After
the Christmas and New Year celebrations I was looking forward with great hope
to making progress on becoming a published author. Then my dreams seemed to
fall apart on one terrible day.
It
started off when I didn’t receive an email. The first major competition I had
entered would be proclaiming its first stage of successful entries. I was
convinced I would get through this first stage although I hadn’t kept strictly
to all the entry rules. I thought they would like the story so much they might
turn a blind eye. How wrong was I. There was no well-done email and when I
checked their web page I was not named.
To
make things worse the postmen shoved a white A4 envelope with my own hand
writing on it through my letter box. I knew it was a reply from an agent I had
approached and hoped it would cheer me up. Wrong again. It was another
rejection and my day was going downhill fast.
Then
the day turned from a bad day into a terrible day when I received a telephone
call. I hoped it would be from the competition people saying they had made a
mistake, and that I was through to the next round. Or it could be from an agent
wanting to snap me up! Wrong again for the third time, the call was from the
garage where my car had been in for repairs. When I say repairs they could have
built a new one for the price they wanted to charge. Didn’t the garage know I
was not in paid employment anymore and I was living on the edge of poverty? I
didn’t have the money and was now using up my savings quickly.
I
knew that the agents I had approached and competitions I had entered had only
seen my first manuscript, and I had now completed three redrafts, each time
improving on the first, but all the rejections pointed me in the same
direction. I needed a professional view of my story and this would cost me, but
I had no choice. I could keep on entering every competition in the world and
approach every agent and publishers there are, but it would do no good until I
knew where I was going wrong.
Where
could I get this type of help?
That’s
for Friday’s blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment