LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We want to hear your news and views on the writing world, your advice for fellow writers – and don’t forget to tell us what you would like to see featured in a future issue…
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STAR LETTER
I hope other aspiring authors will take heart. The mythical ‘they’ who are very good at handing out tips and advice always tell you (a) to never give up, and (b) the best cure for rejection is to get stuck in with a new project.
Once I had completed my first full-length novel and sent it off into the scary world of literary agents and publishers, the rejections soon began to pile up. I already had a new idea brewing so I followed this advice and got straight on and wrote another novel. Second time round, I had no back-up plan waiting in the wings while my manuscript did the rounds, so I decided to diversify while I braced myself for the inevitable rejections. I submitted a couple of short stories to Writing Magazine competitions, and imagine my surprise when I opened up May’s edition to discover I’d been shortlisted for two of them. Even better news – that second novel did find a publisher and will be launched later this summer. The mythical ‘they’ might just be right, after all.