The Sweet Smell Of Success

Early in my career I remember meeting the prolific and highly talented children’s writer, John Rowe Townsend. He asked me what I was working on at the time and I said, ‘Oh nothing really.’ He smiled sceptically. ‘Oh come on, Brian,’ he said. ‘We’re always working on something.’ He was right, of course.

I finished the third book in my fantasy trilogy last week and, despite my stated intention of taking a few weeks off, this morning at eight thirty I found myself sitting down at my computer and beginning work on my next Victorian ghost story. The fact is, I just can’t leave it alone. Or perhaps it would be more true to say that it won‘t leave me alone – whatever it is.

People sometimes ask how I got my first story published. That’s not the same question as, 'When did you first decide to be a writer?'. The decision to be a writer came very early on, when I was still at school. But the reality of getting something published happened when I was at university and it came about almost by accident.

I decided to go to Morocco during my Summer vacation. I was a bit naïve in those days and I wasn’t careful enough about what I ate and drank. Unsurprisingly therefore, I quickly became extremely ill. Soon I was too sick to leave my room. I was staying in an incredibly cheap pension and there was nothing to do except lie on my bed and watch a solitary cockroach climbing up the wall, falling off, climbing up again, falling off, climbing up again…

Foolishly, I had brought no books with me, but a previous guest had left behind a copy of a now-defunct magazine for young women called Honey. After a while, I picked the magazine up and began idly to leaf through its pages. Most of the articles had little or no appeal for me; but there was a short story and, out of boredom, I read this several times over the next few days - so many times, in fact, that there came a moment when I stopped thinking about it as a series of events happening to a number of characters. Instead, I saw it as pure structure.

It was a revelation, a bit like the moment near the end of the film The Matrix when Neo suddenly sees the agents who have been pursuing him throughout the movie, not as individuals but as lines of programming code. Like Neo, I was no longer deceived. I knew how the story worked and with that knowledge came the realisation that I could write something similar. I immediately vowed that if ever got back to England (and this didn’t seem a complete certainty at the time) then that was exactly what I would do.

Fortunately, I did make it back to England and after a couple of months recuperating I had a go at writing the story. I used a structure similar to the one I had observed in the magazine, though I added details of my own. For example, I based the villain of the story on my flat-mate’s girl-friend, whom I disliked intensely because whenever she came to our flat all she did was eat our food, mock me (perhaps justifiably) for my lack of fashion-sense, complain to my flat-mate that he never did anything interesting, and then go away again. Because I felt so strongly about her, that gave the story power. When it was finished, I sent my story off to Honey and a few weeks later the editor wrote back offering to buy it. Fame and fortune beckoned! (Or so I believed at the time.)

So here’s my question? Why was my first attempt at getting published such an unqualified success? You’ve probably worked it out already. But in case you haven’t, I’ll tell you. It was because I understood exactly what kind of story the magazine wanted. I had done the research. I hadn’t set out with that intention; illness and boredom had been the catalyst; nevertheless, I had studied the market as thoroughly as any would-be entrepreneur.

So when people ask me if I have any tips for aspiring authors I tell them this: read, read and then read some more. It’s the only foolproof way to find out what publishers are really looking for.

The Other Author

I have had a number of emails from readers enquiring about publication dates for forthcoming books. So here’s the list for 2008. In the UK The Haunting Of Nathaniel Wolfe will be published by Orchard Books in August and The Mendini Canticle (Book 3 of The Promises Of Doctor Sigmundus) will be published in September. In the US The Cracked Mirror (Book 2 of The Promises Of Dr Sigmundus) will be published in December. (This book is entitled The Gallowglass in the UK.)

When I tell people these dates, they invariably ask why it takes so long for the publisher to release a book. ‘What do they do with it for all that time?’ they demand? It’s a question I used to ask as well. But, of course, the answer is obvious when you think about it. A former editor of mine put it like this. All authors like to believe that they are the only one who matters to their editor, that they are, so to speak, involved in a monogamous relationship; unfortunately, the truth is that all editors are secretly conducting extra-marital affairs. The Other Author is always waiting in the wings.

The Anti-Writer and The Rat

I have just been finishing off a novel. For every writer I know, this is the most difficult time. You have to battle with yourself because there's a part of you that gets slower and slower, the closer you get to the end – a part that wants to do anything else at all, no matter how difficult or boring, just so long as it isn't writing your novel. You feel as though you could finish the damn thing off in no time if that part would only shut up and let you get on with it, but it keeps moaning and whimpering like a sick dog that needs to be put out of its misery. I call it the Anti-writer and I wish I could kill it. But I can't. All I can do is try to ignore it, even though it's like working in a room full of quarrelling children.

I told this to a friend and fellow novelist. She said that perhaps I should listen to the quarrelling children and hear what they are trying to say and offer some small comfort to the sick dog. But I was in no mood for advice, no matter how well-meant. By now I was within a few thousand words of the end and reaching the peak of my obsession. I couldn’t sleep properly, I couldn’t concentrate on anything that anyone was saying to me. The battle to finish the novel seemed to fill my whole universe. It was no longer just a question of putting up with a whimpering dog. I felt as though I were beating something to death, as if I had got hold of the end of a stick and this thing – whatever it was – was trying to crawl up the stick and bite my hand. I kept hitting it against the wall until it was nothing but a mess of fur and blood but it kept coming and it wasn’t even content with my hand now; it wanted my throat.

I told my friend this. She pointed out, perhaps a little whimsically, that in Jungian terms I was both the man with the stick and the nightmarish rat. ‘So if I’m the rat, why am I causing myself so much trouble?’ I demanded. ‘Because the rat doesn’t want to die,’ she replied. ‘It’s struggling desperately to reveal that it was always something else.’

Well now I have written the very last sentence and it seems to me that only one question remains: did the rat succeed in transforming itself at the last moment? Unfortunately, or fortunately (I’m not sure which), that’s not for me to answer. It’s a judgement that only the reader can make.