A friend gave me this a few weeks ago to read on the basis of it having some references in it to Kazakhstan – a country I will be driving through this summer as part of the Mongol Rally where another pal and I are driving an ambulance to Ulaanbataar, the capital of Mongolia. The references are fleeting as actually this is about Siberia and Russia in the Stalinist era – it’s a story about love and friendship. Anna and Sofia are together at the beginning of the book in a work camp. Furnivall draws a vivid picture of life as a forced labourer, barely fed, clothed in threads, beaten and bullied to the edge of life.

At times I felt frequent dips into back story were slowing the whole thing down rather unnecessarily, but it got there in the end. Furnivall’s prose style is inventive although occasionally I thought she was trying to be a bit too clever and not really pulling it off.

In short, a good read, I learned a lot about communism and how it was controlled and the dark consequences caused, and there was a suitably satisfying ending.

Ink – Writers of Arun – Issue 1

I just called the agent who sent me an encouraging rejection letter. The gist of my phone call was that I had started some rewrites as he had suggested and felt it would be helpful to me to set a deadline in which to send them in to him. This is true as I have found myself in a situation where I am being offering software selling opportunities that I feel it would be foolish in the long term to knock back. They give me the opportunity to earn cash in the short term and establish myself as a part-time freelancer in the long term, which would give me a solid basis to continue writing without reverting to the hermit-like existence that full time employment demanded when I wrote my first novel in my short evenings and weekends.

Additionally, I suggested that we set a date for lunch (my treat) where we could review his thoughts on the work. He was enthusiastic about my assertive approach, and keen to see me operate to a deadline but less willing to commit to a date for lunch. His reasons for this were that he was out of the country the first date I proposed, has the London Book Fair coming up and has other authors that are a higher priority (i.e. the ones that are making him money or are nearer being ready to do so). I totally understand all of this and we agreed I could call him a week or so after I had sent the rewrites in to see how he was getting on.

All in all, it was excellent to speak to an agent on this level. He remembered who I was too, on the basis of me sending a little tortoise ornament with my work (this I think then is worth doing) and now we have made contact verbally, the next step is to meet face to face. The onus on me now then is to produce a rewrite he considers worth spending the time discussing over lunch, and making sure that happens without being a complete pain in the proverbial.

I haven’t read any Nero Wolfe books or seen the adaptations on television but lovely Maureen from book club and regular contributor to this site lent me the fabulous ‘The Nero Wolfe Cookbook’ by Rex Stout and the Editors of Viking Press. On the back it says in the blurb:

“Nero Wolfe, often billed as the greatest detective in the world, owes much of his impressive bulk to his all-consuming interest in food.”

Additionally, P. G. Wodehouse is quoted as saying:

“What the nation has been needing (besides the five-cent cigar) is an authoritative treatise on Nero Wolfe’s feeding habits, and this book is superbly welcome.”

It’s very difficult to choose a recipe to replicate here as they all sound so deliciously enticing, and each comes with a little quote. But in the end, I went for these clams. I am not sure we have the right clams here but the recipe gets my taste buds going so I will give them a go with whatever I can get my hands on! Here’s the excerpt that introduces them:

“Fritz was there with the stuffed clams, and Wolfe sat and took the spoon and fork. He couldn’t have sat before giving me instructions because that would have been talking business during a meal, and by heck a rule is a rule is a rule… As I helped myself to the clams I held my breath because if you smell them, mixed with the shallots, chives, chervil, mushrooms, bread crumbs, sherry, and dry white wine, you take so many that you don’t leave enough room for the duckling…” (THE FINAL DEDUCTION)

“Ingredients:
3 dozen cherrystone clams
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
3 tablespoons minced shallots
1 tablespoon minced chives
1 teaspoon fresh chervil
1 teaspoon fresh oregano
1 teaspoon fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons dry sherry
4 tablespoons minced mushrooms
2 tablespoons butter
clam broth or dry white wine
4 slices bacon

Instructions:

Preheat the over to 375degrees. Scrub the clams. Put them in a large kettle with about half an inch of water. Cover the kettle and cook over a medium flame until all the shells open. Remove the clams and save the liquid. Remove the meat and save half the shells. Mince the clams and put them in a bowl with bread crumbs, shallots, chives, chervil, oregano, basil, pepper and sherry. Saute the mushrooms in 1 tablespoon of butter for 2 minutes and add to the clams along with enough clam broth or dry white wine to moisten the mixture. Cut the bacon into 18 small pieces and put one on top of each shell. Bake until the clams are golden brown and the bacon is crisp. (Serves 4 to 6 as a first course)”

Another great thing about this book is that Maureen got hold of it second hand. In the front it is written:
“To Vivien, with love from Richard and Clara.” Who are these people and what did they cook from the book for each other? What did they talk about over the clams? Where are they now? Did they share a love of Wolfe?

Yeah, I don’t like crime novels. Those that are keeping track will know. So, how the hell have I managed to read three in a single week?! Well, I am a victim of circumstances and have been struck down by a particularly vicious cold, (When is a boat a ship? When is a cold the ‘flu?) so anyway I read a lot of books this week and did absolutely damn all writing. Something I am mentally punishing myself for on a moment to moment basis and so I expect next week to be super productive. Around the meetings and such that I have re-arranged for next week that now fall into my personal ’sub-plot’ – i.e. real, paid, old school work that might make this writing malarky last longer (let’s hope these wage payers aren’t reading this or are at least sympathetic!). This week I am dispirited in some respects by the amount of writers I have been listening to/bewailing the amount (lack of) money that can be made from writing. Bitter, twisted, pragmatic perhaps. I need to post more success stories. Here’s one.

I read ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ because I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. And if you click on the link and read the review, you will know that I was pleasantly surprised. And then there’s this one. A whole other level. Fat novels, I always think. And today I retweeted something on Twitter that Roth and Delillo are both producing shorter and shorter works as if in demonstration of their mastery of the word. And at the VWC conference last Saturday someone said that Stephenie Meyers’ books are just some other author’s slowed down. And, yeah, there were things that annoyed me about this book (like the cliched blonde giant). BUT ‘Dragon Tattoo’ gets you into Salander, and ‘Plays with Fire’ consummates your love for her. Read it and you will understand what I mean. I’m gonna wait for ‘Hornets’ Nest’ – the third and final (assuming that is was Larsson and not his girlfriend that wrote it and that some bright spark won’t do an Adams/Fleming with it and get a random to write another) to hit paperback. And I am hoping it’s about Camilla, her twin. I think they set me up right on that.

Mr Larsson – I miss you vastly already. RIP.

Vapid, vacuous and sardonic. As Damian Barr (who he? I thought – google says Times journo and author of ‘Get It Together – Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis’) said on the back cover “So shallow it’s almost deep.” Teeny tiny snaps of chapters and a present tense narrative have the reader flying through this book, grimacing at the idiocy and narcissism of the anti-hero (Alex, the male model) who gets exactly what he deserves; absolutely nothing.

A lot has already been written about Bret Easton Ellis’ influence on Bower’s style and the premise of this book. I haven’t read ‘American Psycho’ since University but I do recognise the name dropping and Alex’s concern with cool over content. ‘Dazed and Aroused’ skips the explicit violence thankfully, and although there’s lots of sex, none of it is graphically described. Written by a male model, who is also a journalist, it’s a smart snapshot of life in fashion and London (Paris and Milan) in 2009, riddled with name dropping and witty, ridiculing references to au courant vogues and conceptualisms.

“By the time we do venture out onto the dance floor we’ve all had way too much £150-a-bottle Grey Goose and they’re all doing pills but I don’t care because I’m dancing with Frankie to the Victoria’s Secret Remix of When You Were Young by The Killers and it’s as if we’re somewhere else just us and the voice of Brandon Flowers over the ethereal beat grabs hold of us and the euphoria runs through my veins and I think of Nathalie and in that moment an convinced that her feelings far outweigh mine and that what we had can be exposed in those brief but vivid moments of anguish of sheer dread in which we tearfully concluded that to be together was better than being alone and as I think of this in a daze I hold Frankie against me and we spin in the centre of the dance floor and it feels like everything’s going to be OK.”

