Some News in Numbers
My beautiful cat, Kitty, tawny and fluffy like a Maine Coone but not, was put down at the end of December, age 15.6. My rescue dog Ava age 7. 8 was sick 4 times at 4 a.m this morning.
It’s 15.17 on a cold February day, the sky is dirty-white and I am lying on my bed rather than rolling out a mat, fetching weights and a ball for the 15.30 Pilates class at the health club. I have been meaning to explore the world of Substack for some time – a year or 2 perhaps. I used to write ‘parenting’ blogs, as a mother of 2 children, and get things sent to me -free tickets to theme parks and exhibitions, vacuum cleaners and make-up, invites to children’s film premiers. It was fun. I was invited to write the inaugural set of blogs for Mumsnet because I was publicizing my 3rd novel, Seven Days One Summer, published by Short Books. The children are 19 and 22 now.
I was a journalist for many years. I wrote a fictional column for Tatler Magazine called A Single Girl’s Diary, which was wildly popular. I wrote it for 8 years. It became my first novel and was sold as film rights for 7 years in a row. I then wrote a column called A 7-year Itch and that too became a novel published by Penguin. I also wrote a semi-fictional column for Times 2 which was called Marriage - it lasted about 18 months.
Scroll forward 10 years and here I am again hoping to launch a 4th book into the world. It has been too long since the last one and there are many reasons for that. Some I may write about in another post. It has the working title, Paralysis. I am not convinced by the title but I have no other.
I don’t have an agent right now. I used to have such good agents, - one died. Another I parted ways with. So it’s back to the beginning for me, which is humbling. My book is made up of eighteen named chapters. It is about one woman’s life from the age of 15-50. It is dark and funny. My best work yet. I think. Today I sent it to 1 agent. It took me 3 hours to write a cover letter and a synopsis.
I want to write weekly about writing and trying to get a book published. But also everyday events. Big things and little ones too. I am new here and I will have to see how it goes.
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Very excited to read