Writing in the blog of the magazine Prospect the journalist Craig Brown confesses to having very little recall of anything he reads: ‘The moment I finish a book, my memory ejects the names and professions of the main characters, their relation to one another and their causes for celebration or complaint… A year on, all that remains of a novel is a vague atmosphere, and maybe one or two random scenes’. Here’s the link to the article.
I have exactly the same problem with the books I write. Once I’ve truly finished a book, by which I mean that it’s been edited, copy edited, proof read and published, I forget all about it. What mattered to me was completing it, making that bit of my imagination real. Once it’s out there, I can relax and let it go about its business by itself.
The trouble is the reading public only encounters my books a considerable time after I’ve finished with them. Whenever I visit schools or take part in festivals, readers always ask me complicated questions about the motives and machinations of the characters and I find myself struggling desperately to work out the answers.
‘So why is Beatrice different from the other children?’ a frighteningly intelligent fourteen year old called Harriet asks me.
Beatrice, I think to myself. Which book is this? Oh yes, The Hollow People. Now what happens in that? Oh I remember! She’s the girl whose parents are doctors. But why is she different from the other children?
All the time that the cogs in my brain are grinding away, Harriet continues to fix me with her earnest gaze.
That girl will grow up to be Prime Minister, I think to myself. She’s so confident, so thoughtful, so idealistic. Wait a minute! Of course! That’s the reason.
‘Because Beatrice is idealistic,’ I tell Harriet.
She nods approvingly. It was the right answer.
Craig Brown agonises about his lack of recall for a while but concludes that it doesn’t really matter because reading is about the minute by minute pleasure of following the story, not a kind of self-improving acquisitiveness. He’s absolutely right. And as far as I’m concerned the same thing is true of writing. I do it for the joy of making up a story. What does it matter if I can’t remember much about it afterwards? After all, Harriet can.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Friday, 24 July 2009
Other People's Dreams
Thomas Vaughan, the seventeenth century alchemist, wrote that to aspire to occult knowledge four things are necessary: to know, to dare, to will and to be silent. That’s pretty good advice for writers, too - especially the last part. Keeping your mouth shut about those glittering lights in the distance is one of the hardest things you have to learn.
It’s so tempting to talk about your work before it’s properly finished but it’s rarely a good idea. The danger is that you talk away some of the inspiration. You say so much about your story that when you actually sit down to write you find you are slightly bored by the prospect. You’ve used up some of the psychic energy that you need to keep you going through the long process of writing and now you find yourself inventing activities to distract you from writing. Eventually so much time has elapsed since you felt really excited about your story that you just quietly forget about it.
Losing interest isn’t the only danger that ensues from giving in to the temptation to talk too much about what you’re doing. There’s also the question of losing face. Every writer knows about this because it can happen to you at every stage and if it hasn’t done yet, I guarantee you it will sooner or later.
You get excited because an agent has asked to see the whole manuscript, because a publisher writes you a nice letter, because you’ve been shortlisted for an award, because a film company has optioned the rights – whatever. You allow yourself to dream. Before you know where you are, the dream is leaking out. You start by telling your partner, then you find yourself telling members of your family, then close friends; soon everybody knows. And then when the whole thing falls apart in your hands, you feel such a fool.
Let’s face it, the whole business of writing is full of opportunities for humiliation. Two close friends of mine are currently going through the process of sending off their novels to agents and I’m watching them absorb the pain when those manuscripts come back with a note saying that the agent just doesn’t quite love it enough.
Every day of the week someone says to me, ‘It must be wonderful being a writer.’ And of course it is. But it’s a long road and when you look down you see that you are walking on other people’s dreams.
It’s so tempting to talk about your work before it’s properly finished but it’s rarely a good idea. The danger is that you talk away some of the inspiration. You say so much about your story that when you actually sit down to write you find you are slightly bored by the prospect. You’ve used up some of the psychic energy that you need to keep you going through the long process of writing and now you find yourself inventing activities to distract you from writing. Eventually so much time has elapsed since you felt really excited about your story that you just quietly forget about it.
Losing interest isn’t the only danger that ensues from giving in to the temptation to talk too much about what you’re doing. There’s also the question of losing face. Every writer knows about this because it can happen to you at every stage and if it hasn’t done yet, I guarantee you it will sooner or later.