Just one sentence. One hundred and sixty words. Reading ‘Oliver Twist’ at A’Level I counted one sentence with 132 words in it and put the book down and refused to ever read Dickens again. A refusal I have honoured. When Bower does this though, I don’t mind. Actually, I like it. He does it a few times in the book and it is effective, it says something about the situation the characters are in at the time. Here, euphoria, excitement, confusion and a sort of epiphany. The writing’s pretty spare otherwise and, well, this just works.

It’s difficult not to think of the film Zoolander when reading this – as far as I know there aren’t many other examples of films or literature dealing with the lives of male models. The ludicrousness of the profession is subtly handled here, along with the recognition that a lot of money can be made for not doing very much, but the chances are that that money is burned up on very little too.

“Louis is one of Hugo’s work buddies. I’ve only met him a few times but, put simply, he’s a twat.

We pull up to a large office building and Louis is standing outside. He’s wearing a blue pinstripe suit and talking on his mobile while smoking a cigarette. When he spots us, he ends the call and drops the cigarette in a nearby drain, before getting into the cab, shaking hands with Hugo and briefly nodding at me.

‘How’s the posing going?’ he asks sarcastically, I think.”

There are moments of this book that are very funny indeed, here’s my favourite:

“There’s a long pause. I adjust my hair in the window of a parked Range Rover.

‘So, do you want to meet?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, that’s why I called. I’m just on my way back home. I’ve just been, um, y’know…’ I trail off as I notice someone sitting in the parked Range Rover and they’re staring at me. ‘Um, how about we go for dinner next Saturday night?’ I say, walking away from the car. ‘Maybe 8-ish, at The Wolseley?’”

I know they say “write about what you know” and Bower knows about modelling, but I’m keen to read what else he might write about as I like his style. The least said about the cover though, the better.

I met R.J. Ellory at a writing festival last year and we had a conversation about genre-busting – that is, writing stories outside of established formats. Ellory writes what are essentially crime novels, but they are heavily literary. Literary fiction is all the stuff that isn’t commercial, or genre fiction and the prose style is either lyrical (see Adam Foulds) or spare (see Hilary Mantel). ‘A Quiet Belief in Angels’ read like a Steinbeck (who is referenced heavily in the book) and an Eliot – tragic happenstance, layering on tragic happenstance.

The book sees Joseph growing up in his small town in the mid-west, falling in love with his teacher, his love being requited, her untimely demise, his move to New York to be a writer, meeting the second love of his life, the publication of his first book, the murder of his girlfriend, his wrongful accusation of murder, his time in prison and his release and retribution – all with the back drop of a paedophile serial killer in that background. It’s a book about a writer, which I’ve said before somehow I find narcissistic, but we’ll pass that by. Here’s Joseph speaking to his teacher:

“… my father used to tell me it was one of the most important things you could ever do. He said you could stay in a one room shack in a two-horse town for the whole of your life, but you could see everywhere in the world right there in your mind’s eye so long as you could read.”

My thoughts exactly. Ellory’s prose is neither spare, nor lyrical. It’s inventive and he does things with words that I would never have thought of doing. Here he uses repetition to huge effect – repetition usually being a dirge.

“The sound like a fist through glass, a fist wrapped in a towel, a towel snatched from the line that ran from back door to gate post, wrapped around a fist and punched through the glass, like a dull crump of sound, a hot sound somehow, hot and tight, a hot tight sound that pushed its way into my mind even though I was sleeping.
The heat close, too close, the skin a snake aches to shed; the heat of Georgia in late August, a gorgeous heat that challenges you to sleep despite it, and once sleep is gained you don’t want to let it go, don’t want to surface out of it, like surfacing from safe darkness into painfully bright light, and sucking yourself back into unconsciousness as the hot crump sound from outside becomes something like knives and glasses, glasses and knives, all bunched together in a leather bag and shaken, shaken, shaken…
Someone is shaking me.”

So I don’t think there’s anything too baffling about where Ellory fits in our pigeonholed world. He writes literary crime with a style and a panache that ought to make his competitors green with envy.

Q: Hello John. Wow! What a journey you’ve been on. Through all the struggles you relate in your memoir ‘Sectioned: A Life Interrupted’ you wrote poetry. At what point did you start writing prose, and what happened to make you start writing your memoir?

A: Prose and poetry were never at odds in my writing life. I always wrote little stories, and as I started to dabble in verses at the age of 14 I was of course doing all the work any conscientious young scholar (which is what the Irish call schoolboys) would be doing. So I was writing pen portraits, stories, little book reviews, and then later essays and – when I met Patricia, my first schoolboy crush – love letters (*blushes*). So prose was always there.

Then as a young man, in and out of hospital, starting my progress through therapeutic communities, homeless hostels, night shelters, squats, the streets, and prison, I started writing little sketches, vignettes really, about the characters I met and the situations I found myself in. At the end of that 16-year long campaign I was lucky enough to get into the University of East Anglia. With only three O Levels and an Elementary Swimming Certificate I needed as convincer, as they say in the grifters’ world. So I had to write an essay, on a poem by Auden. I was a week late getting it in. I was in my last halfway house by then, back in 1988, and a young student who worked there weekends, Martin Lunn, helped me apply.

Amazingly, I got in.

Then came three years of solid work on essays, with some short story writing thrown in. I wrote a story in Margart Mulvihill’s Creative Writing class that got an A grade, and showed something I was working on, about my time in the therapeutic community featured in ‘Sectioned’, to my wife (she was only my girlfriend then).

It was that piece that made her want to marry me. And, of course, my devastating looks, charm, and roguish wit!

So at several crucial points prose came to the rescue of this beleaguered poet: prose helped me into university; prose led to marriage; and prose made me a professional writer, when I got the contract with John Murray to finish Sectioned (they signed the deal having read the first four chapters, and gave me a handsome advance).

What happened to make me start writing my memoir? Well, I was reaching a point in my life where I wanted to understand what had happened to me, had happened to my generation. The Eighties was a particularly vicious time, with conflict at the heart of politics. Either it was inner city rioters, the unemployed, the Argentinians, Irish Hunger Strikers, the miners, the print workers, the poll tax demonstrators, in the end the Tory Cabinet – all were at some point against Mrs Thatcher.

I think if you’ve never experienced something as intense and ferocious as that decade-long battle you can’t begin to understand what a terrible time people like me had in the Eighties.

Both my parents died before I was 20. I was fostered at 15, first sectioned at 16, left care at 19, was homeless aged 22. Then in and out of hospital, and all those other places I describe in the book, with cuts biting into social provision, and the rather calm England I had known as a child suddenly, spectacularly gone. My experiences – of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, mental illness – weren’t unusual or peculiar to me. There was a terrible recession in the early Eighties – 3M reportedly unemployed, although I’m sure there were more. Because of the government’s dogmatic adherence to monetarism – and I think the love of monetarism is the root of all evil – the recession was allowed to drift. Very little was done by the PM or the Cabinet to intervene. At least the present government have done something, however much they may be to blame – although I don’t think they are, entirely – for the present debacle. So it was as if the recession of the early Eighties lasted until the next boom, which completely passed me by, in 1986, or 1988. But it was only the Falklands that saw Mrs Thatcher re-elected at the height of that first terrible recession.

That was why the miners’ strike was so vicious I think – the miners’ could see what awaited them, unemployment, and the devastation of their communities. Some of those communities have never really recovered. I think the miners felt they were fighting for their lives, for their dignity. And I think we might have had a very different country if Mrs Thatcher has lost the 1982 election. And I can see it all happening all over again – if we’re not careful.

