My Novel

What is it?

Writing a first novel is a daunting prospect, as I’m sure anyone who’s tried can tell you. It’s the breakout work that can set the scene for your entire career. Depending on its reception, it can make or break the chance to be able to do it for a living.

Not that a career as a novelist starts by having your first novel published. For one, there aren’t many literary agents who would pick up an author who doesn’t already have published work, and every piece of advice I’ve been given indicates that no publisher will brook speaking to an author directly. There are a lot more people with manuscripts than people with published novels, and a good agent is a vital compatriot in the struggle to get your work seen above the tide.

So, getting an agent. That’s where being published in literary magazines comes in dead handy. After all, being able to get published is a rather good indicator that your work is publishable. It’s also a nice short-handed method of giving a prospective agent examples of your work that they will be able to access and skim through when evaluating you as a prospective client.

But to get an agent, you don’t just need publication in literary magazines. You also need a manuscript to give them. The industry standard these days is that you send three chapters to an agent initially, and have the rest of the manuscript ready to go immediately.

That’s what I’m working on for around half of my writing time; getting that manuscript finished and edited to my highest standard. The rest of my time, I’m spending on writing pieces for literary magazines, to build up that all-important portfolio.

Now that the general background and industry stuff is said, I’m aiming to post monthly updates on the process of the novel itself, and my thoughts on the processes of writing, editing, and marketing it.

Next time, I’ll be going over the basics of what I’m writing, and perhaps a few of the techniques I’m using to help plot things out.