Hard to find where I left off since my dashboard is floodied with a multitude of other posts- I am amazed (in a good way) that people find so much to talk about. Another rejection, bringing the scores to 3-0 to the agents. At least I am still on the ‘A’s which is one shining light. Like with anything, it can be easy to leave it when things dont go your way straight away, like when you realise your tumblarity will remain in double figures while others have 1,000s, but it comes to the stage when you have to force yourself onwards. I will send another 2 out this week, with the same material, before I go back and change it again. If I never get published will it have all been a waste of time? To be honest I dont think so, already settling down to my new book, I am seeing things, the whole thing, alot clearer thanks to this perspective. Writing novels in perhaps the most protractive learning curve in history- I mean how many versions ended up on the fire like Stephen Hero or got totally re-written such as Woolf’s Voyage Out which is almost impossible to tell from its predecssor melymbrosia. And the odd things in those 2 cases, it is not the story or the characters who get rewritten, but it is the style that changes. It is as if the same story is written by a different author. Often we get told that it was pressure from publishers, to make the story or the images and language more simple, more on message. Maybe. But I think that it is part of a writers development to make that leap themselves. Ultimately it was a judgement we were never supposed to make, burned or pulped, they have been recsued and pieced together by ardent scholars. Is it admirable or sad that they cannot find anything new to devote their love to, but have to keep rehashing their old heros. Yes it intersting for us authors but generally the best version get published- should we just leave them to rest…