Q: How did you obtain an agent to represent your work and how long did it take you to be published? What advice would you give to other writers trying to get published?

A: I had interest from Granta Magazine for ‘Sectioned’. They passed the first chapter or so over to Granta Books. They too were very keen on ‘Sectioned’. At this point I thought I needed representation. My friend, Bridget Whelan, author of ‘A Good Confession’, passed me on to her agent, Jonathan Conway at Mulcahy Conway Associates.

Jonathan was able to conduct an auction for the book, and I was delighted that John Murray, who published Byron, Austen, Darwin, John Betjeman, took the book. I’ll always be grateful to Fatema Ahmed at Granta Magazine and Sara Holloway at Granta Books, though. Without their interest and encouragement I wouldn’t be having this interview with you!

It took about a year from signing with John Murray to finishing the book – a fast, intense, hardworking, but very satisfying, miraculous year.

Getting published…

My advice is simple.

Whatever genre you are working in, you must be professional. Draw up a table in your laptop. In this table enter the title of the piece you’ve just completed and the date; the name of the magazine, agent or publisher you’ve sent the piece to; whether the piece has been accepted or rejected; the date of publication. Bold in black acceptances; bold in red rejections. If something comes back, look at the feedback, if any. Rewrite, if necessary. And send out again.

Don’t sulk or be upset about rejection.

Anne Sexton, the American poet, went from being in a workshop to having he first collection published within two years. She would send a poem out 30 times until it was published. She may have failed in many ways on a human level; as a writer she was a consummate professional, her work habits about as far from the dreamy poet as you can get.

So learn to take rejection in your stride, to listen to feedback, and always have more than one project, large, small, across all genres, on the go.

A writer has to become self-employed when they start to make any kind of decent money from their work. They become ‘professional writers’, and have to keep records like any business does, to be organised, and clear-headed. So why not be like that before the break comes?

Keep focused and don’t give up.

Study the titles of the publication you submit to, and the editors, their tastes especially, of the magazines, agents, publishing houses, you contact.

And join a group, a book club, a course.

These are what kept me going, are what keeps any writer going!

You’ll get there in the end.

I was lucky, but I’d spent years making my own luck, honing my style, being patient, believing in my dreams.

It can happen.

Having a professional, business-like, clear-headed attitude will make it more likely to happen. And all those people whose attention you’re trying to get – it will be the first thing they notice about you.

Q: Who is Buster?

A: Buster is my wife!

She’s a twin, and twins sometimes develop their own twin language – so Buster was what her twin called her when they were small. And Buster is the nickname that has stuck. And she’s the dedicatee of Sectioned. Without her I’d probably still be on the psychiatric merry-go-round.

Q: You now lecture for the Open University and the University of Westminster in creative writing. How did this come about? What is the thing you find yourself saying to your students most frequently?

A: In 2001 I applied for and was accepted onto the inaugural PhD in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University along with five other very talented writers. I held two teaching qualifications at that stage, an MA in English Literature from Birkbeck, and had several years’ experience of teaching young people,  running Creative Writing workshops – and attending them! – and seeing some small successes – poems, stories, reviews, and articles getting into print, everywhere from The Observer, to The London Magazine, to Ambit, Acumen, and Orbis, and other little magazines too small to mention.

I applied for the post with the OU on their first presentation in Feb 2006 of A215 Creative Writing, equivalent to a second year undergraduate course. It’s a great course, and has taught me lots.

I also applied to the University of Hertfordshire at the same time and taught there for two years until getting the post at Westminster, which is nearer home (I live in Brighton).

One of these days I’ll finish that PhD. I used to think PhD stood for ‘Poor, Hungry & Desperate’ but now I know it actually stands for ‘Poet Has Delays!’

The thing I say most to students is, ‘Well done!’

I’ve taught some great people. And like all teachers of Creative Writing I’m pleased when my students do well.

Westminster is just starting an MA in Creative Writing, and it’s great to be at a place where writing is given so much careful consideration, planning, and space. The ambition of the Faculty I work with, of the students, and the institution in general is just fantastic, and I think that working in the heart of London, right neat Oxford Circus, the BBC, and my publishers on the Euston Road, makes for a very special experience.

Q: You read a post of mine where I expressed surprise that the 2009 Costa Book of the Year Award went to a volume of poetry, ‘A Scattering’ by Christopher Reid. I also posited an opinion of mine that poetry is dead, replaced by pop and rock songs. Octavio Paz said “I don’t think we can have a good society if we don’t have good poetry.” As a poet yourself, what is your opinion on the role poetry has to play in today’s culture?

A: Politicians want to debase language, to debase discourse.

Is the forthcoming Election going to be fought on whether Gordon Brown is a flawed human being, with psychological problems, only one eye, prone to volcanic temper tantrums and bouncing people off the walls of Number 10, or is it going to about the real issues facing us all?

Jobs, education, health, housing, the economy?

I saw what the Conservatives and the right-wing press we have in this country did to Neil Kinnock, and what the Standard did to Ken Livingstone.

Are we going to get campaign by character assassination all over again or something more honest and serious?

Now if there’s one thing poetry does that current political discourse doesn’t it’s to use language at full stretch and to full effect.

There are great lines in poetry, but no sound bites.

Poetry isn’t trying to get on the 6 O’Clock News.

It owes no allegiance to anyone, least of all a political party. There’s no ‘going off message’ in poetry: poets have always been ‘off message’, which is why I think Plato wanted them banished from ‘The Republic’.

Now having said all this, I do think poets have become rather wan, invisible creatures at the moment, content to cultivate their own small two inches of ivory rather than reach out beyond their own rather narrow world.

Where is my generation’s Tony Harrison?

His sonnet sequences ‘From The School Of Eloquence’ and ‘Continuous’; and his longer poem ‘V’, as well as the poems he wrote whilst in Iraq, show that poetry can matter, can try to make things happen. Harrison’s sometimes populist metrics may be seen by some critics as fatuous, but like Charles Causley he’s not afraid to reach out to the broad swathe of readers  who love poetry but feel mystified by the present state of the art, the present offerings of so many ‘poets’, Open most poetry magazines and the man or woman in the street is going to say, ‘I don’t get it’ or ‘So what?’. I think poetry should be doing a lot more – but I do not say it must be more ‘public’. Its very privacy is what keeps poetry unique in the power of expression it can muster. Graves’ love poems are very private really, written by one man to one woman; but we find in them something universal, something miraculous, we don’t find in, say, the latest edition of ‘Magenta’ or ‘Indigo’ (I made those titles up, so don’t waste your time googling!).

But of course Graves was also a WWI poet, who lived to read his own obituary, and spoke out against “the old sweet lie” like his comrade in arms, Wilfred Owen. He tossed both sides of the same coin, and didn’t, I think, subscribe to Auden’s view that “poetry makes nothing happen”.

Harrison’s sonnets, by the way, are much more complex, in terms of language use and the way he plays with form, than perhaps I’m making out. He’s a great, neglected poet now, who should be winning prizes every year, and be up for the Oxford Professorship of Poetry. I reckon it would greatly benefit this country’s  poetic culture if Harrison won the Nobel – then poets wouldn’t seek to emulate the tricksiness of, say, Craig Raine, but would write poetry that connected not through mere cleverness but through sincere and deep belief in what truly matters.

I think poetry in this country took a wrong turn back in the mid-Nineties with the New Generation promotion. This attempt to breathe life into what was seen as a dying art was handed over to a handful of people who had more to do with PR than poetry. I’m sure if it had been left to the poets themselves the outcomes would have been very different.

Photo-shoots in Vogue? Poetry as the “new rock & roll”? Jamie McKendrick as the “Scottish Jimi Hendrix”?! All of this trivialised poetry, instead of popularising it.

