What us wrong with us writers eh? We spend hours and days and weeks in isolation, hammering away at a keyboard and for what? Surely, after a few months we should have at least banged out a best seller or two? Let's face it, it really isn't difficult is it? We can't be much good if we haven't been shortlisted for a Man Booker Prize in our first year of writing.
Seriously though, I took a couple of months off work and just wrote, wrote and wrote which has resulted in a hefty manuscript, completed last month, hence my virtual absence from Litopia. I have attracted an Agent and am in dialogue with him as to changes required, but where this might go who knows? I am very superstitious so I don't like telling anyone about it, but when I did, I got a shrug of the shoulders, a pat on the head, and that was it. Fine, I did expect a little more, but there you go Since then, if I ever bring it up again, I am apparently going on a bit.
I actually think people don't understand what we put into it our work, hence the lack, in some cases, of support. They don't see what we are doing, I can't show someone my raw work as it won't mean anything. An artist, a sculptor, musician or a glassmaker has something tangible to show as progress, even if it unfinished.
So all we, the great unpublished, can do is carry on, smile benignly and write. One day, I am sure we will all walk into a bookshop, point to a shelf and say, 'there, that's what my hours and days produced, right there on the third shelf.'