Please tell me to pull myself together

[SignOnTheWindow]

At the 11th hour, I decided to apply for the Curtis Brown Creative children's novel course and spent a couple of days polishing up the synopsis and writing the first 3,000 words of a novel I've had knocking around my head for a while now.

I've just had the rejection email, though they say that they enjoyed reading my work and I'm 'on the reserve list' of applicants.

I have retired to drink tea, lick my wounds and try not to dwell on the thought that my writing must be pretty pedestrian for me to fail to get a place. It's an expensive course, so there can't have been that many applicants!

Right. Time to stop being pathetic and get back to it. If anyone is able to tell me that a) the course is hugely competitive or b) it's money down the drain and there are better courses out there, I'd appreciate it. If not, a cup of tea and a slice of cake would be great. Ta!

I give you spiritual carrot cake.

I've never had anything to do with CB, but I would certainly not judge the strength of my own writing on whether or not it was accepted onto a CB writing course. I know other people on here have done CB courses, and some are very critical about them, while others are more positive -- it may well be that there were huge numbers of applicants, or that they were trying either for a mix of children's writing genres or not to have everyone else writing fantasy stories, while a single student was writing a novel about children in the Irish famine, or something.

One thing did strike me about your post -- that you decided at the eleventh hour and only spent a couple of days polishing a synopsis and writing 3000 words of a novel. Your competition for the spot on the course may well have been someone who'd spent months and months on that, so what they applied with might have been far more 'finished'?

Just my thoughts. Don't be deterred -- that's the key thing. The main difference between people who write and publish novels and those who want to but don't is that the first bunch lick their wounds and have another go.

How did you know carrot cake's my favourite? Thank you @Nore. I needed to hear all of that. You're absolutely right about the 11th hour. I got it in 10 minutes before the cut off, so it certainly could have been more polished. Much more polished.

Until three years ago, I was so horrified by my own writing that I couldn't even bear to read over what I'd written, so this was a big step forward. And now I've got the damned thing started, so that's another thing to celebrate.

I just looked it up. I doubt it is crap because Catherine Johnson is a good writer and they are a very respected agency but 15 places is not that many so it is certainly not worth assuming anything about the standard of your writing from it.

Also what pp said about the 11th hour and the possibility they were aiming for a mix of genres.

Writing is hugely subjective, think how many threads there are about how crap a prizewinning book is. These decisions aren’t made by God, they’re individual people on one day.

Well, in view of your update, the course application fulfilled its own purpose by making you actually start writing!
I'm currently badly stuck, and can't decide if the novel itself is the problem, or just that it's been a difficult year for various reasons, and I'm struggling to get down to work properly.

I wouldn’t ever submit anything to anyone, not even my critique group, if it hadn’t sat in a drawer for long enough to be able to come back to it fresh and see the things you can’t see when you’re too close to it.

They havent dismissed you out of hand. They've put you on the reserve list. You wrote out a piece in a couple of days, and they saw enough in there to have you as a reserve if someone drops out. If you were to spent real time preparing a piece, think about what they would say then!

Sorry, Nore and OP, cannot agree about carrot cake.
Regarding the rest, you wanted a 'pull yourself together' so:
OP, well done for finishing something.
As Nore said, it doesn't sound like they've rejected your life's work, just something knocked together quickly.
Rejection hurts. It probably hurts more for a paid course though exclusivity is a sales tool that is powerful, as is rejection.
Use the impetus to finish the novel, polish and sell it.
Use the start to enter competitions if you want.
Creative writing courses didn't exist, c50-100 years ago and most of the canon (though the canon is arguably exclusive and somewhat discredited) didn't study at UEA, Curtis Brown, Faber and USA equivalents so write and finish and use what you learn to write your next which will be better.
Good luck.

And use time surfing and on social media to write (must follow own advice).

You are all lovely. Thank you! You've given me a lift.

Onwards and upwards!