Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Timetabling, drama and royalties news

Lots of strange dreams last night about baths which I couldn’t really make a lot of sense of. Always good to be clean, I suppose … Still, at least I did get to sleep at a reasonable time, hurrah, so feel less like a squeezed-out sponge with no soul. If sponges even have souls, that is … Meanwhile at work, the saga of the info talks timetabling continues – some of it is gradually falling into place, or simply falling perhaps, I think, but it’s hard to say. At the moment it feels as if I’m still battling for survival in the middle of a rather large jungle. And I’m not sure which direction the enraged puma will leap from next. As it were. Ye gods, but my mind needs to chill out more for certain. Even I’m not quite sure where that image is going … Anyway, all the different talk timetables seem okay for this week at least, and possibly even next, so probably best to leave it there and not look too far ahead where the undergrowth is thickest. I’ll do that when I’m feeling stronger.

Chaplaincy Ruth brought in a dramatised Bible readings book today, which we’ve had fun looking at. It brings back happy memories of when Pauline from Kent and I used to spend Sunday evenings with a bottle of wine and reading aloud the plays of Wilde, Shakespeare or Shaw. Or anything else we could get hold of really. With the two of us dividing all the parts between us and battling over both of us wanting the more evil roles. It’s possibly the strangest activity I’ve ever done with a friend, but I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable. And I have fond memories of it still. Ah, I should have been an actor, you know, but I grew too tall.

I walked into town this lunchtime to try to sort out having a flu jab with Superdrug, who offer it cheaply during October – I don’t want one before the operation, but I don’t want to miss out either, so I hope they can book me in for a couple of weeks’ time possibly. I can’t miss my flu jab – my winter would be unbearable without it! UPDATE: The nurse there advised waiting until a few weeks after the op and said Superdrug would be offering the jab up until Christmas, so I’ll have to think about it again in November. Ah well, always good to have something to look forward to in the diary indeed.

Oh and PD Publishing have emailed to say that the first quarterly royalty statement for Maloney’s Law is in the post, presumably to the agent. Hmm, something else to worry about then – as my usual poor sales, which up to today I’ve managed to keep from the agent, will from now on be pretty obvious, I assume. Groan. Still, at least that does mean he’ll have to contact me in some way, even if only to wonder why he’s representing me at all … Which I can understand, to be honest – authors like me who aren’t commercially successful by any measure are not what the up-and-coming agent needs on his books. Anyway, all I can do is wait for the news, whatever it may bring, to filter through at some point, I suppose. Sigh.

Tonight, it’s Claudia and the Strictly Come Dancing gossip again, and I might try to watch the video of Jodi Kidd in Who Do You Think You Are too. We’ll see.

Time since The Gifting submission with no response: 4 months, 1 week, 4 days
Time since The Bones of Summer agent submission: 3 days

Today’s nice things:

1. Feeling less exhausted
2. Remembering drama evenings
3. TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Better to have a royalty statement than none at all!

As a rule, agents do tend to be more attentive towards the authors raking in the millions, but they ignore the little guys at their peril!

Anne Brooke said...

True - though still not received of course!

:))

Axxx