I also think the promotion of poetry is very badly served by one crucial forum at the moment: radio. Poets and the radio are made for each other. I see Poetry Please now aims to have more readings by contemporary poets on the programme – well, that’s a little too little, too late. I love Roger McGough, and I have a feeling he’s wanted something like this for a long time,  but couldn’t get it past his producer. The Verb on R3 is fine, but again there’s a bittiness to the magazine format that can end up trivialising poetry. Adventures In Poetry is about the best programme I’ve heard on the radio featuring poetry. Personally I’d like to see longer interviews with contemporary poets, someone like Harrison or Geoffrey Hill talking seriously and intelligently about their art, with readings of their poems to illustrate what they have to say. I could take at least 45 minutes of that! I’d also like to see more works from poets specially written for the medium, more ‘Plays For Voices’ like Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’. Thomas served a long apprenticeship on radio, writing and broadcasting features, and serving as an actor in radio plays. You’d think the Beeb would have been keen on more poets at the mike, but it doesn’t seem to have happened.

But perhaps now it’s easier with technology for a poet to podcast their work, so I hope this will go from strength to strength. I know the poetry press I’m associated with, Waterloo Press in Brighton, is starting to make inroads into presenting poetry in new ways, so I hope that poetry, through means divers and various, can once again experience the standing it enjoyed only a short time ago.

In summary, then: poetry, I think, already plays an enormous part in our culture, from the verse in the ‘In Memoriam’ columns of local papers (and ‘A Scattering’ is one more contribution to this long line of distinguished English elegy), to that strange member of the Royal Household, the Poet Laureate, to the fact that our greatest writer, Shakespeare, is a poet, and has a theatre company named after him.

But poets could be doing so much more!

My biggest hope is that radio, especially the BBC, grants them greater access to the airwaves. Then I think we’d see poets reconnecting on a more serious, but also a more popular level, with people who have a hunger to hear the best the language has to offer.

Q: I know that you are working on some full-length fiction at the moment. What are your plans here and where are you finding your inspiration? How distracting is it teaching at the same time as writing?

A: I don’t want to say too much here, Helen! But I think I’ll have more news for you by the summer. My agent is very keen on one particular project, and I hope there may be some news very soon. As for teaching – hey, I’m lucky just to have a job! So I’m not going to complain about such congenial, fulfilling work either! And actually the teaching teaches me…  But that’s a whole other interview!

Q: In ‘Sectioned’ you name Dylan Thomas, John Keats, Robert Graves and Patrick Kavanagh as poets you admire (in your interview at UEA). Who are your favourite novelists?

A: James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ has everything. Everyone knows about all the pyrotechnical brilliance, chapters laid out like a newspaper, like a play, the nine parodies in the maternity unit – as we’d called it now – the mad catechetical Q&A of the penultimate chapter, Molly Bloom’s soliloquy.

But he’s also a writer who can move you to tears and something beyond tears. Both the Hades chapter and the Circe chapter are brilliant in terms of his raw power to evoke deep, deep emotions. Joyce is just a genius. So ‘Ulysses’ is a kind of a bible – it has everything a writer needs in terms of lessons you can learn, tricks you can steal, methods to adopt.

The work of writers who’ve been publishing in the last ten years that’s most impressed me, and made me fall in love with every word they write, is the little group I call ‘The Plate Glass School’.

Two of them went to the University of Kent: Sarah Waters and David Mitchell; the third, David Peace, went to Manchester Poly. (I bet you can’t remember polys!). They’re all terrific. I think ‘Fingersmith’, ‘Cloud Atlas’, and ‘The Damned Utd’ are the three best English novels of the last decade.

The youngest writer whose work I like at the moment is Adam Foulds. I’ve read both ‘The Broken Word’, his ‘verse novella’; and ‘The Quickening Maze’. A terrific writer with the real gift every poet needs: the image-making gift. I’ve found him a little chilly at times, but I’ve heard his first novel is a picaresque, a comic English road movie of a novel, so am looking forward to reading that and hoping to see  that he’s actually a little warmer than I’ve so far taken him for. But I think he’s a terrific writer.

Q: If you were a cloud, what sort of cloud would you be? I’d be a cirrostratus who sometimes wears a halo!

A: I would of course, Dear Helen, be a cloud with a silver lining…

www.johnodonoghue.co.uk

Sectioned is published by John Murray

Brunch Poems is published by Waterloo Press

Q: Hi Leigh. We met at the VWC Get Writing Festival at the University of Hertfordshire last Saturday. What was it that inspired you to go along to the conference and did you achieve your objectives in attending?

A: The VWC Get Writing Festival had a wonderful programme but I was only able to go at lunch time to sign copies of CUT SHORT as  I had a meeting with my publisher that morning.  I hope to run a workshop at the Get Writing Festival in 2011.  I became involved with the Festival as I am giving a talk to the Verulam Writers’ Circle on 5^th May.

Q: Your blog at http://leighrussell.blogspot.com starts in August 2007 just after you’d signed a deal with your publisher, No Exit Press. It took nearly two years for that book, ‘Cut Short’ to hit the shelves. What happened during that time and did you find yourself becoming frustrated with any elements of the process?

A:  I was surprised to discover what a long process publishing a book can be. Once a manuscript is finished, it goes through a seemingly endless process of editing, proof reading, cover designing, and so on. I was beginning to think CUT SHORT would never be published! I have learned that two years is fairly typical for a first book. ROAD CLOSED will be published this June, and DEAD END will be out in June 2011. And my publisher has already asked me to write a fourth one.

Q: Did you specifically choose not to have an agent and to approach publishers directly with your book? Have there been any moments where you thought having an agent would be useful?

A: At first, I just wanted to write. I didn’t think about developing a career as an author. CUT SHORT has been doing so well that I am beginning to take my writing career seriously and I now have an agent, which I am very pleased about.

Q: ‘Cut Short’ is extremely fast paced with a large cast of characters. How much editing did you have to do? How many characters appeared unexpectedly as you wrote the book? Are you a planner?

A: I sat down and wrote CUT SHORT without any planning at all because it didn’t occur to me that my story would be published.  I just enjoyed writing it.  As a result, it did need fairly rigorous editing.  I was initially signed up for 3 books, and wrote ROAD CLOSED knowing it would be published. I planned it out first, and it needed very little editing.  My agent asked me to write a detailed synopsis for DEAD END, so I have planned that carefully. Having the synopsis makes life much easier. I wish I’d done that with my first two books.

Q: Are you a big reader of crime fiction yourself? Your publisher cites ‘Cut Short’ as being in the tradition of Ruth Rendell, Lynda la Plante, Frances Fyfield and Barbara Vine. Are you a fan of these authors? What else do you like to read?

A: I read Ruth Rendell, Frances Fyfield, PD James – all psychological crime writers. I am also a fan of Henning Mankell, Jeffery Deaver, Val McDermid, Simon Beckett… too many to mention! I don’t only read crime fiction, my reading tastes are fairly wide ranging.  But now that I write, I have very little time to read.

Q: I see that as well as being a writer, you are also a teacher. How do these careers compliment each other do you think, and are there any areas in which they get in each other’s way? If you could write full-time, would you? (or do you?!)

A: I enjoy teaching, but now that I have discovered writing, I would love to write full time. Teaching and writing psychological thrillers are both natural choices for someone fascinated by people.

Q: DI Geraldine Steel is a brilliant investigator and I have pre-ordered my copy of your next book ‘Road Closed’ which ships on 2^nd June 2010. Where did Steel come from and what are your plans for her? Without giving anything away obviously!

A: When I started writing the story of CUT SHORT, my detective was a middle-aged man. In many ways he worked very well, but I wasn’t sure how a man feels in his personal and sexual relationships. I didn’t want to fall back on clichés, so I changed my protagonist to a woman.  The reader learns a lot about Geraldine Steel in ROAD CLOSED… no, I’m not going to say any more !

