what my writing’s like when he’s never read any of it) ‘Online where exactly?’

BiL:     ‘On the internet, that’s when you’re going to get agents and publishers reading it.  I bet they’re always online.’

Me:      ‘I’ve got a blog.  I’ve got all the opening chapters of every book I’ve written on it.  And the only way an agent is going to see anything I’ve written is if I mail them and link to my blog.’

BiL:    ‘Everybody’s got a blog these days.  You want to just publish all your books on the web, that’s the only way to get anyone to read them.  Everybody’s on line these days – you’d be surprised what you can find on the internet.’

Me: (No. Actually I wouldn’t) (oh, and seethe) ‘If you mean self-publish, then I have been thinking about it lately but I’ve always been wary of it; I’m scared it’ll make me look like I’m blowing my own trumpet and not having anybody with authority actually validating it and championing me… I think I’d still rather wait and get representation.’

BiL:    ‘So if you can publish a book yourself then what’s the problem?  Once you’ve got a book in your hands you’ve made it.  People start reading it, then they’ll see how you write… that’s the way to get noticed, you’d soon get an agent or a publisher interested then. They’ll find your book online.’

Me:      ‘But they’d have to do a search to find anything online.  That’s what everyone has to do – they wouldn’t just happen to find it by accident.  And anyway, I think they get enough manuscripts sent to them without needing to search on-line for one that isn’t even good enough to secure an agent in the first place...’

BiL:     ‘Ah, you’d be surprised. For instance, if, say, they wanted to publish a book about a gardener who drives through Tuscany and all the adventures he has,  they could find it no problem… just type in "book... gardener... Tuscany..." publishers are always on the lookout for the next big thing and they've just got to look on the internet to find it.  Who knows, it could be you.  You just need to get yourself out there.  Get seen, you know?

Me:     (through teeth so gritted they'd be grand in a snowstorm) ‘Wine anybody?

Cheers!

Synopsising: The act of trying to write a Synopsis.

The definition is simple: (n.) A general view, or a collection of heads or parts so arranged as to exhibit a general view of the whole; an abstract or summary of a discourse; a syllabus; a conspectus.

So, it’s a précis, right? A condensed version of that book you’ve just written. And what could be easier than just saying in 500 words what you’ve already said in nearly 100,000? I mean, if you’d thought at the very outset of this whole ‘writing a book’ kerfuffle that all you had to do was deliver a nicely-rounded 500 words story, then you could have done it, right? Right! So then – tah-daaaaahhh!

This is the Fifth time I’ve been faced with a Synopsis. And although it doesn’t feel any easier and I still get a severe attack of the Dreads, I have to admit the way I handle them IS slightly less traumatic. Like everything else I do, if I think about it too much I prevaricate until it starts to grow green mould, so I bash it out feverishly and then sit back, exhausted. If it goes over to a 2nd page (single-line spaced) then I change the margins by 1cm. Oh, I’m a master of illusion, me! Then  I read it through again. And if it's STILL too wordy, then...

Well, this is where cunning comes into play. If I’ve used two or three words, where ONE has to exist, then that’s used instead. And, using another little trick I like to call ‘Extreme Hyphenation’ -if it can be, then it is. Hyphenated I mean. And now a hyphenated word eludes me. Bugger examples…

And then I let some other nice person(s) read it. Someone who doesn’t actually know what the story is about, and if they get to the end and it all makes sense then that’s basically that. BUT if they start to turn the paper over looking for more information on the other side, then scratch their heads AND frown, there’s going to be a bit more editing to do.

‘So why did she go to the graveyard and what happened to the guy who got shot in the street?’ you might be asked. And that’s when you have to start deciding what’s important and what’s not. Does an Agent really need to know that the MC mistakenly went to the graveyard (like you do) – even if it DID turn out to be one of the funniest/heart-wrenching/prosaic scenes of your whole novel… well, do they? Is it really integral to the plot? And why on earth haven’t you mentioned the really important part when the anti-hero gets what he deserves?

