Haiku

No, it's not a sneeze. It's a Japanese art form. Apparently. Three lines,17 syllables. So when is a novel not a novel? When it's 45,000 words. It's a short novel for sure. What to do? A story is as long as it is.

I wrote the first paragraph a year ago, before I was anywhere close to finishing my first adult novel. Now, a year on, I have submitted my manuscript to numerous agents and am about 40,000 words through my next story. It's heartening to find this unpublished post which serves as a very welcome reminder that the process might be a long one but it's well worth the effort. I love writing. Nothing can make me stop.

For the love of rejection

One reads time and time again that to be a writer you need a thick skin. Ain't that the truth. Having submitted my manuscript to countless agents, only to receive one rejection after another, it's the positive rejections that hold you up. The ones that say your submission stood out from the rest, that you have an original style, or the ones that positively encourage you to keep on trying.

But what can I do better? When I started the submission process I was thousands of words into my second work. It's more ambitious, possibly overly, will probably be longer and is very, very, different to my first story. So what to say? I have no idea and I really wish someone could give me an answer. In fact, I wish I knew someone I could ask.

For now I'm just going to keep on going. I might try a new approach and mention the second book, what do I have to lose? Out there, somewhere, is an agent with my name on. I'm going to run over every mountain until I find them.