I wrote two and a half novels.
The first was written in three weeks, during a financial crisis when my aim was to make money without spending any. Naive! However a top agent accepted it enthusiastically and marketed me as "the second Margaret Atwood". After rejections by two publishers I decided I would recall it. Again naive!
Now it's out of date. I was well placed, by a string of coincidences, to have the inside story on a major international political drama, It was hotly topical. Now it would be ho hum. Also I read it about a year ago and squirmed.
While the first novel was being marketed the agent said to me:"Are you just a one book novelist or have you another book inside you?"
So I wrote a second thriller--more slowly this time-- it took six weeks. Even I hated it.
I tried a third novel and became so bored I decided that even starvation was preferabe to grinding out pot boilers. I stopped.
I turned, seriously, to poetry (which I had always written) and was happy. A singer wants the essence not the preamble.
[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited March 29, 2006).]