This is SO not a time to protect either your darlings OR your ‘little darlings’. There must be no airs of mystery about your synopsis.  You can't be shrouding it in silk and fine, tempting danglies.  This is where Gok Wan would have you stripped to your cellulite with a mirror at angles you didn’t even know you needed angled mirrors for; where your bottom lip starts quivering and you know you need to start shaving – words off I mean. It’s cold turkey time and there’s no getting out of it.

Girrrrl-friend!

I leave mine to simmer for 24 hours. Seriously, when I came back to my Synopsis earlier on, after my own day of rest, I was deleting darlings, adding flashes of brilliance and even started to realise the whole story had  deeper meanings and sub-texts  I never even noticed before.

That’s either what a crap night’s sleep will do for you; a day spent doing paid non-rocket-science-based work (aha… Extreme Hyphenation!) or angrily making pastry using the rubbing-in method when it’s flippin’ well Valentines Day!

But you get the idea. Right?

Work, Work, Busy, Busy

Whenever I tell anyone what I do for a living I'm often met by oohs and aahs, swiftly followed by a

'I would love to be a writer.'

Interestingly, this wasn't a frequent response when I was a lawyer...

At first I thought that this expression of a fervent desire to write was simply because the majority of folk secretly did want to do it.

After all, hadn't I jumped at the chance?

And indeed, for those of you out there who do want to make a career of writing. I mean really want it. Then my advice is simple. Keep doing what you are already doing, plugging away, chip, chip, chip. Your time for success could be just around the corner. I know it doesn't always feel that way, but take heart from what happened to me, because I'm just an ordinary woman, certainly no genius, and without any inside knowledge or contacts to help me along.

Actually, it makes me furious when I hear this oft bandied piece of rubbish: that you have to be famous or have the right contacts to get an agent or a publishing contract.

Sure, it helps if you happen to be a Hollywood actress, but let's be very clear about this, most of us authors are cheerful nobodies. And we like it that way.

So, if you're using this particular excuse to avoid subbing your work, fine. Just be clear that it is an excuse.

Anyway, back to my point that everyone wants to be a writer.

Well, actually, I have, over time, come to the conclusion that it just aint so. Yes, there are reams of people out there who harbour the dream of walking into Waterstones and seeing their name on the spine of a bestseller.

They can imagine themselves receiving news of their shortlisting for the Booker, maybe they're in their funkily untidy study at the time, replying to fan mail.

This however, is no more a real desire than me wanting to be a size zero. The mind can imagine the little red dress, but is the mouth gonna stop chewing? Don't be daft.

There are unpalatable truths to anything and writing is no different.

First, you're probably going to have to write and do the day job.

The dreamer sees empty months and years before him, allowing his muse to strike. The reality is that no-one gives up proper paying employment until a decent advance comes in.

I wrote my first book while working as a lawyer. I snatched lunchbreaks and evenings when the kids were in bed.

I was lucky to sell that book. Most don't and will have to keep on keeping on for another two, perhaps three unsold books.

Second, you probably won't ever make enough money to give up the day job. Most writers don't. And those of us that do, well that leads me to...

Point three, we have to write a hell of a lot and we have to write to dealines. Not for nothing does a good friend call me 'the word factory'. I write and fully edit a book a year, whilst promoting the previous one. It is graft.

Now, I'm not complaining. I love my life.

But, as the saying goes, it is what it is. Now if you're still along for the ride...get working.

Dear Agent,

Dear Agent,

You have a tough job, I know.  I’ve read all the stuff about how you’re inundated with unsolicited manuscripts (try saying THAT after a snifter of Baileys), about how you’re fighting hard for your current list of published authors and about how the economic climate is making it so difficult right now for anybody trying to get a foot on the first rung of their writing career.

And I’ve watched enough episodes of ‘The Apprentice’ to appreciate that any kind of business deal, even in the publishing world (maybe especially in the publishing world, where trust plays such a key role) is only as good as the financial return it can realistically make.

So it’s a gamble.  Particularly with a newbie – I mean debut author.  