You get excited because an agent has asked to see the whole manuscript, because a publisher writes you a nice letter, because you’ve been shortlisted for an award, because a film company has optioned the rights – whatever. You allow yourself to dream. Before you know where you are, the dream is leaking out. You start by telling your partner, then you find yourself telling members of your family, then close friends; soon everybody knows. And then when the whole thing falls apart in your hands, you feel such a fool.
Let’s face it, the whole business of writing is full of opportunities for humiliation. Two close friends of mine are currently going through the process of sending off their novels to agents and I’m watching them absorb the pain when those manuscripts come back with a note saying that the agent just doesn’t quite love it enough.
Every day of the week someone says to me, ‘It must be wonderful being a writer.’ And of course it is. But it’s a long road and when you look down you see that you are walking on other people’s dreams.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
The Perils Of Writing Fantasy
Last night my wife woke me in the middle of the night. I had been sitting up in bed yelling in terror. Even after she woke me, it took a long time for me to understand where I was and to be convinced that I really wasn’t in any danger. I sat there, trying not to hyperventilate while she told me over and over again in the voice one might use to calm a bewildered infant that it was all right, that I’d just been dreaming.
When I tried to describe my dream it sounded comical, ridiculous; but to me it had been simply horrific. I had dreamed that a demon had come into the room and was standing beside my bed. It was bottle green in colour and its skin was leathery, like a lizard’s. It wasn’t a conventional devil with horns and tail. It looked more or less like a man though it was smaller, but not as small as a child, and it radiated malice. I had no doubt that it had come to kill me or worse. I also knew that it was my fault that it was there. Somehow or other I had summoned it.
I wish my mind was not so leaky. Then all this stuff would stay in the part of my imagination that is reserved for writing books.
When I tried to describe my dream it sounded comical, ridiculous; but to me it had been simply horrific. I had dreamed that a demon had come into the room and was standing beside my bed. It was bottle green in colour and its skin was leathery, like a lizard’s. It wasn’t a conventional devil with horns and tail. It looked more or less like a man though it was smaller, but not as small as a child, and it radiated malice. I had no doubt that it had come to kill me or worse. I also knew that it was my fault that it was there. Somehow or other I had summoned it.
I wish my mind was not so leaky. Then all this stuff would stay in the part of my imagination that is reserved for writing books.
Monday, 13 July 2009
The Invisible Hat
On Thursday I’m off to Pembroke College Cambridge to talk to Creative Writing students from the University of Southern California about writing for children. I did the same thing last year and I began by showing them three passages, two of which were by writers for adults and one of which was by a children’s writer.
The texts in question were excerpts from Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell and The Shell House by Linda Newberry, the latter being the book for young people.
I asked them to decide which was the children’s book. One hundred per cent of the audience got it wrong and a substantial proportion said that the one book they were certain was not for children was The Shell House.
This was a perfect result for me because it provided just the springboard I wanted to talk about what exactly we understand by writing for children. It’s my contention that most adults, even many of those who express an intention to write a children’s book, haven’t the slightest notion what writing for children is all about.
Most people imagine that the line of differentiation is drawn in the area of subject matter. Put simply the question they ask is: has it got sex in it? If the answer is yes, then it’s not a children’s book. If the answer is no, then maybe it is.
In speech you automatically shuffle different personae all the time, adopting one voice and register for a friend, another for a police officer who wants to see your driving licence, another for a university tutor, and another for your five year old nephew or niece.
Getting the persona right for a children’s book means understanding children, which usually means liking children. Not just in the abstract either. You have to have experience of how children look at the world and you obtain that by getting down to their level, by talking to them, by playing with them, by enjoying their jokes, by seeing how absurd and how incredibly boring most of the adult word looks from down there.
Writing is a kind of acting. Every time you sit down to write you do a kind of magic act, changing your personality, putting on an invisible author’s hat. But the hat that children’s authors wear hangs on a different peg, in a different closet. You won’t find it as easily as you expected. If you want to know where to look, you have to ask a child.
The texts in question were excerpts from Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell and The Shell House by Linda Newberry, the latter being the book for young people.
I asked them to decide which was the children’s book. One hundred per cent of the audience got it wrong and a substantial proportion said that the one book they were certain was not for children was The Shell House.
