An Update

I have been writing these blogs for just over two and half years now. I had to double check that figure because it seems like only yesterday when I held my breath and pressed publish on that very first one! I wasn’t sure that what I had to say was of any real interest. I wasn’t sure if I was up to the risk of ‘achieving’ high percentages of unopened/unread. To imagine I might be boring and then have it undoubtedly proven by the stats is a scary prospect!

Happily, on the whole those fears haven’t really materialised. I receive the occasional lovely comment and this more than compensates for my ongoing battle against my internal critic, who continually demands ‘who do you think you are?’ and insists ‘nobody cares’.

I write these letters as if I am speaking directly to you, as if we are sitting together with a cup of tea, chatting over the bigger issues of being human! I’m hoping at the very least, you find the five or ten minutes it takes to read these letters, interesting. Perhaps even engaging, or better yet; thought-provoking (because I love to provoke and be provoked in this way).

These letters are a microcosm of what it takes to write my novels. I go through the same doubts and fears, the same recurring realisation that with every target met there is another scarier one waiting for me, meaning I have to start again, reset and go through all the mithering ‘so what, who cares, do I even know where I’m going with this?’ worry.

If you’ve been paying attention to the P.S.’s that I leave at the bottom of these letters, you will have picked up on the fact that I have initiated a change of direction in my authorial career – I am seeking a literary agent who will in turn, hopefully, help me find a traditional book publisher. This is after having self-published three novels which have seen a decent level of success (at least by the goals and KPI’s that I defined as ‘successful’).

So why the change of direction? Well, I’m writing more ‘mainstream’ stories for one thing. But mainly, I got to the point where I can’t do it all on my own – I need help. Being traditionally published means more people are involved in conjuring the magic a book is.

It's a big step for me – scary and, yet again, filled with lots of ‘what the bejoobles do I think I am doing?’ moments. It might not come off. I might fail – the odds of achieving this are astronomically against me. The target might always be just out of my reach because I can’t think up a story that is ‘commercial’ enough for the publishing bean-counters to risk investment in or because my prose is sub-standard, or my characters too flat and implausible. I just don’t know.

I do know that I am doing it despite all of the above!

I also know, if you guys are happy to stick around, then I promise I will let you know how I am getting on and maybe in some large way, having you to talk to will help me feel that this risky, heartrending toil is worthwhile. Because isn’t the work of creating something what we all do and isn’t it the biggest identifier of being human?

Thank you for reading!

Rachel x