This new writer whose work you’re reading right now could so very easily turn out to be the lemon of the century.  They could be a one trick pony, a one-hit wonder, even a plagiarist of the highest order who’s got you hooked, lined and sunk already with their clever use of language and their ingenious plot-lines.

Of course you could Google them.  And their Facebook profile alone could ease your worried brow or else send you screaming for the hills.  And if they have a Blog, so much easier.  Unless their blog is a ‘name and shame’ shrine to all the rejection letters they receive from Agents, of course (you know *who* I mean).  Which is just mental. (IMHO obvs.  You might enjoy reading it.)

This work you’re currently holding could be the endeavours of a writer who’s given up opportunities to accomplish success in all fields other than the one true vocation they dream of. The humour which shines brightly through the words you’re reading here, could be all the confidence that is left of this writer – rejections having taken their toll and reduced them to a small quivering mass of nerves. They might have endless ideas overflowing in their ‘to be written’ document file and they might have the bright, exciting beginnings of new books already started, which they’ve already quietly dismissed as a reject themselves – a death before life. A waste of time which they convince themselves they’d probably spend more wisely keeping a house clean and greedy mouths stuffed.

You know how much power you have, dear Agent?  Do you know how monumental the tiniest glimmer of hope that you give to a writer can be?  It’s the difference between light and dark to us – the flick of a switch.  It’s easy to give up and not believe in ourselves when we haven’t achieved what we’ve known we always wanted to from aged 6. But it’s the hardest thing in the world to keep treading the same path wearing different heels and lipstick in the hope that one day we’ll turn a head.

Just saying.

Yours hopefully,

Guest Spot: Carl Ashmore tells us how it feels to have the most successful book of all time on the Authonomy website...

We are delighted to have Carl guest for us at Strictly.  So without any further preamble,  let's find out a bit more about how he got to where he is today...

Who are you?

My name is Carl Ashmore and I’m an aspiring writer for children. I live in Crewe, Cheshire with my partner, Lisa, my one year old daughter, Alice, and a very round, grumpy Cheshire cat that flatly refuses to adhere to the stereotype.

‘The Time Hunters’ is my first novel and is about a teenage girl who discovers her reclusive uncle is a time traveller and becomes involved in a murder/mystery and a quest through time for the Golden Fleece. I am proud to say ‘The Time Hunters’ become the most successful book of all-time on the Harper Collins website www.authonomy.com and won a Harper Collins review in July.

What is Authonomy?

It’s a networking site for writers across the world and an online arena for critiquing work and sharing ideas. There are thousands of books uploaded at any one time and each month, the top five most popular books are selected for a review by an editor from Harper Collins.

What made you join Authonomy?

I was exploring writing websites and happened to stumble across Authonomy. It was never a conscious decision to join a site like it but I’m thrilled I did.

What other routes to publication have you tried?

Agents, mainly. With ‘The Time Hunters’ I had four requests to send ‘fulls’ and one offer of representation from an agency I chose to reject (for very good reasons). I tried one publisher ‘The Chicken House’ and they requested to see a full (this was when they accepted unsolicited submissions) but didn’t pursue it. The feedback from the agents was positive but did highlight issues I have since addressed.

Would you consider Self-Publishing?

I may well do. My dream has always to been to go the traditional route but I’m aware the publishing industry is changing. The development of new technologies (Kindle etc) and the ways readers are accessing books means that it would be rather silly to dismiss it outright. To be honest, I think many literary stars of the future will come from the self-publishing route.

How have you found Authonomy?

I enjoyed it enormously. Authonomy is merely a microcosm of life. Some writers are hugely giving of their time and experience and others are somewhat self-obsessed, egotistical and rather curt. It would be easy to be cynical about Authonomy (many are) but personally, I avoided such cynicism and concentrated on reading/commenting on the work of others and embracing the feedback on my work. I made a good friend in Mel Comley (a fellow gold star winner) and she offered to do an edit of my full MS, giving advice she’d received from other Authonomites. The process becomes a circular one. What I learn today, I pass on tomorrow.

