Me & My Book Baby

Nowadays some parents-to-be send pictures of their foetus as Christmas cards. So here's a Valentine's greeting to you all: me & my book baby ready to go to the doctor aka as literary agent.

I met the agent last week in his office, and he said my book foetus is mostly fine. It just needs some minor medical attention. This involves making the letters from one character to another more subtle, and yes ... I still have to cut out some of my Nick Cave references ...

I'm almost there, ready for the next health check-up, the one where every chromosomic line will be scrutinized.

And I have to think of a new name for my book baby. Replacing Angel has to go. What do you think of Under My Lip or Stuff it up your lip!? I know it's a girl, but the name can be androgynous ...

Photo: Barnaby Marriott

Two announcements:

ON WEDNESDAY 16 FEB, 8 PM, I'M DOING A POETRY GIG AT FLOETICS, RED ROASTER, ST JAMES STREET,KEMP TOWN, BRIGHTON

ON TUESDAY 22 FEB, 8 PM, A SHORT STORY OF MINE ON A SEXUAL THEME WILL BE READ OUT BY AN ACTOR AT ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?, THE BASEMENT, KENSINGTON ST, BRIGHTON

Publishable

Adjective

publishable (comparative more publishable, superlative most publishable)

1. Able to be published.

I've spoken to an agent who's read my English novel, REPLACING ANGEL. It's publishable. That's the first thing he told me.

Publishable, but not quite yet.

The first third of the manuscript drags. I'm aware of this. My playwright/drama teacher friend who has also recently read my MS is of the same opinion.

And the title doesn't work, is too cheesy, too obvious. I wasn't aware of this.

The worst though is that I've used far too many Nick Cave quotes ... (Did you know that he crashed his car into a speed camera at the end of my street this week?! Photo evidence above.)

Even though I have a lot of hard work ahead of me I feel excited. The agent suggested that I take some time to think about it all, and then I'll present him with a new version of the MS in a couple of months time. I'm already thinking of spending the first week of the year in my small boring hometown and focus on the re-write, away from the distractions of Brighton.

Behave and Submit

Writers need to make it part of their routine. Yes, it's more fun to write than to read submissions guidelines and check for the eleventh time that you have numbered your pages, not written your name anywhere in the document and made sure the word count is right.

Tonight I've submitted five times. Five short stories to five different competitions/magazines. The chance is five times higher that I'll get a short story accepted than it was yesterday. If you just behave and keep submitting success will follow.

I had kind of forgotten,
despairing after having been turned down by nine agents/publishers.
But thanks to meeting up with authors Kay Sexton and James Dawson (who both had more than nine rejections before securing an agent),
I got my HOPE back.

" ... I've been draggin' my heels
With a bitch called hope ..." - Guns N'Roses, Garden of Eden

We need that bitch.
We need to submit to that bitch.

When you get a rejection ...

... make sure you have a good friend and chocolate cake nearby!

Today I had something exciting in the post, or so I thought. There was a slip from the post on the door mat, telling me I had to pick up a letter and pay for it as the sender had not put on enough postage. Immediately I thought of my friend Sara in Sweden, who sometimes sends me books or just ultra thick letters. I was quite looking forward to picking it up, was even happy to pay the £1.70.

But when I got to the post place and was handed the letter I recognised my own handwriting. A self-addressed envelope I had included with a submission. First I thought it had to do with a poetry submission I'd just done for fun and didn't care that much about, then it dawned on me the letter was from a publisher I had contacted directly and really wanted to get published by.

This is is:

"Many thanks for submitting REPLACING ANGEL for our consideration. I’m sorry to report we will be passing on this title. I noted with interest your previous publishing experience in Sweden – I think your English prose is not quite strong enough yet, however I think that will come with time. My advice would be to keep on practicing writing in English and try to really make the prose come alive on the page. Do keep us in mind for your next novel in English."

I thought about going straight to the nearest pub that happened to be the Station by Hove Station and sit there all day and drink and tell commuters and other random people about my tragedy. Luckily I'd already arranged to have lunch at my friend Saskia's place. (Thank you for saving me!!!) She said all the right things and treated me to a slice of chocolate cake and I felt a little bit better.

The afternoon was spent in some kind of daze. And now it's evening and I've coloured my hair, as I usually do when I want to feel better. I also looked at another rejection letter from an agent:

"I thought that there was much to admire here, in particular your prose style, but I’m afraid that I did not quite feel that all-important connection with your work that I know is vital in this industry, but please do not give up. There are as many opinions out there as there are agents, and a full list of them can be found at www.bloomsbury.com/writersarea/AgentsUK.asp.
With best wishes and good luck in your future endeavours"

So once again it goes to show that decisions in the publishing business are quite subjective ... I had my manuscript proof-read by a professional editor, so if someone thinks that my prose is not strong enough it has nothing to do with being Swedish I don't think ... Especially as the agent above said that he admired my prose style.

Yet the letter I received today really, really hurt. It was a massive decision to write in English when I already had success in Sweden, and now I can't help thinking "what if". I followed my heart instead of my head ...

But no, I won't despair. Somewhere out there I know there's an agent who'll like both my story and my style of prose. Maybe I'll have an acception letter tomorrow. Who knows?

Printing my baby

I don't have any metaphor for this. If you have followed my blog you know that I compare writing a novel to having a baby, but I can't think of any comparison to "printing out the manuscript". Most agents want to see the first three chapters, so I have "only" printed about 50 pages. (Double-spaced).

I'm almost there. My synopsis is ready. My CV is ready. The first three chapters are ready. The only thing I've got left is the most important thing - the cover letter. Someone asked why I've spent two weeks on writing a letter ... But then I spent two years being pregnant with Replacing Angel (here we go again - bring on the baby metaphors!) and I think the baby deserves to be presented in the best possible way. Yes, maybe I found a metaphor after all. Writing a cover letter is like when you dress the baby up to meet the relatives for the first time ...

Welcome to my blog

I've been keeping two blogs since 2006:

LivingLollo (My Swedish blog at blogg.se)

and

Lou Ice (My poetry site at Myspace)

The reason I'm starting a third blog here is because I read literary agent Rachelle Gardner's blog:

"I DON'T want to see in your proposal, "I am willing to start a blog and join social networks to market myself."

I DO want to see: "I've been blogging for a year, with my readership growing steadily. I use Facebook and Twitter to create relationships with potential future readers of my books, and to drive people back to my blog. I'm currently making contact through the blog and social networks with several hundred (or several thousand) people a day."

I took this blog post of hers quite seriously. It's time for me to become more serious than I am already :=). Thanks to the writing coach Johanna Wistrand for the link!

By reading this blog you'll find out what it's like being an acknowledged novelist in Sweden, but dreaming about making it in the U.K. My aim with this blog is to maintain a healthy balance between writing and life.