The Literary Consultancy
June 16, 2009 at 10:35 pmI chose a good weekend for driving down to visit my mum - the countryside is so beautiful at this time of year, especially when it’s sunny.
Now it’s Tuesday already and I can’t believe how quickly time is rushing by.
Now, back to what I was talking about in my last post. The first hundred pages of In The Lamb-White Days were read by Sara Maitland, a well-respected and highly accomplished novelist - Her first novel, Daughters of Jerusalem won the Somerset Maugham award. (See my previous post to find out more about my novel). Within a few weeks, I’d received 3 pages of typed A4 paper, full of welcome praise, and critique that was both lucid, and, as I immediately acknowledged to myself, fair.
I’m constantly surprised at the way I manage to ignore some deep seated niggles of doubt about certain passages of my fiction, and phrases of my poems. As soon as these have been pointed out to me, I know that the comments are valid because they strike with the light of recognition.
I still had a lot of work to do on this novel, and I tackled it with enthusiasm. In some ways, I enjoy the re-writing more than the first draft(s).
When I’d managed to reshape it into a form that I was happy with (apart, I later realised, from some aspects of the final section) it was time to contact TLC again. Would I have to pay the full price for a read of the whole manuscript? If so, would I go ahead? I needn’t have worried: as a previous ‘client’, albeit non-paying, I was entitled to a greatly reduced fee.
Sara’s reaction to my amendments was very gratifying, and, still inspired to aim for the best, I went back to the novel again and re-wrote the entire final quarter. Having got this far, it seemed stupid to baulk at another payment. I felt that Sara had so far earned every penny I’d paid. I trusted her judgement implicitly, not only her suggestions for improvements, but also her detailed and specific praise.
The final (and third) report I received, announced that she deemed my book worthy of publication, and would recommend to TLC that they should offer me help in finding an agent. They duly gave me the contact details of a short list of agents whom they felt might be interested in representing me.
From each of these, I received a beautiful letter, praising the quality of my writing, but, suggesting that, although they, themselves, could not offer to represent me, they were certain that I would be successful with another agent.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
[...] I’ll carry on with what I was saying in my last post , The Literacy Consultancy. Although it’s encouraging to be praised enthusiastically by an experienced agent, it’s also [...]
July 8th, 2009 at 8:35 am
[...] before I started sending it out on its long journey towards publication. As I’ve already said in a previous post In some ways, I enjoy the re-writing more than the first [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
[...] phase of my novel’s journey towards publication. I imagine the package being opened by someone at The Literary Consultancy, who glances through the synopsis and decides which of their team of Readers to send it [...]
August 26th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
[...] lovely rejection letters in the course of its circuitous journey to and from agents, publishers and The Literary Consultancy (a genuinely useful organization, which, in a roundabout way, helped me find a publisher for my [...]