Another Nearly King Jimbo Fan

Well, I don't know. I sent NKJ out to around 16 agents and publishers and back it came 16 times with a 'thanks but no thanks' in 15 cases and an 'I like it very much but it's not for me' once.

So we self-publish and the people who really count, the readers, have telephoned and e-mailed to say how much they love it and how much it made them chuckle. This evening, Andy's aunt phoned.

'I've read it twice and I could happily read it again,' she said. 'It's so bubbly, so witty, and it made me chuckle a lot. It put me in mind of John Cleese and Bill Oddie in its style of humour. Are you going to write any more?'

Of course I'm going to write more. NKJ is the most fun thing I've ever written, and I could write about him ad infinitum. But what do I do now? Do I send him off again, to more agents, more publishers, only to have him come back attached to another rejection slip DESPITE the evidence that people have really enjoyed reading about him? Or do I carry on writing about him because it is a huge joy in my life to do so and if it's friends and family who find him enjoyable then that's good enough?

I don't know. It's a conundrum, and it just re-inforces my suspicions that to be published these days you need that 'lucky co-incidence' event; to be in the right place at the right time and know the right people. Or be famous. Talent, it seems, doesn't come into it much.

Anyway, I am much encouraged again by Andy's aunt's enthusiasm. I am in full writing mode. My readership may be small, but they have taste and I bet they've never read one of Katie 'Jordan' Price's offerings!

Three good deeds I did today:
1) helped a Polish lady make sense of a bus time table
2) saved a wasp from certain death
3) carried a tray filled with mugs and a jar of coffee up to the staff room for a secretary who was having a 'wobbly moment'

Three things that made me smile today:
1) Mrs Slocombe trying to jump from the back of garden chair and not quite knowing how to let go
2) bluebell shoots appearing in the front garden
3) a gang of girlies chatting on the stairs about who they were going out with, who they had dumped and if you went out with the same person twice with a two week gap in between did that count as two boyfriends or one?

One thing that made me sad:
1) hearing from three different Year 7 boys who spent much of their tutoring sessions yawning, that they'd been up until 2.30 a.m the previous night playing on their X-boxes and/ or watching 18 certificate DVDs.

One naughty thing I did today:
1) Ah, now that would be telling..!