Going from Strength to Strength

Nicola Vincent-Abnett

The Full Nine Yarns is 60 days old, and this is the twentieth blog post.

Doesn’t time fly?

It’s difficult to know quite how to round up the first couple of months of the blog. We have already had a few successes, with some of us securing agents, and  some of us having blogged for the first time or tackled performance.

One or two of us remain invisible, but I, for one, rather like that about us; I like that we are all different, and all working to our own rhythms and timetables. 

I was hoping that the Full Nine Yarn-ers would all meet, perhaps at the networking event that we were invited to this summer, along with writers from New Writers North, and lots of editors and agents. As it happens, some of us won’t be able to attend the event, which is a pity, but I still hope that we will, one day, meet. Kate suggested that our book launches might provide good opportunities for us to get together; I like her optimism.

However it happens, I have great faith that there is plenty of time for us: plenty of time for us to get to know one another, and plenty of time for us to succeed.

Hope is a wonderful thing, and it’s easier to feel hopeful when great examples are set before us. Rosie Garland, who won the Mslexia with her novel “A Beast in all Her Loveliness” is an example in tenacity; it took her a lot of time and effort, but she has finally earned her publishing deal, and, in the process, set the bar for the rest of us. I hope that we can all live up to our promise.

Rebecca Alexander and I have both been signed by agents since this blog went live, and Catherine Simpson has begun to perform her work. 

We have all gained something by being shortlisted for the Mslexia prize, and, for me, one of the nicest outcomes is the new contacts I have made, and the friendships that I hope will grow from them.

Here’s to the next sixty days, and the sixty days after that... Who knows, we just go from strength the strength.