Tagged: writers
‘New York Times Bestselling Author’
Have you ever noticed how many authors list ‘New York Times Bestselling Author’ in their bio? It’s alot. I started noticing it recently, when coming across people I’d never heard of on Twitter and seeing it in their profile. Of course, my not knowing who they are doesn’t mean much in context – many of them are writing about subjects I’ve no interest in, so I wouldn’t have heard of them, unless they were, say, a New York Times Bestselling Author, then I’d have heard of them, right? You have to sell a million copies, or something, to make that list. Right?
Apparently not. To make the prestigious New York Times Bestseller list you need to sell around nine thousand copies of your book in a week. So in that first week, if you push hard enough and get your book out to as many outlets as possible and spread the word as wide as you can, you only need to sell your book to about 0.003% of the American population to lay claim to the title of ‘New York Times Bestselling Author’. That’s pretty amazing, right? I’d always had this idea in my head that a New York Times Bestselling author had to have sold so many copies, that their book had to be this amazing tome, held aloft by the populous and praised by booksellers and critics alike. Turns out that’s not true. In fact, it’s even less true than that, as a lot of publishers and authors game the system to make the top of the bestseller lists – the New York Times listings take into account bulk orders, and there are services that will help distribute those bulk orders to pre-arranged buyers in order to boost the numbers in any given measurement period. Businessmen, too, will include copies in their service fees, then send them out when the book is published, again inflating their figures.
There’s obviously solid logic behind this – as noted, I’ve always been under the impression that sales required to make the list were much higher, so definitely, I’d have factored ‘New York Times Bestseller’ into my purchase decision – if it’s made that list, it must have something to it. I would think inflating the figures would definitely be of benefit and would increase your natural sales in the long run, but it was a little disappointing to discover that that claim doesn’t hold as much weight as much as I had thought.
But it still means something. If I were a New York Times Bestselling author. I’d claim it if I could, for sure, and it’s an attribution you can list forevermore in every bio and on the front of every book you write. And, of course, there are a great many authors who have made the list purely on the quality of their work alone leading to those sales figures. But it definitely made me think, and I’ll be looking a little deeper for info on books and authors that claim that title in future.
Writing in Airports
A great place to write is the airport. It sounds weird at first, but it actually makes perfect sense. Chuck Palahniuk noted this in an interview at some stage (I can’t find the link), that he likes to write in airport lounges, in amongst the travellers and tourists. You get to eavesdrop on conversations and hear how people actually talk – which, of course, you can do in most public places – but the thing that makes airports different is the feel, that sense of adventure that hangs in the air.
People at airports are excited. They’re headed off on an adventure or returning from one. They’re saying goodbye to loved ones or anticipating being reunited. The atmosphere in an airport is like no other, that tangible sense of everything being alive, on the edge of a greater emotional high any moment. There’s no place where there’s more raw feeling in a room – tension, excitement, nervousness. People returning to cold grey days in shorts and beach tans. Businessmen embracing their young kids, the little ones in pyjamas and slippers.
What you do is you find a place in an airport lounge – you can’t go through to the international terminal without a ticket, but you can sit outside the arrivals amongst the families (some of them, you can tell, haven’t seen each other for a long time). If you check the arrivals, you can find the gates where people are arriving from holiday destinations – those are more alive than business travellers. You can move around from area to area, get a feel for the different aspects. Then later, you can go out to where the planes come into land – in Melbourne there’s a car park for the plane spotters to stand and feel the rush of the 747s as they descend to the runway. It’s pretty amazing, seeing a flying plane up that close. There’s even a food van permanently stationed there, it’s that popular a location.
As writers, you need to feel the emotion of others, to empathise and see things from the perspective of other people. Airports are great for getting a sense of this. People at the edge of their emotions are more open, unable to contain themselves within normal social restrictions. Think about when someone cries – you can feel their pain, as if they’d just given you a direct line into them. It’s not what they want you to see, not the persona they want to project. This is who they really are. And for that moment, you can connect, be on the same emotional plane. You’ve been there before, you know what it’s like to be at that overwhelming stage where you can no longer contain yourself. Those times, where emotions are pushed to the surface, are where you really understand our connection, what makes us all human. How we’re all fundamentally alike, we’re all doing what we can. Those moments are crucial for writers, being in those moments, feeling them fully. This is how you get to the heart of your writing. This is how you understand what resonates, how your readers feel. How your characters will respond to this or that situation. You need to know people, what motivates them, what makes them tick. And to do that, you need to understand yourself, how you would feel if you were this person and this was happening to you.
Shared experiences of strong emotions allow you to get a feel for that moment, to connect with the people around you.
