Sunday 27 November 2011

David Malouf responds and a message to Irene Goodman.

Suddenly Under a Tuscan spell sounds really lame, but I still like The Artist's tale part. The problem is how to introduce Tuscany into the title, to alert the reader to the theme of the book and hopefully arouse curiosity.

I had some good news from David Malouf- firstly, he actually read the manuscript and has written back with some encouraging advice to this first time author. Amongst other things, he found it 'engaging' and 'mostly fine writing' (I love the ambiguity inherent in that phrase, but whichever way you look at it 'mostly' is still a majority! Right?) but has advised me it needs to be tightened up further "put in its most attractive form" before a publisher will take it.

Prior to hearing from David, I had just sent out another query letter, this time to Irene Goodman in New York, so Irene if you read this please forgive me for being premature, I'm working on a new draft!

To be honest I wasn't sure if I would be up for this, after such a huge amount of work, but as I posted previously being despondent equals certain defeat, and thankfully, picking up the manuscript again it hasn't taken very long to be sucked back in.  It just amazes me how swearing it was so right last time could still be so obviously, glaringly wrong this time round!

What I've learned today:
I need a bigger writing desk...


















and while I'm at it here is a corner of my studio 4:30PM...


















and other stuff I'm working on...


 

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