Where did you get your pretty book cover from?

I’m a lecturer in film and media at a college. A friend and colleague of mine, Henryk Szor, created my cover after reading the book. ‘The Time Hunters’ is an adventure that fuses history with mythology (characters include a friendly Minotaur, Will Scarlet etc) and the main time machine is a 1963 Volkswagen campervan. Henryk liked the scene where the campervan is attacked by two Harpies in Ancient Crete and visualised it for the cover. Henryk’s work can be seen on www.henrykszor.com.


What advice would you give aspiring Authors considering using Authonomy?

Don’t expect the site to be the answer to all your publishing dreams. Only join if you’re committed to improving your book and not just because you want to win the Harper Collins review. The journey is what’s important, not gaining the gold star and review. I know ‘The Time Hunters’ is a considerably better book than when I joined because I listened to the advice of others. Treat the site and other writers with respect and it can be a valuable tool for self-improvement. It also increases your visibility on a world-wide stage and if you’re lucky, you may be spotted by an agent (this has happened to a number of Authonomites) or publisher.

What are your plans for the future?

Whilst I wait for my Harper Collins review, I intend to use the success on Authonomy to try and gain an agent. I’m also writing another children’s book ‘The Angel Prophecy’ about a very special thirteen year old boy embroiled in an ancient war between a modern Knights Templar and Hell demons.

I have also written two other children’s books for a younger audience ‘Bernard and the Bibble’ and ‘The Night they Nicked Saint Nick’ which will be re-edited as a result of the advice I’ve received from my time on Authonomy.

Most importantly, I have a beautiful one year old daughter who I am try to get interested in reading. So far, she has successfully destroyed a copy of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ (which she smeared in chocolate) and tore out five pages of ‘Treasure Island’ and buried them under the couch. She may not be reading yet but I’m delighted she’s embracing the spirit of the books.

The link to the Time Hunters is:
http://www.authonomy.com/books/16708/the-time-hunters/

Carl can be contacted on carlashmore@mailcity.com

Not-so-Secret Agent

It dawned on me today that I have been living a lie. For the past crikey-knows however many years, I have been living in that State called Denial (just down the road from Disbelief) because, yes folks… for all my bemoaning and wailing at getting hearty sniffs of but never actually securing one…I ONCE HAD AN AGENT.
Oh yes.
Now, whether she could legitimately be called a ‘Literary Agent’ in today’s current climate remains debateable.
So, the technical bit…
I was probably something like nineteen. And in those days (“waaaaay back when”) this was very close to twelve – in terms of mentality; emotionally and physically – I mean, I was still a virgin! Back when Virgins were fashionable and not just fodder for the Un-dead of this/that World or the next.
Also, I’d written six books by this time. (More technical stuff: they were all diaries. But they’re still books, right?) I’d had one short story published in the local newspaper, and a rejection from the BBC for a Fawlty Towers episode my best friend and I wrote. Oh, and a quite curt letter from Michael Grade telling me that if I really thought I could do a better job than Terry Wogan on his eponymous chat show, then I’d have to start at the bottom like everybody else at the Beeb had and not just leap into his comfy chair because I’d run out of career options after leaving school.
My mother was a post lady.
And this IS relevant. Because one of the ladies on her ‘round’ was a b***-selling author. Who, although only lived round the corner to us (remember this WAS the early 80’s and “round the corner” was still a Big Deal – tantamount to, say, a weekend in Prague and all the preparations that might justifiably go into planning something major like this) I’d never met, never heard of and in fact placed this on something of a pedestal.
B***-selling author, Eileen Pickering - nope I'd never heard of her either - In my village! Down the road! On my mum’s post-round!
Who knew?!
Well, mother did, obviously.
And she said she’d help me on my rocky road to publication and literary success! (Well, okay then, she said she’d read my bumbling efforts at short-story writing and my rhyming poetry about dying Fawns and unrequited love and let me know what she thought and send some off to some publishing places she knew…so, Agent? Hmmm…not sure.)
I paid for the photocopying, the stamps and the envelopes and in return she let me have my very first rejection letters. Via my mother.
So doubly humiliating then.
Even worse was the fact that my writing generally featured angsty teen first-love, testosterone-fuelled car mechanics and rom-comedies of errors involving randy driving instructors and pouty Advertising executives (of which I knew absolutely nothing…really).
And her genre? Westerns (she wrote under the pseudonym of Mark Falcon). So her forte in brooding, bristling cowhands and winsome corseted wenches in Shoot’em’up and Spitt’em out City probably didn’t resonate too well with my juvenile literary endeavours.
I do remember one of her comments saying something along the lines of: “not certain there is a specific market for this kind of style” and so heralded the very first heartslump in my chosen field.
And now Heartslump seems like quite a fitting name for a ghost-town in an obscure Western town.