Q: If you were something in a park, what would you be? I’d like to be the swings as I’m pretty curious and I think you’d see a lot as a swing and probably be quite popular with people, so get to do some serious eavesdropping too.

A:  I suppose I’d be a person out for a walk who stumbles across a body in the bushes….

I am not a crime connoisseur although I did recently read ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. I couldn’t put ‘Cut Short’ down though – a thoroughly gripping, sprint paced, creepy thriller. I went to the VWC Get Writing conference on Saturday and in the lunch break a number of novelists were hawking their wares. I had a vague recollection of hearing about Leigh’s heroine, DI Geraldine Steel somewhere and thought I’d give it a go.

Steel is a brilliant and sympathetic character the reader really roots for. I would definitely enjoy reading her solving another case and seeing her progress in her career. It would be nice for her to have some more excitement in her love life. Perhaps with her younger, sexy sidekick Peterson… Leigh handles a huge cast of characters from all walks of life (au pairs, journalists, rock stars, privileged and disadvantaged teenagers, teachers, politicians and their wives) with finesse; they all have their own important parts to play in the unfolding story. Chapters are short and snappy, changing the point of view and keeping the story rocketing forwards.

I enjoyed the interactions between the sexes and there were some wry observations. This particular passage made me smile, feeling like post-post feminism:

“‘It’s time we women took action, Julie declared firmly. Melanie saw two of the women exchange a smile, as if to say, ’she’s off again.’ Other women nodded. ‘If a woman was in charge, they’d have caught this killer by now. He’s been roaming the streets for nearly a week. It’s alright for the men, they’re OK. He only attacks women. But we can’t step outside our homes without fearing for our lives. We know all about the sexism that’s rife in the police force. It’s everywhere – ‘
‘I think you’ll find it’s a woman who’s in charge of the investigation,’ someone butted in.
‘Well, that just proves my point. Why haven’t they put their top man on the case? Because it’s only women being attacked, that’s why.’
‘Perhaps this woman is their top detective,’ someone else pointed out.”

A thoroughly satisfying read AND I have just pre-ordered Leigh’s next title, ‘Road Closed’ on Amazon. It’s being released on my birthday (2nd June!) this year. Leigh has agreed to do an interview with me so watch out for that appearing here…

What a day! Possibly the best £45 I’ve ever spent. Although the £45 grey faux suede zip up the back stiletto boots I bought to wear to the conference come a close second.

The VWC are the Verulam Writers Circle and they don’t do group hugs – they take their writing very seriously. And so they should since they are not only hugely talented and amazingly networked, but also organisers of excellently practical and inspirational events for writers. This one was held at a secret (ok, just badly signposted) location at the University of Hertfordshire and, following the introductions, the first session was ‘The Agent’s Story’. I took pages and pages of notes today so I’m going to try and keep this as short as possible, and focus on the pearls of wisdom that came raining down on the audience. Here goes:

THE AGENTS STORY:
Queries should be “put together carefully and introduced eloquently” – say who you are, why you are writing, what your expectations are, details of any writing success you have had and why you know your subject. Do not editorialise.

Don’t take rejection personally. It’s not about you, it’s about the book. I’ve heard this one before, and my reaction was the same – I think the line between the person and the book are pretty blurred. I think it’s more sensible to take anything constructive you can from the rejection, realise how subjective the whole business is, and move on. Ian M Banks/Ian Banks took fourteen years to be published from his first submission. Perserverance rules. Markets can change – something that won’t sell right now may become viable in the future.

I like this one. “Start with movement”.

Most people can’t write well enough for commercial presentation. (Heart beats, hoping I can). Know your market, but write what you want. Be AWARE of your market.

Mary Wesley published her first book at 65. A guess at the average first published age was 25-40 (am I nearly over the hill already?! I like this though as one of the things I love about the prospect of writing is that you can do it until you’re pushing up daisies, assuming all the requisite faculties are intact).

WORD OF MOUTH sells more books than any other mechanism. Annoyingly, something we can’t control. In the event of it happening; incredibly satisfying. It’s not quite fame, more popularity by striking some sort of chord with a volume of hearts.

Synopsis: not a step by step description of the action. It needs to describe the narrative thrust, the narrative arc and introduce the characters.

Author’s Question: “What are you looking for?” (hoping for answer along the lines of “a vampiric angel coming-of-age novel with an autistic meercat”)
Agent’s Answer: “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Authonomy.com: Very political – to get on the editor’s desk you give good reviews to get good reviews. Nothing to be lost by going on there though. Quite possibly nothing to be gained either. And all that good review giving could be very time consuming. Time better spent writing and researching/querying agents.

Fastest deal: one of the agents once sold a novel in 3 hours for £100K (for 3) based on a single 24 word chapter. Have a feeling this story might be unique. Agents are told: “Don’t buy something simply because it fits in the market.” What it is to be an agent: “Get it right three times out of five, you’re a hero. Two times out of five and you’re a villain.”Agents understand that authors want to query multiple agents (time to respond issue). But don’t do more than five at a time.

CRACKLING CHARACTERISATION WORKSHOP with Sue Moorcroft
This was brilliant and my favourite part of the day. Sue started by giving us all (and there were about thirty people in the room) a scrap of paper where there was a space for the character’s name and then a few details such as “Age: 38, Male, Has just bought radio controlled car, Doesn’t like spiders”. We then had five minutes to write details around this. She then took a person from the audience and he became his character and we quizzed him. He had to fill out his character on the spot and it was a whole heap of fun. I could have played the game all day. It had us thinking about plot triggers (external/internal) – gradual realisation is weak and dull, and the unreliable narrator. We agreed looks weren’t as important as you might think (someone made a comment about using a mirror in a novel which made me draw a breath since I do this in The Nature of Memory, but since I’m using it to contrast her face in the paper, I might stick with this!). People agreed with me that writing about writers is dull! In romantic fiction it’s more important how people look (even if not classic good looking) than literary fiction. Romantic fiction also demands that the protagonists like animals. They have to have a soft side. Flashbacks are not popular – put them in dialogue and introspection. Knowing where your reader will put their sympathy is important – especially if you are going to switch them (back to the unreliable narrator). Empathy is knowing how the character feels. Give your characters emotions – and I loved this: “emotions go around in gangs”.

THE PUBLISHERS STORY
Hachette Children’s press published 1300 new titles in 2009. They are now cutting their list. This made me wonder if there will always be ‘too many’ books in the marketplace? Conversely, what kind of world would we live in if there were too few? This is about balancing commerce with a creative culture.

Because we are now limited to Waterstones and WH Smiths in terms of book-exclusive high street chains, there aren’t as many opportunities to ‘place’ the books. In the past a publisher could virtually guarantee they would sell a 100k print run on the basis of their control over the distribution network. I have to say that I feel it’s better for the consumer, and the author now, in terms of the way success is achieved (by word of mouth) although clearly life is much more difficult for the publisher. Technological advances in POD (print on demand) should help with this though.

Publishers do look for authors to be actively involved in the marketing of their work. Later on an author said he spent 9 months writing a book and 3 months promoting it. I think this is fair. The author should blog (tick!), go to events and use their contacts. They also said that they like authors who have their own marketing strategy. I’ll write one tomorrow. Interestingly, I spoke to a children’s author in one of the breaks who’d managed to snag an agent in one of the top agencies and was disappointed with her activity and her lack of support of his entrepreneurial approach. He’s such a proactive author he’d already emailed his work to the editor he had a 3 minute one-to-one with in the afternoon (more in a bit). Very clever. Authors are responsible for their own website (good! I thought! Never let it be said I am a control freak).

Your editor is your champion in the publishing house. The acquisitions process is ruthless, financially controlled and your editor has to get a number of people on board – your stakeholders.

One of the publishers used the word ‘faction’ in disgust. I was annoyed since I thought I had coined the term ‘historical faction’. There really is no such thing as original thought.

