Update

Firstly, Dave and Will and Potty and Adrian and John and Charlie and everyone else who is still reading this after all this time, thanks for the exclamation marks, lol.

I started up the blog again mainly because I thought it would be interesting for writers who haven't yet done it to see how the process worked, or didn't, with a TV writer going to novels.

Have no idea how this will pan out, as it may be a very short re-start before the novel world quickly tells me to piss off.

But here's the skinny as I have played it so far.

Step 1 - Write a novel

Step 2 - Send off query letters to any book agents for whom you have managed to finagle direct e-mail addresses. [Dump addresses are not worth bothering with unless you plan on living to 120]

Step 3 - Finally remember that sending off query letters to any Tom, Dick or Dick is not the way to go.

Step 4 - Have a good mate who has just had a half million dollar book deal give you addresses of agents who get back to you the same day and are interested in the same kind of material.

Step 5 -Make sure that the 10k words you send off to said agents who get back to you the same day aren't shit.

Okay I had two advantages. Steps 1 and 4. Step1 is common sense and step 4 is earned from the trenches. Friendships forged in the heat of TV battle are like veterans from a platoon hitting the beach on D day. Except half of the platoon are Nazis.

Associates grass on you to the Gestapo. Friends are like Anne Frank's landlord.

Anyhoo, the first 10k of the novel is now with 4 of the top agents. Now it's squeaky bum time.

When you've done what you can, all you can do is wait.