It's the New Year and at the risk of being a cliche, time for some reflection.
Twenty-ten was a mixed bag of a year and the highlight, it has to be said, was more a decision than it was an event.
The year kicked off on a non-writing relating milestone (yeah I do have some other stuff going on). I was headlong into my Project Management studies and at the end of January I sat (and thankfully passed) my exams. Only to quickly realise that that there was still no jobs out there, no matter how well qualified I was.
So the decision to be a professional writer was an easy one to make then? Yeah, probably.
It may have looked like I was already being a professional writer since I started writing 'Burning Matches' in 2008, but I quickly realised that one cannot make a career out of just writing novels, even published ones. Not at the start anyway. So certain priorities had to change and actions taken.....and more about that when I have something definitive to report. (But thanks to a certain TV producer - you know who you are - for getting the ball rolling).
The same producer was also very generous in writing me a letter of recommendation on the back of my other pride-and-joy, the TV Drama Series 'Square One'. That went through a bit of a face-lift during 2010 and is now sitting on the desks of a literary agent and a production company (with recommendation letter attached), hopefully with representation and a commission on the horizon.
There were, needless to say, other moments of stress as well, most of them in relation to the aforementioned novel. A chance meeting with another agent brought about a frenetic flurry of a rewrite during the summer. But, if I do say so myself, the book is much better for having gone through it. (Even if the agent wasn't keen and ultimately said 'No Thanks').
I'm confident that it was worthy of the Poolbeg 'Write A Bestseller' competition in which it was entered last week. Which leads me on to the other subject of high stress....that damn synopsis. Two weeks to write one page! One word of advice, people...write the synopsis before you write the book!
So 2010 might be summed up as the 'no-more-messin-around' year. 2011...the 'Rich-and-Famous' year, perhaps? Actually, I'll just settle for 'Rich'...
It sounds like you had quite a 2010. I hope you have an even better 2011 :)
ReplyDeleteI sympathise with the synopsis issue. On recieving the professional critique of a bit of my novel-in-progress, I was horrified to find a major criticism was of the villain, based only on how he appeared in the synopsis. Get the words of the synopsis wrong and you can turn people off before they've read a word...
One page for 100 000 words (or whatever) seems a cruel disfiguring of your work doesn't it?
I will be looking out for Square One with great anticipation!
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