Rejection letters.

I got my latest rejection letter this morning. I'd had a really positive message last night from someone who's reading the book and then the postman arrived this morning. I heard the loud thud of my manuscript hitting the hall floor and guessed before I went to retrieve it that it would be my self-addressed envelope containing the first three chapters, pitch letter and summaries of the other chapters of "Martha's Vineyard". So it was but it also contained a standard form letter from the agent,

"Dear Neil Griffin," ( that is handwritten the rest apart from a squiggle at the bottom was a standard typed response)

"Thank you for your recent submission which we have considered with care. I fear we do not feel able to offer the representation you seek. We wish you every good fortune with your work in the future."

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a crushing blow or anything, I mean there are a million worse things happening to millions of people as we speak but it always a little disappointing. Anyway I'm anticipating a large collection of rejection letters before I find an agent to represent the book, (that accounts for the blog really) and at least they'd had the decency to turn it around in three weeks but I do wonder what it is they "fear". Have they been stalked by rejected writers in the past or are they just naturally timid? It seems ironic that people with such influence in the publishing industry were terrorised by my submission. Rather than feeling angry at the rejection I feel guilty about frightening them so!
My initial reaction was anger of course. Nobody likes rejection do they? "What do they know? Everyone who's read it has really enjoyed it, even people who don't know me, why aren't they interested?" But I suppose one must be sympathetic in the end; they get a lot of manuscripts and there are so many variables, what time they pick your submission from the pile, how many they are already considering, what mood they are in when they pick yours up, Monday morning Friday afternoon syndrome and as I have often said sending off a submission is always an act of hope over expectation. Never mind, I'm still only on agencies beginning with "A" and there are plenty more on the list before I get on to the rest of the alphabet. And so I'm off to the post office as I want to catch the lunch-time post. See Ya!

Bloody Statcounter!

I'm starting to wish I'd never installed the bloody statcounter! If it is to be believed then all my attempts to attract traffic have been in vain. There are a pitifully small number of visitors these days and those I do get don't seem to stay. I am also concerned that I might be frightening people off by making my blog something of a soapbox, or is there such a thing as a blogbox? Maybe people don't want to be bothered with my rantings about whatever appears to have gotten my "knickers in a twist" on any particular day. Maybe I should try and be more disciplined and restrict my posts to the progress of my attempts to direct people to take an interest in my novel but I'm not sure that would be any better, I'd only go off on another rant about the publishing industry or suchlike.
However all is not lost. As an antidote to my depression about lack of visitors and interest in my perambulations I've entered a bit of spice into the proceedings. I've started up another blog to go into competition with my marketingmynovel site. This one is simply a photographic journey around County Durham, where I live. I've put it out here and I'm going to promote both with the same amount of effort. An experiment in what might interest surfers. The competition between the two will add a little interest to my daily disappointment at reading the bloody statcounter. At least there'll be some competition. The new blog is http://beautifulcountydurham.blogspot.com/ let's see what happens shall we? If there's anybody out there.
Mind you, none of this is getting my second, bloody novel written!

Need I say more?

Woke this morning to the news informing me that cannabis users can be up to three times more likely to develop a psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia. This in a week when at least nine members of Gordon Brown's new cabinet, the nerve centre of British politics, admitted smoking cannabis while at University. There are 23 members of the cabinet which means nearly half of them collapse firmly into into the cannabis-user zone. When the news about their youthful indiscretions first broke I thought it kind of humanised them, made them more interesting, more in touch with the rest of society. I also expected some really interesting new legislation, new laws encouraging us to take more time to smell the flowers, or policies suggesting we stay up late eating cold beans from the tin while listening to the Floyd very loud but no! Instead it has served as a preamble to a tightening up stance on cannabis. You'd think it would have taught them something wouldn't you? Instead it seems to have turned them all into zealots. Despite the dangers, (and to be honest I'm more worried about the tobacco than the dope) young people who want will still get access to cannabis and a host of other nasty and dangerous substances just as those cabinet members did in their day but instead of the radical approach of having the nerve to make it licenced and controlled by the state it will continue to be supplied, to those who want it, by gangsters and criminals. It will mean that in order to get it they will need to mix with pushers and dealers I would have thought that was fairly dangerous. I know young people don't have to use cannabis, in fact they probably shouldn't but if they want to they will and maybe those who confessed last week should remember who they used to be. That might help them to think of strategies to help all young people, not just those who use cannabis, to learn from the mistakes they are bound to make rather than this hypocritical and hysterical preaching. There again maybe they are all psychotic.

Nothing much happening.

