Hanging on to the leg up.

As I’ve said before, I’ve officially, well and truly finished Glitter Red Shoes and Sky Blue Gingham. I have done all I can to it without the help of an agent and/or an editor. Or a completely unbiased and totally critical external eye who can pick it to pieces and explain why it hasn’t quite made the grade. Yet. I have taken it out there and got some positive responses, but so far, nobody has fallen for it enough to want to take it further. (Apart from one person. Who said it made her cry. And for that reason I will forever be in her debt, she kept me going when I couldn’t see the point.) The door isn’t totally shut, having re-written it quite substantially, I sent it out to a final three agents. Two of whom I’ve not yet heard from, one of whom asked to read the full. It is an agent I really respect and like and would love to work with. They asked for exclusivity… but they probably always do that. Anyway, I sent it. Now, I sit and refresh my email most minutes. Hanging on to the glimmer people. A glimmer.

So it’s onward. To the next. And having read it yesterday – cup of tea in one hand, pen in the other – I feel positive and excited. I feel the flush of love for a new story and new characters and I feel happy that unlike the last one, the work that is required is not significant structural or plot based, it’s more tweaks to timeline and fine honing, developing voice and depth and layers. Dressing it up in some places. Pairing it down in others. It feels like a more confident piece of work and I can have fun taking my time with it. Nurturing it into something I hope might bring some success, assuming those final glimmers don’t. (still hanging.) Because I have the luxury of time on my side. There is nobody giving me a deadline, except myself. And the one thing I learned with the last one is that discipline is vital, rushing it is not. Rushing it results in a mess that is virtually untangle-able. Yes. That is a word. No you shut up.

With all this in mind, let me say this. Please assume my next blog post will be drama-laden confidence crisis in which I wonder why I am bothering and consider a job doing anything but this. Like one that pays minimum wage for example. And in advance of that, please let me offer my apologies. I am basically a walking cliché. Which is more annoying than you could know. But also impossible to manage. All those years I rolled my eyes at the creatives I worked with. The drama that at times would surround them like Pigpen’s dust. I get it now. I do.

Until then, hang on to the glimmer with me people. Sometimes the leg up really helps.

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