Waiting to hear from publishers

Wow, I haven’t written for ages, I am so sorry. Over the past couple of months we’ve had four sets of friends come over from England to visit, so it was hectic for a while, but it was lovely to see people we hadn’t seen for nearly two years, since we moved to NZ. We all went to the South Island to some beaches near Nelson, it was wonderfully sunny, it poured, and then it was sunny again.

JD and I did some sea-kayaking in a double kayak, where it is fairly necessary to co-ordinate steering and paddling. We didn’t get very far during the first hour: “What are you doing? I said left!” “What are you talking about, this IS left!” “You know I mean the other left!” We were panicking because we were trying to get to where the guide was talking to the rest of the group and giving advice, but we couldn’t get there because we kept going round in circles and couldn’t hear what the guide was saying.

We were alternately laughing hysterically and arguing, and even both at the same time, it was the most intense experience I’ve had for a long time. We found out later that these boats are commonly known as “divorce boats”. Kayaking is definitely worth doing again, but I’m going to stay away from the doubles!

Well, I’m still waiting to hear back from Penguin after sending them A Prawn’s Heart is in its Head, and I’m beginning to think that if I wait politely for each publisher to reject me before sending my novel to the next one, this is going to take years. So I’m going to send it to the next publisher on the list, as soon as we finish cleaning the house and doing a mountain of washing!

I would love some more comments, please please please!