The purpose of this blog, when I was inspired to start it by my friend http://catcalls13.blogspot.com, was to create a "whispering" campaign about my novel. A way of getting it talked about while I look for a literary agent. I even fantasised about it getting talked about in the circles that literary agents move in, "Hey Tarquin, have you heard about this guy who's written a novel and is blogging about it?" " No I haven't Lance is it any good?" " I believe so, it's about a young teacher who inherits a villa from his aunt and goes off to live on the Greek mainland where he discovers some dark secrets about the past." "Oh bloody good show!"
I am naive enough to think I was the first person to think of it but hey!
Using the power of the net, I would engage visitors to my blog with charming posts and they would immediately click over to my contents page at http://lulu.com/content/607829 to buy or download the book. To be honest that hasn't really happened yet. It's true I am getting visitors to my blog, a healthy number, from all over the world, in fact but they don't seem to stay for very long according to my statcounter and as a consequence presumably don't read it and therefore don't realise that they are supposed to go to my Lulu content page and get access to the book.
To be fair I'm sure they all have busy lives and are probably frantically trying to "build their downlines" for some Internet money-making scheme or scam (it's a whole new world with it's own vernacular out here in the blogoshere).
As a result I am beginning to have a strategy crisis and associated rethink. Maybe I need a downline.
What larks!

Blogosphere

Apparently there's such a thing as the blogosphere. I discovered it since I've started to investigate sites that promise to send "targeted traffic to your website","see your traffic explode!" etc. It is true and it does work but in order to gain credits to invite fellow surfers to your blog you have to visit loads of other websites, most of which seem to want you to sign up to schemes that will earn you a fortune by not doing anything. Not many of my fellow surfers are going to be interested in my novel if they are so busy trying to make a mint out of the ether. Make money from leaving your PC on overnight, turn your computer into an atm or advertise to millions on the blogosphere. I can see how it is easy to be seduced into thinking that there is a fortune just waiting for you somewhere in cyberspace but it's not very likely is it? I wonder if it's just a handful of people around the globe clicking on each others websites 24 hours a day.
There are some exceptions; the odd site with wonderful photos or some people who'd been up all night reading the final Harry Potter book and the occasional author in a similar position to my own. I've surfed about four or five hundred sites but only about 3 0r 4 percent of them have been about something other than money.
I did discover something of interest though. Someone offering to take writers on a virtual book tour. They offer to do it for you but it costs an arm and a leg and so I intend to discover how to do it myself for free. Watch this space!

Displacement activity

I am starting to wonder if blogging is the perfect displacement activity for the aspiring novelist. If I'm anything to go by it certainly is. I mean, I joined the blogging community a fortnight ago and instead of publishing posts detailing my anguished attempts to propel my novel, "Martha's Vineyard" into superhighway limelight, I appear to have, on reflection, begun to use my blog as a bit of a "ranting" ground. I just had a look at what I posted on Sunday and I had a "pop" at Big Brother, Tony Blair, the BBC and Alistair Campbell for starters. None of these having anything remotely to do with my story of a young English Teacher's journey to Greece to discover the secrets of a mysterious aunt's vineyard.
My friend and fellow blogger Ms Catcalls did warn me that blogging can be contagious, addictive even and I fear she is right. I now spend as much time thinking about my blog than I do about my next writing project. The "difficult" second novel.
I suppose one's blog is the perfect place to have a "rant" mind you! In an attempt to encourage people to visit my site I've visited quite a few blogs randomly over the past few weeks and there are a lot of angry people out here aren't there? The Internet, it appears is a "ranters" paradise. Not surprising really, there's a lot to be angry about. There's Big Brother, Tony Blair, the BBC and Alistair Campbell to begin with but don't get me started on them.

A Summer's Sunday Stroll July 2007

Hilbre Island

Big Brother

Where's Alistair?

