A difficult first third, or at least 80odd pages, that’s what I’m hearing. That’s all right, useful. I’ve begun my edit now. It’s startling to see what I couldn’t before. The distance has done its work. My writing was or is a huge mess of typos, an entire missing section, awkward phrases. The Story is all there, though. And eventually it’s a “page turner” according to some readers who have ploughed through. I think they must love me to get to the end of this draft. It’s pretty hard work with all the errors of style and judgement the readers’ first draft contains.

A good thing is that I like it. I like this weird story, and it’s getting to me. A strange thing about your own work? To feel sorry or happy for the characters in it? I made them up didn’t I? They’re not real.

I entered a tweet pitch to #pitchCB and a few agents ‘favourited’ it. #PitchCB runs on the last Friday of each month via the Curtis Brown and Conville & Walsh agencies. A virtual thumbs up means an invitation to submit. Considering I’m carrying out a major reconstruction of my manuscript it was probably quite daft to pitch right now. Anyway. I have sent them the first two chapters and a synopsis. Maybe nothing will come of it.

By the next month’s blog post I hope to have finished the next draft. Wish me luck.