It’s taken me more than two and half years to return to this theme – first visited in My Life in the Spotlight: Part 1, posted on October 11, 2008. Sadly, because of the way this blog is set up, I can’t directly link to the earlier post, but you can find it easily via the Archives in the left margin. Perhaps you’d like to read it first, so you can see my context here.

Every now and then, usually at a conference, someone will ask me a question – one so terrible, so provocative, so heartfelt that it can barely be articulated. I can tell it’s coming because of the emotion and anxiety in the individual’s face as they approach me. Gently, I will guide them to a quiet spot behind the coffee urn or to a remote seat in the lobby, because this is not a discussion to be had amid crowds of laughing, chatting attendees.

The devastating question is this:  HOW DO I KNOW IF IT IS TIME TO GIVE UP?

That’s right – give up. And I don’t mean, ‘When is it time to abandon one manuscript and move on to another?’ I mean GIVE UP WRITING FICTION, GIVE UP TRYING TO GET PUBLISHED, GO AND DO SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY WITH MY LIFE.

I know, it’s huge, isn’t it. And such a travesty of all we believe (we write because we must, we keep trying because determination is key, didn’t J.K.Rowling get rejected innumerable times?) that any answer is like rushing in where angels fear to tread.

But I don’t believe in taboo subjects, so I am going to offer you a story, which is my way of answering the unanswerable.

*******

It’s the 1990s, my kids are young, but I’ve been pursuing the dream for a while now – song-writing and singing, both alone and with my band. It’s a struggle doing this with a family, but I knew I had to try – to see how far I could get, because performing is what I DO, because it’s the ultimate self-expression, the ultimate adrenaline rush. Because it’s who I AM.

The wives of the band guys are getting antsy. Their husbands have got day jobs and kids too, and they don’t have as much at stake as me – or as much patience with ferrying equipment around London at midnight on a Wednesday, only to perform to a bunch of inebriated people propping up a seedy bar.

My standards and goals have risen too. We’re getting gigs, but I yearn to be better, to find a whole new level. It’s the dissatisfaction with oneself that is so hard to take.

One night, down at the Mean Fiddler Acoustic Room (where so many bands and singers have debuted), I get talking to a guy who’s got the set after me. He’s there alone with his guitar and he’s got no audience. I’m really happy all my people (lots of them) will be hanging around to hear him because it’s a bleak place alone.

I come off stage and wind down, listening to him. His voice is strange and memorable, his songs are plaintive – getting drunk on a Saturday night, losing your girl – and he’s just a guy in a scruffy grey jacket and jeans, alone with his guitar. Afterwards everyone agrees, I was better than him, and I smile bashfully because it’s probably true.

Back home, getting children ready for school, doing freelance editorial work, my dissatisfaction with my music grows. I’ve got other things on my mind – I need to make some money, I need to get serious, I need to invest my limited time wisely. And most crucially, I’m just not as good musically as I want to be.

Gradually, I drop back. I don’t even return the call when The Borderline leaves a message offering me a gig, though I’ve wanted that invitation for ages.

It hurts like hell, but it’s over. Who am I now?

Maybe a year later, I’m in the kitchen doing the dishes, radio playing in the background. Suddenly, I am transfixed. It’s a voice I know – a strange, wailing, painful voice that I’ve heard before but can’t place. My heart is racing because this MEANS something important – but what?

And then I realize. It’s the voice of David Gray, the guy I shared an evening, a venue, with. The guy who had no audience so ‘borrowed’ mine. The guy I was widely thought to be better than.  He’s sounding amazing and he’s singing a song called ‘Babylon’. You can catch a few bars of it here: http://www.davidgray.com/music/discography/DG_AlbumDetails.aspx?albumid=14760f81-ede0-461c-910a-e9f95edaee36&Cat=Albums

I’m not jealous - I’m amazed, dumbfounded.  I laugh out loud. I’m lost in wonder that this can happen. A guy I knew in a beer-stained bar is hitting the big time.

And now David Gray becomes ‘my guy’ – whose progress I will follow obsessively over the months, as his iconic album WHITE LADDER becomes one of the biggest global sellers of the decade; as ‘Babylon’, ‘My oh my’ and ‘Sail Away’ become soundtracks of their generation, piped into every supermarket and airport in the UK and US.