I had quite a disturbing experience today. Well I'm not sure disturbing is the correct word but whatever the word it gave me pause for thought. Being "fairweather" cyclists, opportunities to get out on our bikes have been severely hampered by the torrential rain that appears to be the feature of this summer. Despite a severe weather warning and a terrible forecast I woke this morning to sun "cracking the flags" and so hurriedly got bikes out of shed so that C. and me could get in a bit of quick exercise before setting out for today's family visiting. We have a circular route of about four or five miles that we regularly do, with opportunities to add deviations and little bits here and there on the ride if time permits.
Today I had got a little bit ahead and so rode into a side street for a look around to give C. time to catch up. It's nice to look at people's front gardens, to get ideas for mine if I ever suddenly find the time or inclination to become a gardener. My eye was initially caught by posters in the window of a house at the mouth of a cul-de-sac. It was a double fronted house with two regular sized front windows each bearing the same picture of a face and some words.
Having been, until recently a seriously committed and enthusiastic political campaigner I was intrigued by this. After all there is no by-election going on where we live (there is one in a neighbouring constituency since Tony Blair scuttled off the ship he may have scuppered), no reason that I could think of why someone would be sporting posters. I wondered if it was maybe a special birthday or some announcement of a forthcoming summer fayre. When I got close enough to read them both posters encouraged passers by to "Vote for Liam to win Big Brother".
Now, maybe the residents of that house are relatives or friends of "said" Liam, whoever he is, but it did strike me as significant.
For anyone who doesn't know Big Brother is a British reality television show involving a number of self-obsessed, egomaniacs trapped by choice, in a house together, for a long time and forced to behave like circus beasts while their reactions and inter-actions are broadcast to the nation to be observed by viewers who have nothing better to do. The resident with the posters I assume is a fan, relative or post-modern agent provocateur. At least it's a creative way of articulating enthusiasm.
Only two months ago we had an election across the entire district I live in, an important one, (they all are). During this process I bemoaned the fact that there wasn't a single political poster up in anyone's window. I didn't include myself in this for reasons that I may expand on in later posts but that election was characterised by a lack of enthusiasm or interest by both the electorate and my fellow local activists, who, I think it's fair to say, have lost faith in our national political leaders. We are all getting a little tired of politicians being more interested in their careers than their ideals, more interested in how they "present" rather than the people they represent, politics, after all, shouldn't be about career but about conviction. The publication of Alastair Campbell's Diaries and the obscene and sycophantic publicity and promotion it has been given by the BBC, this week hasn't helped.
For anyone who doesn't know Alistair Campbell is a self-obsessed egomaniac who doesn't live in the Big Brother house but who is a "spin doctor" (that's someone who massages the truth to make it look like it's a different shape) and was the principal spin-doctor for the Blair government. (In fact if you read or listen to the diaries you'd be forgiven for thinking it was all his idea!).
Yesterday was Durham Big Meeting, the most important day in the year for many of us, it is a festival of working class solidarity, an army of brass bands and Trade Union banners parade proudly through the town; a reminder of past achievements and a celebration of the gains and progress made by workers over the years. It's an opportunity to remind ourselves that collective action and organisation can make, and has made, things better for all people who are oppressed, in need or in dispute. Alistair Campbell wasn't there or if he was I didn't spot him. Just as well I guess. Mind you I didn't see Liam, from Big Brother, either, whoever he is. Maybe him and Alistair were off forming some new political party. Maybe I accidently pedalled past the launch. Liam, if he wins Big Brother, to go for Prime Minister next. What do you think? Unfortunately the idea's not as ridiculous as it may once have sounded.

Blog Traffic

I've just entered into the world of blog traffic. I've visited loads of sites and for the past 40 minutes I've "pinged" "burnt" "added widgets" and done all manner of stuff with wild abandon and without having the vaguest notion of what consequences may result from what I've done. Like a blindfolded gladiator I've slashed and stabbed at cyberspace with impunity and thrown my blog out there in the hope that some of it will land on the screens of people who are interested in writing or at least the process of getting a novel noticed once the blessed thing has been written. I've been asked to "point my feed" " to personalise my springwidget" and "edit my layout" all of which I have obediently done, or at least think I've done having, after all, no idea what it was I thought I was doing in the first place.
I think I might now be a Blogsoldier and a member of Blogexplosion but I don't know will keep you posted.

