Insecticide

More Progress

Ok, so I've chosen an agent to meet with.

He was the honest, friendly, self-deprecating guy who has an author with Headline.

So next week I'm meeting him for lunch in, of all places, the Groucho Club. 

Now that's how I imagined this book-writing lark to be.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

First I lost the login details, then I just forgot, then it was Christmas, then I had some issues at work.

But for the very few of you who have hung on in there and actually visited this blog recently, there are some (real, as opposed to made up) green shoots of progress on the Insecticide front.

First: another agent asked to read the rest of Insecticide.  This happened on December 19th, so it's been with him for a while now, but I think the last thing an agent would want to do is spend Christmas reading (working), so I'll probably give him an email next week, when it's been about about a month.  He's with a firm called Janklow and Nesbit who, rather impressively, have a New York office on Park Avenue, and are quite fiction-based.

Exciting.

But not as exciting as the email I got from the other nameless agent (see two posts back), who actually...deep breath...wants to represent me/Insecticide.  He's mainly a non-fiction agent, but he likes the book and his fiction author publishes through Headline, who would be perfect for Insecticide, so I think he's definitely worth a shot.  I won't go through all the lovely things he said because I imagine they ought to be taken with a Siberian salt mine of salt, but he was very encouraging, self-deprecating about his own abilities and seemed like a very nice bloke.

We left it with me saying that I'd email agent number two, see what he said, then get back to agent number one.

Very exciting.

In between I got another few standard rejections and a slightly nicer one that said they thought the book had real potential but couldn't quite take it on.

Odd.  I happily keep this blog up-to-date when there's nothing positive to report, but when the good times roll I'm nowhere to be found.

I promise to write more often in future.

A Second Positive Sign

I like this new batch of agents; they're nicer than the first lot.

After Agent X (I might call him Agent Orange because I find it funnier) asked for the rest of the book earlier in the week (all safely dispatched yesterday), an unnamed reader at LBLA (perhaps Lorella herself) sent me a standard rejection letter with a handwritten note, which said: 'You can write well, but I'm afraid I just don't love it enought to take it on - sorry'.

I think I mentioned in a much earlier post that even a humble sentence like that is a glass of water in the desert to an aspiring novelist.  It makes you think: 'Oh, well at least I can do it.  I just need the right plot' (easier said than done).  Thanks, anonymous reader.

Anyway, I'm 50 pages into the screenplay of Fuck Me Backwards, so that's also keeping me sane.

Finally, A Positive Sign.

An agent (who shall remain nameless, just in case he doesn't want to feature on a blog like this) has asked for the rest of the book, which I will send off tomorrow.

My hopes are still being squashed by the thumb of realism and astronomical odds, but this is a step in the right direction.

Incidentally, I am currently reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which is brilliant.  It was rejected 12 times before finding a publisher, so that makes me feel better.  And, since Insecticide is possibly the Fountainhead of genetically modified insect novels, I can say that it all feels spookily appropriate.

I feel dirty.

With a bit of spare time, no decent interest from any agents and a desire to draw a line under the formal submission process, I have sent a few chapters of Insecticide off to anyone in the Writers and Artists Yearbook who would accept unsolicited manuscripts in the area of commercial fiction.  Those who require a preliminary letter and synopsis before allowing my efforts to sully their doormats may be next, but for now it's the fifteen lucky sods that I contacted today.

So I feel a bit dirty.  I imagine this is the literary equivalent of going into a singles bar with a lot of make-up but not a lot of clothing and trying to catch the eye of anyone who might be nursing a warm pint of stout  in the corner.  Oooh, there's PFD...so dishy, but wouldn't be interested in the likes of me. And William Morris, turning away now, pretending he wasn't looking my way.

Anyway, that's the last throw of the dice until the next last throw of the dice.