Airports always awaken memories in me. Places I’ve been, moments with friends. People are experiencing that same excitement in every moment, and being around it, there’s a real buzz, and real sense of shared existence. That’s what makes writing in airports so interesting. Being there with them, seeing the peaks of emotion, touching at the surface. It’s exciting and awakening and equalising, all at the same time. And it can open your mind to all kinds of creative streams.
Celebrity Culture
Why do we perpetuate the notion that celebrities are better than us? Why do we create this plane of existence with ‘us’ down here and ‘them’ up there? Movies and magazines have created this culture where famous people take on superhero-like status – where we never see their mild-mannered, alter egos. In the information age, where everyone has an opportunity to be someone, it’s becoming accepted, even desired, to see all people as real people – flawed, complex, susceptible. We want to be part of communities more than we want to follow leaders. Everyone is someone, everyone is good at something. And equally, everyone has flaws. That’s what makes us human.
Maybe we need to stop putting celebrities on a pedestal, where what they have achieved is something we could never dream of. Maybe we need to start realising we can. We shouldn’t dismiss our own dreams and think we’re not as good as ‘them’. Of course we are. Of course we can be. Celebrities are the same as anyone else, be they actors, sports stars, businessmen, writers. They all started somewhere, just like you. They’re no better or worse than you or I – we can all achieve great things if we’re able to commit the time and effort to something we passionately care about. We, as non-celebrities, need to realise that we’re just as good as anyone else.
The social era is changing celebrity culture in this vein. Great actors have become just as adept at mocking themselves on Funny or Die. Ellen’s selfie at the Oscars is a shining example of celebrities humanising themselves – they took a photo, just like you do with your friends. Stars like Lily Allen and Pink have developed personas around being down to earth – Jennifer Lawrence has achieved this better than anyone, celebrating her flaws and slip-ups as much as her achievements. And what’s more, famous people are starting to beat TMZ at their own game by doing this – if Victoria Beckham slipped over, those photos would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Jennifer Lawrence falls over and it’s a less of a story. Because she embraces it, she’s human. She’s someone everyone can relate to. In the age of social media, where we’re getting more insight into the real lives of the rich and famous, celebrity culture is changing. Being more relatable, more real, helps them build brand and community. And it shows us that they‘re just people. They eat, they sleep, they read the newspaper. No different to me or you.
The point of this is that everyone is someone. No one is better than anyone else. With dedication, passion and practise, you can achieve your dreams – never has this been more true than right now. The avenues for success are clearer, the opportunities to learn and gain insights more present. No one is better to realise your vision than you.
So go do it.
Make your film.
Paint your picture.
Write your book.
Don’t tell yourself that you’re not on the same level as your idols – you can be. But you have to start somewhere. Just like they did.
We’re all humans. We’re all capable of great things.
And it starts with a blank page.
Taking in the Detail of the Moment
Sometimes my eyes will catch onto an eagle when I’m driving. I’ve even pulled over on occasion to watch them in flight, huge wings spread wide as they float across the wind.
One time down at the beach, a man and a woman pulled up and run out onto the sand. They were a distance away from us, and they were wearing formal clothes – him in full tuxedo. This was mid-morning on a cold, overcast day, and they ran down onto the wet sand then the woman pulled back, dropped down onto the beach and let go of his hand and he kept on running, black leather shoes clapping into the waves.
Paying attention to detail is one of the key traits of a writer, and it’s little moments like this that capture your imagination, fuel your creative mind. These happenings, flourishes in your day to day life, can open up a whole new world of possibilities in your mind, thinking over how they came to be, what lead to them occurring. Allowing yourself to take in the moment and letting your mind run with it can lead to ground-breaking moments for story ideas. Even if you have an outline constructed, details like this can form key parts of your narrative, taking in the detail of the scene and trying to put yourself into another person’s skin.
You need to let yourself get caught up in the detail, let your creative mind open, just go with it now and then. Take a train into the city one weekend and just look around. Take a drive on the backroads and see where it takes you – not physically, but mentally. Allow yourself to be totally open to the detail of your surroundings, see what your attention catches onto.
Detail adds texture to your work, authenticity. Detail comes from paying attention – writers are naturally curious, naturally attentive to what’s happening around them. It’s worth taking the time, whenever you can, to just stay with the thought, allow the stories to unfold. It’s moments like this that exercise your creative mind and show you the depth in the fabric of the world. There’s so much we don’t know, so many lives and perspectives that we can never experience. Taking a time to wander can bring you closer to the finer details of life and allow you to expand your understanding and expose moments of true art, by your own terms and definitions.
