Limited progress towards being ready to start submitting to agents

Wow, I told AI to make "me" miserable, but this picture has exceeded my "misery" from Tuesday! My instruction to AI was: A woman with white pixie cut hair and thick, dark glasses, wearing a black jumper and jogging bottoms. She is sitting at her desk looking a bit miserable, trying to work at her computer. Outside is grey sky, trees and hills.

72 - 73. Monday 4 May & Tuesday 5 May 2026

I’m slacking a bit with my updates. On Monday, I had a video chat with my friend Fiona who had read the first three chapters (no more) and gave me feedback. I’m impressed, she spotted an error (which I feel I should have noticed some time ago!) about how someone took out a piece of paper, wrote X on it … but instead of “it” or equivalent, I’d repeated that she 'took out a piece of paper and wrote X on a piece of paper.' Sloppy!

                Her feedback, as with everyone’s feedback, was useful. I found it interesting to ask her not to look at the chapters but to list the characters and whatever she could remember about them. She got two of the women mixed up, Julie and Sadie. I enjoyed hearing how she described them all. I’ll try that with anyone else who reads it at this stage.

                On Tuesday, I felt bleugh all day. I thought I hadn’t really done much, but I did finally sort (I think) a very minor timeline about when my character Eric started using a smartphone in the story. I have also listed what pages and chapters fall into what agent requirements. For example, if an agent requests 5000 words, I’ve found a good point to end in chapter 2, the final words of that sample being “he died”. If 50 pages are requested, that’s to the end of chapter 8 if it’s double-line spacing at font size 11. If it’s 1.5-line spacing at 11, that’s to the end of chapter 11. But I've subsequently noticed quite a few requests for 12 font so I think that list will need extending. Sigh.

                It feels like a waste of time doing all that, but on a day when I didn’t think I’d achieve much, it was good to DO something.