The Task Ahead

After a rather torturous journey down to Surrey, hitting traffic jams, going wrong in Slough and getting confused in Staines; I gave up travelling the back roads and headed for the M25. After that finding my way was relatively easy. However I did arrive half an hour late. Thankfully the agent I was meeting was very understanding and thanks to the invention of the mobile phone I was able to phone ahead and explain.

I was welcomed with a wonderful cup of tea and a warm reception.

We were quick to set to work, chatting about my aims with my writing and discussing a few of my synopses. We read through one or two and then I was asked to tell her what happened in the books. It was apparent from this that my synopses need much work. It was like wise with all the other synopses - I’m now going to rewrite them all. We then talked about my latest manuscript. Once again the synopsis didn’t live up to the sample chapters. We went on to discuss the opening, which the agent liked, straight in with the action, but as we spoke it was felt that the book could do with a short prologue giving a brief background.

After this the agent told me that I should stick with fantasy writing, as this is what makes my face light up when I talk about them. With this in mind, I’m now going to focus on fantasy rather than trying to force myself to write something I’m not really excited about.

I’ve been asked to send the revised work once it is complete, which I’m hoping will be finished within three weeks. However should it take longer, then it takes longer. I want this to be right before I send it. So there is a lot of work to do and at the same time I’m getting a writing friend to proof read my manuscript. Hopefully there won’t be too many typos, punctuation and grammatical errors.

A very productive and informative meeting, which I hope will help me move closer to my publishing deal.

I’m off to write.