The ironies and the truths are not lost on me and I quietly thought them through that day in my kitchen.

I turned away from music and back to publishing, rapidly ascending through the years and ranks to Publishing Director, and then of course over to the US to create the Greenhouse, which is the crowning achievement of my literary life. I truly found my vocation, doing what I do best. I am a far better editor and literary agent than I was musician, and I derive great satisfaction from working with writers and helping them to achieve their dreams.

David Gray continued with music, after I stopped. He went on to become an international superstar, from the grassroots up – the old-fashioned way. Managing on little money for years, he fought through huge obstacles to find his sound, his audience. I have the utmost respect for him, and will always feel a connection.

*********
And so, I return to that troubled questioner at the conference, who’s laboured for years without reaching their goal. HOW DO I KNOW IF IT IS TIME TO GIVE UP?

This is all I can tell you, but it comes from the heart . . .

Sarah Davies gave up trying to make it as a singer-songwriter and found reinvention, success and fulfillment - in her true vocation.

David Gray stuck with music through the lean times and setbacks, eventually bursting through to unimagined international success – in his true vocation.

Vocation is an old-time word, but one I love. I commend it to you now - because it is the only answer I can give to the answerable question.

Wishing you all a very, very happy 4th of July.

So it seems that the moral of the week (in the US, at least) is this: if you are going to send pictures of your undergarments around the internet, make sure they aren’t grey and distinctly unstylish.

I’ve found myself transfixed by this very contemporary, cautionary tale of personal and professional disaster. When we pass a highway pile-up, we have to fight that strange urge to slow down and look. Why? Perhaps because we need to reassert that we’re gloriously, mysteriously alive – and that today was not OUR day to die. And when I saw that a guy who appears to be smart, intelligent, destined for success, could be brought down by clicking on the wrong little box on Twitter – Reply rather than Direct Message – it made me exhale with relief. It wasn’t me. But it could have been – and it could have been you.

Doh, I don’t mean we’re all tempted to send knicker-pictures to virtual strangers. I’m not talking about morality or indecency or misuse of government equipment. I’m just saying, we are all only a click away from making idiots of ourselves online.

I’ve not yet made a huge, walloping, catastrophic online blunder, but I’ve been very close to those who have. Like a colleague some years ago, whose pod was just across the aisle from mine. When a pompous, bossy senior manager sent out one of her famous ‘all user’ emails – telling everyone off for some misdemeanor – he wrote a stunningly rude response, intended for close friends. Only problem was – he clicked Reply instead of Forward. Ever seen the Ride of the Valkyrie approaching you?

Or what about the publisher of great repute who forwarded an email to colleagues telling them what she REALLY thought about this particular author and his manuscript. Only she didn’t – Forward, I mean. One mouse click in the wrong spot and her diatribe went straight back to the (very sensitive) author.

But it gets worse, doesn’t it. Because now we can shoot off 140-character streams of consciousness any place and any time, thanks to Blackberry and iPhone apps, or Twittelator for iPad. Buttering a bagel? Refilling your wine glass? Taking a break from washing the car? Bam, we’ve clicked and it’s gone. But how much were we concentrating and which box did we click?

Some time ago, Greenhouse turned down a potential client because of their online profile. [Now you’re all thinking IT WAS ME! Because I understand writerly paranoia, I’ll just say it was some time in the last 3 years, and the writer came from either North America or UK/Commonwealth. So no point trying to guess!] The individual in question wrote well, but what they were saying online was scary – angry, bitter, neurotic, and needy. If you’re going public about how much you hate your life and most people in it, how might you treat your agent if we don’t delight you every minute of every day?

Then there’s the writer who announced online that they’d already got EIGHT full manuscripts out with agents (so why should I bother to ask for it? The others got there before me), and the one who documented every one of her multitudinous rejections (and then sent me a query). Folks, you’ve got to be careful.

If you blog, you aren’t dropping a line to your best friend or confiding in a private journal. You are putting yourself permanently into the ether for agents and editors to find you. The internet octopus has long tentacles, very few degrees of separation lie between us, and even if someone doesn’t Follow you, they may Follow me, and so on.

