It's been a 'fun' couple of weeks, with deep feelings of inadequacy reinforced by regular writing rejections.  In addition, I went to the London Book Fair, where you realise that, as an unpublished author, your status is somewhere south of dung beetle, because you keep bringing them crap rather than taking it away.

But amidst all of this, something rather good has been happening.  Without the distraction of entering competitions etc, I've been getting on with the second novel.  And it has been growing, not fast, but steadily.  And other good things have occurred - I really like my character and keep thinking of other things I want to do with her.  The supporting cast are coming up with helpful suggestions themselves for what they want to do - it's great when they do that.

So maybe rejection really is character-building, just not in the obvious way.  And this story has nothing to do with anything really...

Her breezy confidence lasted until she was safely out of sight.  ‘He will turn on me’ she thought ‘I have left him nowhere else to go’.