Another thing happened…

Two things really. I finished Carleton and signed with a literary agent.

I finished Carleton in the summer - to query level standard which means the best I can make it, just me and my trusted beta-reader (my marvellous writer friend Meg Woodward who will one-day win prizes for her work - watch that space). When I did my course with Kate Foster, one thing she mentioned was my tendency to over-edit. I am never satisfied and never confident to send my work out into the world. So I stopped Carleton at the twentieth edit (Not joking. Peat Cutter’s Wife reached version 29, and The Accidental Heretic was on version 36 by the time I wrote ‘The End’).

I knew the next step. My dream is to be traditionally published. Not for any elitist reason, I happily self-published Heretic, and loved the creative freedom and speed of it. But for now there is a mountain in front of me called ‘Traditional Publishing’ and like Everest I need to climb it - or at least try - because it’s there, and it’s hard. It has to be scaled in stages, this mountain, each hidden until you pass the one before, and each offering progressively less oxygen. You might think I’ve kicked the crap out of that metaphor, but there’s more.

Stage one: Finish your novel. Tick. Base camp.

Stage two: Find an agent to represent you. The Khumbu Icefall, after base camp, is widely considered to be the most hazardous obstacle on the route, and is a stage where many climbers give up. In the case of agent-hunting, the hazards are mainly to one’s ego. If you’re going to get an agent (they told me), you better get a thick skin. It isn’t so much critique that stings me (Meg would tell you that), it’s ghosting. I once progressed as far as an agent meeting. We both turned up, she told me she loved my writing, and ‘don’t sign with anyone else.’ That was two years ago and I’ve still not heard back, in spite of my oh-so-polite nudging. I agonised over what I might have said or done, wondered whether she’d re-read, changed her mind and thrown it away in disgust. Because it’s always you, when you suffer from chronic imposter syndrome isn’t it? She’s fine btw - part of me was concerned for her, but she’s busily active online in the world of agenting.

Corny image to go with the metaphor

Maria von Wolway, as she liked to be known

That was one of my first experiences and whilst it might be at the extreme end of ghosting it stuck. I get the ‘silence means no’ part of querying. I cannot imagine receiving hundreds of manuscripts a week and sending out a reply to every one - some agents do and I think they deserve an OBE at the very least. But a full request or a meeting - if we have to normalise ghosting then agents are over-stretched. That’s my moan over, the point I am making is this: My past forays into querying left a few bruises so my efforts in that regard became quite cursory. I heard tell of successful authors getting a hundred or more agent rejections before they reached Camp One. I only ventured a dozen or so for Heretic and Peat Cutter’s Wife. The latter got me half-a-dozen full manuscript requests (which is apparently a decent return for a modest batch), and I felt I’d got stronger in writing Carleton so I set forth, determined this time to stay the course and send out… ooh… maybe two-dozen queries. Twenty odd rejections and a couple of ghostings I decided I could handle.

I researched agents looking for best fit, sent out my Carleton queries in the first week of July, and my inbox lit up within days. Then the second thing happened: I had an offer of representation within a week. I accepted shortly after. I had other interest, especially when I told my queried agents that I had an offer, but I went with Philip Patterson of Marjacq for a number of reasons: (1) He was enthusiastic about and ‘got’ Carleton - every detail and nuance. (2) He is super-responsive - I cannot imagine him ghosting anybody, he always follows up when he says. (3) Experience and work-rate.

So those are my two things that happened. Now I am at the next-stage: The Submissions Trenches. Head down, one foot in front of another, hoping I reach Camp Two before Philip and I run out of oxygen. Camp Two, I am told, looks like one publisher - maybe two - willing to take Carleton to an Acquisition Meeting and pitch for it. At least I’m not solo climbing now. Watch this space and wish me luck.