Moving swiftly on - time for grown ups

It's finally happened - I've started writing the adult novel, the one where I try to be the best writer I can and move beyond being simply entertaining. So far I like my intro page. Going into the story it gets a bit "typical Bouchet" but I can work on that. For the present day parts I'm trying present tense narrative. I always hated that as a reader but for some reason I'm giving it a go here. I want the narrator to be discovering at the same time as the reader.

When we plunge into the past narrative (which is most of the book) I use past tenses. Haven't got to that bit yet.

It's nice to be finally on the way. This one has had more think time and more preparation than anything before. If it were a journey I have packed and repacked my bags, got out the maps, bought additional maps, cross referenced them. I'd have fretted about not knowing the exact route and doubted my orienteering's ability to find the best route.

After a few 4 am panics that I would never set off I had my 'just do it moment' and sauntered out of the door this morning pretending it were just a quick stroll. So far it's all quite fresh and exciting, the countryside is pleasant and I'm settling into my new hiking boots. I don't have any Kendal Mint Cake in my knapsack in case I do get lost. Perhaps this is a mistake, it's going to be a long trek across difficult country.

It’s not brain surgery, but it’s close

One of the lovely things about writing books, and especially children’s books, is the enormous good will you receive from virtually everyone. I can think of few other professions where you can ask for help and it is so eagerly given. Imagine an accountant coming to you, asking for some help in putting together their figures - short shrift I would imagine. Not as a writer. For a scene in The Trouble with Sauce I needed some technical information on brain surgery: parts of the brain and implements used, so I turned to Adam, a psychiatrist friend. His eagerness to help was a treat: he did some research and even consulted his colleagues at the hospital where he works. They were all fascinated and equally enthusiastic. On being given the outline of the plot, the child psychiatric specialist gave it a thumbs up in appealing to boys.

The net result was sitting with Adam in the cafe beside the El Alamein fountain in Kings Cross being presented with a delicious array of new words. We giggled over the names of the implements: Raney Clip, Cottoniod Sponges and the splendid Caspar Vertebral Body Distractor. What fun I could have with a ‘body distractor’! It sounds like a surgical belly dancer who seductively arouses and distracts the body while the brain is hacked into. There is also a host of different ‘ronguers’: pituitary, Ruskin (a rhyming rongeur perhaps?) and trimline. However, the perfect implement for Trouble was the wonderfully descriptive Brain Retractor. It was even more thrilling when I looked up pictures of it. (See below). 

I was like a child in a toy shop who thinks he knows all the toys there were, suddenly then discovers a whole new section to play with.

Emerging from the Slough of Despond

In Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the hero Christian get trapped in a deep bog of misery, guilt and sin from which he must emerge. If you can strip the religion out it’s so accurate - despondency is a bog that you have to wade through. Clearly I have been in that slough but I’m emerging now and all it took was one coffee with a good friend. Isn’t it glorious that a Christian novel from the 17th century can capture an atheist writer’s feelings in the 21st?

It makes me feel egotistical and somewhat insecure that all it required to help me emerge was someone  saying: ‘you are a really good writer, but your best work is ahead of you and I’m convinced when you really let go you’ll blow the world apart.’ He described it as a straining dam: ‘your true creative strength is pent up, the dam’s springing leaks and cracks, your work shows flashes of it where it’s got out here and there, but when the dam finally bursts - look out world.’

The tricky part is that it’s my tendency to overthink that’s holding it all back. What did I naturally do when he told me this? Start thinking furiously about ways in which to stop thinking so much in my writing.

He also told me that one of the editors at his publishing house (he’s a state sales manager) had agreed to look at the text of my novel, Crash Tactic in July to give me some feedback. This is a generous commitment of time and has fired me with the excitement of a deadline. I thrive on deadlines. As I’m overseas in July I’ve got to get through Crash Tactic and do another round of changes by the end of the month. 

Panic, glorious motivating panic!

Crash Tactic revisited

Having not looked at it for over six months I printed off Crash Tactic and went over it at the weekend marking things that needed changing. There was so much! On one level it was embarrassing to think I’d let people read it in the state it was, but what was great was that I could see how much better it could be. Structurally it’s sound and from about page 60 where the hero gets kidnapped during a terrorist attack on the World Financial Planners conference it goes like the clappers. The opening fifty pages are a bit ‘treacly’. There isn’t the lightness (I’m talking language, sentences rather than ideas and plot) so the mark up pencil has worked overtime. It’s an action comedy adventure but reading through it struck me that in parts I’ve been sidetracked by the comedy. I’m so used to making it front and centre - the whole purpose of the novel. Maybe it’s too forced. It can flow from the situations and characters without explicit ‘quipping’ all the time.

The comedy safety net

Maybe I’m too in love with comedy. Perhaps that’s my dam - not so much being funny but feeling the need to entertain, being terrified that what I write isn’t entertaining - perhaps I need to trust that what I write is interesting and entertaining without having to force it. Am I using comedy as a safety net? I'm scared of writing something that’s not busily entertaining. It’s been said that a writing novel is like standing naked in a room and asking people to comment on your body. If that’s true, it could be that comedy is my underpants.

Mmm I’d say there was plenty for me to think about there, but I’m trying not to think.

Meanwhile still no call from the agent but I’m not worried, I’m back where I love being, right in the middle of my text.

The story so far

Ok you can’t be accused of tuning into the soap half way through the third season and annoying everyone by asking what’s going on, because this soap starts in about the 10th season. I began making a living from writing back in 1997 when I gave up employment, began freelance copywriting and then soon after began my first full novel. I had early success. Hodder Headline ( now called Hachette) took it up and published it 2000, The Beauty of Truth. It got lots of attention in Australia and sold well (around 11,000...I think). It was sold into the UK and disappeared without a trace (a long story, too long for background fill in).

Two published novels later (The Girls and French Letters) and things are different. There’s a different publishing director at Hachette (who fortunately still likes my work) but also a new 10,000 sales barrier. If they don’t think you’ll sell 10K, you’re out. I submitted a novel late last year - Crash Tactic - a male orientated action comedy which I must admit I loved writing. Heaps of fun. Bernadette, the publishing director liked it (hurrah!) and took it to the editorial committee. This committee ratifies the publishers and editors selection of books to publish. In the old days they did as they were told. Not now. Reading between the lines of my email from Bernadette they had a big bun fight, lots of people read it and ultimately ‘the marketing directors’ (her words) decided it would take too much to promote it sufficiently, so it was a no.

In the meantime I had also sent it to too other publishers. One, at Allen and Unwin liked it but thought Hachette was going to make an offer and so said no (this is probably an excuse as she hasn’t hammered my door now that Hachette has said no). Random House also liked it but were only looking for ‘serious thrillers’ right now. Boring!

I’ve exhausted my personal contacts so am now confronted with the fact that I have to flog the book elsewhere. I believe absolutely and utterly that it should be published and definitely has an audience. 

So the big question is:

DO I TRY FOR AN AGENT?