Novel Problems

Well, as mentioned in previous blogs, the novel is getting further. In fact, it's now about four/five thousand words from completion, which might be three good writing sessions.

This, of course, doesn't mean that it will take three days: there's a lot of procrastinating, which means that it might take a lot longer in real time. Also, there are problems. It doesn't sound much, but it's set in 1995, and since one protagonist had to do something about 28 years before, in 1967, and then take an overseas course with the OU, this is awkward. They didn't start taking students until 1971, and I understand that overseas students weren't taught until the 1980s, which blows a nice hole in the plot. Something's got to give, and if it's not my mind, it has to be a strand of the story.

When it's finished, it has to be revised and checked very carefully, and then sent to somebody somewhere. This would probably be an agent, to whom you send an enquiry first as to whether they will look at it, and then send perhaps three chapters printed off in double spacing, which is some archaic custom in the printing world. You enclose return postage, and they then send it back, saying sorry, whereupon you send it to the next one, and so on.

Does anyone know of any good agents, or, failing that, ones who are daft enough to take me on?