Feeling Lucky

I got a call from my literary agent the other day. Such a wonderful surprise. I hadn't heard from her for a while - life got in the way, as it so often does - and here she was, breezy, chirpy and above all else confident.

There is something about someone else's confidence in you to give you confidence in yourself. Writers, probably more than any other profession, get many knocks, over and over and over again. Self belief is paramount and you just have to learn to get up again, do the proverbial dusting off, the type of dusting off that is definitely harder than the housework which I absolutely loathe. It helps so much if someone not only says kind things about your work but really really really good things like 'one of the best things in my last ten years',' it made me laugh and cheered me up. It's very funny'.  Now whoa, that's good marketing material. Especially now when we're all coming out of this long haul lockdown madness into a new world where we need some light-hearted relief and a jolly good laugh. 

She may have had every reason to be slightly fed up with me as I turned down the first offer she secured on my novel. I felt I was giving away too many rights; she reasonably pointed out  there were good authors on their books who signed the same contracts. By the time I had changed my mind, the publisher had inconveniently dissolved itself.  

I went on to become a published short story writer and poet, have radio plays broadcast on the BBC and win an award for flash fiction. Although my confidence is generally much higher, it can still be knocked by a rejection.  

So now with her invaluable help - and I would never have managed to write 'Under The Red Robes' in the first place without her phenonemonal ability to hand hold and encourage - we are back on the hunt for a publisher. I'm more confident because of her confidence in me. But also, I now know what I write is good publishable material and it is simply a case of finding the right publisher. Ignore any rejections. And keep looking until I find it.