I’m ambivalent about social networking. I love it for its fun, its companionship, and the easy-reach information it provides. I’ve signed at least one client because of Facebook, and I owe it for the return of my beautiful coat, lost at Bologna airport and returned thanks to a friendship sustained by FB.

I enjoy seeing what’s happening on Twitter. Standing at a Departures board in a deserted airport late at night, thousands of miles from family and home, a Tweet from an acquaintance can feel like a hand reaching out from some great existential loneliness.

But it makes me nervous too. I get antsy when scores of people I’ve never seen or heard of want to Friend me on Facebook. How should I feel about strangers scrolling through my family photos? Am I right to be wary or am I just being overly precious?

I want to be fascinating and meaningful on Twitter – but what to say and how much? I’d love to supply you hourly with fabulous links to important industry articles that will enhance your knowledge and writing journey. But the truth is, I just don’t have time – in fact, I barely have time to cook the dinner. And do you really want to know that there’s a new family of fledglings cheeping in our birdhouse?

I’m sure you have similar feelings to me. How much is enough, how much is too much, and what counts as a mistake? I can help you a little.

Generally, avoid documenting anything about your querying or subsequent submission processes. Play your cards close to your chest and cultivate your poker face. Your agent, if you have one, will love you for that, because it leaves she/he able to do their job – selling your book - with maximum freedom. It will also lower your stress levels because thousands of people won’t be watching as you ride a potential rollercoaster to deal or no deal.

An elderly member of my family really hated to hear gossip. Very solemnly he would intone, ‘Is it true, is it necessary, is it helpful? Of course, I would roll my eyes. But nowadays those words are often in my mind as I consider whether to say something – or not. Of course, if we all stuck rigidly to all three criteria there would BE no social networking because the whole fun of it is that it’s as fast moving as a babbling brook, whirling us ever onwards.

And yet maybe there’s something in that old saying. The Times of London today exposed the risks of jury trials collapsing due to jurors increasingly tweeting/status-updating verdicts or canvassing support from other jurors. And it’s definitely true that in the books business there are times when the best thing to say (online) is nothing at all.

I suspect a certain congressman, and his Underpants of Doom, would concur.

Pix:

1) An old-fashioned means of communication - Cornwall, England 2) Cannonballs, Fredericksburg - enough said. 

Firstly - this post is illustrated with book jackets from three just published - or about to be published - Greenhouse authors. Relevant to my topic? Not really, except that all three authors (Amanda Cockrell, Sarah Aronson, Harriet Goodwin) have, at different times, been both critiquer and critiqued, so it’s a neat segue to what I really want to write about. Which is . . . .

CRITIQUES!

Critiques – you know, those short one-on-ones agents/editors/published authors do with new writers, usually at conferences. Love them or loathe them?

I’ve done (ie, given) lots of critiques this year, at a variety of conferences, and some of you will already be bracing yourselves for maybe your first-ever critique at the SCBWI summer conference in LA this August.

How scary is it to present your precious baby (aka manuscript) to the hawk eyes of an industry insider for 15/20 excruciating minutes? I bet it’s awful. You’ve tended and nurtured this frail little shoot for months, maybe years, and suddenly someone you don’t know, whose very name engenders acute anxiety (you’ve read about them in PW! They do deals on Publishers Marketplace!), comes along pawing and picking at every treasured word. Don’t they realize your self-confidence is even more fragile than your plotting?

You have my sympathy – and, dare I say, empathy. I also have surprising news for you. Critiques aren’t easy for the critiquer either.

WHAAAAAAAT!? you say. How can it be hard for YOU? All you have to do is sit there passing judgement and then walk away without a care in the world. YOU don’t have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and unpick/reknit some or all of those mangled pages (best-case scenario). Or (worse-case) deal with the possibility that the whole premise was wrong from the start.

Firstly, let’s get something straight. Most of us know what it feels like to be rejected, passed over, mocked, dismissed, criticized or otherwise told we’re not good enough – in ways far worse than in generally gentle critiques. Let me throw my humiliation hat into the ring:

Back in the early ‘90s, my band/singer-songwriter days, when a drunken man standing somewhere in the darkness beyond the spotlights completely ruined my rather beautiful accappella song about genocide in Bosnia (yes, we’re looking at you, Ratko Mladic…..) by yelling, ‘Open a vein, Luv!’

