On Getting a Literary Agent - the very beginning!

Long before there was Downton Abbey, there was Dandelion Abbey.

"Dandylion Abbey stood strong and steady on her neat rows of reddish stone. It was a beautiful Abbey and a tall one too. It had two iron gates, beautifully designed by Maiya Goodfound, an ancient mouse, who had died a long time ago. Now in the Abbey lived peaceful woodlanders."

It was a novel written by an 11 year old who had just finished the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. Think The Lord of Rings if the hobbits were field mice and the Orcs were rats.

I remember writing it as if it were yesterday, on the floor of my bedroom, one hand lost under the sleeve I was forever sniffing, the other scribbling in blue biro. The middle part was tough. Isn't it always? I'd reached a sort of plateau where nothing was really happening. The rats were journeying towards the Abbey, the Abbey dwellers were standing around worrying about the rats. It was starting to feel a bit too much like hard work. God knows why I didn't just go play.

I stuck it out to the battle scene, and then the triumphant feast. I even wrote an epilogue.


I've got boxes of handwritten novels. Books that were influenced by whatever I was reading at the time, from Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers to Point Horror Books, The Deptford Histories and Jane Austen.

 

I found Dandelion Abbey last weekend in my parents attic. It wasn't random. I was looking for it. I wanted to remember where it all began. I wanted to connect with a younger version of myself.

I've started a book that I'm going to get published, I wrote in my diary, about Dandelion Abbey.

I didn't even know what a literary agent was back then.  

Now 18 years later, I've just signed with Laura Longrigg at MBA. That's a huge one to tick off my list. I'm still pinching myself.

This is it! A voice whispers in my head. You know that writing career you've always wanted? You can have it!

For all those who've been following Spray Painted Bananas and telling me it should be published, well that has suddenly become a possibility.

Of course nothing is certain. There's a lot of work to be done. But I love it! I'm thrilled to have taken this step and deeply grateful to all those who have supported me since the beginning, and who support me now.

"I'm sorry to say lots of friends and relations were killed in battle, but their spirit lives in the Abbey with the 'Golden One'. It is very hot out in the orchard. Waterbubble and Chip and all the small animals are having sports day, Waterbubble isn't controlling them very well. Flufftail has brought out some cream cake, I must get some before the rest get it all. I'll put down my quill and I'll go and join the food - Samskiel, Abbey Writer."

The End   



The Beginning!
 

 
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A Novel and 12 Guinea Pigs

So now that I’m not a Shop Girl I’m working at being a novelist.

Last week I sent off my first five chapters to an agent.

I’d met up with her last May after I’d won a Blog Award.

“I was actually thinking you might be good at teenage novels,” she said, after reading my synopsis.

I thought of snogging and slang and my mind went blank.

I said I’d try it out but instead I continued with my original plan.

The chapters I’ve sent are not for a teenage novel. This might prove problematic.

I’m hoping she miraculously finds some hidden genius in it worth pursuing.

I assume, being a pessimist, that she will give it a half-hearted tick and write, ‘better luck next time,’ at the bottom in pencil.

I rang her up before I sent them.

Sending off submissions without phoning first is for cowards. It’s what I’ve always done.

“Is today a good day?” I said, sitting on the dusty stairs of my shop, feeling butterflies in my stomach.

“I might take a while to get back to you,” she said.

“Take as long as you like,” I heard myself say and cringed.

She only takes one new client on a year which sounds far too discerning if you ask me.

The thing is not to believe that Agents are Gods with the power to make or break you.

They need writers as much as we need them, right?

Right?

I’ve got to play my part and get it written regardless.

So here goes.

I bought a half-price calendar covered in guinea pigs on the weekend to mark out my aims. (It was guinea pigs or nothing).

The difference between a writer and a successful writer is the first spends a lot of time buying stationary and talking about writing and the latter actually writes.

I will endeavour for this next crucial month not to get distracted by the usual temptations or the twelve guinea pigs.

So the blurb: Once upon a time in a land far away (depending on where you), there was a boy (well, he starts as a boy then becomes a man) who in a moment of incredible coincidence discovers that in a land far, far away (again, depending on your current geographical position) there is a girl he needs to meet....

Haha, look, the guinea pig is hiding under a book!

Is it tea time yet?