Lammas

It's Lughnasadh, or Lammas; the beginning of autumn, the season of the reaper, but also the time of first fruits. I'm working on drafting a pitch letter for "Ramundi's sisters", and tonight I go home to eat my first home-grown tomato of the year. Writing the pitch letter is agony, easily my least favourite part of this "trying to get published" lark. Seriously, I'd rather write five love scenes than one pitch. But I'm hoping that first red, shapely tomato will be good. I think some of the chard might be just about big enough to gather, too. Here's to first fruits, and baking hot late summer days, and to remembering the blessings of life as I make my way home sweating gently across the baked, dry grass of Kew Green.

Gulp...

I just did it. I’ve made my first attempt.

I just sent the pitch letter (in about its fifteenth incarnation), synopsis and first 10,000 words of “Gabriel Yeats” to the first literary agency on my list. There. Now I’ve done it once, it can only get easier, no? I hope so (I feel all quivery at the moment).

It’s Friday, it’s five o’clock and I’m going home to try not to think about what I’ve just done. Cold beer ahoy (after I’ve done the watering).

It’s been a wonderful, scorching hot day. I went out into the Gardens on my bike at lunch, to see how the Rose Section is looking. Stunning, is the answer, despite needing a bit of dead-heading. One could smell all the roses as one came up the path, even from behind the ten foot yew hedges. In fact, everywhere I went the air seemed to be scented; linden blossom, pine needles, dry grass, lavender, roses, the resiny fragrance of Cistus ladanifer…

“There still remains summer, the yellow essence,
And your hands touching the sea bells in the water.
Your eyes unveiled suddenly, the first eyes of the world,
And the marine caves.
Bare feet on the red earth.
There still remains summer, the fair-haired marble youth;
A little salt that has dried in the hollow of a rock,
A few pine needles left after the rain
Raggedly strewn, and red like tattered nets…”

George Seferis; from “A word for summer” (translated by Rex Warner).

It’s that kind of summer day.

And I have finally made a start on trying to get an agent for “Gabriel Yeats”.

Drafting a query letter...

I'm trying to write a query letter for "Gabriel Yeats", trying to get a publisher interested in it (or maybe an agent - I've yet to make a definate decision on which is the right course to follow). It's unpleasantly nerve-wracking trying to sum-up and, worse still, pitch, my work.

If you were to get the following letter, how would it sound to you?

Dear X [NB I will take the time to find out the relevent name in each case]

I am writing to ask if I may send you my novel “The Eternal Love of Gabriel Yeats” for your kind consideration. It is approximately x words in length [note to self; do a word count] and tells the story of the dramatic changes in the life of post-war music teacher Simon Cenarth when he meets the charismatic and obsessive Gabriel Yeats and becomes caught up in Yeats’ extraordinary quest. It is a fantastical romance which would appeal to lovers of magic realism and fans of the films of Powell & Pressburger, and could be described as “’Cold Mountain’ crossed with ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell’”...

[And then a standard concluding paragraph asking if they would like to see some sample pages or a whole chapter or whatever, mentioning that I'm enclosing an appropriately-stamped SAE, and saying "thank you for your time"].

Anyway:

Does this make you think
a) Yeuchh
b) Yawn
c) Yes, that sounds intriguing…
d) Other (please specify).

Also, for those of you who have read “Gabriel Yeats”, does this sound like a fair pitch for the book?

Many thanks to anyone who has any feedback! This is a nerve-wracking business, trying to work out how to pitch my work...