Why does it have to be so hard?

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The reasons I haven’t been posting are not because I was away on another sojourn enjoying the sights, quite the opposite. I wrote a post some weeks back (Sept) about the time it takes in this writing lark to hear back from people. In that post I wrote that I had sent off a pitch to an agent regarding my short story collection. I waited the 6 – 7weeks indicated when I should have heard back. Seven weeks turned into twelve and I decided to chase this up. No response. Last week (16 weeks from original submission), I wrote a longer message. A reply, saying: “Oh, so sorry, your work must have been sent to So and So’s scam folder and been deleted, for all the work from that month has been seen to, and your file is nowhere to be found.” And then the bit that said – “sorry about this, you can resend if you wish, but we understand if you want to send it elsewhere.”

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Editing: keeping it interesting

A writer at work

I am currently in the process of reading through twenty-one of my short story manuscripts, following my reader’s track-change suggestions. As Suzanne is very good at her work, I mostly click ‘approve’, and keep scrolling for the next comment. I always re-read the work after this initial browse, in case I find any small thing I think will improve the flow, or a word which now seems inappropriate. Why would you change anything at this stage, you might be thinking? Well, it is because these stories span ten years of writing, and some of those early ones may still require more ‘tightening’.

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