Ah well, it’s back to that lil'ole state of Denial I think – and don’t spare the horses!

***book/best – details far too sketchy to be deemed concrete fact.

*Subbing* seems to be the hardest word

Forget cardiovascular workouts, forget frenzied, passionate all-night lovemaking sessions… al...though…no… no… c’mon, focus now…and forget the sheer icy panic you get when you think you mightn’t have locked the front door before your 2-hour trip… or turned the gas off (seriously? WHO forgets to turn the Gas off?) Nope - if there’s anything guaranteed to quicken my pulse, send my heart-rate into overdrive and my blood pressure soaring, it’s sending out a submission.
And I’m not alone *gulp* am I?

 Over the years, I've probably lost about fourteen pounds (that’s a stone, right?) just sitting at the keyboard with my finger poised over the left-clicker – THAT’s how trembly my right hand gets. I've never needed one of those mad machines that shakes my cellulite into surrender, like a crazy blender with no lid… oh no, all I have to do is prepare my nice polite enquiry email, make sure I’ve got a new document with three chapters in it, polish my synopsis until I can see my (sweaty) face in it, swallow back whatever meal that threatens to re-appear and hover over ‘send’.

I’ve even been known to do it with my eyes shut; it gets that bad. As if shutting my eyes somehow makes the whole process that much easier, less stressful, more dream-like. Like it maybe didn’t happen because I wasn’t looking? Isn’t that a bit like calories not counting if you eat something when nobody’s watching? Love that idea. Eating alone is my diet of choice. But I digress.
Subbing.
I used to take Subbing to the max. “Extreme Subbing” if you like. Back in the days when paper, ink, envelopes (including self-addressed) and stamps were de rigueur. And Post Offices. My God, Post Offices. I’m still very surprised that the lady behind the counter who worked the 2 o’clock shift didn’t ever ask me if I’d thought about therapy, the number of times I got her to weigh the envelope with contents, then take out the self-addressed envelope and letter and weigh it all again so I’d know how much the return postage would be. Because sometimes I might have used ‘heavier’ ink than the last time. I mean, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the lower an ink cartridge gets, the fainter the print, and the lighter the whole caboodle? And I didn’t want those nice people at the Marsh Literary Agency* thinking I was a total prole for not understanding something as straightforward as the Royal Mail standard postage weights and measures guidelines. Well, did I? Such ineptitude would surely send my manuscript back to the bottom of the slush pile - for only submissions by writers with a basic grasp of Post Office Protocol would be worthy of reading.
At least that was my worry. Well, one of them.

Along with all the others. Did I put the right letter in the right envelope? did I put the right SAE in the right envelope? did I stick stamps on every-bloody-thing? And of course, did the nice Post Office lady really understand what it is I was asking her to do in the first place anyway?
I’m surprised I slept at all.

But at least in those ‘paper-days’ I’d have been able (if I’d been so inclined and that convinced that something in an envelope was awry) to stake out the box into which the envelope had been posted, lie in wait for the post van to collect the contents and then wrestle my envelope from his sack so that I could rip everything open only to discover that nothing WAS actually wrong in the first place and actually I DO need to seek psychiatric assistance of some kind.
After my second book did the (boomerang) rounds and I worked out I was probably spending more in posting my submissions than I was getting paid for in the part-time job which fuelled my habit, I decided to just sub to Agents whose email details appeared in the Writers and Artists Yearbook.  And there're a fair few of them.  But it doesn't make the 'sending' any less traumatic.  In fact there's not even the consolation of being able to lie in wait for the Royal Mail van after you've hit 'send' - and the blind panic I felt once when I realised I'd sent an enquiry to two different Agencies but addressed to the same person, was something I do not wish repeating in a hurry.

And, so having committed this idiotically heart-stopping misdemeanour, would YOU:
a) send another e-mail saying 'oops, sorry about that - I'm a fool who doesn't deserve representation.  I insist you send this message and any attachments directly to your recycle bin', or
b) pretend you didn't notice and hope they don't either, or
c) convince yourself that they'll think you're just a typical creative-type who, although obviously a skilled story-teller, has a head too full of creative ideas to master the banalities of basic emailing.
Yup, me too.  I'm a c) person every time.

*Just one of a number of very lovely Literary Agencies Out There.

Don’t Give Up the Day Job

There are a few daydreams we writers allow ourselves as we languish in a nice deep, foamy - mostly metaphorical - bath; letting our imaginations roam wild until they start to border on dangerously prune-y. And one of mine has always been that once I get the elusive Agent, Contract, four-book (six figure *) deal I will drop my nice little part-time job like the hot noose around my creative neck I’ve always assumed it… well, just is.

For up ‘til now I’ve always bemoaned the six thirty alarm and the Eight o’clock School drive and then the additional 45 minute slog to my own school (I don’t mean I run it – I’m not the Head or anything, just another cog in the educational wheel). And then having to spend the next four hours trying to make sense of stuff I’m supposed to be doing and getting paid for doing there, whilst I’m actually writing the next scene of my book in my head.
Y'see, I know I have to have the ‘paid’ job and without it I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay bills and eat food or buy paper and ink cartridges and belong to wonderful online writing sites like WriteWords. But all I want to do whilst I’m there is be back  home with my eyes firmly fixed on the screen and my fingers flying like crazy (on a good day) across the keyboard creating a whole Other World.
I’ve been exasperated to the point of distraction at times; that I’m tethered to this ridiculous worker’s treadmill all for the sake of having some paper on which to churn out chapters of the next dream I’m working on so that I can post them off to a handful of carefully selected Agents to then shred on my behalf before they’ve even properly read them.
Because that’s how it feels at times, right?
Of course, I’ve always managed to cheer myself up with the fact that my ‘paid’ job is not without its merits i.e the lovely warm printer which sits happily beside me. And a keyboard and screen. Oh, and the kettle and biscuits are well within reach too. However printer, screen, kettle and chocolate Digestives do not a contented writer make. Very close, granted - but still no cigar.
Lately though, with the enthusiastic responses from the latest wave of Agent-subbing, I’ve found this part of my daydream morphing into something strangely different. And I've let myself get sucked further into my 'dream'.  I even waltzed down one of the corridors the other day chanting (under my breath of course) *"I have an Agent".  I have an Agent" - just to see what it would feel like.  But I was unprepared for the feelings this incantation induced.
No longer do I see myself running like a hairy banshee into the main hall during full school assembly with a cry of “That’s it, I’m published – I’m OUTTA HERE!” Then setting of all the fire alarms, turning on all the Bunsen burners and blocking the year 8 loos with reams of sugar paper. Oh no, I seem to somehow have risen above all that nonsense (although now I read that back, it does look like fun). Because strangely enough – and even though I know that most published authors still need to keep the day job going to support their literary urges, I would miss the social interaction. The happy little faces of the quirky assortment of people I work with. Their eager enquiries into how my writing endeavours are going; their enthusiasm at my excitement of being asked for chapters and their continued support of this Other Job I have when I get home from the first.
And anyway – whether they know it or not – they are also the source of some of the best material that one day may lead to that other … *Pine/Hollywood-based dream!

* These ideas are brought to you as part of my subliminal visualisation technique!