Things I’ve Learned From Doing Panel Discussions and Literary Events
In my time as a writer I’ve done a few events. It’s part of the publishing, even writing, process – at some stage, most writers will have to do a talk or a reading or an event of some kind. And at first, it’s frightening. Writing is generally a solitary pursuit, just you and the sound of a keyboard clicking away in a quiet room, so it’s a pretty big leap to go from an audience of no one to a crowded room waiting to hear what you have to say. You learn a heap from every event you do and there are some major lessons I’ve learned from my experiences – I figured they might help others in their preparation for literary events. So here’s some of the things I’ve taken in from my turns as a literary event speaker.
1. Don’t read out a totally pre-written speech. Or if you do, practise it with an audience first. I wrote speeches in intricate detail for all the early events I did. I drafted them, read them out loud, held them shivering in my nervous hands as I stood up in front of the audience. But then one day I figured something out. At all these events, I also watched other authors speak, checked out how they did it. The best of them were confident, assured characters who owned the stage. They read the crowd, they played off the energy of the room, and most of the time the didn’t read from a script. Because they didn’t have to. When you’re starting out, you get so hung up on the fact that you need to be great, you need to provide an intelligent, informative, lecture, that you start to move away from why you’ve been asked to speak in the first place. You spend so much time trying to sound like a real writer that you forget that you actually are a real writer. Your thoughts and opinions are all you need, your stories from your experiences. Definitely, it’s worth analysing the topic, writing notes, getting an idea in your head of what you might say, but you need to think about the audience, what they see. If you’re up there with your head down, scanning a print out, probably reading too quickly – do you think that’s going to be engaging for the audience? You don’t need to have intricate details, you just need an outline and some notes, then you just speak about your what you know. It comes across much more natural, more comfortable, if you can speak like a real person, rather than what you think an author should sound like. Trust me, I’ve spent ages thinking over what an intelligent author would say and trying to do that, as opposed to just saying things how I would normally speak. It’s much better to just be you.
2. The audience want to hear what you have to say. They’re not there to attack you or criticise. Most literary event audiences would love nothing more than to have the opportunity you’ve got, to be up on that stage, and they’re keen to hear what you, as a chosen panellist, can contribute to the discussion. Sometimes it’s nerve-wracking, thinking of all those eyeballs looking at you, but you have to remember, again, what it’s like sitting in the audience. Would you be judgemental of someone who was a bit nervous? Who was doing their best to present their knowledge and experience? I wouldn’t, and definitely if it was clear the person was being themself, talking about how they do things, I’d appreciate it. I’d probably relate to it. The audience wants to know you, they want to know what you do. If there’s something you’re not sure about, but that’s your experience, you should just say what you think. More often than not, people will link with your struggles, they want to hear about those details too, so no need to be nervous or hide anything or try to be something you’re not. They want to hear you, you’re good, there’s nothing to be nervous about. You’re honest and real, that will resonate with the crowd.
3. Don’t drink red wine if you’re wearing a white shirt and you’re about to go on stage. Yep, this happened. When I was at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, some dude turned too quick with a glass of red and splashed my shirt, a white one I’d bought just for the occasion. That was nerve-wracking. Luckily I got most of it out and the mic stand covered the stain either way. They also used a bad photo of me that was projected onto this massive screen (you needed a picture for the entry, so I just took one of myself, not thinking there would come a time when it would be blown up to 50X and beamed into a room of tuxedoed important-types) and the host made fun of me for being nervous (in fairness, it was the perfect set-up – two very young kids had done a reading immediately before me and when I got up to the stage it was the perfect chance for him to say: ‘Geez, you’re more nervous than those two kids’ – hilarious) but the point is, be careful what you wear and what you eat if you’re going up on stage. You’re nervous already, you don’t need any more reason to be self-conscious.
4. Enjoy yourself. Literary events are fun. Yes, people paid to get in, and yeah, they’ll expect something for their money, but that’s not all on you (unless you’re doing a solo talk, in which case it is) and regardless, the event will be more entertaining if you’re relaxed. The more nervous you are, the more that’ll come across, and you’ll be able to feel it all through the room. You need to try and enjoy the moment, they don’t come around that often for most. Remember that you’ve done the hard work to get there, you are a writer, someone these people want to hear from. You aren’t a fraud, a poser whose fluked his/her way into this, you’re successful, you have experiences people want to know about. Literary events are supposed to be enjoyable and engaging. Audiences would rather you be open and alive than stuffy and academic the whole time. Relatable experiences are more resonant than hard-nosed lessons – they can read about those in any number of how-to books. Be real, be genuine, tell people about your blocks and difficulties as well as the good stuff. And have fun with it.
5. Don’t walk around flashing your ‘Artist’ lanyard expecting people to ask for your autograph. No one’s gonna’ do it, rock star. Unless you’re JK Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, no one’s going to be too bothered about who you are out on the street. Yes, you should feel proud that you got invited, but don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Ain’t no one at the food court gon’ care that you’re the keynote speaker of the day.
