Seeking a career in writing is to enter into a world of doubt, self-deprecation and worry. I think that it must be the same for all creative people, but I can't speak for musicians or artists, so I have to speak as I find.

The concerns and worries are endless:

What if my work isn't good enough? What if I have been kidding myself for the last year/2 years/3 years/lifetime that I have been putting my opus together? Can I find an agent? Can an agent sell my type of work? Will I get a multiple book deal? And if I do, what if I don't have more than one book in me? What if the ideas dry up? What if the publishers don't get behind the book. Will I have enough money to survive? What am I doing pretending to be a writer? What if? Will I? Can I? Should I?

A lot of these worries are founded. A lot are not.


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Have spent this morning updating the Goldenford website with information on Irene Black's upcoming novel, Darshan - which is a gripping and literary tale of a young Indian woman's search for her UK roots. You can read the beginning here (click into full post for links). We're hoping to publish it over the summer, so watch this space!

I've also updated the News section with the details of Goldenford's June visit to Germany - a Surrey publisher goes international, so all exciting stuff!...

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Well I've just, finally, seen The Golden Compass film. I'm behind the times, I know, but do you know what, I could have waited a lot longer. Not too impressed at all*.

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In "Slipstreaming Eagleton and selling your soul" I and some of the commenters were grumbling about the way that our non-fictional selves often seem more important to the book trade and to readers than what we write, which is ostensibly the raison d'être of the whole industry. (I'm reminded of the vast edifice of health clubs and Away strips and Chelsea-Football-Club-branded wine, which surrounds a postage stamp of centrally-heated grass in the middle of the stadium at Stamford Bridge.) Then Rosy Thornton had an excellent rant on Vulpes Libris about the way that book trade categories, and most particularly book covers, are 'the insidious perpetrator of stereotypical assumptions' about fiction, literature and their readers. And I was fascinated to hear how many publishers' publicists are astonished that Zoë Fairbairns, in journalist mode, insists on receiving a copy of an author's book before she'll do an interview with them, and if the book doesn't arrive in time for her to read it properly, she cancels the interview.*

It's partly, I think, that as writers we've spent a year, or two or three or ten, making sure that every word and scene and character is necessary to our novel, and it's then very difficult for us to bear the inevitable reductiveness involved in any kind of summary or sample.

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Success! I've finished the final run-through of Maloney's Law and have sent it off to PD Publishing. I'm happy and I think they're happy, so that's a relief! It feels so damn wonderful to be at this stage, I have to say. It's come at the right time for me too - what with a holiday booked for the end of May, it's going to be lovely to have a break ...

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Sid, my agent, is having an office warming party in Dagenham. He has promoted it as a ‘Brave move into new territory’ and I go along with that, unwilling to accept what such a fall from Regent Street really means. When I finally negotiate the dual carriageways and find unit 112c in the industrial estate, I discover that I am the only guest except for an elderly woman who is half-drunk and somber and who turns out to be his mother. For some reason I had assumed she was dead. Like mine.

Sid is absurdly upbeat and I think he has had too much Red Bull. He hugs me then sits on the edge of a tatty leather sofa.

“Am I late?” I ask, looking round the empty office.

“People are drifting in and out,” he claims, chewing a cocktail sausage. “You’re the guest of honour, though.”

“That’s…frightening,” I say.

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Was rushing to get to work today, and I’m a little late, dammit, so will have to make up the time over lunch. Or possibly tonight. Depending. I have managed to post my stepfather’s birthday card and present though – but it’s not the present I sent off for, double dammit. I’ve had to improvise so, as and when the other one finally arrives, I’ll have to save that up for Father’s Day. I’m also not entirely convinced the package I’ve made up will get there – my present wrapping skills are pants, so most of the sellotape ends up in my hair and on my nose, and there’s an awful lot of swearing. Still, one can only hope, eh ...

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1973

I’ve teleported myself back to The Muscular Arms; this was a pub in Glasgow, not the nickname of uber-hunk. I was 18/19 and working in the super-coolest bar in the city; life was absolutely marvellous, and after my deflowering I was some kind of confident, as a woman. It’s a Pizza Hut now, but back then there was nothing like it. They’ve changed the name of the street and it’s now Nelson Mandela Place; my brain can’t retrieve the old name. A lot happened in my 1973; the main thing being the death of my father. I’d spent most of the time mooning around in the deep and meaningful words of The Jean Genie, Daniel and Happy Xmas War is Over

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Not so bad at work today, for a Monday anyway. There’s been a queue a mile long (at least) outside our window for the Students’ Union end-of-term parties and they’re all very loud and excited about it. Can’t say I blame them! Though by the end of the morning, they were mostly all sorted and peace – of a kind – has descended.

The rather worrying thing about this morning though has been the discovery of the Dean’s trousers and jacket placed carefully over his chair in the office ...

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