A Tall Person Blind to the Obvious

Being a tall person, I sometimes don't see what is at my feet. In fact I often don't look. I'm too busy staring at the horizon, wondering what might be on the other side. And being a birder, I spend much of my time looking up into the sky - blue or otherwise. Sometimes I fall over.

The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, with its gleaming traffic-light red cover has been my guide in recent months. Useful, but wearying at times like a back seat driver, and for my purposes somehow incomplete. It is easy to transfer blame to a friend for the rejection one sometimes feels.

But there is another volume I have overlooked, even though it is in its eighth edition. The Children's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. It is brim full of useful addresses and advice I am not too proud to receive. I have been away too long. The cover is an encouraging green.

Writing Not Decorating

Back to writing today. Oddly for me in the afternoon. Only 59,495 words to go before revision. I forced myself to sit down. I was going to write a synopsis. I abandoned that idea after three words. Then I thought I'd do some character sketches. I gave up on that idea too.

So I did what I always do. I started writing. My character found a name. Now she has to find other characters to meet - I now have four - and a story to tell. That story has begun. A fifth character waits somewhere at the end of the garden, maybe. This is the how I work. The only way I can invent is to write, then sort it all out afterwards. Risky? It's the only method I know.

I enjoyed it (just as well) trying to scare myself with the story rather than the daunting nature of the task. My character is off and walking about, already troubled, feeling a little alienated, claustrophobic and perplexed. Female this time - a new departure.

The girl is temporarily or permanently called Lorraine (for reasons unknown). A wide world is ahead of her. And that's the whole point about children's fiction.

Indecision is the Mother of Invention

Two weeks ago I wrote in this blog: "Across the fields, I can hear a voice tempting me down another fantastical road." Well, that voice has been nagging at me ever since and I've followed the cake crumb trail back to where I started.

This morning I began to outline the direction of the more outlandish of the two children's books I have had in mind. A third prospect still looms at the crossroads, but I don't think I'll go there for a while, though I always have a sense of that path in the back of my mind.

I've been doing a lot of fidgeting in my chair today, but I have at least sat here for two hours, staring beyond the screen. I shall sit here for two hours tomorrow and the day after... and so on until it is done. I have made some notes, if not written the first sentence. I know where I shall begin.

As for the other book, who knows? Indecision is sometimes the mother of invention.

You Can't Get Down Until You've Eaten Your Greens!

Tie me with a silk scarf to my Herman Miller chair. A great chair (acquired for about forty quid) doesn't guarantee a great book, but unless you sit in it, nothing is ever going to be written. It has been a restless week full of distractions, mostly happy.

Not good enough. And nothing to do with hearing from agents and that well-known publisher I approached four weeks ago with a tentative enquiry and an SAE. Zilch on all counts. Nil points; no response. More pings and the clattering of the letter box next week, hopefully.

There's a lot of greens involved in writing a book. Sometimes they taste sweet and tender; sometimes it's a tough and tasteless chew, full of stringy bits. It can be all toothpicks and embarrassing shreds caught in your teeth.

But you have to sit there till it's done. There's no pudding until you've eaten your greens.

Up There With Elvis

How many million words have been written about Steve Jobs today? Here are a few more. Not really about him, more about what he has done for me. He hasn't made me more creative, but he has created a better space for me to work.

I love all the gadgets - I have two iPods and a MacBook. A small collection. But what I love most is the iMac sitting on my desk. I have had it for four years. It has never gone wrong. It is the only place I am really tidy; it seems to reorder itself every time I mess with it.

What I like about the iMac most is that I can barely see it. It doesn't get in the way. It is almost invisible. That is the magic of Steve Jobs.

Waving Not Drowning

Tidying things up today after a weekend away. Five more packages in the post, four publishers and one agent. Looking at my list, I see that I have three or four tentative enquiries still to make. This stage of the adventure is nearly over.

When I had finished my first manuscript, which became Inside the Glasshouse, I approached thirteen publishers directly and received twelve rejections. It was my long-shot and the last publisher I approached, Faber & Faber, that pulled me from the slushpile.

To say that it was Faber & Faber is probably misleading. It was one person, Christopher Reid, who saw a spark in my MSS. Had the MSS landed on another desk things might have been very different and my book sunk without trace. So much is down to chance. I'm sure many better books go a begging.

But I don't think it is really any harder now than it was twenty years ago. The adventure goes on. There are new landscapes to explore.

Words are a gift and a price says nothing about their value.

When was the last time you had a second delivery?

Six down, three to go in the agent hunt. Another pro-forma rejection today from a large agency, but it was worded nicely and someone had taken the trouble to write my first name after Dear and a real person had signed it. These are nice touches.

What have I learned from today's post? It is clear that the type of material I submitted was not suited to this particular agent's list - I probably misinterpreted their entry in the Writers' and Artists' Year Book. Secondly, what I suspected. They receive up to 300 manuscripts per week.

Unusually, there was a second post today. My replacement black ink cartridge has arrived. I shall use it to print off six sets of submissions to send to the only six publishers I can find who will accept unsolicited MSS.

That leaves me with a total of nine chances. My spirits remain high! (Sounds like someone on a desert island writing a message in the sand.) I have plenty of food and water.