Overall, you need to try not to take literary events too seriously. Yes, you want to put in a good performance and no, you don’t want to go in under prepared and sound like a fool, but generally when I’ve over prepared I’ve looked more foolish than the former. You should do your research, learn what you need to know, ensure you can handle the situation. But then you’ve got to be yourself. Don’t get caught up trying to be what you think the audience want, be you. It’s the only way to truly succeed and stand out as a speaker. Authenticity will shine through much more than any lessons you’d like to impart. Trust in your ability and knowledge, share what you know, what you think the audience can learn from, and show who your are.
Handwriting
One thing I’ve found to be almost universally true of writers is that we all have terrible handwriting. My theory is that because our heads get rushed with creative ideas, our minds flashing by creating whole worlds from the seed of a single thought, our hands struggle to keep up the pace. As a result, we form a sort of scribble that we can get down fast enough to capture our ideas which is also legible enough to enable us to translate what we’ve put down. I honestly have no concerns about people reading my notes, no self-consciousness about what they might find, because there’s almost no chance they’ll be able to read them. It’s like a cross between cursive and hieroglyphics, the only things missing are a few illustrations of the Eye of Ra and a cat or two (if I were to add these pictures in, it would, if anything, make more sense). It’s even worse when I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea that I just have to get down – I don’t want to wake the kids, so I scribble notes in the dark. In the morning I see these sloping sentences, wilting down the page. It’s generally enough for me to remember what I was on about, but that’s about all it’s good for.
But despite this, despite the fact that my handwriting resembles that of a cliche movie psychopath, I write almost everything by hand as a first draft. My approach is that I write first on inspiration – I play an idea over and over in my head till I start to imagine it in full sentences and it’s almost too much for me to not write it out. Then I get a pen and start putting it down – I find the connection between thought and handwriting more natural than typing it out straight away. This is mostly for fiction work and longer form non-fiction, for many shorter pieces (like this one) I can put down a few notes when they come to me then just type it when I get the chance. But for more involved stuff, it will almost all be done by hand first. I would say 85% of my first novel is scrawled across three or four Spirax notebooks that are now somewhere in my study. Every element of the book started in handwritten form.
The next phase of writing is the logical, where I make sense of the writing, clarify the paragraphs and structures, etc. I find that having a hand written version to start with is conducive to this practice, as you have to re-write every single letter. You can’t pick and choose, you have to go over each part as least once, giving you a more analytical overview of the work. As I go, I’ll add in bits where they fit, I’ll read sentences out loud if they don’t feel right. I’ll re-construct parts entirely if I ever feel myself drifting from the story – that’s the best indicator that what you’ve done isn’t working. The story should hold your attention, even if you’re the one who wrote it. While you’re very familiar with the content, if you feel yourself drifting at all, thinking about the shopping, a TV show, anything other than the piece as you read, it’s worth going back and re-working the section you faded from to ensure it keeps the reader hooked. If you’re drifting, most likely your readers are gonna’ drift too. And again, having a handwritten start point helps highlight things like this because you have to read it all in order to enter it in. It effectively forces you into doing a full second draft before you can do anything else.
I then try to leave my work for as long as possible to get objective distance from it, clear my head of it so I can re-read it more as a reader than a writer. Even when I read novels I always think of ways I would change sentence structures and paragraphs, so editing comes pretty natural for me, particularly with the perspective of leave from the work. And by that stage it’s moved into a full-typed form – I might write hand-written notes down as I think of them, but my reliance on the pen is gone by that third draft stage – and definitely, no one would have read anything I’ve written till after that third draft stage. Even if I think I’ve put down something great, I always resist sending anything out till I’ve had that distance from it – I ALWAYS find things I want to change once I have some perspective.
Over the years I’ve seen experts lament the erosion of handwriting. There’s an idea that handwriting will one day cease to exist, that kids these days barely have any use for it now – just as younger generations are baffled by old school telephones, one day they’ll be scratching their heads as they look at pens end pencils. To some degree I think it’s a valid concern, but more likely, reliance on hand writing will reduce, not cease. I still love the flow of writing from my head and through the pen, I still enjoy the feel of paper, of seeing words indented into the page. Obviously I don’t know, but I don’t get the feeling that hand writing is totally falling away. I sincerely hope it isn’t, as, for me, it’s crucial to the writing process. I can only imagine it will be of benefit to many other writers in future, and if they’re not learning it, maybe they’ll never discover it, and we’ll miss out on great works as a result.
How Important is a Great Opening to a Novel?
