It's a no!

I heard back from the editor who was going to give me feedback on Crash Tactic. Basically the feedback was ‘write something else’. Apparently the characterisation is thin and the plot far fetched - (as opposed to those deeply layered characters wandering through sensible plots in all the other comedy action adventures). 

Reading her email I got that old familiar stinging sensation in the ears - the one you used to get at school after your homework got marked and the teacher didn’t like it. That’s the one thing about writing - you’re continually getting your homework marked: reliving those feelings and trying to make sure that no-one is looks over your shoulder at all the red ink on the page. Still it was useful feedback which a few deep breaths later I appreciated.

This doesn’t mean the book isn’t publishable or another publisher won’t want it. The editor at Hachette did want to. I guess I should call the agent and persue that angle. I don’t know, maybe I’ve moved on already.

It’s coming!

The one thing the email did make me do was write, It was strangely inspiring so I’ve made a good start on Little Green Pills, the next kids book. The next adult one is also coming. I’m thinking about it at 2 am which means the proverbial pen will be hitting the paper soon. It’s like some large messy creature emerging from the depth - bits and pieces float up here and there heralding that the rest of its sporadic body is about to pop up. It’s an exciting stage to know that the writing is on its way.

In the meantime: The Unauthorised Version

Burn your prayer books, I’m reading a book that makes me want to read The Bible! The Unauthorised Version: truth and fiction in the Bible by Robin Lane Fox is as dry a historical work as I can stomach but is fascinating nevertheless. To say that it explores what is and isn’t true in the Bible is an understatement of its depth and complexity. Fox examines the historical evidence of who wrote what, what works their writing was based on and if there is any other historical evidence to back it up. What’s great about the book is that it isn’t an anti-religion polemic, it simply explores where the Bible came from, who its authors were and what were their sources. Fox delights in developing the character of people who probably wrote various books in the old testament, peeling back layer upon layer of the sources in an attempt to discover what the early Hebrews might have actually believed: texts based on earlier texts based on stories. He is like an archeologist digging down through the layers of the words. His exploration of the prophets and the conundrum of success are a delight. Is a prophet successful if he predicts disaster and it happens or does his success lie in preventing it from happening? Fox draws interesting parallels with global warming advocates. Of course there’s an awful lot of revisionism from the writers writing about the prophets long after their demise trying to prove them right. Interestingly the New Testament is just as challenging in terms of the characters and the true identity of the writers. 

What Fox does obliterate, without ever having to say it, is the ridiculous notion of it all being true. It’s so utterly contradictory that it becomes hard to accept that anyone who believes it all absolutely has actually read it. 

Escaping the mill

I’ve escaped the daily word mill for a research and relaxation trip but it was a close run thing. The mill owners (copywriting clients) had my nose pressed into the loom, churning out bales of words until the last moment. Surely there’s some world UN labour ruling that a writer can’t be forced to churn out 4 superannuation brochure in one day. My fingers almost bled with the repeated typing of ‘save fees by rolling all your super into ...[insert name of fund]'. Just as I was heading out through the mill gates, cloth cap in hand I got summoned back to write an article on the one thing that makes superannuation look interesting - debentures, and not just debentures but an ‘exciting’ new tax ruling on debentures. I won’t bore you with an explanation of what debenture are, just that their are a very dull indeed. Given the number of pensioners that have them, it’s no coincidence that their name is just two letters more than dentures.

Still, I made it through the gates and to the airport for the escape.

In between word weaving I also managed to finish the next draft of Crash Tactic and send it off to the editor for comment. Of course my mind fantasises about her throwing her hands in the air in horror at not having spotted the genius first time and thanking the skies for this second chance to secure it. I shall feed on that fantasy when I wake at four in the morning. It’s  a fake comfort but if it gets me back to sleep it's not entirely useless.

Prohibited Traffic Only

Returning to the UK, the place of my childhood is always fascinating. Something new that you never noticed before always crops up. This time, as we drove up from London to Newcastle on the M1 was just how enigmatic some of the road signs are. The one that really struck me was a blue permanent notice by the side of the motorway with a road going off: ‘Prohibited Traffic only’

I wondered, I am I driving a prohibited vehicle? If so why could only I go up there? It could have been a trap. Would a posse of police officers await around the corner to arrest me for being prohibited traffic? Then I thought if I wasn’t prohibited and I followed the sign, those very police would also get me for going up a  ‘prohibited traffic’ way without being prohibited. Could anyone actually follow that sign and not get into trouble?

