Will I Ever...? A writer's life. 19-23 August.
MONDAY
Suppressed memories.
A dear friend lost her father to cancer very recently, and I attended his funeral at the local Crematorium. I’m not religious at all, so these things correspondingly awaken a maelstrom of confusion inside me. Sitting through the nonsense of (to me) meaningless readings and futile prayers, struggling to see what solace they bring to anyone, I’m also powerless to prevent the hideous mental onslaught of vivid pictures of the past I would rather just forget. Sharing in someone else’s sorrow inevitably brings your own back into sharp focus. I understand my attendance was to succour the living, not the dead. The dead don’t need your presence in a room somewhere, singing a hymn for appearances sake – but those who miss them need to feel you’ve got their back in times of trouble. That’s why I went despite my own private fears and misgivings; to support my friend, her mum, her son – to show sympathy and understanding for their pain. I cried alone and uncontrollably in the car for the whole hour’s drive from Crematorium to Wake…but whether for the recently-departed, my bereaved friend, my own dead Dad…or for myself – for the injustice of having to experience such grief – I’m not exactly sure. It’s done now. I did my duty. I supported my buddy, and I still do; your responsibility to them doesn’t end when you snap shut the hymn book and stick twenty quid in the collection box. Their grief will endure – and so should your care and friendship.
And me? I wrestled the demon into submission. I buried it. I won’t look it in the eye, allude to it, or voluntarily call it forth – but I know it’ll be back… I’ve discovered it’s very easy to forget a lot of things, but I’ve noticed the worst memories never leave you.
TUESDAY
Short-sighted.
Sat very still in the garden waiting for my shopping to arrive, watching the birds from no more than six feet away as they drank and bathed in my tiny nature pond. I believe very strongly that if we each do our share, those little contributions can make a big difference. I eat hardly any meat, buy phosphate-and-cruelty-free, and I’m against factory farming. (I know livestock is bred for slaughter and consumption, but why it should be tortured while it lives I will never understand.) I recycle, try not to use the car that often, pick up litter, encourage wildlife on my little patch of planet earth, but I must confess to feeling I’m swimming fruitlessly against an inexorable tide.
Where I live, in the rural South East of England, supermarkets have killed all the local shops by pricing them out of contention. You either shop at the supermarket, or drive tens of miles from independent shop to independent shop trying to amass the weekly groceries you require. I choose unpackaged fruit and veg, so what do the supermarket pickers do – put it in a plastic bag anyway, before it’s delivered to me! I understand a certain amount of packaging is necessary for transportation, and I think I’d be mostly ok with it if it was the type of packaging you could recycle. Some of it is, but most of it isn’t. I turn it over hopefully, but it says ‘Not Yet Recycled’. I’ve been buying many of the same products for the best part of a decade, and the packets have coyly told me ‘not yet’ for that entire time. If pears come in a recyclable plastic bag, why do apples come in one that isn’t? I’m not making this up; it really is that ridiculous.
We have three Council bins at home. It takes me a couple of months or more to fill the brown bin with compostable items such as grass cuttings, garden prunings, cardboard and recycled paper. The green ‘recycling’ bin, however – the one intended for tins, cans, and plastic, plastic, plastic – I can brim three of those and counting in the time it takes to fill the black bin with over a month’s household refuse intended for landfill. The big stores have the power to change this, but they won’t
It’s not only supermarkets who must take their share of blame. England is experiencing something of a deregulated housebuilding frenzy at the moment. I’ve viewed a lot of these new-builds with a friend seeking to buy. You know what bothers me about them? My house dates from the early 1800s, and it hasn’t fallen down yet, I’m delighted to say. I presume these new-builds are intended to stand at least equally as long as my place, yet all are fitted with gas boilers! Rather than the Government seizing the opportunity to force developers to go green, they are instead turning a blind eye, and condemning us to another 200 years+ of fossil fuel consumption – if it lasts that long…if WE last that long.
Give us little guys a fighting chance to help ourselves by investing ethically for the good of all. If you persist in killing the planet for profit, then your big, bullying business will doubtless be the first to die – can you not see that?
WEDNESDAY
Plot knots.
