As lots of people know, several years ago inspiration gripped me tightly by the throat and held me in her thrall for around a year, during which time I wrote a novel, In the shade of the orange tree, set in the Spanish Civil War. It's a very long story to explain how I came to be in a position to be able to devote a year of my life to writing a novel, but suffice it to say this was going to be the only time in my whole life that I could turn such an unfortunate situation (wheelchair-bound following nasty skiing accident) into a year of fertile creativty.
Now, in brief, here's what happened to my novel:
It was rejected by several literary agents whilst a few asked for the entire manuscript. Eventually, I was told no. After a pause, I re-sent it and was told by a few it had potential blah blah and that I was talented blah blah but that as it stood it was not marketable. One agent even said (sorry, this sounds ever so vain to quote this but it does give me that-oh-so-dangerous-word-HOPE so I do have a tendency to keep reminding myself of it) that 'I was instantly impressed by your writing. You definitely have a real, and distinctive, voice, which immediately puts your writing into the top 0.1% of what I read professionally. I am sure editors would feel the same.'
Hopeful, right? But he then went on to say
However, I didn't feel the story you were telling seemed as distinctive, or as appealing, as the writing, and I didn't feel the novel's stylistic qualities. charming though they often were, could quite make up for this unfortunately.
Anyway, the point of all of this is (and the reason that I'm blogging about it), is that I have decided, after several years have lapsed, that I owe it to myself and the characters in my book (who lived and breathed alongside me for over a year) to give this manuscript one final shot. So what I've done is send the whole lot off to a well-respected authors' advisory service to tell me if it has potential or not. Because I'm prepared to re-write the whole darn thing now, which I definitely wasn't back then. I'll let you know what happens. In a way, even if she says no, I can breathe a sigh of relief and put the whole Ramirez Torres family firmly to bed and once and for all, get on with something else. Let's see.
Now, in brief, here's what happened to my novel:
It was rejected by several literary agents whilst a few asked for the entire manuscript. Eventually, I was told no. After a pause, I re-sent it and was told by a few it had potential blah blah and that I was talented blah blah but that as it stood it was not marketable. One agent even said (sorry, this sounds ever so vain to quote this but it does give me that-oh-so-dangerous-word-HOPE so I do have a tendency to keep reminding myself of it) that 'I was instantly impressed by your writing. You definitely have a real, and distinctive, voice, which immediately puts your writing into the top 0.1% of what I read professionally. I am sure editors would feel the same.'
Hopeful, right? But he then went on to say
However, I didn't feel the story you were telling seemed as distinctive, or as appealing, as the writing, and I didn't feel the novel's stylistic qualities. charming though they often were, could quite make up for this unfortunately.
Anyway, the point of all of this is (and the reason that I'm blogging about it), is that I have decided, after several years have lapsed, that I owe it to myself and the characters in my book (who lived and breathed alongside me for over a year) to give this manuscript one final shot. So what I've done is send the whole lot off to a well-respected authors' advisory service to tell me if it has potential or not. Because I'm prepared to re-write the whole darn thing now, which I definitely wasn't back then. I'll let you know what happens. In a way, even if she says no, I can breathe a sigh of relief and put the whole Ramirez Torres family firmly to bed and once and for all, get on with something else. Let's see.
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