David Weller Author Blogspot

It's now three calendar months since I sent off the full manuscript for Truthseeker. I gave a polite nudge after 12 weeks but still haven't received a reply. Of course this could be nothing to worry about. On the other hand it might be a case of no response equals no further interest. Sadly, this kind of scenario seems to be fairly common when dealing with literary agents and I've come across numerous complaints of this nature. I recently read an article by a reputable agent who condemns this kind of behaviour and cautions against working with people who engage in it. As she points out, this might be a sign of problems further down the road. I'm inclined to agree and would not be comfortable working with any agent who is unable to treat me with even a basic level of courtesy. Agents might be busy people, but not so busy that they are unable to respond to an author whose work they have requested. A part of me says give them the benefit of the doubt. They might be...

When I began the editing process I had little trouble finding things that required improvement. Four major rewrites, and hundreds of editing hours, later I was beginning to struggle. After I received a request for the full manuscript, in December, I put it aside for three months. Over the past couple of weeks I've read it again and found things which my tired eyes missed on previous passes. Although minor in nature it's still irritating that I missed such glaring errors. Most were to do with punctuation and I found a missing full stop in one chapter, an unnecessary question mark in another and a few commas which I really had to think about. I also found a few phrases in the narrative which needed tweaking. Having been through the whole manuscript, and rectified these things, I'm left wondering what else I've missed. I'm also left wondering how many more times I'll need to go through it again.