Or how about much earlier, maybe my 21st birthday, when a certain ex-boyfriend (He Who Shall Not Be Named) patiently explained to me why we would not be getting back together – ‘I’m really sorry, Sarah, but you see, I just couldn’t feel proud of you in public.’

Hah yes, I thought you couldn’t match THAT one! Ladies, there’s a reason why we all throw ourselves on to the dancefloor when Gloria Gaynor sings ‘I will survive’. Right?

So, it doesn’t take a big leap for me to put myself in your head when it comes to critiques. When I sit down opposite you at one of those little tables, I am fully aware of your nerves – and my power. I can hurt you, perhaps irreparably in terms of your writing, with one phrase. And that’s why I find these sessions so hard. I want to speak the truth, I want to be honest, I want to give you a golden nugget of advice, and I want to send you on your way feeling good about yourself. Or at least, encouraged, enabled, and enthusiastic about the future.

Is it easy? Often – either because a writer is so nearly publishable or because they are so open and keen to learn that they just can’t get enough advice and guidance. Plus they are incredibly gracious. Frequently all the above.

Other times it can be tough – maybe because the writer is absolutely new and their work is very raw. Sometimes because they just don’t want to hear anything that isn’t 100% praise and they’re actually only there because they want an agent to take them on (and will tell you so very clearly). Occasionally because they have so much invested in this story, this dream, that the emotion is just too much and the tears come at any indication that their pages may not be destined for a 6-figure deal at a major publishing house. (Please note, if you ask a direct question it is very hard for the critiquer not to answer it.)

When I enter a critique I am hyper-aware of every word I say. Critiquing is very tiring because I roll every phrase around my mind before I speak, trying it on for size and possible effect, striving to find ways to maximize these few minutes for you while also leaving you with a positive experience. It can sometimes feel like walking over a minefield. The critiquers will probably forget and move on; for the writer, those phrases may live again, on an endless repeat, for months to come. It’s a big responsibility!

For all the many of you whose openness and courage make critiquing so rewarding – thank you. In those few minutes we can bond as human beings with a love of writing and books, and a shared understanding of how we can use language to encourage and inspire each other. It can be a really stimulating and enjoyable experience.

As you head off to whatever conference awaits you in the coming months, I believe there is a critiquer/critiqued pact we can make.

For the critiquer: To be very familiar with the pages before the meeting (and to have written some notes on a handover sheet); to be honest, with only the goal of helping to make these pages even better - and always speaking with great care and kindness. Above all, to leave that writer encouraged and positive for the journey ahead, perhaps with one big point that will stick in their mind.

For the critiqued: To approach the meeting with openness and a real desire to learn. A critique is not a fast-track to getting an agent (if that does happen, a wonderful surprise). It should not be a forum for a writer to argue with their critiquer and tell them that they are wrong and the manuscript is perfect. It probably IS a good idea to slip a fresh Kleenex into your pocket – just in case!

Always remember - you are paying for this time. It is YOUR critique, so use it to the max.

Going to LA? If so, I’ll be in town seeing film people, but staying at the conference hotel during the event. Look out for me in the lobby, around the pool, and we’ll have a drink. I’m not attending the conference, so won’t be doing critiques – this time - but I’ll be in action again at the Tri-State conference (WV, PA, DE) in Gettysburg in November!

The critique pact. Critiquer and critiqued – neither side is a walk in the park. Shall we pinkie promise to make it easier for each other?

Firstly, I should say – for the avoidance of doubt – that this photo has nothing to do with anything bookish. I just wanted to give you an image of summer coming; a young Greenhouse dachshund enjoying himself. We have to keep things in perspective, right?

Just back from nearly a week in New York, seeing editors, chatting with other agents, and hauling my weary self around the alternately chilly/stuffy vastness of BEA.  If there were prizes for the world’s least popular buildings, the Javits Center would be right up there.

Tempted to go to BEA one year? Sure, you can pick up ARCs and go to signings, but a weird kind of hallucinogenic disorientation sets in once you’ve shoved your way through the tightly packed millions, without natural light, for eight hours or more.  And the bathroom line? Are you female? Forget it. Anyway, you’ll be fine, since the lines to buy coffee are several miles long so your liquid intake will be minimal.