It reminded me of an old photo of my sister and an aunt showing bizarre street sign are nothing new. This was back in the 70’s and evidence of Britain’s readiness for alien invasion.

Contact has been made

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.

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.

SITTING BY THE PHONE

An agent has been alerted - will she call?

After the terrifying ordeal of simply visiting literary agent websites, I asked Belinda, the lovely children’s publisher at the ABC if she could recommend an agent. I knew generally she was no fan so if there was one she liked, it might be OK. She came up with one she had really enjoyed working with, “she’s so supportive of her authors and I find her a dream to work with”. Her name was Selwa Anthony.

Refreshing Change

I took a look at her website and really liked what I saw. It was immediately all about her authors and their books. The home page was all their latest releases. Then there was information about the acheivement awards for her authors. Right at the bottom was a line saying unfortunately she couldn’t receive unsolicited manuscripts and couldn’t give out contact details. That’s all you need, not pages of rules about strict submissions and what not to do.

Have a look for yourself.

Belinda said she’d call her and make an introduction. Surely, I thought it would help being introduced by a publishers who is actually publishing my work. Got an email after a couple of days saying Selwa would contact me in ‘about a week’s time’. Such agony in such a short phrase. How much can I read into that???

Possible ways  Selwa  responded to Belinda that we can eliminate right now:

• ‘OMG Bruno Bouchet, he’s one of my favourite authors, I’d LOVE to represent him!’
  
• ‘Piss off Belinda, you’ve already fobbed off enough losers onto me, I’m not taking on any more.
  
• ‘I’ll get onto when I get back from the Bahamas in July.’
  
• ‘Give me a week to stitch up some film deals for his existing books so I can really impress him.’
  

Responses that might have actually happened:

• ‘Look I can’t take anyone else on now, but I’m happy to have a chat with him.’
  
• ‘Mmm, sounds interesting, I can’t see him this week, but next week’s a possibility.’
  
• ‘If I call him will you finally send me the contract for [insert Selwa author name here]. Fine I’ll do it’
  

I’m hoping for option 2 and so sitting by the phone. However I am holding no hope out. I’m into zero expectations mode on this one and anything other than getting a call in three weeks saying ‘I’m really too busy is a bonus’.

Nervous Nelly

In the emails with Belinda I totally betrayed my ridiculous nervous nelly current condition. The manuscript for Lab Rats 2 is with her (submitted on time in March). It’s about 3000 words more than verbally agreed, but I was hoping she might say not to hack back further. The contract was also supposed to be somewhere in the ABC system.  In emails above, Belinda mentioned she was handing it over to an editor, Mark McLeod ‘so you’ll get an answer soon’.

I slammed on the panic button and screamed. ‘An answer’ what does she mean by that? I emailed back and she said she meant in terms of ‘how’ we go ahead, meaning the length, the title.

Good grief I know words are important to me, but I need to learn not to throw myself out of the nearest window on just two words, ‘an answer’.

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?

In the meantime #1 Children's books

In the meantime I’ve had a few children’s books published through ABC kids. 

Captain Wetbeard, a first chapter book which has sold OK (teetering on the brink of earning out it’s advance at the 9 month mark). 

Dorothy the Dinosaur’s Rosy Tea Party. Written for the Wiggles I am credited as the author but I don’t get royalties (just a lump sum). This is sad it’s probably my best-selling book.

Lab Rats in Space - for 9-11 year olds this is the first book of 3 - a comedy space adventure. Released last, it had a mixed reception. A lot of booksellers didn’t like the cover so many didn’t stock it. However the few that did, did really well out of it and are keen for the next book. Despite poor overall sales, this persauded ABC to go with volume 2. It’s been written and it’s with them waiting for editing.

I’ve a couple of other concepts in the pipeline but no commitment on them. ABC books are going through major upheavals (of course!) so can’t commit to anything right now!