Not at all, Rachel. very interesting. No, I don't have an agent. An agent took an interest in some short stories I wrote some while back, and tried to place one with a TV company who were at that point in the market for new material for dramas. They didn't take it, but the feedback was encouraging, and he recommended I try my hand at a novel, as he rarely placed short stories. So I took the plunge but meanwhile he retired.
The original draft got good feedback from a crime novelist Sophie Hannah, she saw a potential market with crime readers, though she said it was a 'highly unusual' crime story. And actually, it isn't a crime story at all. It's more a quest/self recovery story. I overhauled it almost from scratch sent it out to a few agents last year and the year before, had a couple of near misses, and am aiming to start sending out again towards the end of the year, and also maybe printing off the novel, no ISBN, just to have it as a hard proof/approval copy. So I am now revisiting it in entirety with a focus on formatting, while working on another spooky/psychological suspense novel.
I am finding that Courier is a great aid to editing. Things 'leap' to my eye, and I am finding it easier to spot, word by word, what doesn't punch its weight and needs to go.
Tell us more about working with the editor and the 10 versions of your novel...and how you decided which to go with, if that's not too onerous to explain?