My next probings will be in the direction of Authonomy, and something I came across when checking out the submission guidelines for Redhammer: Litopia  It seems a little rough for my delicate sensibilities at the mo, but I'm sure that with a few more hours checking it out, I'll be allowing both of them into the hallowed turf that is my bookmarks bar.

Lorelei's post for lazy old me.

In the interests of maintaining this blog with little of consequence happening in my authorial career, I asked Lorelei Mathias to write a post for me.

Lorelei is a published author who also works as an advertising creative, so I thought an insight into her experiences would be worth a read. And so it proved.  Below I have printed her post, but if you want to check out her advertising work with her partner Nat (Hi Nat!), check out www.lollyandnat.com  There's also more on her writing at www.loreleimathias.com

Enjoy: 

Hello,

Not sure where to start really… but the hardest thing with all writing is getting started, isn’t it? Even as the second hardest thing is tearing yourself away again. Not to mention the whole business of getting published – which as we all know is no picnic either.

 

Ben’s already mentioned the brilliant Guardian supplement on how to write and get published. The only other two books I’d recommend are Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ and John Braine’s ‘Writing a Novel’ – if nothing else, Braine is worth it just for his hilariously old-fashioned opinions. Also, another sweet writer’s blog I’d recommend is http://noveltea-jude.blogspot.com/

 

For what it’s worth, I think getting your name on a spine is a mixture of ability, tenacity and having written the right thing at the right time.

 

It was all a bit of a daze for me. I was working at Random House at the time, writing ads for books and reading truckloads of manuscripts. The more I read, the more I started wondering about having a go. I’d never really taken my writing that seriously or been on a creative writing course, but I did have a scrappy notebook full of drivel, which I’d begun as a kind of joke between friends in a hammock in South-east Asia and since buried deep in a drawer. Set in advertising, it was 97% rubbish and had no idea in it, but then that’s mostly all you need when it comes to writing. A starting point.

 

“The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. If one of my characters wants to say ‘hey there Mr Poopy Pants’, then I let him.”

 

So says Ann Le Motte, and ever since I read that quote (I forget where), it’s been a kind of mantra, both for novel-writing and for copywriting. 

 

The other thing you need is a good idea (obviously) – but preferably one that’s original and sellable. So one day I hit upon the idea for a novel about a horrendous new trend (at the time) called speed-dating. I went to see one of the heads of fiction at RH, and pitched an outline to her. At the time she was all, ‘Oh that’s great. Who shall we get to write it?’. To which I had to confess that I fancied having a go. Not an easy thing to admit when you work in publishing – it’s rather like coming out. I imagine.

 

Anyway, I then realised my half novel of drivel would be the perfect setting – being as there is a quite uncanny parallel between dating and advertising – the way the speed-date reduces people to products, USPs and 3-minute pitches. So I set about completely re-writing what I’d written before but with this new idea in mind, and begun a series of utterly hellish speed-dating evenings by way of research. My writing then became motivated by two things. A journalistic fascination with the horrors of speed-dating, and the panic that if I didn’t write a book about it first, someone would. I was also afraid this fad would die out, but for some reason it hasn’t and it’s still popular.

 

So the whole thing became very rushed (which I have no doubt will have affected the quality of writing!). This was to set the tone for the entire venture, for the half-manuscript was then bought by Headline in a 2-book deal, with a fixed deadline that meant I had only 6 weeks in which to write the entire 2^nd half. So one bit of advice would be to write the whole thing before you start seeking an agent or publisher – you’ll only land yourself in hotwater if the deadline suddenly creeps up on you. You see, editors work in terms of slots – if they have gaps and you can fit into their imprint’s schedule, they’ll look kindlier on you. 

 

Everyone writes differently, and my own way of writing is pretty strange. I had ridiculous word count deadlines to meet, and found myself bashing out 4k a day. It really was ‘bashing out,’ not crafting. But that’s just the way I work. Some people will write a paragraph of beautifully crafted words at the end of the day that would be ready to print, but I prefer to go through and mark out the whole story first before going back and finessing. My process is never very linear either. I might get an urge to write chapter 17 before I write chapter 6, just because I feel I can see that bit happening more vividly at the time. Writing is definitely rewriting.

