I feel like a fizzy drink that has been shaken up but the cap is still on. It’s hissing and liquid has just started to burst out and dribble down the side of the bottle, but the cap is not off yet. An agent said she will read my query!

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I was very surprised to get a response, but I know this is just a natural normal step. She hasn’t even requested the full manuscript so it’s not the time to let excitement come out yet, but it’s ready. I know you’re supposed to expect for more engagement, but the first flutter of interest is always pleasing.

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I feel comforted knowing that waiting and anxiety is part of being a writer, it’s a rite of passage. Hopefully one day I’ll get so used to the rough seas that I’ll get so used to them that they won’t bother me anymore. Maybe I’ll become addicted to the thrill of the unknown, the adrenaline of uncertainty.

I guess that’s one way to put it. You can’t get rid of worries, you can only learn from them, so is it wise to just lean into them? Does it take the power away from them if you acknowledge your worries, but do the thing anyway? Is that what it is to be brave?

I read somewhere that writers are woodland creatures: they will worry about anything and everything. That made me laugh. This is just part of choosing to be an artist! Everyone is creative, but trying to use that creativity for your career, any form of art and money, means engaging with the capitalist system.

Which I get, and so I’ll just accept that I’m a woodland creature and go and chew on some leaves for a bit. But I like the think I’m a predator that can always hide and hunt unseen in the undergrowth.

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All the advice from other writers that I’ve read confirms that waiting and uncertainty is the hardest bit of being a writer, and the best thing you can do is get lost in other projects.

As well as seriously researching and preparing myself for the publishing industry so that I know what to expect, I am helping to launch a Disabled People’s Forum in my borough. Yesterday was our first meeting after our launch event this summer, and I will help to lead. I think it might turn out for the best that publishing will take a while, as in the meantime, I’m learning a lot more about disability rights campaigning which will actually help sell my book in the future. My novel Alice in Wheelchairland is inspired a lot by the accessible housing crisis, which I have personal experience of, but the more that I become trained in the real life politics of activism, the more authority I’ll be able to put behind the book when the time comes.

So we’re not out of the woods yet, but being in the woods is probably going to turn out for the best!
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(Featured Image is from the front cover of The Animals of Farthing Wood (1993) VHS. I loved watching this as a kid. Apparently this was a TV series with three seasons and my VHS was only season one, which explains why the story doesn’t end at the end. When I was too old for it, I was sad to find out it was based on a book series and my time had passed for finding out what happened in the end)