I love opening a new novel. I love going through the bookshop – the smell of books – and I love finding that one that is going to take me away, curl round my brain like a cat and warm me into this whole other world. And one of the great things about new books, one of the reasons that I’ll take it to the counter, is the opening line or paragraph. I love a good cover, but more importantly, I love good writing, and that first section, for me, really sets the tone. A good opening will drop you right into the story and make it hard for you to leave. It will capture your imagination and almost force you to read on. It’s also a great learning tool for writers, working out how the great books begin, understanding how that can be applied to your story. There’s so much to learn from those first lines, it’s worth reading as many as you can to ensure you are using the best starting point for your story.
As an example, here are some of my favourite novel openings:
‘Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die. For a long time though, Tyler and I were best friends. People are always asking, did I know about Tyler Durden.
The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my throat, Tyler says “We really won’t die.”
With my tongue I can feel the silencer holes we drilled into the barrel of the gun. Most of the noise a gunshot makes is expanding gases, and there’s the tiny sonic boom a bullet makes because it travels so fast. To make a silencer, you just drill holes in the barrel of the gun, a lot of holes. This lets the gas escape and slows the bullet to below the speed of sound.
You drill the holes wrong and the gun will blow off your hand.’
– Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
It’s so fast-paced and it perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the novel, which all moves at breakneck speed. Palahniuk drops you right into the chaos and lets you work it out from there – a really good opening.
‘Until the telephone rang, the only sound in my office was the scratching of my pen as I made margins notes, corrections and amendments.
I pressed the speaker button.
‘Carl speaking’
‘Carl’
‘Catherine! I meant to send you home hours ago…’
She interrupted me: ‘I am home. I’ve been home, been out to see a film, eaten a pizza, paid the baby-sitter and watched the end of Newsnight.
The clock on my desk read 11:42. I turned in my chair. The window of my office was floor to ceiling. Through the window, I could see the city glitter and the night sky. No stars – a low cloud layer made the sky glow almost red.
Catherine continued: ‘I’m calling because the last train leaves in twenty-five minutes’.
The Coma by Alex Garland
This also sets the scene for the whole novel, the pace, the steady flow of the narrative. But again, Garland drops you right into the story, not pages of him living his normal life, but right here, right in the midst of where the action is about to take place. It’s an important note – you want to start your story at a compelling point, a point where people need to turn the page and find out what happens next. Granted, this scene is still somewhat commonplace, but we know the narrator is now out in the middle of the night and will struggle to make the train home – and we, as the audience, know what a frightening train journey that midnight trip can be.
‘About the accident itself I can say very little. Almost nothing. It involved something falling from the sky. Technology. Parts, bits. That’s it, really: all I can divulge. Not much, I know.
It’s not that I’m being shy. It’s just that – well, for one, I don’t even remember the event. It’s a blank: a white slate, a black hole. I have vague images, half-impressions: of being, or having been – or, more precisely, being about to be – hit; blue light; railings; lights of other colours; being held above some kind of tray or bed. But who’s to say that these are genuine memories? Who’s to say my traumatized mind didn’t just make them up, or pull them out from somewhere else, some other slot, and stick them there to plug the gap – the crater – that the accident had blown? Minds are versatile and wily things. Real chancers.’
Remainder by Tom McCarthy
Remainder is a real mind twister of a novel, looking at psychology and the depths of the human condition. This opening sets the scene really well – you get, from this, that the narrator was involved in accident in which something fell from the sky and damaged his brain. The novel is about how he doesn’t know what’s real anymore, what are memories and what’s imagined, and this opening clearly aligns to that theme. I like this because McCarthy has explained a lot very quickly, very cleverly, almost without you knowing it. But again, it drops you into the story, rather than starting with long-winded context or backstory.
‘He’d cut His throat with the knife. He’d near chopped off His hand with the meat cleaver. He couldn’t object, so I lit a Silk Cut. A sort of wave of something was going across me. There was fright, but I’d daydreamed how I’d be.
He was bare and dead face-down on the scullery lino with blood round. The Christmas tree lights were on then off. You could change the speed those ones flashed at. Over and over you saw Him stretched out then the pitch dark with his computer screen still on.’
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
The detached, confused emotion of the narrator streams all the way through Morvern Callar, and again, the author has dropped us right into the story, leaving Morvern at home with her deceased boyfriend – what will she do next? I also love the detail in this scene, the image of the Christmas lights flicking on and off gives it a real sense, an authenticity and feeling, through such a small but important detail.
Not every novel starts out by dropping you into the action like this, but the vast majority do. It’s a powerful tool, and an important lesson for writers to learn, that the story starts where the action does. Your readers will work out the details and you can communicate back story through their interactions within the narrative – in that sense, it’s like someone telling you a story in real life. People generally tell you the highlight, the most shocking element up front, then explain the detail of how it got to that point. That peak moment is the hook that will gets the audience in, and it’s important to use that to compel your readers to turn the page.
