Cementum

Time for assessment I think. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, in that time I’ve completed the first nine chapters, totaling 55,643 words. I’ve had it tidied up by an academic, sieving all the grammar and punctuation mistakes and generally cleaning it up, and I’ve sent it to the Oxford Editors for assessment.

It costs, but there you go, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. These guys seem to know what they’re doing, they have an extremely good bank of editorial staff who are all published authors, one of which will go through my work, write me a 2-3k assessment of it thus far. They’ll tell me personally and professionally what they think, and they also act as a scout / conduit for agents and publishers, a pretty thorough service without a doubt.

All this basically means I’m now deadly serious about perusing the dream and getting it published. Having my own novel out there, really hitting hard what I have basically wanted since I can remember, that is, to be recognised and respected as a writer. I’ve had my moments, my peers have always been very kind in commenting on my work so far with little but praise and respect, but there’s always ambition, and now that’s to go as far as I can with it.

No holds barred, brain custard is going to be exploding all over my laptop over the next few months, and I’ve set myself the task of actually having the beast complete by end October. Fully fucking nailing it. And when I set my mind to something, it happens. I’ve never failed at anything in my life and I’m not in any mind to start now. I will take on board what my editor has to say, who I actually found out today, is Cherry Mosteshar, implement what they recommend, take from my peers and surroundings, and see how far I can get the whole thing. And why not, I’ve got nothing stopping me, and hopefully through this wonderful medium of the social media I’ll be able to make things just that tiny bit easier for myself. Hugh Macleod has just reminded us all, of his conversation with Clay Shirky. Cheap.Easy.Global.Media, I’ll pursue the words I’ve got, fire them out like jets of black tar heroin from my eyes, I’ll let you know about it, one day someone might listen, then we’re all in trouble.

This posts Aspirers Mark is Randall from his Absurdistry’s Weblog, as you can probably gather from the name, it’s a collection of random yet highly entertaining thoughts. It popped up because of his recent post on being the stationary novelist, something I can relate to in a few ways, but not as of late. As this blog post itself shows, my work ethic is some what more protestant than his, but you know, different blokes, different strokes, I hope he gets there one day. Read it and enjoy it.