Tag: books

Rejection

The unavoidable aspect of submitting (10,000 words/first 3 chapters/50 pages and the variations therein of different literary agents and whether they want a synopsis to be one page/full synopsis/chapter by chapter and how much personal information they want, if any) is the, so far, inevitable rejection, short polite and unhelpful.

It sees to be that the agents are more interested in marketing and trend.  No definitive evidence for this opinion but looking at the books being promoted by Bloomsbury or Waterstones there is a preponderance of women writers and modern settings exploring daily experiences.  I sit at the other end of the spectrum from this trend and the ‘romantasy’ trend both aimed principally at female readers.  Another trend, heavily promoted and typically ‘ghost written’, is the celebrity autobiographies after that cookbooks and other self-help volumes on any and every topic!

It feels like an uphill struggle on a rarely travelled path – trying to reach the agent who can see the potential and audience for my writing.  I have picked an unfamiliar niche with the Romano-British setting at the time the Roman Empire abandons Brittania and withdraws what little resources and administration still remains leaving the British to fend for themselves against the increasing incursions from the Scotties of Hibernia (Ireland) on South West and Welsh coasts, the Picts and other warring tribes in the North and from the near continent in the East and South East. 

It’s a fascinating period with increasing archaeological evidence that it wasn’t a ‘dark age’ but that life continued arguably with little difference to the day to day lives of the majority of people in the same way that changes of Government make little if any marginal difference to most people today.  I’m telling the story of how Brittania responded to the challenges before the ‘English’ (Brythonic Celtic for’ foreigner’ or ‘stranger’) arrived and then the impact they had and what has become identified as

 ‘The Age of Arthur’ during their expansion and colonisation of much of Britain.

It’s a good read!

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.