I finished the last revisions of Saracen Women this morning, and have made the first approach to a publisher.
Now what are the odds? Pretty poor, I’d say from all you ever read about this process, but you have to try. And I really believe in this book, I’ve worked hard on it, and I’ll just have to hope for the best.
But my goodness, I’m going to miss all those characters. Some of them have been in my head for over thirty years!
Elizabeth
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fingers crossed
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One graduation
Yesterday I went to the graduation of a friend who finished a degree in Philosophy at the age of seventy-six. She got capped by Diana Rigg and got a special mention in the speeches, and an award from the Philosophy department because she always brought home-baking and sandwiches to the weekly seminars. How brilliant is that! Well done Edith!
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after the gap
Blimey it’s a long time since I posted. It isn’t that I haven’t been working, though – at least it isn’t only that!
We had family shenanigans, as some of us went to see Bruce Springsteen in Cardiff ( and yes, they were as impressed as all the people who have written in to Radio 2 were) and we all went to a silver wedding celebration. This involved mixing Granny, a five-month old baby, a lot of relations who don’t see each other very often, and someone’s new significant other – a recipe for trouble if ever you heard it! Actually, no. In fact it was all very enjoyable, though it felt like a very long journey home.
Then there was all the catching up with the NHS. Don’t know why it is, but when you get one appointment you often find you have several all in a bunch. Like buses.
But I have been working very hard on the revisions for Saracen Women, which are almost complete. I have discovered the temptations of cut and paste, which gives you the illusion of easy editing, but in fact just encourages you to think in terms of cool little pieces instead of a smooth flow and careful construction. It’s beginning to iron out, and I am beginning to feel pleased with it.
Lúcháir is up and running now, though I have been rather slack at posting (same reasons, lame excuses). However, I am just going to remedy that one.
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too much stuff
This house is full of stuff. We have junk everywhere. Our papers now clutter three rooms and today I have community council work all over the sitting room floor and the kitchen table as well. We have Dom’s spiderman toys. We have half of Naomi’s stuff – and where we will put the rest when she finally comes home I don’t know. And we are both exploding out of our work spaces. I have had so many schemes for rationalising and de-cluttering, but I have reached the limit. I am going to have to get rid of books. There is no alternative.
If it isn’t hurting, it’s not working.
I put this on facebook, and SallyE got back to me saying there’s a good jumble sale in October. I wonder if I can persuade her to take things now?
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thinking like a poet
I am trying to get my head back into poetry, since I have been thinking solidly of Saracen Women for about six months. It is harder than I expected. After weeks of allowing my thought to relax and unfurl and unravel gently and build slowly into whatever I wanted, I now have to try something more lateral and spiky, more concentrated and allusive.
I’m reading Tom Paulin’s The Secret Life of Poems, but I haven’t yet got past thinking how hard I got smacked for writing about poetry like that when I was at university. Fashions change in criticism, as in so much else
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new format
The old blog suddenly spouted adverts, so I moved here, which has the benefit that I can tinker with it. This will help a lot as my web-master is going to be gainfully employed over the summer. Also it can link with the Lúcháir blog, which is up and running already.
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