Thea

Thank you for the beta read offers. I’m not sure I’m ready yet, but I will keep you in mind, and return the offer. Swapsies!

@Hilary – I know we talked about this before but I will say it again. That age comment from this agent is rubbish, plenty of authors have their debut later in life. I’m quite sure Kit de Waal was over 50 when she published My Name is Leon.

There are still plenty of agents out there to submit to and the number of full request you’ve received shows…[Read more]

Congratulations, John! Well done to all – and thanks to Libby for the comp and the perceptive comments.

And thank you for your comments too, Mad Iguana.

Debi thank you for this. Yes, I do think you’re right about the agent giving her time and it’s true that my disappointment is down to my expectations and hopes more than anything else. As I say, she was perfectly ‘nice’ and of course her prime motivation is going to be can she sell it. But in the meeting, I felt her doubt about this came across…[Read more]

Thank you Raine. Yes it turned out to be a pretty cunning ploy.

Well done John, and thank you Libby for a competition which led to so many brilliant stories – what richness!

Wow, thanks Libby! Well done to the other participants. I’ll think up some devilishly difficult competition for March and post later tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your solidarity and kind comments about my writing, and for the encouragement to realise all the positives in this tale as well. And, @janette, for someone not to reply properly having suggested revisions – that is, indeed, unprofessional.

I am taking a step back from that experience and that novel, and working on the…[Read more]

I’m astounded by all these badly behaved agents, because bad behaviour it is. It’s just rude, and they must understand how galling it is for an author to get their hopes up needlessly – or maybe they don’t. And as for not replying after requesting a full – well, it’s appalling. @janette your experience in particular has me fuming. How can he gush…[Read more]

Incidentally, as this year I am coasting towards the age where I am ‘losing my hair’, and wondering whether I will be locked out at quarter to three (never mind getting a bottle of wine for my birthday or a Valentine’s card), I suppose I should resign myself to joining that league of elderly no-hopers that includes Hilary Mantel, Philip Pullman…[Read more]

Oh Hilary and Janette, I feel for you. Somehow it’s much harder when your hopes have been raised. I guess they’ve got further to fall.

@Janette. I understand that agents receive zillions of submissions everyday and can’t respond personally to each one but I do think, when they’ve requested a full or asked for edits to be made, they could at leas…[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]

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]