Isn’t it great when a publisher drops you that long awaited e-mail accepting your hard-worked manuscript?  There’s a sense of disbelief before your brain picks up that this isn’t another rejection slip. Somebody out there really likes your work. That’s when the euphoria sets in.

My manuscript, ‘The Senator’s Assignment’ has had quite a journey, I can tell you.  It was accepted twice by different publishers before being turned down at their final acquisition meetings. ( How I loathe acquisition meetings.)

Then I was invited to an event taking place in Newcastle run by ACW (Association of Christian Writers) of which I’m a member.  A playwright was the main speaker. Although I’d written a couple of sketches I can’t say they were very good and as play writing is not my first love my gut reaction was to say, ‘thanks very much but no thanks.’ But then began the niggle in the back of my head that I ought to go.  It persisted like a buzzing wasp.  I tried telling myself it was imagination. Why did I want to go to an event I wasn’t particularly interested in? Besides, it was on a Saturday and I don’t do Saturdays. A Saturday is traditionally for me and Colin.  I like my Saturdays.  The buzzing continued with irritating persistence. So much so that the Saturday in question found me standing on the railway platform at 7.55 waiting for the train into Newcastle. Five minutes before the train was due came the announcement over the loud-speakers.

‘Our apologies, but the 8.10am train into Newcastle has been cancelled due to industrial action.‘

I stood for about ten minutes whinging about the inconvenience to a fellow passenger, or who would have been a fellow passenger if the train had turned up, before realising that if I stopped complaining and got my butt into gear I might just make it to the bus station in time to catch the bus into the city.

Well I did, the event was excellent, but it was the authors I met who were responsible for recommending these publishers to me. I couldn’t help but reflect on my way home how glad I was to have followed these inner promptings. Wish I’d done it without so much grumbling though.

Joan