Submitting to literary agents is a fraught business, speed dating but with curtains, smoke and mirrors. The vast majority never bother to reply. About one in five have actually taken the time to send a stock email explaining that they receive lots of submissions and unfortunately they are not interest/not for them etc. This morning I had a rejection that went a lot further and said the agent enjoyed reading my work but they didn’t think with their expertise they could represent me fairly.
That is the first bit of encouragement I have received from all the agencies so far submitted to. Doesn’t say much for the others and I am still working my way through them. I have also re-edited the whole manuscript to tidy and tighten it further and will probably do so again. I can’t look at it without wanting to change something since the last time I went through it. I think it’s an increasing maturity and a less precious frame of mind about my writing, recognising that it can always be improved and that it is ongoing process that can never be finished until published and then its ‘the guillotine’ and the editing is beheaded.
Anyway, that’s to be seen. For now I am still unrepresented and unpublished but have faith and know that I am challenging the market following lemmings looking for popular bandwagon tribute acts. The work doesn’t fit any corresponding genre. I have envisaged an historical world that still has ripples in its relevance today and goes some way to describing our mixed bag of cultures, differences and origins that can draw some parallels with us today.
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