I had a good day today. I got up around nine and had the first of many cups of coffee. Then I hit the laptop and posted an interview with fellow writer James Manlow. Following this, I updated posts for my novel The Butterfly Collector, for Twitter and Facebook, and headed back downstairs for a spot of restorative T’ai Chi. Actually, I didn’t do it in that order at all, but, hey, this is supposed to be random!
Tag: novels
The Words of Wisdom Interview – a series of interviews with writers and artists, to discover their methods, dreams and inspiration.
No.2 – James Manlow
James studied English Literature and Experience of Writing at the University of Derby. He then went on to do an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he was tutored by Andrew Motion. He has had poetry published in the Independent, and magazines such as Poetry Review, The North, The Shop (Ireland) and St Ann’s Review (US): his poem The Lazy Maid won second place in the UK National Poetry Competition. His novel Attraction was published in the UK by John Murray Publishers (Hodder Headline). He is currently working on his second novel.
You write a book. Then you rewrite it several times until you’re sick of the sight of it. Then you send it out to the gatekeepers, those shadowy creatures whose job it is to pick the nuggets from the literary dross. Two things will most likely happen. One, your book will be rejected countless times. Two, you will become disillusioned with the whole process and consider giving up.
Saul Bellow made some interesting comments about the novel in an interview with The Paris Review. Literal truth versus artistic licence. ‘Literalism, factualism,’ he said. ‘will smother the imagination altogether.’ Do we, as writers, attempt to recreate the physical world down to the minutest detail, or do we accept the limitations of this approach and opt for a more free-flowing…
Why do we put pen to paper, or index fingers to keypads, to record our thoughts for posterity? Seeing as the vast majority of writers will never experience publication in any wider context, why bother in the first place? These questions have no real answers. The fact is, people write because they are driven to, compelled by some primeval force to unburden themselves…
All writers want to be in Waterstones shop window, now, today, this minute. One small obstacle stands between us and the realisation of a lifetime’s dream. Publishers. Today’s climate is not encouraging for the budding novelist, intent on seeing his work in print. Literary agents, those much maligned creatures who practise cunning evasion techniques to avoid dealing with the slush pile,…
Two weeks without a word commited to paper. Well, I have allowed myself the luxury of this blog. Otherwise, it’s the pauper’s equivalent of lounging by the pool with a fruit cocktail and a paperback, enjoying a brief hiatus from the frontline. Alas, these soujourns are not all they’re cracked up to be. Already I’m suffering. The novel that has consumed…
You know what you want to say, but how do you find the right way to say it? Finding the voice is one of the many challenges in writing both fiction and non-fiction. Get it wrong and your project might end up being postponed or, worse still, abandoned altogether (147,ooo words is a huge chunk from anyone’s canon, but that’s…