Whinge, whinge.  But in spite of the Javits, it was a great trip – met lots of new people, went to the brilliant Macmillan and HarperCollins parties, breakfasted with editor Erica Sussman of Harper, lunched with editors Alexandra Penfold (S&S;) and Stacie Barney (Putnam), dined with my agent buddy Jennifer Laughran and colleagues from Rights People who were in town . . . .  Oh, and lots more good stuff.

(Sorry, I know it sounds like a gastronomic tour of New York and you wouldn’t be far wrong.)

So what is the good word from the Big Apple this month? What are all those editors seeking – what’s hot and what’s not?

Well, the first thing I have to tell you – as always – is that if your manuscript is great it will sell. Which will make you roll your eyes with frustration, obviously.  Every ‘rule’ is ripe to be broken if you present me with a great, original concept and quality writing, and it’s the pairing of those two factors that everyone seeks.

Editors will tell you that dystopia is getting really tricky – so much is starting to publish, there are some serious frontrunners in terms of sales (obviously THE HUNGER GAMES and MATCHED, but now DIVERGENT is making inroads on the NYT Bestsellers), and lots more publishing later this year and next.

And yet . . . . a couple of weeks ago I did a major six-figure, 3-book deal for Sarah Crossan’s YA novel BREATHE (sold to Virginia Duncan/Martha Mihalick at Greenwillow, HarperCollins), and my email has been ablaze with film interest. We’re also about to announce a deal for UK/Commonwealth this coming week (congratulations, Julia, for that one!).

So what does BREATHE have that other futuristic manuscripts don’t?  For starters, a great concept – a world without trees where oxygen has become a valuable commodity, where the rich breathe easily, the poor struggle painfully with thin air, and where wrongdoers and misfits are thrown out of the inhabited glass pod to suffocate alone.

Told from the perspectives of three teens who set out into the Outlands beyond the pod, with just two days of oxygen in their tanks, it’s an exciting and very original story. And yes, the writing is really strong. In fact, Julia previously sold this author’s debut verse novel to Bloomsbury UK, so she is a writer with considerable range.

What am I saying therefore about dystopian/speculative/futuristic fiction? I’m saying great deals can still be done – if your premise truly feels new and if you match that with compelling writing. There’s GOT to be something unique about your story or it’s in danger of getting stuck at query stage.

Take a look at the books highlighted at the BEA YA Buzz Panel. As PW says, ‘This fall, it’s all about multi-layered thrills, chills, adventure, and romance, mixed in with the paranormal.’

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/47431-bea-2011-ya-buzz-panel-rocks-javits.html

This small selection of big up-and-comings underscores what editors are saying to me – that they’re in search of work that crosses, or rather blends, genres. Dystopian and magic; paranormal/witchcraft and history; love triangles and steampunk; futuristic thrillers etc etc.

There’s also a bit of a vogue for stories that ‘mess with time’ – perhaps influenced to some extent by the success of Lauren Oliver’s BEFORE I FALL.  The idea of a life unraveling and being put back together; revisiting the past.

And what about middle grade? It’s tough. All editors are saying how much they want it, but it’s got to be pitch perfect or they’ll reject it. They’re seeking the big ones, because MG is slower burn, slower build in terms of readership and sales.

Again here, it’s the ‘big’ story that is triumphing; the big canvas, the grand and imaginative ideas.  As PW says, ‘MG can have all the action, wonder, and power of books published for older readers.’ Take a look at the five books featured on the BEA MG Buzz Panel:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/47432-bea-2011-a-bea-first-a-middle-grade-buzz-panel.html

So where does this leave contemporary, real-world fiction in both MG and YA? Again, it’s not easy at the moment – to break through your novel in this area has got to have a real hook, disarming and quality writing, and characters who make that leap into the reader’s heart and head. But editors DO want to find contemporary stories to balance out their list – IF it’s really something that pops. Take, for example, Sheila O’Connor’s evocative, memorable and mysterious SPARROW ROAD, which Stacie Barney just sent me and which I’m already halfway through. A true delight.

