JaneShuff

Hilary, I am seething with outrage. Firstly, let me say your writing is beautiful and the comp entries we have both seen and heard about are testament to that. I’m not surprised but very pleased to hear that you had those full requests, but to drag you down to London only to relay so many negatives – including your age for goodness sake – that’s…[Read more]

In the news this morning: several actresses walked out of the César awards (the French Oscars) after convicted rapist Roman Polanski won Best Director for his film ‘J’Accuse’ (‘An Officer and a Spy’). Obviously the French film academy considers that a work should be judged on its own merits rather on the morals of who’s responsible for it.…[Read more]

Hilary, my reactions to this are twofold. First, intense sympathy for you. What an awful let-down! Even if she did make clear what the actual purpose of the meeting was, it shows a certain sense of entitlement (as Ath said) to expect you to come running to London at the crook of a finger just for a chat about revisions. And if it never occurred to…[Read more]

Hilary, as an aside, the Bookoture girl did say she had a 96 year-old on her list for whom she had so far published some 23 ‘cosy crime’ novels. ‘One every couple of weeks’ she said.

Feedback today from those who did pitch to her said she refused most straight off. Made suggestions to make more acceptable to one and I now of another who pitched…[Read more]

To be fair, she didn’t say it was about representation. I just thought/hoped it would be. She said it was to discuss suggested revisions and how we might work together. As well as the thing about commercial/literary, there were so many aspects of the book that she thought didn’t work, I even asked her why she had wanted to meet me and she said…[Read more]

I sort of worry a bit when I see agents pushing writers this way. In fact, my hackles start to hack or rise or whatever they’d do if I had them. Book Club fiction is Literary Fiction that agents reckon they should be able to sell better than average. As for this splitting of work into ever more categories as though this is some kind of scientific…[Read more]

Oh blimey Hilary! What a demoralising experience! Did she mention your age ina negative ‘this is offputting’ kind of way? Because that’s outrageous if so. And you’re right – I see so many ‘I got my first book deal at x yrs old’ that I would never have expected it to be an issue. My guess/hope is that this agent is perhaps the exception rather than…[Read more]

Rachel agreed, in the end, to a bath.

The water was hot. There were bubbles. The scent made her think of purple.

She closed her eyes. Lowered herself, let her hands float, slid down until her head was under water. She let the breath go out of her and waited. Slowly, she pushed herself back up. Water dripped from her face, her hair. Steam…[Read more]

I’m late to this debate, but it’s a very interesting one, so I hope no-one minds me resurrecting it.

My view on this is very utilitarian (I think), in that I always – consciously or unconsciously – try to work out whether the value of the book/music/art/movie/whatever is greater to me than the cost of reading/listening/watching it.

And the…[Read more]

A Spill of Tea

I thought I’d bagged the prize of a lifetime when I landed my new job and the salary that came with it. The buzz about the café I’d worked at was great, but buzz didn’t pay bills, did it? Buzz didn’t afford a better flat, one I felt comfortable inviting friends back to; a holiday now and then. This new opportunity, it felt like win…[Read more]

Very little time this week, so throwing this one up before I read it again and spot all the errors!!

Enter the darkness

One hundred days, of which this is the first. We stand in snow that has crusted metallic overnight, not yet deep although that will come tomorrow, I think. It is eleven forty-five and we stand in a ragged line at the edge of…[Read more]

I just posted something which seems to have disappeared. Probably my error.

In brief, I liked this Literary Friction podcast about how we judge people by what they read.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/literary-friction-minisode-three/id1000387053?i=1000433931359

Of course, I hadn’t fully considered how many cases there are until I started this. For instance, I read We Need to Talk About Kevin long before I knew anything about Lionel Shriver – possibly before she had begun the process of disseminating her curious bag of libertarian views* across the media and the web. I still consider it a beautifully…[Read more]

New Day

The smoke from cooking fires lay like a grey blanket over Alexandra township and a tangerine sun rose behind it, then burst clear and threw its warming mantle over the land. The windows of the high-rise buildings on the distant Johannesburg skyline glinted like slabs of molten gold. A typical autumn dawn on the highveld but this was not a…[Read more]

Just seen an interesting twist on this. A bookshop is making a donation to a charity supporting trans kids every time they sell a book by JK Rowling

A brief reminder for potential participants that we’re half way through the month. Though as it’s a leap year we do get an extra day.