Only Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling have achieved their level of sales and that speed ever in the publishing marketplace. Why? Globalisation?

Yes, angels are the next big thing.

The balance of power had shifted to the retailer – Amazon is king. Sales are done to Head Office only. There is virtually no selling at the store level, F2F anymore. The perception is that only independents offer range and choice (quality customer service and author events). 3 for 2 offers in Waterstones distract the consumer from the brand new hard covers, unless the consumer knows what they really want. Supermarkets put price over choice and have pushed publishers into a twice monthly cycle – authors have 2 weeks to sell… or not. Supermarkets also sell books as loss leaders – making it cheaper for independent bookshops to buy copies from ASDA than direct from the publisher.

GET WRITING SHORT STORY CONFERENCE CUP
After lunch this was awarded. I was delighted to be in the final ten shortlisted with ‘The Jigsaw Fairy’.

SURVIVING
Very amusing author Adele Geras gave this one, the premise of which was don’t expect to make any money and you may just lose your mind, but you’ll have fun along the way. The minute you get published you are the goose that might lay a golden egg, and the pressure you put on yourself to produce your masterpiece is nothing compared to what you’ll feel from the publishers for your sales figures to rocket.

Why is it that when you are working on something, the next thing you have to do looks more interesting? She advised to “keep a lot of irons in the fire”. I like this strategy. I like to have a lot of plates spinning at once. I’m tempted to do a pie chart here a bit like the one I did before for numbers of authors that get numbers of rejections, except this would be for number of authors making x amounts of money. Adele was at pains to explain you can’t really make a living from writing. You can. But most don’t. There’s a big poverty gap. A bit like people starting their own businesses. Some people have suggested that I knock out the odd short story here and there to bring some income in – but I was pleased to hear Adele say there are very few short story outlets these days. I have recently discovered that writing a short story is fun – in a kind of palate cleansing, five brain star-jumps kind of way, but I am committed to the novel.

BEWARE OF WRITERS CIRCLES FULL OF NASTY, HORRIBLE PEOPLE OUT TO SABOTAGE YOU!!! Everyone rolling in the aisles laughing, particularly when Adele also refered to nasty, horrible spouses out to sabotage you demanding that the ironing be done and the supper on the table. Funny, but not, at the same time. Keep perspective, keep a tight handle on your artistic integrity and confidence, take negative comments with a pinch of salt, listen constructively, dismiss those with agendas.

“The hardest and most important thing is to find an agent.” (Echoed by the author in the last session – agents and publishers don’t want the self-published. You send yourself into a ghetto that way. I’d like to hear the side of story from a successful self published author… but maybe there isn’t one…) Another fabulous Adele-ism: “Agents are like husbands. Brilliant if they are good, but if they are bad you are better off without them.” She also said that your agent should be your number one fan – something contradicted in the last session – your agent just needs to believe you will sell. The latter sentiment was also reflected in The Agent film I recently reviewed.

Detailed synopses (although a royal pain to write) are actually very useful – a bit like a recipe. Don’t be precious – readers/agents/editors will often have ideas that are better than your own.

MEET THE AGENT
Early in the 180 seconds I had with the agent he said he’d look at my work so I gave him the query pack I’d prepared for him. I felt good at the time but the very short dialogue gave very little opportunity for any meaningful discussion so who knows how this really went. It was a fun experience though and time will tell.

GETTING PUBLISHED
“As a debut author you are often better off with a hungrier agent.” Something I had been bearing in mind with a couple of my recent queries. I also like the idea of growing with somebody. When you are trying to decide whether to work with someone “don’t imagine things are going well, think about how it will be if things are going bad”. Will they still pick up the phone? Will they try new things? Will they abandon you?

The synopsis should tell you how the book will make you feel.

An author must:
- Have self belief
- Listen
- Persevere

Later though it was said that it’s great if an author thinks everything they write is rubbish. Although this was later revised to, an author should take on a state of continuous improvement. Basically, as I learned at last year’s Chichester Writing Festival, you need to be somewhere between humility and the recognition of your own genius in order to have the motivation to write, and rewrite. When writing, stop when you are on a roll – it gives you somewhere to start the next day.

Good writing and good stories WILL prevail.

There followed some discussion about not trying to write humour which I didn’t fully understand. The classic comic crime caper was cited (again at the Chichester Writing Festival last year we found an exception to this rule – Janet Evanovich) – there seemed to be two main concerns about writing things that were funny; firstly, that not everyone laughs at the same things (not everyone likes the same things?) and secondly, foreign translation is difficult. I was a bit lost on this point I will admit.

I sloped off before the last session (from a non-fiction author) as it had been a long and packed day with a considerable journey to get home. And I had this to write!

One last note on the more informal networking element of the event, it was great to meet people from the VWC I’d only previously met on Twitter (@juliemayhew, @jonpinnock, @sandranorval and @icundell) as well as making new acquaintances with Lauren and Marianna in particular. I also bumped into one of my customers from a previous life, who I had last seen in Krabi airport in Thailand… you couldn’t write about it.

PS: I used the prize pig image in this post since, although I didn’t win, it was exciting to be shortlisted and not too shabby for only the second short story I’ve written (although I have no idea how many entered!)

I have been a fan of Paul Torday’s since we read ‘The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce’ at my book club. Since then I enjoyed ‘The Girl on the Landing’ and so when I read in Bookseller that this one was coming out I was quick to jump onto Amazon and pre-order. Pre-ordering is one of life’s absolute pleasures. Since I use Amazon such a lot I rarely pay any attention to the email updates telling me when things are dispatched which makes the arrival of books like this both an unexpected yet anticipated pleasure.

This book is not so much about Charlie Summers but Eck, interestingly a minor character in ‘Wilberforce’ – ex-army, leaving a short career in private security (following an incident in Colombia that is pivotal to Wilberforce’s mental illness), Eck joins an old school chum, also ex-forces, in his hedge fund business, just as the economy rides sky-high before tumbling into free-fall. Predictably this is a parable of the dangers of greed but nicely topical, and Torday uses the military connections to bring in some commentary about Afghanistan too, keeping it nicely contemporary. I did find myself wearying slightly though of the constant gentrification in Torday’s novels – he likes to set his action in the upper classes with the requisite hunting and shooting and fishing. I suppose this was helpful to draw the contrast with the hopelessness of Summers, and I guess you have to keep on giving your readers what you want and it’s natural to assume they want more of the same… As I said though, this book isn’t really about Summers and his character is a little unbelievable at times. He’s a small time entrepreneur selling dodgy dog food. This story line just didn’t feel right – I don’t know if it was brought in for comedic value but I rather felt it fell flat. Eck is the narrative voice throughout the novel and often relates long passages of action third hand, something which I found a little clumsy at times.

I also would like to see a female protagonist with a few more dimensions. I find Torday’s too simple, undemanding, faithful – and I’m never entirely sure why they are attracted to the male protagonists, other than they’ve expressed a small level of interest… Harriet was just a little too convenient for me. As with ‘The Girl on the Landing’ the pace was a little slow to begin with, but the end whipped like a happy dog’s tail. Interestingly, the one Torday book I haven’t had a problem with pace in was ‘Wilberforce’ – where it begins with the end – a narrative construct that strongly appealed to me. I find Torday’s prose very quick to read, although in parts I felt this could have been edited better as phrases seemed to contradict each other. A satisfying read, but probably one that won’t live with me for very long. It’s a reminder that I am still yet to read his first, and most critically applauded, ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’. Another one for the list then.

Even though it’s easy to become inured to the homeless, to allow them to become invisible, I know that a lot of us do see them and wonder what set of circumstances conspired to deny them what most of us consider basic privileges. I’ve heard people say we’re only two bad decisions away from ending up on the street, a thought which can send a shiver down a spine. John O’Donoghue’s memoir tells us how, following the death of his father when he was sixteen, his mother was unable to cope and he ended up being sectioned and began a life in and out of mental hospitals, living on the street and in hostels for the homeless, charity and council funded accommodation, prison cells and finally manages to conquer the system, beat the institutionalisation out of himself, and make the life he lives now – a writer/poet and lecturer in creative writing for the Open University and the University of Westminster.