One other thing I’ve heard when discussing good opening lines is ‘yeah, but those are great novels’ – as if their own work could not, and should not, be compared to works of this calibre. But why shouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t you hold your own work up for comparison against the greats? If you want your book to stand side by side with them in a book store, you have to aspire to being compared with them on quality, on compulsion. It’s important you do compare your work to established authors, you should be as good as them. Every author of every book was once a nobody. They started with nothing behind them. A blank page. The only difference now is that they made it. So your work should be compared to them. Because that’s the way that you can make it too.
Author Stereotypes – And What to do When You Meet Them
Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to meet many writers – from really famous types to amazingly talented unknowns. The thing that has always stood out to me is that most writers are totally normal. You get an idea, an image in your head as to what this writer will be like in real life, how they might talk and act. That image is almost universally incorrect, most of them are the most normal, down-to-earth types you’re ever gonna’ meet. Award-winners to day-dreamers, the majority of writers I’ve met have been open, friendly and utterly normal folk.
But there have been some exceptions.
I have noted a few ‘types’ in my travels, a couple of categories of writers, stereotypical personalities that have been replicated amongst the storytellers I’ve met. There are a few, you’ve probably met them yourself. Some of the stereotype writers I’ve met along my journey are:
Super Normal, Super Controversial Content
I’ve met a few writers that have written, or do write, hard core sex and/or violence, and, surprisingly, they were totally normal. Almost uncomfortably so. Like, that dark element must be hiding someplace, you start to wonder when it’s going to come out. I met a female writer once who was totally normal, easy to talk to, funny. She wrote hardcore erotica, like, full-on stuff. I’ve also met super opinionated writers who seem almost intimidating in print form. But in real-life – normal. You’d never even know of their extreme stances if you hadn’t read their work. Everyone has layers and you can never judge a book by its cover, but this one is definitely a common stereotype. They’re actually pretty fun, you should hang with them, but maybe don’t go back to their place. At least not on the first date.
Super Quiet, Super Talented
I’ve met quite a few of these, those quiet bookish types who take everything in, listen to the world around them. They often have an acute understanding of what it takes to be great. They are their own strongest critics, which makes them more resilient to the harsh realities of the writing world, and they are constantly reading and researching, adapting their style. Sonya Hartnett is a bit like this – fairly quiet, fairly reserved, not interested in the hype of promotion and literary fame. Just loves writing great stories. And she’s super good at what she does. Not all the quiet ones are super talented, but often, if you get to see their work, they’re way better than they’d project. It’s worth getting to know them, understanding their perspective on the world. It might change your own viewpoint.
Super Confident, Super Sensitive
You know the ones. They’ve been told all their lives that their writing is amazing. All the way through primary school and high school – ‘amazing’. Nothing else. This is the only feedback they’ve ever had, and they come out self-assured, convinced they’ll be the next literary luminary, destined for greatness. And then comes the pain. They’ve never experienced criticism before, everyone told them they were great. No-one’s ever picked out an error or suggested a possible issue. It hurts – you can see it dragging down their face. I feel for these guys – they’ve not been hardened enough in the developmental stages and, unfortunately, many of them fade away. It’s a shame, alot of them are good writers, but you’ll never advance if you can’t absorb criticism and translate it into improvement. Tread carefully, hope they don’t ask for feedback, and make sure you tell them about any criticism you’ve received (at first, they’ll nod, thinking you are different from them, but in time they’ll understand – everyone cops a critical beating every now and then).
Super Serious, Super Pretentious Content
These ones are the worst. There are some people who adopt a persona when they are publicising their work, a way of supporting their message, communicating in a certain way. Then there are others who just are that way. Everything is super-serious, you can’t have a conversation that doesn’t have geo-political implications and headache inducing verbosity. When they do a reading it gets worse, as you’re subjected to a sort of self-gratification through language. It’s like seeing someone do a strip show for themself in front of a full length mirror. These ones usually write for the social status it gives them, being a writer is critically engrained into who they perceive themself to be. I try to steer clear of these types – whatever makes them happy is fine, but I’ll just be over here, minding my own business. You have fun.