Feeling down? Feeling like you can’t do it? Persevere, but wait till you have a really, really good idea for your story – and then make sure you know how best to get that story down on your screen. And even if you don’t hit the sweet spot the first five times, your sixth might get there. It’s been known to happen - and don’t forget that all those lofty BEA Buzz picks were once writers stumbling to find their way and their story.

Enjoy your holiday weekend. It’s a scorcher here!

Pix: 1) A dachsund + a river = a mess.  2) The roof of Javits Center; a metaphor and image of how you feel when you’re stuck in there for hours.  3) Continuing the abstract, design theme: a strange plant unfurling at the National Arboretum, DC; also a metaphor for your buzzy manuscript opening up.

It’s been a crazy Spring – tons of travel, arguably too many conferences (despite all three being very good), and a succession of deals coming from the Greenhouse both at home and abroad.  It’s all great, we are awash with opportunity, but it’s taken a toll on blogging. I’m very happy to have a period of quiet through May and June and will hopefully be able to return to my habit of blogging weekly. I’ve missed it!

To see what we’ve been up to in more detail, do make sure to follow us on Facebook – our address is http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Greenhouse-Literary-Agency/359292813053.

The overwhelming feeling I have this Spring, as we slide into Summer, is one of positivity and energy. In honour of that, all the pics on this post are of things that make me feel outstandingly excited and positive.  See below to find out more about them!

Let’s start with Bologna, which was great and we had lots of lovely comments about our upcoming titles and the books/authors we’ve already sold.  Industry professionals around the world seem to be liking our taste and what we offer – very encouraging to have so much affirmation that we’re on the right track.

Given how buoyant things feel generally, it took me by surprise when I was asked to do an online interview a while ago that felt quite gloomy in tone.  There were questions like, ‘Now editors don’t edit as much, how do you manage/deal with …. Etc etc.’ ‘Now publishers are paying smaller advances, how do you manage/deal with . . . .etc etc.’

It brought me up short because anyone who hangs around Twitter will know that many editors are hard at work editing at weekends, and the experience of our authors is overwhelmingly that today’s editors are incredibly precise, rigorous and dedicated as they go over and over texts in often multiple revisions. Plots are dismembered and reincarnated, editorial axes are taken (painfully) to dead wood, and no detail is spared in the exacting quest for the best possible manuscript.

I hate this negative stuff about editors – most do their utmost, often at considerable personal sacrifice of time and leisure, and we should give them a loud cheer for going beyond the call of duty (especially since not many are exactly earning a bomb of money). However arduous and scary a major revision can feel, all our authors have ultimately been delighted that they were asked/cajoled/persuaded into getting dug into their stories again and again. You will meet very few writers who won’t one day say, IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!

The thing about publishers paying ‘smaller advances’?  Well, I’d only say subscribe to Publishers Marketplace and you’ll see no shortage of deals being done – again a great feeling of acquisition energy. I recently had two publishers in one week contacting me to say, ‘We have money to spend, what can you sell us?’ And several more emailing: ‘It’s Spring – bear us in mind for any great manuscripts.’ While we shouldn’t get too fixated on those 6-figure deals, they are popping up everywhere too! Realistic advances? I can live with that – and your first royalty statement (ie, what is unearned) won’t look so terrifying either.

A pervasive sense of gloom can also be detected at times in my submissions inbox – a small percentage of (usually scrappy) queries written by people who say things like, ‘I know the submission process is all a lottery. My chances of being picked for representation are about a million to one.’

I want to grab those people, give them a shake – and then put a kindly arm around their defeated shoulders.  No – it’s NOT a lottery. It’s a weird, commercial kind of meritocracy, where writing skill, great ideas, WILL be spotted and ultimately win out. However, there’s one big proviso:  the submission in question has to be something I personally feel I can sell, at a time when I can do it, and you the writer, full justice.

At my conferences this Spring I’ve talked about novelist Graham Greene’s theory of ‘emotional compost’.  That each of us has our own personal history, experience, attitudes, perception, tastes – and that we READ from that place (authors WRITE from there too).  This means that we all react to stories differently; even editors and agents have a surprising range of opinions about the same manuscript.  So what I’m trying to say is – I can only take on the small number of manuscripts that hit that sweet spot for me personally - and I will inevitably make different decisions to other agents on some work. 