This was a perfect result for me because it provided just the springboard I wanted to talk about what exactly we understand by writing for children. It’s my contention that most adults, even many of those who express an intention to write a children’s book, haven’t the slightest notion what writing for children is all about.
Most people imagine that the line of differentiation is drawn in the area of subject matter. Put simply the question they ask is: has it got sex in it? If the answer is yes, then it’s not a children’s book. If the answer is no, then maybe it is.
In speech you automatically shuffle different personae all the time, adopting one voice and register for a friend, another for a police officer who wants to see your driving licence, another for a university tutor, and another for your five year old nephew or niece.
Getting the persona right for a children’s book means understanding children, which usually means liking children. Not just in the abstract either. You have to have experience of how children look at the world and you obtain that by getting down to their level, by talking to them, by playing with them, by enjoying their jokes, by seeing how absurd and how incredibly boring most of the adult word looks from down there.
Writing is a kind of acting. Every time you sit down to write you do a kind of magic act, changing your personality, putting on an invisible author’s hat. But the hat that children’s authors wear hangs on a different peg, in a different closet. You won’t find it as easily as you expected. If you want to know where to look, you have to ask a child.
Friday, 10 July 2009
Jigsaws
When writers get together, what do they talk about? Publishers, of course. So at the award ceremony I recently attended there was a great deal of exchange of opinion, news and just plain gossip.
One thing we all agreed on was that publishers and writers see books quite differently. This difference isn’t always easy for new writers to grasp but it’s something you need to understand if you want to build any kind of a career as a published author.
Basically, the difference is this. The writer sees himself or herself as the individual responsible for creating the book. It’s his book, or her book, and all the others who deal with it – editors, designers, publicity and marketing people et al are simply a necessary evil that has to be endured in order to bring the book to the attention of the reading public.
To publishers, however, the writer is only one part of a complicated jigsaw. To create a successful book, all the parts of that jigsaw must fit perfectly into place. From their point of view the cover designer may well be as important as the author because as everyone knows, it’s covers that sell books. The marketing and publicity people, the sales reps who fight tooth and nail to get the book into chains, the distributors, the accountants all play their part in the life of the book.
Furthermore, there is another, larger jigsaw which must fall into place around the smaller jigsaw that is the book. This larger jigsaw is the market. It’s a complex, multi-dimensional and ever-changing puzzle. Pieces are always morphing, assuming new shapes and colours, dropping in and out of place. As a result, holes regularly appear in the jigsaw - fascinating holes because if you can find a piece of your own to fit them you may be richly rewarded.
So publishers study the shapes of these holes and try to imagine books that will fill them perfectly. They look around hopefully for manuscripts that are already nearly the right shape, that just need trimming and polishing to slot neatly into place.
Sadly, we writers are always disappointing them. We produce manuscripts that have their own unique shape, that to publisher’ eyes will never fit into any of those fascinating, money-making holes, however much they are trimmed and polished. We fondly imagine that the jigsaw that is the market can somehow be amended so that our book will fit in. But it never happens that way round. It’s always the piece that has to change, not the puzzle.
One thing we all agreed on was that publishers and writers see books quite differently. This difference isn’t always easy for new writers to grasp but it’s something you need to understand if you want to build any kind of a career as a published author.
Basically, the difference is this. The writer sees himself or herself as the individual responsible for creating the book. It’s his book, or her book, and all the others who deal with it – editors, designers, publicity and marketing people et al are simply a necessary evil that has to be endured in order to bring the book to the attention of the reading public.
To publishers, however, the writer is only one part of a complicated jigsaw. To create a successful book, all the parts of that jigsaw must fit perfectly into place. From their point of view the cover designer may well be as important as the author because as everyone knows, it’s covers that sell books. The marketing and publicity people, the sales reps who fight tooth and nail to get the book into chains, the distributors, the accountants all play their part in the life of the book.
Furthermore, there is another, larger jigsaw which must fall into place around the smaller jigsaw that is the book. This larger jigsaw is the market. It’s a complex, multi-dimensional and ever-changing puzzle. Pieces are always morphing, assuming new shapes and colours, dropping in and out of place. As a result, holes regularly appear in the jigsaw - fascinating holes because if you can find a piece of your own to fit them you may be richly rewarded.
