Always-hanging-around

I don’t like hanging around and now it seemed an eternity since I had handed in my resignation. I’m the type of person who doesn’t like queuing (I suppose there aren’t many people who do). I should rephrase that sentence in that I don’t like waiting, just hanging around, but as I was to learn trying to get a story published involves always-hanging-around for other people, and this is how my blog got its name.

First you wait for friends who you have given your first cherished manuscript to read, after a month of waiting you finally ask what they think of it and they tell you, ‘alright, I’ve read the first five chapters. Your heart sinks. Your manuscript, the greatest story ever written, should have had them hooked with them begging for the next story, that’s what you have convinced yourself is the truth.

You rewrite the story then enter it into various competitions and then wait. You wait for months because you entered it in September, and the closing date is the end of November, but the first round of judging is not until January the next year. You wait eagerly for the big day in January, and check on the web-site to see if your name is on the list and your heart sinks when it is not.

So next you try getting an agent. You send off the first three chapters with a synopsis and a covering letter over the next few months to various agencies. You wait and you wait and if you are lucky you will get a rejection letter, if not you wait around hoping and never hearing. Your wait for the postman with eager excitement and check your email account five times a day but all you are doing is, always-hanging-around.

Finally after getting nowhere you go direct to the publishers (do we budding authors never learn?)