Elspeth Cooper

Purveyor of fine fantasy adventures

Page 78 of 84

Ac-cent-uate the positive

The first of my SAEs plopped through the letterbox yesterday.  I had a bit of an ohshit moment, and had to put it to one side until I’d remonstrated with myself and got my wibbles under control.

Rejection, obviously, but what sort?  Would there be an encouraging note, or just a form letter?  Gingerly, I opened the envelope.

Compliments slip, with two boxes to tick.  One saying “You twerp, we don’t handle this kind of fiction” or words to that effect, and the other saying “Thanks but not at this time”.

Neither was ticked.  Instead, the agent had written “Well written, but my list is full.”

I was quite obscenely chuffed with that.  Even if it meant “Well written, but not well written enough to blow my socks off and make me jam you into my list pronto even if it is already bursting at the seams”, I took that hand-written comment as a sign that I’m on the right track, and spent the rest of the day with a daft grin pasted on my face.  Little things, etc.

Ah-one, ah-two, sing along if you know the words, ah-one, two, three, four:

#You’ve got to

#Ac-cent-uate the positive

#E-lim-inate the negative…

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

…I entered a short story competition organised to celebrate the author Douglas Reeman‘s 25 years in print.  Somehow, I won, with a rousing Napoleonic War frigate action in the Med.  This was 1984, and I was a whole 15 years old.

I got to meet Douglas for lunch in Mayfair and was thoroughly charmed by the man.  We corresponded for some time afterwards, and he was unstinting in his encouragement of me as a writer.  We lost touch, as school and exams got in the way and I shelved my wilder writerly ambitions for a time. Continue reading

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