 

Also, I don’t know how many people suffer from their inner editor or ‘doubt monster’ taking over when they’re trying to write, but I personally grapple daily with an evil little bugger that I like to call Cedric. He is that curmudgeonly voice that chants negative things while you try and write. Or more specifically, as they put it in the Guardian guide, ‘This is all rubbish and you should never write another word ever again.’

 

So another bit of advice is to lock all traces of your inner critic away in a cupboard until the end of your first draft. Then when its time for rewriting, you can open the door and let him (I’m certain it’s a he) out to cast his evil eye. You do need to be critical of your own work, but there’s a time for that, and its not when you’re trying to get going. Procrastination – the art of finding any part of the house that needs cleaning or reorganising - and your inner critic are, I think, a writers two biggest enemies.

 

I’m sure I’ve already rambled on long enough, but Ben also wanted me to say what it feels like to be published. The main thing to say is that it’s just never as exciting as you’d expect! Maybe I was jaded because I knew too much about the whole process already, so it just wasn’t as novel (sorry) as it might’ve been. Or maybe it’s to do with how my imprint are very brand-focused, so they don’t actually do a lot to promote or market their individual authors. At first I thought this was a bit of a let-down, but then I saw it as an interesting opportunity. Having no budget assigned to me, I then had freedom to promote my own work any way I wanted. So I started experimenting with making virals and book trailers on Youtube Step on it Cupid and Lost For Words..

which has turned out to be really effective and led to all sorts of other PR opportunities at London Book Fair and beyond.

 

Sometimes it’s the little moments that make you really appreciate it though. Like when you see someone in a bookshop happen to pick up your book, read the back cover and go and buy it. Or like today, when a friend of mine saw someone reading it on the tube and emailed me a picture he’d somewhat creepily taken on his camera phone! Poor girl.

 

Another thing is that unless you’re at JK Rowling’s level or you’re Jordan, you’re not going to be giving up your day job. The advances and royalties are rarely as big as you hear about. I’ve been lucky to earn out my advance through foreign sales, in that my books have been translated into four other languages. But basically, don’t write a book if you’re doing it for the money – you’ve got to do it for other reasons.

 

As both Step on it Cupid and Lost for Words were so rushed, I’m spending so much longer on book three. I’ve got this analogy I’m currently using to justify my procrastination. You know those cookery programmes where the chefs obsessively arrange all their ingredients into neat little bowls, before they even think about starting? Well that’s how I’m treating my characters this time around, now that I have the luxury of time. As much as I really want to jump in and start writing, I want to make sure I’ve got everything properly measured out and built up enough depth to each character – e.g. what’s their favourite music, what kind of shampoo do they use etc… only then can I feel ready. That’s my agents’ perennial bit of writing advice – it’s got to be all about the character. The plot will follow.

 

One final thing. I don’t know if other writers find this, but there is always a certain amount of life imitating art going on. At the same time I agreed on the book deal, I was offered a job in an ad agency in Soho just like the one I’d been writing about in Step on it Cupid. Apart from a few work placements over the years and BMP’s Summer School, my exposure to agency life had been fleeting. But when I handed in my novel and went to start my new job, I couldn’t believe how much the agency in my imagined world turned out to be just like the one I’d just been writing about. I don’t know if other writers find this, but there were all sorts of bizarre similarities, which I wont bore you with now… but since then every time I start writing something, it’s weird but my own life does tend to imitate the patterns. So with that in mind my next book is probably going to be all about a lottery winner.

 

Lulu.com

The other day my dad sent me a link to Lulu.com.  It's an online publishing site which will sell your book for you, but only print it as and when people need a copy, so you don't need to lay out a ton of cash.  It can even get you onto other online bookshops such as Amazon.