I’m currently plotting Miss Calculation. As the third and final book in the Miss crime trilogy, it needs to tidy up loose ends and answer all those hanging questions left over from the first two books. The result is that I’m tying myself in more knots than a Cirque du Soleil audition, trying to ensure I give my readers the resolution they desire, whilst still enabling them to understand what the **** is going on. If I can’t keep up, there’s a very good chance no one else is going to either! I can see it being a long autumn, as I slog my way through the headache of the first draft. Done by Christmas? I was hoping it might be OUT by Christmas, but the way it’s going, I don’t want to promise what I’m not sure I can realistically deliver.
Is Tammi Rivers a spy? Is she a criminal? Who has she been working for all these years – the Government, organised crime, a private agent…or does Tammi only ever work for herself? Will the indomitable survivor be able to face down her greatest threat yet, and emerge victorious?
THURSDAY
Past imperfect.
The first lovely day in about a month. Out of jeans and jumper, and back into shorts and t-shirt. A friend’s son texted to tell me his GCSE results. They’re good, and he’s been accepted into the Army. He seems very level-headed about this next step in his life. He didn’t agonise over decisions concerning his future, or overly worry about his exams and grades. Perhaps he just hid it well, but outwardly he’s appeared to cope with it all much better than I ever did at his age. I fretted over every what-if and maybe. Mind you, still do!
So much pressure is put on kids over exams, as if the stupid things define the entire direction of their lives. I suppose they can help, in some circumstances, but they are by no means everything. Your life isn’t over if you fluff them spectacularly. Grit and positive mental attitude get you where you need to be; self-confidence and self-belief that everyone has a strength and must play to it will carry you through. I wish, wish, wish someone had told me this as a teenager. It would have launched me into my twenties with far fewer feelings of inadequacy and failure than I actually harboured until at least the age of twenty-eight, if not older. If I could deliver one message to my younger self, it would be to do what you feel, not what they say.
FRIDAY
The personal touch.
After thinking it was surprising I hadn’t had more agent rejections by now, I naturally started the day with one thudding into my Inbox. However, I can categorically say it was the nicest rejection I’ve ever received.
Agent rejections normally take two forms. Neither mentions you by name. The first says, “Sorry, not for me.” Those four words are breezy, businesslike, slightly rude, and unavoidably crushing. They contain no explanation as to WHY. One line outlining what slid us from the slush pile straight into the recycling, that’s all we ask.
The second type is the standard ‘Rejection Email’ template. It’s more formal, polite, and equally disappointing. It explains that your work is not a fit with their current list (or words to that effect), but the process is subjective and other agents might look differently upon it and blah, blah, blah. Again, it doesn’t mention you by name. Again, it gives no information as to WHY you don’t fit.
This email, however, was a world away from the above. I’m not saying who it was from – a well-known London agent – but I want him to represent me simply based upon his skill at making me feel so good whilst simultaneously passing on my pitch. This was a personal message, using my actual name! It explained what was good about my pitch, and the fact he’d had to pause and take time to carefully weigh up his final decision. It suggested I’d teetered on the brink for an encouraging while before he eventually did the classic agent thing and instinctively plumped for safe over original. It heavily implied I’m close; closer than I’ve ever been before. At last, a steer; something concrete to build upon, instead of the flailing sense of directionless failure you usually experience following the standard rejection-without-explanation. He even included a line wishing me luck for my move to the States next year. Now, that’s a man who’s read a cover letter, right down to the bottom.
I’m not totally naïve. I’m completely aware it could all be peerless flannel from a first-class marketeer, but to be honest, I don’t care. If that’s the case, it just makes me want to work with him more – he’s a master of his art – and his short letter did two things very effectively. It necessarily let me down (whilst ensuring I don’t hate him for it), and simultaneously buoyed me up. Flippin’ clever, I’d say. It’s also making me wonder whether the reason I haven’t yet received more rejections is that perhaps others are more carefully considering my pitch this time around too? What it delivered was hope, and we all need a little dose of that now and again.
Annie Holder writes pacey thrillers, twist-filled crime novels, and unconventional romances – set all over the world.
You can find out more about her books at www.annieholder.com, and follow her on Instagram www.instagram.com/alhwriter/