Four quartets

I've decided that to post everyday is likely to result in posting for its own sake rather than contributing to the quality of content and if that sounds like an excuse then it probably is. Also I haven't done anything to promote the book, the raison d'etre for this blog, I haven't been near a computer for the weekend as we were visiting T. and R. our dear friends in Liverpool. Arrived there on the 6th July, the 50th anniversary of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's first meeting.
It felt good to be in that place, The home town of the Beatles on the anniversary of the first meeting of a partnership that would go on to transform popular music and articulate the feelings of love and revolution shared by people who were growing up and forming their world view and value-base then and in many of the years that followed. Lennon and McCartney along with the other two of the "Fab Four", arguably the most famous quartet of the 20th century, contributed immeasurably to the soundtrack of my life and that of my contemporaries and continue to do so but more importantly the simple notion that "All you need is love" still resonates with a clarity and simplicity that remains infectious. Admittedly, as cynics will quickly point out, there are other things we need, the nuts and bolts, the bread and water of life for example, but also and perhaps as importantly, I would add, hope and forgiveness.
In the car on the way to Liverpool C. had expressed an, extremely unlikely until recently, desire to hang a photograph of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness on our bathroom wall at home. Already on the wall are; John Lennon, Rosa Parks, Ghandi, Malcolm X, The Parliamentary Labour Party of 1906, Durham Miners Gala, Nelson Mandella, Che Guevara, Haight Ashbury junction and Dr. Martin Luther King,( that should give you a flavour). There is such hope and possibility in that image of Paisley and McGuinness, two former enemies, sitting shoulder to shoulder, laughing together that I agree it deserves to be there and have already downloaded it. All you need is love, hope, forgiveness and compromise but that doesn't scan does it? I will hang the photo in our little shrine to those whose lives or deeds, sacrifices or compromises have influenced and inspired us by each making the world "a little better" in their own way.
The following day I woke to news reports covering the anniversary of events one Thursday morning two years before, when four British suicide bombers blew themselves up taking their lives and the lives of 52 other people on three London Underground trains and one London Bus. Their actions also resulting in injuries to 700 other innocent travellers and trauma and bereavement to a huge number of families and friends. The juxtaposition of these two anniversaries strikes me deeply, particularly remembering that these acts of terror coincided with a moment of real hope, a moment of real opportunity, the Gleneagles G8 Summit of 2005. The Saturday before that we had been with T. in Edinburgh along with what felt like the majority of the population of the North of England and Scotland expressing our solidarity with the starving world by marching to "Make Poverty History". The Live8 concert beamed to us from London with McCartney opening it had set the tone, music could change the world, the air and the airwaves had bristled with hope and possibility as we sweltered in the intense July heat amid union banners, placards and messages of sanity in an insane world. The mood was such that we all believed that our act of witness and brotherhood on the streets of Edinburgh and that of millions of others in streets across the globe would be the change we wanted in this world. That the eight world leaders, the two quartets meeting at Gleneagles would listen to our humble, reasonable requests to end starvation in a world of plenty and place love, equality and humanity as first priority at the centre of the world's agenda.
Unfortunaltely the actions of another quartet, the July 7th quartet, changed the agenda and pushed an end to poverty and hunger in this world off pole position. It gave the leaders of the world's most powerful nations, the opportunity to talk more of the threat of terrorism than the injustice of poverty, to talk more of the need to tighten security than the scandal of starvation in the modern world, allowed them to concentrate on fear rather than compassion in days, months and years that followed. Two years before on a much colder day in February 2003 I had travelled with my family and about a million others to another Scottish city, Glasgow to protest against the Iraq war. The mood on that occassion wasn't one of hope more of indignation, frustration, defiance and disappointment. We knew in our hearts that the war would go ahead, as it did and sadly still does, but we needed to be on the street to show that it was not in our name.
There are many who believe that the War on Iraq was responsible for the July 7th bombings. I suspect there's a link. I do know that something made those 4 young men so angry with this world that they were willing to blow themselves up alongside hundreds of other innocent people to articulate that anger. Another thing I do know is that none of the bombers looked like they knew hunger but since they took those terrible actions in excess of 16 million innocent children have died of hunger or a hunger related disease. Since I started to compose this post, three days ago, over 72,000 people in this world have died of hunger or a hunger related disease and if you are a "normal" reader in the time it takes to read this post over 280 people will have starved to death.
Yesterday while I was out walking and thinking about this I spotted a teenager walking towards me, on his Tshirt the slogan"Make music not missiles"which reminded me of a statistic I read that " for the cost of one missile a school full of hungry children could eat lunch for five years." The overarching slogan of that Saturday back in July 2005 was "Bread not bombs" that maybe sounds simplistic but it works for me and would work for the whole world if everybody accepted that "All you need is love" love and a lot of hope, forgiveness and compromise.

Wednesday 4th July

Frantic day at work, no time to think let alone blog, now off out for an evening of socialising with Scottish friends and Japanese students. Happy 4th July!

Self correction and word from Greece

Realised with some disappointment that there were three errors in yesterday's posting. I had written "past of the future" instead of "part of the future" which ruined the point I was attempting to make. Bit of a shame as I haven't worked out how to correct stuff that has already been posted, assuming it can be done. The other mistakes were minor but still sloppy. As a consequence I was a bit upset with myself. After all it looks a bit bad if the blog of an aspiring writer has grammatical or spelling howlers in it doesn't it?
I was cheered up however by a text I received from M. who had agreed to read "Martha's Vineyard" while on holiday on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu. Her text read:
"this bk was v v v gud, it contained a clever mixture of intrigue, romance, history n 'whodunnit' I was pulled t it t finish it n thats wot wld make me luk for same author again." As you can imagine this served to raise my spirits somewhat leaving me feeling quite chuffed with myself!
As most of the action in my story takes place in Greece I was delighted that some one had not only read it in one of the places that had inspired it, but also that she had obviously enjoyed it so much. I had consciously written it as a novel that would be ideal for holiday reading and M.'s text has gone some way to endorse this.
Overall the positive outweighed the negative and so I return to my quest to promote my book with renewed vigour and verve. Yin and Yang back in harmony, unless of course, there are some cock-ups in this message that I haven't spotted yet.

