Nicola Vincent-Abnett

Nicola Vincent-Abnett
"Savant" for Solaris, Wild's End, Further Associates of Sherlock Holms, more Wild's End

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Following in His Footsteps


Having goals is a good thing. Without them, I have a tendency to get precisely nothing done. I got little or no writing done for years before I finally sorted out a heteronym, screwed down my courage and wrote a novel. It’s nice to be able to tick that box, and I’ve ticked it five times, and, still, I cannot get arrested!

Five books and no agent. I will get an agent, I’m determined to. That’s goal number two.
The husband has written something over forty novels, and, apart from some juvenilia, he’s had them all published, all of them are in print, in one form or another, and many of them have been translated into upwards of a dozen languages: Not bad for a writer without an agent.
I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be to have the husband’s career, but that isn’t going to happen. I’m probably not going to have forty titles in print at any one time, and certainly not before I’m fifty. I’m probably not going to appear on the New York Times bestseller list in four different categories; I’ll settle for one category. I’m almost certainly not going to win a Comic Book Writer of the Year Award. I might, however, appear on the Nielsen list, one day; I can hang on to that as an ambition, but will I ever win a Bob Morane Award for best novel in translation? Who knows.
Right now, it’s all about baby-steps. I must not forget that I’m talking about my FIRST novel, (OK, “Naming Names” is the second book I wrote, but that’s a technicality), my first agent-hunt, my first publishing deal. I want to get this right, because, if I do, there’s a chance I might publish a second novel, and then a third. There’s a chance I might, one day, win an award; there is a chance that, one day, I might see a long row of published novels on a shelf in a book shop, with my name on the spines.
Until then, I’m going to rely on Samuel Goldwyn for inspiration and remember that, ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’ So, onto the next book, “Title Pending”.

1 comment:

  1. I'm sure you will publish a lot of books, and them will be translated (or so I hope). And any award will come to you. Why? 'Cause you're a hard worker woman. In some kind way... You're my inspiration and my model.

    So keep working so hard!!! :)

    xoxo

    ReplyDelete