Marvellous to have finished all the work on Horizon Review 4. The new issue should appear online sometime in the next week or so; the timing is up to Chris at Salt Publishing, and I know he's always very busy.
But the magazine's all done from my side. Some exciting stuff in there, too!
If you've never visited Horizon, there are three issues already online here.
Now, I can finally start work on the rewrites to my new historical novel. It's been frustrating, having that work in the back of my head while having to ignore it, push it away, and crack on with my job as editor. But tomorrow is a new day, and I'm extremely excited to be writing prose again.
Don't get me wrong. I love poetry, but she's not an easy mistress. Novelists, quite wisely, tend to stay home and ignore their peers whenever possible; not so poets. Yet writers are often the hardest people to get along with. So it's with a sigh of happy relief that I can finally retreat to my metaphorical ivory tower and bury myself in a book.
6 comments:
Dear Jane
Didn't you say once that you'd written a whole novel then put it in a drawer because you weren't happy with it? It kills me to throw away even an unsatisfactory poem so how could you casually dispense with a whole novel? As for your Tudor tome, I've promised it to my wife for her birthday next March. No pressure!
Best wishes from Simon
I may work that fast, but I doubt any publisher would!
Yes, I do have a number of finished but unpublished novels somewhere or other, on disks or in drawers. I may actually have lost a couple of them. I have trouble staying attached to my work once it's written, so if a book doesn't appear to be working, I'm often keener to write another rather than endlessly fiddle. Not that I don't rewrite. I do - massively. But plot-fixing is something I always used to have trouble with.
Luckily, after training myself to plan novels almost to the word, I am far less worried about plot with this new novel. Indeed, the agent who looked at my synopsis says it's 'perfect'. Which is probably the loveliest compliment I've ever had, and has also had the bonus effect of filling me with confidence. Hopefully not entirely unjustified!
Onward and upward.
Jx
Good luck with it Jane. Having tried it twice only to realise my limitations and lack of staying power I'm a huge admirer of those who do have the talent and the persistance.
To write a novel, you mean? My problem isn't staying power, but confidence. Someone asked me how many words I'd written overall in my life, prose-wise, and discounting all the articles etc and just looking at books, both published and unpublished, it worked out at over a million words. That's a helluva lot of words for someone who is only vaguely known as a novelist!
That proved to me that I should push harder on the novel-front. I can do the time, but can I do the crime?
Dear Jane
You've never struck me as someone lacking in confidence but on the other hand appearances can sometimes be deceptive. My wife says that I have a large ego coupled with low self-esteem which is probably true!
Best wishes from Simon
Simon, I suspect that great over-confidence is more to do with a lack of intelligence than anything else. Generally speaking, if you really consider yourself brilliant and infallible, then you're a fool. Personally, I never believe that people will be interested in my writing. It takes a huge effort on my part to force myself into situations where the spotlight is on my work - contrary to popular belief!
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