On representation

Good news in the pipeline with regard to an agent. Hopefully everything will be finalised in the New Year. It feels weird at the moment after so long of getting the usual form rejections to get some-one who read my stuff and liked it.

Through the square window.

What's through the square window today children? Well, Jenny discovered that brown houshold wall emulsion paint mixed with sand and granite chippings, spread around on a flat surface with a watery brush then garnished liberally with more coloured sand and finally trimmed with little lashings of gloss varnish looks remarkably like wet mud. Except it is solid as a rock. Who would have known?

Smell the glove.

There is something about the smell of glue, paint and freshly cut wood. It is the smell of creativity, as Zoë put it. That it is.

Before anyone decides to call those awfully nice men with sleeveless white jackets and latex gloves, I'm building an exhibition layout. *phew*

Running up that hill.

At the radio yesterday I played a track called 'All the love' by Kate Bush. It's no big secret that I am a Kate Bush fan, even having a signed photo that says: "To Jenny, with love from Kate" (yes, it is genuine). The track got me thinking, because the LP it is on shares a PVC sleeve with another LP and a 12" for protection (I was planning on playing a track off the 12" which was why they were with me). I haven't actually played the LP in a very long time, because I always thought it was her weakest album.

I've put it on the turntable in my office tonight and has a listen through and it has prompted an awful lot of memories. I remember when I last played it: around 1999. It has sat languishing for ten years. It was bought even earlier on a shopping trip with my first fiancée, Steffi, some time around 1996. Back then we were inseperable and hung out with each other all the time, even being engaged for a year once we disappeared off to University. Long distance relationships are hard; too hard at times. We were at opposite ends of the country, and because of that and a load of other reasons (she got in with a bad crowd and started doing heavy drugs) we split up. We stayed in contact though, and up until a few years ago I still visited her and her new partner, Manda, in Wisbech where they went to live.

The record reminds me of her, and makes me feel quite sad listening to it. Why? Because she commited suicide last year along with her partner. It is hard losing some-one who is a solemate, and I still regarded Steffi as that despite calling off our engagement. I guess it was best for both of us, and she found some-one who cared immensely for her. But she is gone now, and it leaves me thinking a lot about the issues around suicide. I've had many problems in my life, and spent too long in hospitals to forget it. But things are better now; I worked through the worst of those pits of despair. But Steffi didn't. Suffering with agoraphobia and paranoia at the very end, she finally did what for many years she talked about. It was hard losing her even if in the last year our only contact was one phonecall and several others and a letter that went unanswered. I know now why the answers stopped.

There are people I know who have issues that are taking them to dark places. It pains me to see it happening; I don't want to lose more people to suicide, especially when I've seen what happens to those around them who have to pick up the pieces.

Please don't. Things get better, honest

There's life out there on this spartan ball of dust.

I had an interesting letter in the post the other day. It was a five month old response from an agent. I'd actually forgotten about it; after all, that's far too long to expect a genuine reply. But it came.

In light of recent developments I found the agent's comments a little amusing, not least because in the SAE he managed to enclose tewnty pages of some-one else's manuscript. It left me wondering whether he was talking about my manuscript, or the chic lit that had got mixed in? I'm actually suspecting that he may well have got them mixed up. Wouldn't that be a bugger if some chic lit author got an offer for representation for a book they know nothing about, much less wrote?

It was interesting to have a read of some other budding author's work. It somehow made the treadmill of sending out to agents that I have done for the last five months human again. It is easy to forget about the rest of the world and think I'm the only one doing this, but receiving this extract brought home that there are so many others out there struggling too.

Hopefully I'm not struggling any more :)

All warm and cosy.

Captain's log aditional:

Today we had cavity wall and loft insulation done at chateaux Jennïkins. I was wondering tentatively how much of a difference it might make. A part of me thought I might be underwhelmed. Well, I'm not. I'm - quite frankly - amazed at just what a huge differene it has made. Not only is the house substantially warmer, but even traffic noises outside seem further away and quieter. I cannot recomend more highly making use of the government grant system to have your house better insulated.

My little empire in miniature.

Phew! It's been a busy few days. Why? Because I've been distracting myself by building an exhibition standard model railway. The reason I've been distracting myself is because of an agent. He's going through some of my stuff and I wanted something that would stop me impatiantly pacing up and down or hassling him via email.

I started with the woodwork (a fairly unexplored area for me - the last extensive thing I made of wood was a record flight case back in 1997) and then moved on to track and electrics. Now, electrickery is another grey area to me, but I have to say that despite the frustrations, I've got quite good at it. Indeed, I'm now really quite good at soldering now too.

The layout required sixteen switches to be wired to twelve points (some of which were rather complicated three-way points and a double slip), around half of which were a complete nightmare sent forth from hell electrofrog points. There are two isolating sections for locomotives and I've also managed to work out and wire two polarity switching circuits for a rather complex piece of track.

I feel I have acheived much, even if my delightful model railway looks rather spartan and devoid of scenery. That will come later.