Sorry, there’s been a bit of a gap since the last post. As you can imagine, the boost to my writing confidence led to an up-surge of creative activity. A Battleaxe can only manage a certain number of hours each day rattling away on her keyboard. It is now nearly a week since the last weekend of the Hastings Book Festival, where Battleaxe went to two sessions – one on protest through craftivism, and another talk from Caroline Lucas. In addition, I’ve been to the dentist, had two mornings at Mallydams, been to the South of England huntin’ shootin’ and fishin’ show at Ardingly, been on an outing to Michelham Priory, and umpteen, umpteen other things… don’t worry, am not going to write about all of it…
Hah… When Philosopher comes into my room when I am writing, he announces himself as the ‘Person from Porlock.’ (see more on Coleridge for details). Here I am earlier this morning, still in my dressing gown, half-way through completing some hideous web query submission form for a literary agent (see later), when Philosopher comes in and sez… ‘there’s a rat in the trap! What shall I do?’ We store bird seed for the feeders in the outside studio shed and thought there was a mouse eating it… We have a humane trap so put that out, but it wasn’t a cute little wood mouse it caught, it was a very frightened young rat… ‘Let me see!’ sez I, abandoning the PC, and rushing out after him, in the rain, in my slippers. At Mallydams, we are taught that rescuing and releasing rats is not allowed. They have to be euthanised as pests. Well, am happy to help creatures that have been savaged by the cat to a decent and dignified end, but this little guy was intact, and very cute, if angry… What to do? In the end, Philosopher releases him in the scaffolding yard he probably came from. He’ll probably be back, but I know rats are quick learners…
I return to the PC and find it has gone to sleep and worse still, has disconnected itself from the internet. Much effing and blinding, but thank goodness, recover the form. I said in the last post that the agent I met suggested I re-apply to some others, in case she decided not to proceed, so I have been. But what a fag it is. Every single one wants something different. Web forms are the worst – you are cutting and pasting God knows what into God knows where…. Some agents want 1 chapter, some 3, some 4, some the whole manuscript. Some want a proper query letter, some a brief email. Some want a long synopsis, some only 100 words… some want a biography, some not… Grrr. When I finished the first novel, back in October 2023, I did about 16 submissions, all fruitless. Have read that some authors approach 40-50. Oh heck… Since then I have tightened things up and I know my submissions look much better, but still. Onwards and upwards.
Worst of all though, some agents ask for an ‘elevator pitch’. Had to look up what that was. Apparently, it is one or two sentences you’d use to describe your novel if you were travelling in a lift. Trouble is, Battleaxe is a bit literal. Is it an old, ornate and clanky lift with a metal gate you pull across, that goes very, very slowly, in which case you could describe the whole plot? Is it a stinky lift in a car park, where you keep your mouth firmly shut to avoid inhaling pee fumes? An ultra-modern glass express lift in a tall building, which shoots upwards so quickly you can scarcely draw breath? Or a crowded lift at a London Tube station? And so on…
Have set myself a target of doing at least one submission every day and writing minimum of 500 words text of the second novel, but even that is hard…
OK, back to Caroline Lucas et al. Am not going to write much about the craftivism thing. Readers may remember friend Jan and I went to an exhibition at the Barbican, ‘Unravel’ which was all about using craft for radical political protest? Here is the post. Well, this session, with Sara Corbett, from the Craftivist Collective, was all about ‘gentle’ protest craftivism. Here’s a link if you want to read more.
Caroline Lucas was immediately after that session. Met Philosopher, and friends Jill and Pete, and ended up sitting next to other friends Marcia and David. We started in the newly-opened caff in the Observer Building, which was so crowded and noisy it was like a students union bar. Caroline was supposed to be talking about her new book, ‘Another England, how to reclaim our national story.’ Here is a review of the book from The Guardian, but basically it sets out a number of ways in which the Liberal Left could reclaim our national story from the Right. It is true that the right have seized the initiative here – think flags of St George, Take our Country back etc. Of course, I haven’t actually read the book yet – details, details….
Trouble is, as Philosopher said, ‘the devil has all the best tunes.’ The right have totally smashed it in terms of slogans, visual imagery etc, damn them. No matter if any of it is true. Think the Brexit Bus. And the Left? Think of Keir Starmer’s current struggles to define a vision that will inspire people (in my view he is not trying nearly hard enough – but that’s another story). For one thing, Caroline kept on about how there are ‘so many stories’ from our multi-cultural, diverse nation’. Our stories have to be ‘multi-faceted, inclusive’ etc etc… and of course, true… Well, the Right doesn’t bother with any of that. They just rock up with a few simple messages that appeal to the basest instincts of the masses, and zap ’em out there. Caroline goes on about electoral reform, climate action, written constitution and so on, but with respect, that is not going to get the population taking to the streets… She also mentioned a national parliament for England, which would be great. I can’t see it ever happening in the current environment. I’d guess the vast majority of the audience thought the session was totally life-changingly wonderful. There was a big Green Party contingent there, who applauded every point she made, which was a bit wearisome…
Then she had some bloke from Sussex Uni as an ‘interviewer’ – superflous in Battleaxe’s view. He spent far too much precious time Eeering and Uuumming and asking her questions about something she’d just talked about…
But she’s a great speaker and a great loss to politics. Trouble was, as the sole Green Party MP she never had a role where she could actually achieve anything. It was very good to see/hear her. Here is a nice photo I took of her at the end. I told her Battleaxe would be writing about her…
Enough now… but, oh effing hell, look at this. The agent I was submitting to when the Person from Porlock came in to tell me about the rat has already emailed to say No. They’d only had it just over an hour! Eh? What? Usually agents take weeks! What happened about ‘reading submissions in the order they are received…?’ Normally, they have a huge back-log… They can scarcely have even looked at it! How could it be on the top of the pile so quickly? Could me saying as my opening gambit that the full manuscript is already being considered by another agency have put them off instead of firing them up as intended? Am I too old? Is the subject matter totally unsuitable? Did I inadvertently copy in a porno photo instead of my chapter? Have they been reading Hastings Battleaxe? Or what? But then they couldn’t have done any of that in such a short time… Just got the usual stuff about there being ‘a lot to like but….’ If you see this, Kate Nash Agency, I would really like to know…
