Much frenetic emailing between yours truly and Bruce the Agent. BtA had a couple of technical issues he wanted to see addressed. (I’m guessing he had some traumatic encounters with Baptists at some point in his life.) All good points, though, hopefully accomplished without too much pain. Some issues have proven a little knotty to nail down – one of …
The Oracle Has Spoken…
So, just as I was getting ready to post a blog wondering how long I should wait before I started to pester Bruce the Agent and quizzing him as to how he was getting on with the book, lo and behold he writes. He’s read it. The good news, dear reader, is that he likes it. He had one or …
Domestic Violence, Not
I know this is going to sound odd. I just made my wife cry – and it’s the best news I’ve had all day. She’s reading the book (again), and has this evening finally got to uncharted territory for her – right towards the end of the book. There’s a scene there that I almost pulled, worried that it might …
Good evening, Doctor Freud
Christina, poor soul, is reading the manuscript of “Paradise” for the gazillionth time. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, I suppose. It’s changed a lot since she last read it, and the last two sections she hasn’t read before. But it’s tremendously helpful – I glanced at the big block of paper this morning and she’s picked up all sorts of …
Finally.
I finally got off the fence and sent the manuscript to Bruce the Agent. Rather unromantically, he asked me to send it to him via email as a single word document, single-line spacing. He didn’t want it wrapped up in ribbon and delivered by carrier pigeon. In the event that we hoodwink some unsuspecting publishing house into buying the thing, …
Thanks for That
Here’s a cheerful quote from Ernest Hemingway that I came across this evening. It’s from Lillian Ross’s inspired portrait that appeared in the New Yorker in 1950. “After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead.” Still haven’t sent the manuscript to Bruce. But I’m not dead, either.
Deer, Meet Headlights
Still haven’t sent the manuscript off to Bruce the Agent. I made the mistake of idly flicking through it again this morning. I spotted a mistake, then something I wanted to change, then something else… by the time the children woke up there were pen marks all over the first few chapters and I was wondering whether I’d ever send …
OK, so now what?
It’s an obvious enough question. I still woke up at 5 o’clock this morning, even though I’ve no more book to write. Here I am, twiddling my thumbs, and finally doing some blogging. (Whether that’s a good thing or not is open to debate.) Well, here’s what going to happen next: I’m going to spend the long weekend with my …
This is What a Finished Novel Looks like
Boy oh boy. Don’t quite know whether to laugh or cry. Or blog.
All right, then.
The French poet Paul Valery once said, “Poems are never finished, merely abandoned.” The same, I would venture to suggest, could be said of novels. On the rare occasions when I am foolish enough to pick up one of my earlier books, I find myself cringing, constantly editing, revising, and wishing for a chance to do over. But you can’t, …