The agent called!
You wait for ages and then two come at once...I finally got an email back from the ABC about the manuscript of my next children’s book, the Lab Rats sequel, Lab Rat Liberation (submitted early March) and I was reading through that when the phone rang and it was the agent! She called but seemed to have no idea why she was calling.
I explained the situation and she sounded suitably pessimistic, but thought we should have a talk after I’d had the feedback from the editor in July to see where we could take thing from there. Obviously she was confident enough to let me have her phone number. The conversation was very much focussed on placing this book rather than representing me as a writer, but it was only a preliminary chat, I can hardly expect the full representing philosophy in five minutes. She thought she might have met me a few years ago at some lavish Hachette ‘Harlequin’ theme party. She didn’t, I never got invited to that one. I did get taken to see the State of Origin one year. The seats were great but it was generally agreed to have been the dullest match in Origin history. She wasn’t at that.
Lab Rat Termination?
The ABC feedback was more challenging. The editor there while loving Lab Rats 1, really doesn’t like Lab Rats 2. While he would be happy to work on it with me, he thinks the better option would be to work on something else. As much as I was surprised about his feedback (other views I got had been v positive) there have been so many delays and set back on this, it feels a bit terminal. My poor little Lab Rats, I do love them. The day after this email I got another message from a mother in UK saying her children were now ‘playing lab rats’. What a joy!
I guess I’ll just add this onto the pile of things to think about while I’m away. Actually I won’t be thinking about them at all, I’ll be absorbed in other things and hoping clarity will simply emerge without trying.
A new name for Crash Tactic
Ploughing the manuscript of Crash Tactic and everyday is a different story. Yesterday it was all utter drivel. Today it wasn’t too bad. At the weekend someone read out a few lines over my shoulder and it sounded like such hackneyed rubbish I completely rewrote those lines. It’s always like that and the more you go over it, the crapper it sounds.
In this edit a possible new title is emerging, It could also be called Die for the Deal. Without knowing anything about the contents which is better? Die for the Deal or Crash Tactic
Let me know by posting a comment.
2 comments:
Both good. I like. Die For The Deal sounds like an ominous game show - I can't really visualise Eddie McGuire at the helm, though. Or rather, I just don't want to. Crash Tactic fills me with such a sense of phonetic glee that it's definitely my favourite, though.
yes, would agree with Karryn and will add that Die For The Deal sounds rather like an ersatz James Bond title.
Crash Tactic does give more impact.
Does it matter to you whether the title should offer a hint as to what the book is about?
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