So publishers study the shapes of these holes and try to imagine books that will fill them perfectly. They look around hopefully for manuscripts that are already nearly the right shape, that just need trimming and polishing to slot neatly into place.
Sadly, we writers are always disappointing them. We produce manuscripts that have their own unique shape, that to publisher’ eyes will never fit into any of those fascinating, money-making holes, however much they are trimmed and polished. We fondly imagine that the jigsaw that is the market can somehow be amended so that our book will fit in. But it never happens that way round. It’s always the piece that has to change, not the puzzle.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Living Dangerously
Well I didn’t win the award. It was won by Shadow Forest by Mat Haig, which I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t read. But I will. It was a very well organised and rewarding event, and it was extremely enjoyable meeting the other authors.
There were just a couple of flies in the ointment. The first was the hotel which was really pretty grim. There’s a tv programme in the UK called The Hotel Inspector in which a successful hotelier goes along to failing hotels and tries to turn them round. This place ought to be next on her list in my opinion.
That was down to the local council who funded the event. The other problem was entirely my mistake. I haven’t had anything alcoholic to drink for at least eighteen months. But when I was having dinner with two of the other authors someone said, ‘Shall we have a bottle of wine?’ and I thought, ‘Why not? It is a bloody award ceremony, after all.’
I only had two glasses but the next morning I felt like Tutankhammen – very, very old, utterly desiccated and with a shocking headache. It was as if I’d never learnt to drink alcohol at all, as if I was about sixteen and starting all over again on cheap cider.
Since that was no way to start a day of delivering inspiring talks to enthusiastic children and dedicated librarians, I had to resort to more biochemical intervention. First I tried paracetamol but that had absolutely no effect. So there was only one thing for it – caffeine. For a brief instant I flirted with the idea of coffee but I knew that would have been madness. It took me so long to get off it in the first place, I couldn’t go through that again.
So it had to be tea. I had about four cups one after the other. And what a difference it made. I felt like I had amphetamine sulphate rushing through my veins. Soon I was ready to talk to anyone about anything. I was enthusiastic, I was excited, I was caffienated.
Now it’s much later and I’m back home after spending a lot of hours on trains. It’s not even nine thirty and I’m dying to go to bed but I know I won’t be able to sleep. That’s drugs, for you I suppose. When you’re an old man you just can’t cope with them. From tomorrow it’s back to clean living.
There were just a couple of flies in the ointment. The first was the hotel which was really pretty grim. There’s a tv programme in the UK called The Hotel Inspector in which a successful hotelier goes along to failing hotels and tries to turn them round. This place ought to be next on her list in my opinion.
That was down to the local council who funded the event. The other problem was entirely my mistake. I haven’t had anything alcoholic to drink for at least eighteen months. But when I was having dinner with two of the other authors someone said, ‘Shall we have a bottle of wine?’ and I thought, ‘Why not? It is a bloody award ceremony, after all.’
I only had two glasses but the next morning I felt like Tutankhammen – very, very old, utterly desiccated and with a shocking headache. It was as if I’d never learnt to drink alcohol at all, as if I was about sixteen and starting all over again on cheap cider.
Since that was no way to start a day of delivering inspiring talks to enthusiastic children and dedicated librarians, I had to resort to more biochemical intervention. First I tried paracetamol but that had absolutely no effect. So there was only one thing for it – caffeine. For a brief instant I flirted with the idea of coffee but I knew that would have been madness. It took me so long to get off it in the first place, I couldn’t go through that again.
So it had to be tea. I had about four cups one after the other. And what a difference it made. I felt like I had amphetamine sulphate rushing through my veins. Soon I was ready to talk to anyone about anything. I was enthusiastic, I was excited, I was caffienated.
Now it’s much later and I’m back home after spending a lot of hours on trains. It’s not even nine thirty and I’m dying to go to bed but I know I won’t be able to sleep. That’s drugs, for you I suppose. When you’re an old man you just can’t cope with them. From tomorrow it’s back to clean living.
Friday, 3 July 2009
The Magic Spell
Have you ever heard your voice on an answering machine and cringed? Has someone every handed you a photo saying, Here’s a good one of you? And you find yourself thinking, 'That’s a good photo of me! Oh my god, what’s a bad photo like?’
