Category: writing

And writers

Categories
agents writing

How I found a literary agent

Writers are often asked – especially by other writers – how they found a literary agent.

These are the blog entries I wrote during the process. I didn’t log all the rejections because at the time I was trying to be positive, not dwelling on them. (I did keep a scarily efficient Excel spreadsheet though, with the ones who’d rejected being greyed out…)

But I did receive around 10 rejections – mainly of my first manuscript a technothriller.

Todd Garcia: Boy Archaeologist, the manuscript that eventually became ‘The Joshua Files’ had a slightly chequered past – it just failed to shortlist in a Waterstones/Faber competition (the WOW Factor), the full ms was requested and then rejected by a very well-known children’s publisher and also a top children’s literary agent.

And by my agent too, who took one look and sent me off to write something he might actually be able to sell…

agentcox.JPG
My agent, by the way, is Peter Cox of Redhammer, pictured above (photo by John Buckman). Peter produces and hosts the Litopia Podcast about the publishing industry and runs Litopia, the online writer’s colony.

For the whole story about how I found a literary agent, read the entries below.

Categories
getting published writing

Waiting for the WOW Factor

Novel number 2 was finished a few months back, just in time for summer reading by Josie and her friends, who have reported that they enjoyed it. Josie herself actually stayed in whilst we were on holiday in Mallorca, she found it that gripping. Yay for Josie’s loyalty!

I’ve been waiting to hear from a publisher in Oxford who requested the full manuscript, also an agent in Oxford to whom I took a partial a few months ago. Mainly though, I’m waiting for news from the WOW Factor contest organised by Faber and Waterstones, to which I submitted the first three chapters of “Todd Garcia, Boy Archaeologist”.

The tension. Is.Unbearable.

Nah. It isn’t really. I’ve been writing my screenplay to help take my mind off things. Screenwriting is fun! Amazingly technically demanding, lots and lots of structure.This guy is my guru: Robert McKee. (The guy who is sent up in Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Adaptation’. Btw one’s reaction to the word ‘adaptation’ must surely be an excellent differentiator for biologists vs writers. Like the word ‘unionized’, which strikes at the inner chemist in all chemistry graduates. I’m obviously not a proper writer yet. I still see the word ‘adaptation’ and assume it’s some evolutionary thing, as opposed to a screenplay-of-a-book.)

Categories
writing

On Writing

The idea of actually getting a material reward for something I enjoy doing so much seems increasingly fantastic. Yet, the money to be earned is a necessary driver, since in many ways it’s a measure of a story’s success. If a story is good and well-written, it will engage and entertain. And it will earn.

Well hey, that’s what I tell myself to stay motivated!

However, in the months I’ve been trying to behave as a full-time writer, i.e. writing, editing or researching almost daily, I’ve discovered some surprising things. And they’ve been kind of delightful.

1. Writing novels is fun, and technically challenging enough to be seriously entertaining to me.
2. Writing a screenplay is likely to be even more technically difficult, just mastering the craft will be a task of itself.
3. I don’t find it hard to face the blank page. I thought I would, but I don’t. Maybe it’s because I haven’t made any money from it yet. So, it’s just pure learning and entertainment. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t let myself write anything fun all these years. (I wrote about science and the information industry, but that wasn’t much fun.)
4. My respect for successful storytellers has always been high. But I fell into the snobbery of thinking that literary talent was more worthy. I’m changing my mind about that. It’s all about story.
5. Since I was a little kid, I knew someday I’d do this. Unusually for me, I didn’t even formulate a plan. I just knew, one day, I’d be ready, somehow. Well, this is the time.

I’m truly blessed that I have the circumstances which allow me to do this.

Categories
writing

One Novel Down, One In The Oven

Progress report on the leg: it’s healing pretty much to plan. Yesterday I walked (hobbled) around the house and actually did a small amount of housework.

Meanwhile, the enforced rest did allow me to do what I surely couldn’t have done otherwise, i.e. finish a novel. It’s done, revised 8 times following advice from my beta readers Reba, Magda and Juan Fernando.

A sample of the novel is now with 5 literary agents, and another 4 have rejected it (2 didn’t even want to read a sample). Amongst the copious advice given to writers is that to distract yourself from the misery of rejection, you should immediately start on the next project. So I’m doing that, writing a pretty ambitious kids book about a boy archaeologist. Ambitious because there’s a lot of education being thrown in along the way.

Shhhhh, don’t tell.

Categories
writing

Half-way Through The Novel! Now Read The Blurb…

Did I mention that I’m finally writing my thriller novel?

Well, 12 weeks without walking; it was too good a chance to miss.

I passed the half-way mark yesterday. VIP: Vial In Pocket is now half-finished!

Here’s a possible jacket blurb:

Molecular biologist, Jackson Brady flies into Mexico City illegally carrying biological samples. Astonished when the colleague he’s carrying the samples for is led away by the authorities, only to disappear, Brady finds that he has been passed a final, coded message.

Brady and an alluring Mexican archaeologist, Mary Carmen Martinez, must now solve a puzzle which begins with an enigmatic DNA code and ends with a secret underground burial chamber in Iraq. But their nemesis, the mysterious Hans Runig has people all over the world looking for them.This novel takes the reader on a journey through the mysteries of modern biotechnology, the World Wide Web, Mesopotamian culture and to a secret so ancient that the memory of it exists only in the human genome.