Well, at least I met one of the deadlines I set myself this year.
Finally, a couple of days ago, I sent the manuscript for Death Will Find Me off to a couple of agents who had asked to see it following events such as Pitch Perfect and Xpo North. I’d been promising it for months and as regular readers (sorry, I’ve not been here much recently) will know, the likely completion date kept moving further and further away until the book would have been more accurately titled Tessa Kilpatrick and the Mystery of the Missing Deadlines.
But it’s done at last. The Best Beta-Reader in the World (aka my good friend Jane) finished pointing out (fortunately minor) plot holes and my rather casual approach to commas, and I decided that it was time to stop spending my mornings making tiny changes and my afternoons putting them back as they were. Also, Christmas is nearly here and I have done NOTHING. So it’s been sent off to two fabulous agents, both of whom I would love to be represented by, and hopefully one of them will like it. And if not, come January I have a shortlist of agents to send submissions to…
And now, I feel a bit empty. The book that I’ve been working on (or avoiding working on) for so long is out of my hands. There’s no point in carrying on editing until I’ve heard back from these agents. I’ve shredded all the post-its and scraps of paper with unreadable and cryptic notes that were piling up, I’ve tidied my pencil pot, and shelved the piles of books that were stacked all around the area by my desk. After a year of terrible procrastination, I’ve now run out of displacement activity.
So what now? Do I carry on writing, even if no-one wants to publish this book? I think so. Writing is one of the things that makes me happiest and I know that I’m at least competent, so even if Death Will Find Me doesn’t find a home, the next book will be better and may well do. But do I start on the second in the series (nothing written down, but the plot’s in my head) or something completely different? I’m going to mull that over the holidays and hopefully by the new year things will be clearer.
If I’m not back here before January, have a wonderful Christmas and I hope that you have a peaceful, prosperous and healthy 2017.
Love Vx
