{Publication}[29th August 1978]

[Redbook2:129-132][19780829:2025]{Publication}[29^th August 1978]

19780829.2025

This entry marks a shift of purpose: failure even to be short-listed or attract comment in the Guardian fantasy competition, with '[T]' (which I am still pleased with), indicates that it is pointless to continue trying to write for publication. I believe that I can write adequately, that I have creative imagination, and that my ideas are becoming interesting; it may be that, from a publisher's point of view, I simply cannot tell a good story about people. Whatever the reason for this failure, the fact is that the response has, both times, fallen below even my lowest expectations. I did not expect Cape to publish '[JW]', but I did expect a little encouragement: I received none; the letter (which I presume was the result of S[E-T, my literary mentor]'s note to [CL]) saying in effect that whether I continued to write was up to me, but that I should not expect to make a living from it for a very long time (if I remember rightly). I did not expect Victor Gollancz etc. to choose '[T]' to win (the competition was open to unpublished works by published writers), but I hoped to be short-listed and I expected encouraging comment. The commercial verdict seems clear.

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