March 2013

It was now one year into my adventure, one year since risking it all to get published. Like all things in life there had been good moments and bad moments, but I was now at the stage where I thought I had a good enough manuscripot to get noticed, and bypassing the agents slush pile by sending the neatly packaged story to a male agent seemed to have brought my first bit of positive news. He followed it up with a short email to say thank you.

A piece of good advice, before sending out any manuscripts to any agents or publishers always do some basic home work on the internet to find out if the people and organisations your are approaching are the type who would be interested in your style of story. It will save you a lot of time and effort (and money).

As normal I was always-hanging-around awaiting a further reply from the agent. About the same time I was emailed by a local writers organisation that ran different course, seminars and competitions for new writers in the area.

I had to double check the email, I couldn't believe it, they were organising a meeting for a group of unknown writers with an agent. Guess what? It was ony the very same agent who had just been received my story.

I thought this must be it. It was only open to ten people. You had to send in your first three chapters, etc, etc and then he would pick who he wanted to see. I knew from previous times these events would be flooded by hundreads of applicants, but I wasn't going to risk loosing this chance, and I applied to be one of the lucky few who hoped to make it to the meeting.

As normal it was a case of always-hanging-around. The cut off date was March the 15th 2013, you would know by this time if you had been selected. The nearer it got the more nervous I became, checking my email account two, three, sometimes half a dozern times a day. Waiting, always waiting for the email confirmation that you had been selected.

Two days before the final date I was sent an email direct from the agents asking if I was the same person who had had applied for the meeting, and sent the manuscript. I relied yes. Two days later I recieved an email from the writers group to say I was one of the lucky ten.

The first bit of good news in a twelve month swirling sea of rejections.

What would happen? Always-hanging-around, that is what happened. The sesson wasn't until the 28th of April!