Just back in from France. My mind is a complete blank, which, surprisingly, for a writer is a good thing. The bad thing would be not to get back into the writing habit as soon as possible and begin to fill that blank space with some new words.
I didn't think about writing while I was away, though I did cast an occasional thought in the direction of Literary Agents. As far as that goes, it's two-all at the moment. Not two for my work and two rejections. It is as you might expect, four rejections in total. When I say the score stands at 2:2, I mean two pro-forma rejections slips versus two personal and kind letters.
Does this give me hope? Sort of. Does this make me doubt my writing ability. No. I can turn a word into a phrase, into a sentence, into a paragraph, into a chapter. I know my characters are good and have something to reveal. Does it make me question my story-telling? That's another tale, the end to which has yet to be written.
What the experience does do is make me value more than ever the work of my previous editors at Faber: Christopher Reid and Louisa Sladen. They gave me plenty of their time and taught me well.
I hope I listened enough. (They'd probably have cut ten words out of the previous paragraph.)
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