I take a few weeks off work to correct the manuscript.

My life is as follows.

Get up – write.

Eat breakfast – Write.

Eat lunch – Write

Eat dinner – write.

This is total bliss. The way my working life should be. So what if my bum expands at an alarming rate? I feel great. And the manuscript is coming along nicely. It’s official I WAS BORN TO WRITE!!!!

I sent ff the manuscript feeling hopeful.

We shall wait and see.

It’s done. I tentatively push the completed manuscript MKII into the letterbox. Then I wait again.

The agent calls just over a week later, taking me by complete surprise and says… “It’s much better.” YES! “But it needs tweaking.” WHAT?

We have set a date to meet (for the second time ever) and we, I suppose will discus it more then. Oh well, back to the day job for now.

A week passes. The day arrives. Strolling down some road near Primrose hill past the skinny young things doing lunch outside trendy cafes, twenty year olds driving Porsches… I make it to the agent’s front door and… well she’d just as I remember. Warm stylish and interested… in my manuscript. So far so good. She goes through the whole manuscript with me, page for page and once again I think, “If she didn’t think this had a chance, she wouldn’t spend so much time and effort on this.” Around me, sent manuscripts are strewn everywhere. Those familiar cover letters (I remember spending so much time over it. Year after year, increasing my age). Anyway, I digress… My new set of re-writes seems doable. And I’ll go away and tweak the manuscript yet again. I leave after two hours feeling well.... okay.

Now the work begins again. After my last effort, this isn’t half as bad. A few days taken off at work, a few hours on the weekend and I less than two weeks time, I’m ready to re-submit.