And it's all good…

Work was great. I did some filing, cut people off on the switchboard, and made coffee. A full day’s work earned me as much as one hour of copywriting with Stilus. And yet, I liked it.

I got home today to find a letter from an agency to let me know they would like to represent me for my third novel. This after sending out about 20 requests and getting around 11 rejections. I think this is a good rate of response. If I was playing the lottery, I’d like those odds. My first agent was rude enough to drop dead as soon as I was accepted, which I have still not quite forgiven him for. Many people think I was to blame, but all I did was submit a steamy sex scene and write about insanity, which he could have dealt with easily had he not been taciturn and 188 years old. Some people have no staying power.

That reminds me of when I was at UEA, on a Masters course run by Lorna Sage. Who was brilliant, but batty. She drank Vodka and orange through her morning seminars and rarely turned up. I know she was a goddess – she had a cult following of people, but I’m afraid I wasn’t one of them. I wanted to learn things like verbs and tenses, really, rather than hear anecdotes about Angela Carter. I gave her an appalling review at the end of term, and then she dropped dead. I don’t think the uni ever forgave me.

Getting accepted means that the primary current obsession of my life is now concluded. I don’t know what to do with myself. I may have to take up train spotting or stamp collecting to fill my time. Or write another novel…