Not many of us really like the way we are. But what can you do about it? Well you could have voice-training lessons or go in for radical plastic surgery, I suppose. But that sort of thing didn’t make Michael Jackson very happy, did it? Alternatively you could just shrug and forget it.
It’s exactly the same with writing, in my opinion. There’s absolutely no point in agonising about whether you writing is any good or not. Editors and publicists will tell you your latest book is terrific and with a glass of wine in your hand you will probably believe them. Then, when they drift away to talk to someone else, you remember that this is their job. They were never going to tell you anything else. Ten minutes later you overhear them say the same thing about a book that you feel from the very centre of your being is complete and utter tripe.
There are the reviewers of course, but often they seem to have their own agendas. Some of them are simply using your book as a sharpening stone for their wit. Then there are those who seem to be writing about a completely different book from the one you remember writing. I’ve read reviews praising things about my books that I have always felt were their greatest weaknesses and criticising things that I happily assumed to be their strengths.
Of course there are the readers who send you letters and emails telling you that your book made a huge difference to them. That’s always a joy to hear but it’s not necessarily a measure of worth. There are certain pop songs that cause a huge explosion of emotion in me every time I hear them because they are so inextricably bound up with events in my life. They seem like the most brilliant expressions of what was happening to me at that time. But to other people they are just nice tunes.
Finally there are award ceremonies. I’m heading up north to one later this week and I can’t deny that I’ll be pleased as Punch if my book wins and thoroughly gutted if doesn’t. But I have to remind myself that getting shortlisted or even winning an award is not a goal in itself. It’s not even a light to guide you through the darkness. How many prize-winning books have you read and thought, how could this possibly have won?
My solution is simply not to try to decide whether my books are good or bad, but just to get on and write the next one. I write, not to be liked, but because somewhere deep in my childhood everything inside my head got scrunched up like a piece of paper thrown in a litter bin. On that piece of paper was all the information about who I really am. A magic spell to make me happy and contented with myself. There’s absolutely no hope of ever finding it again. So, somehow I have to make a new spell. I keep trying and trying but whenever I get to the end of my latest attempt it never has exactly the right cadence.
Not many of us really like the way we are. But what can you do about it? Well you could have voice-training lessons or go in for radical plastic surgery, I suppose. But that sort of thing didn’t make Michael Jackson very happy, did it? Alternatively you could just shrug and forget it.
It’s exactly the same with writing, in my opinion. There’s absolutely no point in agonising about whether you writing is any good or not. Editors and publicists will tell you your latest book is terrific and with a glass of wine in your hand you will probably believe them. Then, when they drift away to talk to someone else, you remember that this is their job. They were never going to tell you anything else. Ten minutes later you overhear them say the same thing about a book that you feel from the very centre of your being is complete and utter tripe.
There are the reviewers of course, but often they seem to have their own agendas. Some of them are simply using your book as a sharpening stone for their wit. Then there are those who seem to be writing about a completely different book from the one you remember writing. I’ve read reviews praising things about my books that I have always felt were their greatest weaknesses and criticising things that I happily assumed to be their strengths.
Of course there are the readers who send you letters and emails telling you that your book made a huge difference to them. That’s always a joy to hear but it’s not necessarily a measure of worth. There are certain pop songs that cause a huge explosion of emotion in me every time I hear them because they are so inextricably bound up with events in my life. They seem like the most brilliant expressions of what was happening to me at that time. But to other people they are just nice tunes.
Finally there are award ceremonies. I’m heading up north to one later this week and I can’t deny that I’ll be pleased as Punch if my book wins and thoroughly gutted if doesn’t. But I have to remind myself that getting shortlisted or even winning an award is not a goal in itself. It’s not even a light to guide you through the darkness. How many prize-winning books have you read and thought, how could this possibly have won?
My solution is simply not to try to decide whether my books are good or bad, but just to get on and write the next one. I write, not to be liked, but because somewhere deep in my childhood everything inside my head got scrunched up like a piece of paper thrown in a litter bin. On that piece of paper was all the information about who I really am. A magic spell to make me happy and contented with myself. There’s absolutely no hope of ever finding it again. So, somehow I have to make a new spell. I keep trying and trying but whenever I get to the end of my latest attempt it never has exactly the right cadence.
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