The decisions we make have nothing to do with the writer’s worth as a human being (though I’m guessing it must sometimes feel like that as most rejections and setbacks in life do). They are commercial decisions and very carefully considered.
But not, for one moment, is the submission system a lottery!  If you write something fabulous and unique, we – or another agent – will find it. And it’s worth reiterating that virtually all the authors Greenhouse represents came to us through a simple query.

The sun is shining. I was in London for the royal wedding and saw all the country come together in thousands of parties – in parks, pubs, and streets.  I saw a gorgeous wedding dress on a beautiful girl – and some truly insane hats. I stood in a field in the deepest English countryside waving my cellphone in the air to catch a signal and a call from New York that would transform the life of a debut author thousands of miles away.

Positive?  You bet I am.

Pix:  Sarah’s gallery of positivity: 1) Royal Wedding pic sneaked into a hair stylist’s window in my English home town; what fun that day was!  2) A foal, one hour old, in my favourite English village; such a happy memory. 3) The most gigantic piece of carrot cake, consumed with ease in the sunshine beside a pebbly beach. All the sweeter since I haven’t allowed myself cakes in weeks. FANTASTIC!!

Last week saw the launch of Undiscovered Voices – an anthology of unpublished and unagented children’s book writers organised by SCBWI UK. Apologies to our American readers, this competition isn’t one for you as it’s UK only – but hopefully you’ll find this post interesting as it’s also about what it takes to make it in the book business. The two subjects dovetail quite nicely.

UV has a special place in our hearts at Greenhouse. Sarah spotted and signed up Sarwat Chadda and Harriet Goodwin after judging the first anthology in 2008. And both authors have gone on to build thrilling careers and make us very proud.

For the second time running I’ll be on the judging panel and I can’t wait. It’s a fun, invigorating and eye-opening job, and the process also reveals a truth about our industry: in order to make it, you have to write something that another person is prepared to fight for.

Of course, the book business is a subjective one. You might not think too much of the book I love; I might feel a bit ‘blah’ about the book you’re raving about. When judging a writing competition you get to see that subjectivity up close and personal.

A couple of months before the judging on the 2010 anthology all of the six judges received a giant Jiffy bag filled with partials delivered to our offices. We had plenty of time to read through them, make notes, pick our favourites and think on our reasoning – and also to put aside the ones we weren’t so keen on. On judgment day everyone sat down around a table with bottles of (untouched) wine, clutching our top picks and brimming over with excitement for the job at hand.

Would it be a surprise if I told you that most judges had a different favourite? And a good few times it was a favourite that the other judges had discounted right at the first stage? As each of us went through our top picks there was nodding and agreement but also a fair bit of shaking heads and wide-eyed surprise.

Every writer who made it to the anthology was working at a high level, with a great many compliments to take home. Below are a few of the stories we talked about, and the reasons why they made it to the final 12.

FIFTEEN DAYS WITHOUT A HEAD – Fabulous title with a stand-out, original voice.

BLINDING DARKNESS – Contained one of the most sinister and memorable scenes of the anthology.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CELIA FROST – Started with some great drama and a dark, original premise.

BACK FROM THE DEAD – Punchy, poetic introduction and alarming, immediate first scene.

In the UV anthology there is no winner, there are 12 selected writers. And while we managed to bang out a fairly good consensus on the majority, getting to an agreement on the last few was like the UN. I wouldn’t say there was a lot blood on the walls of the judging room, but there were splatters.

I think every judge’s favourite made it through to the final 12. I made sure mine did. But the books which didn’t have a champion – a judge who put energy and a bit of fight behind them – fell out of the bottom. And that’s true of the industry as a whole. A champion is what a book needs from an agent and a publisher. And also a publicist and marketeer, a rights team and sales force, a bookseller, a librarian. A reader too. All these people have to have a bit of fight in them about the book, if it’s to become a success.

It really is a truth of our business. Not everyone is going to like a book, but a book doesn’t need to be liked. A book needs a fair few people to love it, like really LOVE it. To be prepared to back it, push, pull and defend it. It’s truly inspiring so see that play out on judgment day.

I’m counting the days till I get my Jiffy bag!

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