This is not a misery memoir. O’Donoghue’s Irish roots have imbued him with the gift of the gab and although this book relates the struggles he had finding his place his this world, it’s a story told with humour and optimism. The narrative is told in the present tense, with occasional italicised passages describing the madness burgeoning within and this really helps with the pace and the readability of the book. There are a lot of characters, this is real life after all, some thoroughly unlikable, but all clearly drawn. O’Donoghue himself comes across as a sympathetic victim of the system and an honest and clean fighter for his future. There are some remarkable passages about the effect of the medicines upon him, casual labour versus cadging what you can, a stealing incident – the whole book is a real eye-opener:

“‘Day in, day out, day in, day out!’ I shout, over and over, my palm flying backwards and forwards against my forehead. I feel like I’m punching every clock that’s ever started my working day, that I’m sorting every letter I’ve ever delivered, that I’m climbing every staircase I’ve ever hauled myself up. And in the middle of it all, I know I’m as sane as the nurse coming towards me to see what’s going on. I know how mad people act, and I want to be with them again. Sooner the madhouse than a life I can’t take any more.”

John has very kindly agreed to do a writer interview with me so keep an eye out for that. He’s also been working on a couple novels and since I like his style so much, I’m looking forward to having a read of those!

In my post yesterday I expressed doubts about agents taking electronic submissions seriously. I take this back. Although it is a rejection, the response time is impressive. Not an encouraging one, all it said was:

“Many thanks for letting us consider this but I’m afraid that we are going to pass.

We wish you all the best of luck in finding representation elsewhere.

With all best wishes”

Back to toiling down the word mine…

Two in one day? Harsh, but I can take it. Observations:

1) These two complete the set of 5 queries posted on January 11th 2010 (the 1st went out in November 2009). All of these had stamped, self-addressed postcards enclosed for the recipient to pop in the post to acknowledge receipt. Something that I thought was recommended/standard practice. Only one of the set of 5 (so 20% hit rate: low) was sent back to me. Why? Do agents not want you to know that they have received your query in order to avoid annoying follow-up calls? Do they not want to indicate the time elapsed before they open the query? I didn’t send the postcards either to chase the agents or monitor their slush pile performance but merely for peace of mind that the packages had reached their destination. Perhaps I should just trust the Royal Mail. Or pay extra for Guaranteed Delivery.

2) One of the rejections took the form of an email. Worried last week that I had not heard from 3 of the queried agents, I followed up on an offer from an acquaintance. This particular acquaintance was a recruitment agent who placed me in my last job which I did for over six years and resulted in the happy happenstance I currently find myself in. When said recruitment agent found out via LinkedIn that I was taking this time out to write, he offered this literary agent up as one of his friends. I responded at the time that I knew of this agent (I’d listened to him speak at the TLC Industry Day last October) and he was on my shortlist to query. I also said that I did not expect our connection to influence the agent’s opinion of my work. However, I was worried that the queries had gone astray (see missing postcards above) and used the connection to try and confirm receipt. The agent asked me to email the work to him (so I didn’t entirely answer my own question – it was answered by the other rejections received on Saturday and today) but I did ensure this particular agent saw my work. This was his emailed response today:

“Thanks very much for sending this through to me.

I read it over the weekend. While I certainly admire the ambitious nature of this in the form of an animal as narrator, I wasn’t completely convinced that this worked. It’s a tricky thing to pull off.

In light of this, I am going to pass.

Thanks very much for letting me take a look at your work and I wish you all the best in placing it. These things are subjective so you may well find someone else who feels differently.”

So a fairly standard, slightly personalised response. Not as encouraging as rejection #4. Am thinking, does “ambitious” = “stupid”? I’m hearing that I am “bold”, “brave”, “ambitious” and wondering if this means “unmarketable”, or “original”? I did submit 5 online queries last week, but we’ll come to that. Either having an animal narrator is a massive mistake, (despite the readers’ love for him? Oh, and mine – see point 3) or I need to find someone willing to take a punt on something a bit different.

And just a quick note on finding an agent. I am increasingly convinced that networking is key. See the comment in this post about how a published author I met through Twitter found his agent. If I were an agent I imagine I would be drowning in post – word processors and printers making this task ever easier (of course this also makes POD/self-publishing a breeze but there’s a whole other argument there for another day), so having a clue who the person is must make a difference. And I don’t think that networking from IT Sales Management to Author is a natural one – without the person knowing you – and I’ve never seen X & Y (the recruitment agent and the literary agent) in context together so cannot be sure of their relationship… whatever, there’s nothing like selling face to face and nothing like knowing the person you are working with. And so… roll on the 3 minute pitch I have at the writing conference on Saturday… and hopefully building a relationship with rejection #4 who has left his door very slightly ajar.

3) “Kill your darlings.” A common writing tip. This means Herbert (the current tortoise narrator) has to go. He can remain as a small character. But he won’t have a voice . My plan is to rewrite the first three chapters in three formats, in response to rejection letter #4: one with Herbert a bit more grown up, as he is as the end of the novel (ignoring the fact that the action makes him grow up), the second with Ollie (male protagonist as narrator) and the third with an unlimited 3rd person omniscient narrator. Target for completion – three weeks. Possible? Of course. I have the story/settings/characters now… I just need to put the words down and keep an eye on the pace. Then a call to the agent and resubmission.

4) Online submissions. No response/acknowledgement of receipt (apart from an automated one from Macmillan New Writing. They aim to respond (if positive) within 12 weeks – but I know from other authors that they have published that they sometimes fall outside of these timelines – unsurprisingly given the volume that they receive). I’ve worked in technology all of my career, and started in 1995 selling email systems, so I do find the whole snail mail thing a bit baffling. But I have a feeling that the publishing industry mostly isn’t quite up to speed yet and somehow an email submission isn’t as ’serious’ or ‘important’ as a paper based one (what about the trees?!). But I would love to stand corrected.

5) And the 6th rejection, the least personal of all. These guys have pre-printed rejection postcards. I normally remove the “Dear” bit but…

“Dear Author,

Thank you for offering XXX the opportunity to consider your work for representation. Regrettably we are unable to offer our services. We wish you every success with your writing.”

There was a hand written name on the card – but not one listed in the agents on the site. And not one that I could find any information about.

6) There’s something almost conspiratorial about the way all of these rejections arrived together following a chase. But maybe it’s just expectation setting. Send a query – expect around four weeks to elapse before response.

And so… there probably won’t be much blogging over the next few weeks, as I’ll be busy rewriting Thirty Seconds Before Midnight’s first three chapters and writing novel number two, which was called ‘The Nature of Forget’ but may now be ‘The Nature of Memory’ but none of which matters since the publishers will probably re-title it (because they know what they are doing!). But then again… we all need to breathe…

Exciting! A personalised response – I definitely consider this progress!

“Thank you for allowing us to consider THIRTY SECONDS BEFORE MIDNIGHT. I’m delighted that I was recommended by Andrew, and that you also admire Bo Fowler’s “different” writing!

A reader and I have read through the chapters you sent. She felt that the idea of a rock star moving into an aristocratic pile was great – it provided a great premise to send up celebrity culture, something that you manage extremely well. However, the beginning of the story lacks pace and we also had reservations about the tortoise narrator – particularly at the start when the tone is rather childish. In my opinion, you need to establish the voice of the narrator much earlier, so that the story can get going much faster – as you read on, the story does get better and better.

