Feeling the vacumm

Feeling the vacuum

As a writer most of the endeavour is isolated hope that what you are doing is what you meant. That the story characters, prose and language convey the world, places and events you imagined to a reader. It is a leap of faith in your ability to write and to write well. This is nevermore tested than when you submit your work to literary agents, the gatekeepers of the publishing world ultimately looking at marketing and potential sales markets and income. That is looking backwards at what has worked, what is trending and following the market. There seem to be few market leaders or market makers. Each new book offered up to an agent is a possible future genre but gambling is a risky business and I am getting the impression that too many agents are risk averse or focused on niche.

I have submitted to 22 agents to date and have many more lined up. So far I have only had two actual responses, rather than automated emails for receipt. Both short but polite rejections. The majority of presumed rejections have simply passed the agents’ 8 or 12 weeks window for ‘If we have not responded to you in …’ etc.. It is very much a vacuous place with no one offering a little oxygen in the unpublished writer’s space. My next trick is going to take some agencies from the middle and the other end of the alphabetical array. I suspect that those at the beginning get the most bombardment, like Google searches with few progressing to the subsequent pages of the search results. Meanwhile the research for the next volume and its writing continue.

Knowing you’re a writer

I picked up a novel to read whilst we were away for a few days this week in Dartmouth. Mythologically wet and unreliable weather encouraged staying inside and I wanted to read something different. I picked a novel that appeared to be about Dartmouth or some similar estuary small historical town. I normally tend to read non-fiction either research for my own writing or economics/politics tomes, my all time favourite academic area.

What I noticed was how hard to read another writers work is for me now. I wanted to rewrite everything. I didn’t like the school boy fantasist approach to the main character’s back story and the carboard cartoons of local characters. The repetitive opt-outs for describing the local scenery; the estuary is always “beautiful”, the sea “shiny”. It was a cacophony of cliches. I threw the book down twice in frustration and never got further than the second chapter in three attempts.

Walking round Dartmouth enjoying the variety of the Georgian and earlier architecture I thought about my reaction and recognised that unknowingly my voice has matured. Learning to choose words to ensure descriptions capture imagination leading the reader through their mind’s eye to see some idea of what I saw, has honed my sensitivity to the use of words. It was a rewarding thought. My next thought was if something that awful can get published I should too. However, I am still waiting for an agent to be hooked. Only one rejection so far but the calendar is turning daily away from the ‘six weeks windows’. Another round of submissions is going to have to be made.

Looking back

Looking Back

Whilst waiting to hear from the flurry of literary agents I have contacted so far with my first novel ‘Carrick and Trispen’, I have been reviewing old writings and more recent shorts and poetry. I have been surprised at the things I have forgotten about. Bold, profane, obscene sometimes, but always honest. I have the makings of a small volume of poetry.

I have also been editing my father’s poetry. He left a collection in various forms, some of it on the reverse of pieces of old Admiralty drawing papers marked ‘Top Secret’ – he was an electrical engineer working in the Admiralty drawing offices in Bath. He always had an interest in poetry and read and collected poetry until his death in 2024. His is mostly verses, or snippets, themes that re-appear in longer pieces that he had been developing. If I put a volume together I will include his works as a Coda to my own.

I will compile and order my ideas and think of thematic ways of presenting them so there is some coherence that I at least could recognise. I used to say that I wrote ‘bad poetry’ in prose form and still do in my journals. But the actual poems are better conceived and balanced. Undoubtably not to all tastes and probably owe more to Walt Whitman’s approach than typical English poetry. I have always been influenced by modern American Literature and rate Henry Miller, Alex Baldwin and Hunter S Thompson as the influences for my casual writing. That writing will never see the light of publishing in my lifetime but, vainly, I would hope that some poor editor would have the unenviable task of trying to make sense of all the undated papers and journals which are dated but intermittent plus dozens of notebooks full of observations and rants.

It is reassuring to find that earlier work has some merit to my older and wiser eye. It all gives hope to the venture into writing full time.

Welcome to the debate

The DfE is calling for evidence and ideas about post 18 education. Their document published on 21st March 2018 is focused on Higher Education rather than the whole remit of adult education – including HE. (Link here)

I want to gain your views about the potential for reform and the risks this presents and present some ideas and alternatives to the limited thinking of government that reflects the needs of learners and the practical needs of learning providers other the HEIs.

The pages of this site will provide an opportunity to share views and arguments for and against possible policy directions and strategies for funding and organising all post 18 education.

Many of the proposals reflect my own experience and understanding based on 30 years in education spent in further education, adult and community education, and in Policy for the funding agencies.