Writer's Delusions

I've come to a single conclusion this week: for the past six months I have been utterly delusional.

I honestly thought my manuscript of 'In a Besieged City' wasn't bad. In fact I thought it was quite good. But it appears to have gained 8,000 words from nowhere, and a lot of drivel. Even the first chapter needed work. I've had to rewrite a whole draft, because I was scanning over it the other day and realised it was not up to the standard I thought it was.

But having read back over what I've edited, it seems much, much better. In fact there's some brilliant writing in there that I didn't have before. Could it simply be that I've got better in the last six months? Or didn't I edit it properly to begin with? I could have sworn I did. I went over it about 4 times, really slowly. I checked every sentence, every bit of puctuation. But it all seems so mundane and juvenile now I look at it. Ugh.

I've fixed it though, so I think I've averted disaster. I just should have waited before sending it off to any agents. It's a good job I only sent it off to four before I had an epiphany and realised. Not that it was dreadful before, just not polished to the standard I expect of myself. It could also be because I've got more tone to my writing from my newest novel, so 'In a Besieged City' seems to lack it.

The initial realisation though was like the titanic sinking-utter disaster, sunk to the bottom of the ocean. But then I realised I knew just how to make it better. Good. Lifeboats ho!

Email update

I almost forgot about that: it was a rejection from the first one. And I got another email the other day which was a rejection from one of the others.

Oh well, c'est la vie. It doesn't bother me terribly, I'll just keep trying.

Ahhh!!!!!!!

Oh my god. We have just booked our hostels for going to Australia in October. The next hurdle is getting credit cards and then getting visas and making sure Dad confirms the flights (Singapore airlines has stupid rules if you're not the one travelling which means you have to take in a form thing to their office or they don't let you on the flight).

I am so terrified that thinking about it makes me feel sick. Excited too, but mostly terrified. I worry about money and how we'll get a job. We booked a really cheap hostel for Christmas (basic, but it's meant to be clean and it has a pool) because then if we have to cancel we won't lose much money. Money is what I worry about most. I don't want to be under the pressure all the time of where our next lot of money is coming from, even though I know we will be to a certain extent. I want to spend the majority of time instead having fun and making friends. It's going to fun if I have to move heaven and earth to do it.

Emails

I have an email and I'm too scared to open it. I only know it's from one of the literary agents I sent to because it says 'submission'. I don't know who though, and it's puzzling because in the sender it only says 'info'.

I'm not sure if it's a) a rejection, b) a 'send us your manuscript', c) a 'thanks for your email, we'll get back to you' or d) you've submitted it wrong.

It's only been four days, so a and b sound unlikely, and I can't think what I might have forgotten. I didn't double space my synopsis and one asked for double spaced but didn't make it clear if they meant the chapters and the synopsis, or only chapters. But anyway, they're hardly likely to tell you to sod off because you haven't double spaced something. They could do it themselves if they wanted.

Emails are actually bad for sending important things to people, because when you get replies, it's far too easy not to open it. I tend to just ignore it in my inbox for a day or two. It'll turn out to be c or d and I'll have had nerves for nothing. Damn it.

Beer+proseco=bad

Hangovers must be proof there is no god. If there was, why on earth would he make you suffer so much? No sane god would make you actually want to die.

I've thrown up once (fruit juice on an empty stomach=bad idea, especially with a hangover), and spent every five minutes taking my sister to the airport rushing to the toilets thinking I was going to throw up again but never doing it. I felt better by the time I had endured the train ride home, but now I feel sick again.

I may never drink again. Okay, so I will probably be drinking beer again by tomorrow, but it's certainly put me off mixing my drinks. Ugh.

Going to crawl into a hole until my stomach stops working it's way up my throat every five minutes.

Competitions

I've only got 200 words of a story that ideally needs to be 4000. It's just not fair. When I have to write a short story, I can't cut out enough words, and when I have to write a long one, I can't write enough in the first place. Then again, the 200 words is bloody good. I would turn to writing poetry, because it's shorter, if I wasn't completely hopeless at it. I've got three days anyway. I'm sure I'll get it done.

I have to at least enter, because the prize money is so much.

Dad is moaning that we're not earning any money for going to Australia, but I don't see him being in any way helpful. It's not like he's been awash with practical help. We did put up an advert on a forum, but nobody wanted us. I've seen other people, with similar adverts, who have had loads of responses, and yet I posted ours and we got like nothing. Dad goes on about people wanting summer childcare, but he doesn't get that there are all these people out there with references and loads of experience, and they win hands down over us. Yes, people need someone to watch their kids, they just don't need us, and there in lies the problem. Urgh. It's horrible business.

And then he starts being very helpful by ranting that we won't be going if we don't have any money. Uh, I think we will, thank you very much. It is our trip, after all, not his, so why does he moan so much about it? And anyway, I've got about a third of the money that I've saved up, and another thousand should come soon. Then we'll only need two thousand. It is doable.

Feeling hot, hot, hot.

Ugh. Hot. Very, very hot. Like 30 degrees, indoors. And it's much cooler than yesterday. We're all dying from the heat. Actually, we're more all lying about wilting and complaining about the heat. The windows are all open, there's a fan on, but it makes no difference.

And it's not global warming. It's just a rather good summer. People have just forgotten what those are like.

On the upside, it's a good excuse to drink a lot of rosé and white wine, since that's mostly what's cold in the fridge.

Unfortunately, it's so hot I can't bring myself to write. Who can get their brains to work when they're sticky and sweltering? I just like to lie around reading travel books and wondering how dead we will be when it's summer in Australia. I've got some nice surf shorts-not that I'll ever be doing any surfing, I'm far too scared of sharks and jellyfish-for taking to Oz.

Must get off short stories while I'm at it. The prize money would come in very handy. Will do it tomorrow. Might try and write one for another competition, which can be longer, so shouldn't be too difficult. I've got one story that is a touching family saga, along the theme of jealousy, and another about drug addiction. I'm hoping they'll go down well. They're for the Writer's Bureau competition, for £1000 first prize. Then I'm hoping to enter the Bridport prize, which is £5000, plus the top 13 get read by literary agents.

I've an idea for that, something I've already written that's kind of a portrait of grief. It'll need some work over the next few days, but then it'll do fine. I can only have a go, after all. Cool, I think I'll do that. Only a few days to enter though. Wish me luck.