Super Confident, Super Talented
And then there’s these. The best writers I’ve ever met are super talented, of course, but also super fascinating in real life. They are so open to the world, so fascinated by everyday life that they absorb all these amazing stories and experiences. Most of them aren’t especially confident types, but they’re so into what they’re doing that they can talk about it with no ego or self-conscious restriction. Writing is their passion, and they love nothing more than absorbing themselves in it, discussing it. And it’s totally fascinating. Maybe it’s because I love to see them express their passion, maybe it’s because I would love to imagine I’m somehow like them, but the greatest writers have always been able to hold my attention. Even writers I’ve never heard of, if I’ve heard them talking passionately, telling stories that drag me in – nine times out of ten I’ll love their writing. That correlation probably makes perfect sense, but there’s something infectious about the greats. They can talk in a way that makes you tune in to every word – not because it’s part of a show, not because they’ve learned to engage an audience. But because they love what they do. Actually love it. If you ever get a chance to catch a talk by a great writer, I highly recommend you take it.
As I say, most writers are totally normal, but these are the most common stereotypes I’ve come across. What about you, what types of writers have you met along your own writing path?
Are You a Writer?
Why are we afraid to call ourselves writers? This often comes up if you’re in a writing course or at a writing event, if you were to ask the room ‘who here would identify themselves as a writer?’ you’ll see a lot of hesitancy. People aren’t sure they have the right to take that label. It’s as if saying you’re a writer is aggrandising yourself, as if, by owning it, you’re immediately putting yourself up alongside Hemmingway and Tolstoy and writers you’ve idolised your whole life. ‘What right do you have to such a title? Because you ‘try’ to write?’
Why are we afraid to say ‘I’m a writer’?
Here’s a couple of things to consider:
There are billions of great stories in the world, more than could ever be told in the history of time. There are not billions of great storytellers. That’s the way it is, not everyone’s a great writer destined to produce works of literary brilliance. Almost everyone has at least one great story to tell, but for the majority of us, that story will never be heard or written. For every great film or book you read, there are probably thousands more you’ll never experience, because they simply don’t exist.
There are billions of writing tips and strategies and people who’ll tell you what, in their experience, is the best way to go about creating stories. But they’re not all right. There is no ‘right’ way to go about producing literature. There are certain things that you should do – like writing everyday, reading everything you can, learning and taking on feedback – but no one can say ‘you do these things and you’ll become a published author’. Because there is no one way to go about it. If there were, everyone would do it. It always reminds me of Mark Haddon’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’, a novel which includes pictures as part of the text. Next time you go to your writing class or group, you put your hand up and ask whether you should put images in as part of the text in your novel. No doubt you’ll hear scoffs and someone will tell you ‘no, absolutely not’, which makes sense, you would advise against it. But that book sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. There are no definitive rules on how to write great literature. You can make anything work, within reason.
The thing is, if people are afraid to own the label ‘writer’, people are at least somewhat afraid to write. At the least, people are afraid to show their work to people, because ‘it’s just something silly I’ve been working on, nothing really, forget about it’. If people are afraid to be writers, we’re missing out on great stories. You need to do it, you need to put your words down, do what you feel. You need to get it out there – yeah, you might get criticised, but that’s part of the process. Every author gets rejected and trashed and hurt. You take on what you can while staying true to yourself, want to achieve. What you think makes your work great. You only have to answer to yourself, know that you’re doing the best you can to achieve what you want.
We need people to own that label, to stand up and say ‘I’m a writer’, because we don’t want to miss out on great stories. It’s quite possible that the greatest novels of all time have never been put to paper, and that’s a massive shame. And maybe your stuff isn’t going to change the literary landscape, sell millions of copies, affect the lives of people in generations to come. But it might. Why not you? Kurt Vonnegut sold cars before he became ‘Kurt Vonnegut’. JK Rowling was a secretary. Great writers are people, just like you, doing the same things you are. Why can’t you succeed like them?
And that’s the one thing to keep in mind.
There are billions of people in the world. But there is only one you. No one else can write what’s in your head. And if you write, you are a writer. So be it.
I am a writer.
Maybe one day, you’ll read my stuff.
Becoming an ‘Author’
I read this excellent article by author Christopher Currie recently. It raises many of the issues and observations that I’ve found since becoming a published author, and those issues are part of the reason my second novel has been de-railed so many times. Chris is an excellent writer, and he has succinctly put into words many of the downsides of being published in a way that’s not complaining about success, which is one of the things that I’ve been most fearful of when discussing the same things.
I met Chris at the National Young Writers’ Festival in Newcastle several years ago, though Chris, I’m sure, either thinks I’m a total douche or an incoherent idiot – I treated Newcastle like a weekend off and was several beers into the night when we met. I’ve always felt bad about this, because I really like Chris’ work and his observations on writing – but this article in particular stands out to me because it’s talking of the negatives of the other side of publishing, of being an actual, published author.
