h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

and I wonder if I'm wasting my time and effort. Is this a site that can offer me impersonal opinion and advice? So far the work hasn't been read by anyone not emotionally attached/finacially dependent upon me. I'm already on chapter 15, so perhaps I might have thought about this earlier...

There's a problem with that: while you retain copyright to anything you post here, the BBC also has a right to publish it, so if you do put anything up here, you may be harming your chances of finding a publisher later (they don't like previously published works).

But if you want writerly advice, you'll probably find it in Writing-Alternative. Read through some of the stuff already there, and the review threads connected to the entries. It'll give you some idea how it works.

TRiG.

My advise would be not to show it to anyone else. In fact not to say another word about it until it is finished.

The world is full of half-written novels. Don't add to the pile.

When you have finished it then you can you can decide if the effort was worth it. Then you can ask others, whose judgement you trust, to read it and tell you what they think.

Hi Pingpuff,

Merry christmas. Thanks for the reply and the advice. When I wrote that post I was already on chapter 15. The book now has 16 chapters and is finished. A few sample chapters are in hands of three different literary agents. I have not yet heard back from them; I hope, for seasonal causes. This is my first attempt at writing a book. I used to write for various magazines and a couple of regional newspapers; always as a stringer.

There is a horrible uncertainty as to the quality of ones first book. I'm too close to it to be an impartial judge. Large chunks of it have been read by friends and family but that's hardly an impartial audience either. Since the matter, in the hands of an agent, becomes a simple question of economics, I'm waiting for that verdict.

All the best,

SeaMerlin.