It almost makes me look back through rose-tinted specs at ‘Dear ……………………….’; a form of address which always perplexed me more than a little. I mean, if you’re going to be made to feel utterly ephemeral to the person taking 10 seconds to read a synopsis it took you a week to compile about the novel it took you years to write, there’s no better way to do it than by receiving a template form with space for your name, and discovering they’re so uninterested in your submission that they haven’t even scrawled your name into the aforementioned space:

‘Your insipid ink-dribblings offend me so much I’m not even going to pretend you’re an autonomous being: Dear intangible concept so offensive to me that you do not even merit acknowledgement of your very existence, go away.’ *

This new no-frills approach however makes me feel like a sort of literary Jehovah’s Witness. Imagine if the tables were turned, and it was considered acceptable for authors to write prospective letters in the same way:

* Anyone who’s never received a rejection letter/note/word from a literary agent may wish to listen to this. It may help you to understand why many authors have no friends and hate everyone. And never get published.

I woke up again at about half 12. In what is now an almost autonomic response, I reached down beside the bed for my laptop to check my email. There was one new message waiting for me. It was accompanied by a sense of deja vu, largely because I’d frequently dreamt of waking to find such a particular email from a specific sender. The sender’s name was the most recent prospective agent I’d sent my novel to, the title of my novel was the subject. I closed my eyes and clicked on it.

I didn’t close my eyes fast enough. The first word I saw, soon tattooed in negative on my inner eye lid: ‘rejection’. At the time I didn’t feel rejection. I certainly wasn’t surprised. I suppose I didn’t really feel anything at all. Like my apparently futile attempts to find work, I’m used to finding myself unceremoniously dolloped back at square one after each effort and attempt. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes to read more, specifically the words before it – “Please do not be disheartened by this or other rejections.” ‘Excellent,’ I thought. ‘I have succeeded already in not being disheartened.’ It’s not exactly a new experience after all, and anyone with the insanity to call themselves a writer should expect it more often than not.

I was about to read on when sudden panic immediately hit me as the words “other rejections” reverberated inside my skull. Surely this means she anticipated I’m going to be rejected again for this story. Perhaps again and again. Suddenly “do not be disheartened by this or other rejctions” became “expect other rejections”, which instantly evolved into “your novel is not publishable” that condensed into “you’re not good enough”. In no time at all a vinyl loop was scratching into my brain’s soft, vulnerable tissue “you’re not good enoughyou’re not good enoughyou’re not good enoughyou’re not good enough…”

Once I’d calmed down and my neuroses had deflated a little, I could see the same good advice offered in her letter as that of the late Pat Kavanagh. More importantly, she too had evidently actually read what I’d sent her, and I was grateful for that. It felt like I’d been given a fair chance, rather than just wasted money, time and good quality anxiety in sending something to be merely left on the corner of an unused desk for three months before returning it to me with a template “no, ta.”

This is what I started work on early that morning – a microsite for the aforementioned novel, Beasts of the Field. It’s not the slickest site ever designed, nor is it now the most original way to promote a book (other lucky souls have now not only the resources to produce sites twice as visually impressive and in half the time, but get paid for doing so). However, it is original to me, and it’s a labour of love. It was an idea I came up with some time ago after reflecting on something I’m proud of – a novel that took me two and a half years to write. And it’s one of the most satisfying feelings known to anyone who writes to read back over old scrawl and become excited by what you’ve created.

Such things become your children. You can worry about them, fuss over them, you can go through all the usual unnecessary self-blame and guilt when they somehow don’t turn out how you expected. But no real parent can never truly abandon them.

Of course you get disheartened, but of course you keep on going, no matter what. These things are givens – what else can you do? It’s staying excited that’s the struggle – remaining enthusiastic about the creation you’ve invested years of thought, energy, feeling and hard work in.

Enthusiasm is everything. You must remain enthusiastic about your own work. You have to keep faith in yourself, not lose it. You can be a good writer, you can be a bad one – it doesn’t really matter which. Being a good writer has nothing to do with being able to get a book published. In the end, what does is all down to self-belief and a lot of bloody-minded persistence.

I’m sorry I can’t offer to help you.

And from one of the busiest, most respected agents in the UK as well. She replied within a week of receiving my manuscript. Not the sort of reply a first time novelist is used to. It’s usually just a postcard that says ‘NO’.

13 chapters. 125,327 words. Two and a half years. And several grisly deaths, naturally.

How better to quietly celebrate actually finishing a novel for the first time, than listening to Together in Electric Dreams, drinking a can of Becks lager and gnawing a slab of chocolate?

He felt the indifference surrounding him – the hard seat of the pew, the flagstone’s chill leeching into his heels and toes. He no longer looked to the statues above, no longer watched the unattended altar and wondered. He simply stared on at whatever his eyes encountered, no longer even asking for answers, no longer waiting for a response. No longer waiting for anything. Just waiting.

Chapter 10 is done. It’s done. It’s done, it’s finished – the last of the ‘safe’ chapters before we get to the series finalé crunching three parter. This particular chapter has taken me over two months to write out in full. About a week of that was doing the last scene alone, the last few days were spent on the last three sentences. Not that the last scene was particularly difficult other than the fact that once I’d finished it, I’d have completed another chapter. I seem to have huge issues with closure. As soon as something ends I don’t seem to want to acknowledge it, as if it’s already over anyway, so why bother going that last mile? As I’ve said before – mostly since starting this particular novel two years ago – the more you write the more you find out about yourself.

Nanowrimo? You have to be kidding. I’m still trying to finish what I started for Nanowrimo 2005 and have the whole of the eighteenth century to do before the end of the month.

Current word count: 104,458

Keeping it simple this time.

I do wish I’d got my postcard back though. If any one happens to be passing through Granville Island Market in Vancouver any time soon, please go and see the mad postcard woman in the mall for me. It’s the black and white photo of the little girl, clutching a pig and laughing. You’d make it into my will (assuming you’re the sort of person who feels they could benefit from a collection of broken watches and a few fuzzy videos of Star Trek: The Next Generation taped off the TV. Still, it’s possibly still a fair exchange for a postcard.)

I keep looking at the letter and feeling perhaps inappropriately excited. I feel like I should be ticking something off a list, or running a line through the agent’s name with a big fat black marker pen. As Adrian Mole said on receiving the response to his first submission, “it’s a very nice rejection letter.”