So no luck on an agent so far, I have had rejections back but I am hoping that tide will change. I am still writing it, so maybe once it is done I will stand a better chance at getting published though I wouldn’t object to getting the second one under way. I just don’t know what to do for the best, in terms of writing here.
Like I understand my hesitation and my holding back can’t be much fun to read but at the same time I don’t know if the project is ready to hit here yet. So I think until I feel prepared and certain and have my answers I am going to have to start being a bit more creative with my posts.
I suppose I would like to know what you want to see so perhaps send me a tweet or comment or something. To be honest, I would love to get a little feedback.
I have to admit, eight years ago when I first took pen to paper- literally because that is how this all started, I never imagined it would ever be as confusing as this. Knowing what is right and what will work for you? No one gives you a magic formula and says this will work for you, trust it. No one even knows for a long time. It took a long while before I was ready to even admit I was a writer. I was in some kind of closet so to speak. In my day to day, when I began writing, I felt worse than trapped and worse than helpless. And now I look back at it I can see how much writing freed me.
While I escaped from some horrors in my life, or admitted to them in a way that I couldn’t say out loud, writing became a passion, more than just my therapy. So it has always been that wildly personal thing. Admitting that I am a writer when I meet people is difficult. If you asked me right now “what is my job?” I don’t think writer would be the first thing out my mouth, I would probably respond with I work in a supermarket. That is something I want to change. I want to be confident and assured enough in my self that I can say, “I am a writer” without any hesitation. It sounds like I have a complex, because when I write, when I sit down and pull open a blank page, that is the only time I feel confident, when I let the words flow, it makes sense. But when I stop and I go back to being me, I don’t feel that confidence, I don’t have that self assurance, sure I am better than I used to be, but there is a way to go to where I want to be.
So I suppose going from hiding my very personal thoughts to exposing them here, of all places, the world wide web, it is a strange experience. To then go from that to actively trying to get a publisher or agent, that is when things got scary and harder. I suppose to a degree the rejection lead me to a point where I realized I have to really truly start committing 100%. Committing 100% and working and trying to remain vaguely sane, that is a balance I haven’t quite achieved yet.
I want to do better and be better as a writer, and I have come on a very long way from the first stories that I wrote (Breathing Smog, Darling Daughters, Counting Corvids). Even the difference over time of how The Diary of Elliot Parker changed. I know I have grown with it, learning what I want to achieve and how to do it. I just want to sort of feel the rhythm and the path I am on is bringing the goal of being a published author- by a company and not on my own back. It can be a very lonely thing some times, being a writer. I suppose that is what makes the rejection a bit more of a hit to getting more writing done. But at the same time I know it is not impossible.
Nothing is impossible.
May luck and adventure be on your side.
ARA
xxx
April Rose Appleby 
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