Literary agents

Today I sent off my latest submission to the next literary agent on my list; a pitch letter, a synopsis, the first three chapters and summaries of the remaining chapters of "Martha's Vineyard". Each time it is an act of hope over expectation but, as always, I still felt a thrill when the postmaster dropped the bulky package into the sack, to be opened in London by a stranger, someone who might see the potential of the story I've spent the last three years crafting into a final version, using only my own imagination, some excellent software and the generous, wise, considered, thorough, sincere and intelligent counsel of a large number of dear and valued friends.

I was going to do it last Friday but there was a postal strike. As agents prefer to exclusively consider the work, I am sending to each one on my list one at a time. They can sometimes take as long as three months before responding or sending you their rejection letter ( I can sympathise there a lot of hopeful writers looking for agents out here) and so it is quite a frustrating business. That is largely why I have felt compelled to start this blog, to allow me to continue to develop an interest in my work, create the "buzz" while waiting for the endorsement and support of an agent. Who will, even then, still need to find a publisher to have sufficient faith in my project.

Also to make it easier for my friends to read, proof, crit and correct it, I have signed up to lulu.com an internet publisher, well an internet printer really. Lulu will print your manuscript, or make it available as a download, at a reasonable per unit cost and also give you a "storefront" on their website but the writer is responsible for their own promotion and marketing, although it must be said that the Lulu community is a very supportive one. It obviously has yet to break through to the mainstream and constantly fights the prejudice of POD publishing, (Print On Demand) but I am sure it is certainly past of the future.

That aside it is, after all, imposition enough to ask you friends and colleagues to agree to read your novel without expecting them to fight their way through a bulky manuscript printed out on 300 sheets of A4. (You can't read that in bed, can you?) This however has subsequently become another central plank of my marketing strategy. (See link buy or download the book)

I must confess though that I was quite excited, well extremely excited at the close of last year when the first proof copies arrived through the post looking to all intents and purposes like "proper", already published books. I guess that's why they call it "Vanity" publishing. It is of course in the interests of the publishing industry to call it this and to pooh-pooh "vanity" press, it is after all their term. I assume the vanity is to have the cheek to have a manuscript published before a publisher has given it the green light. This dismissal of alternatives methods of publication, of course allows them to keep control of trends in the literary market and to keep conditions right for their own stables of writers. It is also why the industry has been so quick to dismiss the POD revolution and identify it as "vanity" publishing. It may be that this is not so and that I'm paranoid but just in case I haven't mentioned my Lulu experiment to any of the agents I am submitting to. So shh! That will have to be our little secret.

Getting started

I suppose for real authenticity I should have started this blog back in December 2006 when I received the first proof copies of my novel, Martha's Vineyard, ordered from Internet Publisher Lulu.com, and distributed them among my friends for correction and comment.
I could alternatively have started when I sent my first submission to a literary agent in February 2007 ( no takers thus far but I'm saving the rejection letters) or when I started my literary chain-mail, ( results a bit disappointing so far) , to launch the corrected, improved, (final?) version available from lulu.com in May 2006.
Instinct tells me that best of all would have been to have started this blog when I returned from a holiday with friends in Stoupa, on the Mani Peninsula on the Greek Mainland, in August 2004 and decided to write a novel set in Greece. It would have been interesting to document the process from the first mark on the page to the struggle to get the finished product actually read and hopefully enjoyed by people, but I didn't and so I am starting now, 1st July 2007, 3 years down the line.
Sunday evening waiting eagerly for the next episode of Rome and having been inspired by the blog of a friend of mine, catcalls13.blogspot.com I have decided that there is no time like the present to give blogging a go.
A documentary record of my struggle to champion my novel and get it noticed in a hostile world. Sounds romantic doesn't it? A battling everyman's quest to fight through the corporate stranglehold on the publishing industry and to get his humble book on the shelves of bookshops everywhere. Actually there's probably a novel in that but I'm already well into writing the next one and so that will have to wait.
So here we are Sunday 1st July 2007 and my marketing my novel blog is born. Hope you will enjoy it.