As Chris notes, he is not complaining about success – and I too would never complain about being published. It’s a massive achievement and the people I’ve come into contact with have been amazing, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do. Writing, also, is almost an instinctive process for writers, it’s something we have to do. I can ignore it for periods, but it’s always there, stories being written in the back of my mind. Being published has opened up a heap of opportunities and it remains my dream to be a full-time author. But that’s where things get a little more complicated, and this is what Chris discusses in his article.
I guess the first, and main, point, is that becoming a published author will not necessarily change your life. When I first signed a book contract, the company I was working for was undergoing a takeover. People all about the place were stressing about losing their jobs, doing all they could to make good with the incoming managers. It was a pretty sad situation, a lot of good people, good employees, stressed because of something beyond their control. Me, I had a publishing contract. I thought I was going to have to leave work soon either way, heading off on book tours, doing talks. I was about to become a full-time author, so losing my job didn’t really matter to me too much. The idea in my head was ‘book gets published, you become full-time author’ – that becomes your job, your career. But I never really thought through how that might work.
The reality is not much changed. I was lucky enough to be retained at work and when the book was released I did a few launches and talks and interviews and then, about a month later, all was quiet again. It was back to normal life. The amount of money I made from my book was actually pretty good – I won $15,000 in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards on top of my book contract – but it was not enough to quit my job. I then sold the film rights, and that was massively exciting, and they signed up a director and we had meetings, wrote a screenplay, all was moving along. Then that production company folded. And by now it was several months after the book’s release so the ‘hype’ around it was gone and no other film companies were looking to pick it up (several have been interested ever since but it’s never been picked up). And life was back to normal. I wasn’t a full-time writer. Chris notes this, that you’ve only got a limited shelf life, and it’s totally true, then you’re back to where you were. I’ve seen lots of discussions and articles on this, and it’s hard to know if there is a way to fix it, but for me, I just couldn’t see how I was going to generate enough money from writing alone to be a full-time author, which was difficult to take, but that’s how it is.
The second down side, I found, was the publicity. Most of it was great, great people, good to get your name out there, have people discuss your work. But the negative reviews hurt. Bad. I only had a few, but they were in major publications. I’m pretty thick skinned with my writing, I can take people having a go at me and my work, no problem. But this was something I was immensely proud of, that not only me, but my editor, my publisher, other people had believed in and put their own hard work into. And then someone can totally trash it with a few paragraphs. It hurts, but again, that’s how it is. Not everyone’s going to like your stuff, you can’t write for every person. I’m much more comfortable with that now, but it was a learning curve.
The third issue I had was with the next book. For months after the book came out people always asked what I was working on next, and it was great, people were interested. Then the second novel got bogged down and it wasn’t working and people kept asking and in my head I was like ‘stop asking about it, it’s killing me’. This is no-one’s fault but my own, but Chris made an interesting note in his article – that he, in some ways, liked it more when he was unpublished. When there was no expectation. I can totally see where he’s coming from. I had an okay manuscript on the way by the time my first book was published. I signed a new contract as soon as it was offered, with the publication date set for a year or so later. This was what I’d always wanted, I was on my way, I could do this. I completed a first draft, had it all down, the story, everything was there. But it wasn’t great. I knew it. My publisher knew it. I went back to it, tried to fix it, but started getting myself in knots. Nothing was coming together, nothing was flowing, it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. And the most frustrating part – I knew exactly what I wanted it to be, I just couldn’t get it to work. I am still working on it, still writing that second book (among other projects), and I remain absolutely confident it’s going to be great, it’s getting closer each day. But the pressure I put on myself is what has blocked me up. I was no longer just writing something that maybe someone might read some day, maybe my friends would read – I was writing something that would be seen by a publisher. This had to be amazing. Not good, this had to be great. That expectation, my own expectation, has set such a high bar that it’s made it much more difficult to be free and flow with the story.
As I say, these are not complaints or not negative enough to ever want me to stop writing. They are more observations from the other side, which I don’t see a heap of. I can’t help but love writing. I do it every day, and I love getting that flow right, having a story form in my head, the sentences stringing together. I love having to get up and scratch around to find a pen in the middle of the night to get down some crucial sentence or note. I love everything about being a writer. And yeah, it’s hard, these points just attest to the fact that it remains hard as you go. I have no doubt that big name authors have the same challenges and issues. But it’s worth it. Nothing’s better than when everything feels right with a piece and you can’t wait for someone, anyone, to read it. When you know that you’ve been able to re-create the feeling you had when writing it in the body of another person. That communication is amazing. Nothing else comes close, for me.
And nothing beats the smell as you flick the pages of your own book.
As I work my way back into writing, getting more ideas and notes down, trying different ways to remain creative and create better work, this is what I keep in my mind. It’s tough, but you’ll get it right, it’s hard, but it’s always close to that perfect stream of a story.
twenty six 