The other cool thing Lulu does is print up copies of your book for a non-exorbitant fee.  If you can get over the idea that you are dipping a toe in the waters of vanity publishing, getting your own book physically made up for £7 each has a few valuable benefits: 

First, if you feel your book is 'finished' (of course, it's never finished) then you might want someone outside the publishing business to read it.  Such people probably don't want 500 pages of single-sided, double-spaced A4.  They might want to read your book in the bath or on a train and would therefore be less than keen to lug such a big pile of ex-tree wherever they go.  So for £7 you can get around this problem and give them an easy book-sized book to read.

Second, you can add your own image designs and cover blurb.  This can have the same effect as a movie trailer, in that it puts the reader in the right frame of mind for the coming tale.  Much better than a big white page with a few words written in Courier or American Typewriter.

Third, you get to see your book as a book.  After all the time it's taken to create the bloody thing, it's quite a pleasant and encouraging experience to see it as it ought to be.  It also helps to judge the way it feels when you pick it up and flick through it.  Does it seem right?  Do the chapters follow one another properly?  Does it have too much white space?  Not enough?  Would you read it if you hadn't written it?  You can now peruse it in a book-reading mind set that might help you judge it better.

For all that, Lulu is relatively inexpensive, and I haven't even mentioned the sad little thrill you get from having a UPS box arrive with your books (I ordered seven) as if you've actually been published.

It's kind of like Diet Coke versus The Real Thing, and it'll do for now.  

Finally finished (until the next piece of advice I agree with).

For the umpteenth time, I now believe Insecticide is properly bloody finished.  

I have taken various bits of advice into account and altered chunks of the book, altered other chunks that altered because of the first alterations and altered the other chunks that required alteration because of the alterations that resulted from the original alterations.

Phew.

Now I can upload it to Authonomy and see if anyone votes for it.  I've also sent it to another friend who has a completely inappropriate agent (he also represents Alan Bennett; I think my oeuvre may fall on stony ground as far as he is concerned) to see what he thinks.  Otherwise, it's back to Writers and Artists and sending it off to agents who didn't have the good fortune of receiving it last month (or was it the month before?).

And now I can get on with the next project, a prospect that I find rather exciting.

I've been alerted to another writing-meets-advertising blog.

Or at least a few posts on that subject within a blog.

Nat and Lol's blog for Campaign is written by a pair of creatives, one of whom is a published novelist.

The bit I've linked to is an interesting section based around an article in Campaign called Go To Work On An Oeuvre, which was about novel-writing copywriters.  

If you do feel the urge to follow my link, do scroll down to the comments for some thoughts on self-publishing and a couple of websites that help that process along.

I'm going to email Lol now and ask if she'll write a post for this blog about how she was published etc.

Back from Holiday...

...to find rejection letters from Aitken Alexander and Conville Walsh.

Ho hum.

I still have a few days of polishing the changes I made to the middle of Insecticide, but then my thoughts will turn to what to do next.

I think the aforementioned screenplay idea Fuck Me Backwards would be the most fun, but I'm currently in the middle of The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe and it's turning my eye somewhat.  It's a good-but-not-great coming of age story that reminds me of White Teeth but isn't quite up to the same standard.

However, it is a proper book and I can't deny that writing one of those is somewhat tempting.

I've spent the last year apologetically explaining the plot of Insecticide to those that ask about it and I'm not sure I'm quite ready for a year or two of doing the same with FMB.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that you can only write what you can write, and that is a combination of 'can' as in 'have the ability to' and 'can', as in 'all those other things that stoke your enthusiasm to the extent that you can sustain the months and years of writing and rewriting'.  If I don't feel like writing another book that I'm not looking forward to explaining to people, then it seems a bit pointless to start it.

Then again, perhaps I should just follow what enthuses me and not worry about the possible reactions.