I’m afraid that in a highly competitive market publishers are increasingly selective about the titles they take on and we, in turn, must do the same. Unfortunately, we do not feel that we would be able to place this successfully in the current publishing climate. Please bear in mind that this is the opinion of one agency along and that others may feel differently. If you wanted to overhaul the beginning of this radically, taking into consideration the above points, then I would be happy to take another look.

If not, thank you for giving us the opportunity of handling your work. I am only sorry that we do not feel we can offer our services to you, and I wish you the very best of luck with your future writing.”

Work to do then! Exciting!

A friend of mine told me a story at the weekend that he’d read about Harper Lee, author of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’. He told me that he’d read in the Paris Review that Lee had been given an envelope on a Christmas Tree containing a year’s salary and the instructions just to write whatever she wanted. What amazing friends!

The parallel with my situation is clear – I also have a year to write, thanks to serendipitous fortunes (and I would sometimes justify hard work – although I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I didn’t think Lee deserved her break!). I also have amazing friends and family, and I knew that anyway, but their support and encouragement is invaluable. People I don’t know so well often comment on my courage – and maybe what I am doing is brave, but I feel I don’t really have any choice but to take this window of opportunity to commit myself to writing – and am just very grateful that life played out for me to be in this position. Let’s just see what happens next!

Wikipedia (as always) have a great summary biography of Lee here.

Given that I am in the process of seeking representation for my first novel, a process notorious for the volume of rejections an author has to face before succeeding, it’s good practice I think, to also think about those who have made it and use their stories for inspiration and encouragement. Nicholas Sparks, a novelist whose work has mostly passed me by, although I have seen the film of his first novel ‘The Notebook’, has a story filled with ambition, commitment and outstanding success. You can read the whole story on his website here where there is lots of detail about his family and philanthropic concerns. Here’s an edited version, focussing on how he became a writer and how he sustains his career:

“High school was when things started to get interesting. For some reason, my brain kicked into high gear when I was fourteen and I didn’t receive a grade lower than an A for the next four years. I ended up the valedictorian but couldn’t give the commencement address. I was due in Los Angeles (again) for the state track meet. I broke a number of school and meet records during high school and received a full track scholarship to the University of Notre Dame. All this in addition to working thirty hours a week at a local restaurant. Life was busy in high school, but good. Darn good. Then, as it often seems to, my life took a U-turn and things got tough. During my freshman year in college, I got injured, went a little insane, and after breaking the Notre Dame record in the 4 x 800 relay (at the Drake relays — a record that still stands), I spent the summer icing my Achilles tendon. During those three months, in which I was instructed not to run at all, I moped around the house until my mom got tired of it.

“Don’t just pout,” she said, “Do something”

“What?” I asked, not bothering to hide my sulking.

“I don’t know. Write a book.”

I looked at her. “Okay,” I said.

Eight weeks later, I was the proud author of my first novel — “The Passing,” a book that was never published. I laid it to rest in a literary graveyard of sorts — my attic — and I still keep it hidden away after all these years.

1989 was also the year that I wrote my second novel, “The Royal Murders.” It’s also in the attic, together with countless rejection slips. I decided to concentrate on another career. Since I’d not only been rejected by publishers but law school as well, I tried out a number of short-term jobs looking for something that captivated my interest. I appraised real estate, bought and restored houses, waited tables, sold dental products by phone and finally started my own business (manufacturing orthopedic products). Although I knew nothing about the medical field or engineering — my science education began and ended with Biology 101 — I put myself in charge of everything. Thirty- thousand dollars in credit-card debt later, I realized my folly, big as a whale. Being a Capricorn, I had no choice but to take a deep breath, roll up my sleeves, and avoid the evil-death-ray stares that my wife was laser-beaming into the back of my head. I pressed on and it eventually worked out — sort of. After two and a half long, long years, I broke even. We celebrated our smashing success wildly and without care, and nine months later, my son Miles Andrew was born.

During this time, I wrote yet another book, Wokini with Billy Mills, a long-time friend and Olympic Gold Medalist. It was published by Feather Publishing, a small outfit in Sacramento. It did well regionally (sales of about 50,000 copies) and was picked up by Random House in 1994. The success, I confess, was primarily due to the name recognition of Billy Mills. (Newer editions have been published by Hay House Books.)

In early 1992, I sold my business and looked around for something to do while I was still breathing. “Pharmaceutical Sales” the ad read. “Okay,” I said, and it was a really good choice at the time. The hours were good, the pay was good, and I only saw my boss once a month. Couldn’t ask for anything more. I asked for and received a transfer from Sacramento to a small town in North Carolina, and in December 1992, we moved across the country to a place we’d never seen, where we could afford to buy a house and start living the American dream.

Mid-twenties life check. Good job, nice wife, cute kids, beautiful house overlooking a creek — what more could there be? In May 1994, I found out. Cheers, the television show, broadcast its final episode. Bob Costas did an hour-long show prior to the episode and I remember lying awake most of the night after it aired. Cheers had been on for eleven years — an entire era of my life — and yet I realized that for the first time, I wasn’t chasing my dreams anymore. My life was good, but I didn’t want to look back from my deathbed and know I’d given that up trying to make my mark in the world. I decided I had to do something — to chase a dream — but what? My wife wasn’t about to let me quit my job, so I decided that I’d give writing another shot. A real shot though, not a half-effort like before. I decided I could live with failure, but I didn’t want to live the rest of my life knowing that I hadn’t really tried. So, I decided to give myself three chances — three more novels — and if none of those was published, I’d be able to accept that I wasn’t meant to be a writer.

Then, of course, I had to decide on the story, and sure enough, I did.

I wrote The Notebook over a six-month period, from June of 1994 until January of 1995, writing in the evenings from nine until midnight, and working one day on the weekends. In January 1995, I got transferred to Greenville, South Carolina and continued editing the book. In July 1995, I started soliciting agents, I found one, and the book was presented to publishers in October 1995. At the time, I was earning about $40,000 a year.

Warner Books bought the rights for $1,000,000.

If you think I was excited about that, you’re severely underestimating my response. I jumped up and down so long I got a cramp in my calf. I was hoarse for two days from screaming. I could barely sleep. It didn’t seem real, but it was. And it was absolutely wonderful.

The first thing I bought was a new wedding ring for my wife. I remember getting down on my knees and telling her that our life just might be changing forever and that I didn’t know what the future would bring. Then I asked her to marry me again. Film rights to the novel were sold later that week to New Line Cinema and that was exciting, too. Foreign rights were sold (eventually into more than 45 languages), and the novel was made a Main Selection of the Literary Guild. Life was grand. Life was awesome.

In October, my book was launched.

That month, I started the book tour for The Notebook. 56 events in over 45 cities crammed into three months. It was the longest book tour in Warner Books’s history — one of the longest ever, period — but it was important for me to do, despite the fact that only one person showed up in Miami and one person showed up in San Francisco for events in those cities. The Notebook steadily grew in popularity through word-of-mouth. It ended up spending 56 weeks on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list, and another 54 weeks on the paperback list. It was only the third novel in the previous thirty years that had lasted over a year on the hardcover list, and the only novel to last over a year on both hardcover and paperback lists, until J.K. Rowling came along with Harry Potter. To this point, it has sold over 10,000,000 copies worldwide.

I continued selling pharmaceuticals through 1996 and into 1997, (long after The Notebook had been sold and published and while writing Message in a Bottle) for the simple reason that I didn’t know if I could come up with another story or if I’d go down as a one hit wonder. I finally turned in the company car and hung up the suits for good in February 1997, when I thought Message in a Bottle was going well enough to give up the “real” job.

Beginning in early 1997, I also started working with my son Ryan, trying to “re- wire” his brain, so to speak, through intensive therapy. I spent 3-4 hours a day teaching him the mechanics of speech in the hopes of aiding his development and getting him to talk. It was just about the hardest and yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

In April 1997, movie rights for Message in a Bottle were sold to Warner Brothers, with Denise DiNovi producing, when the novel was about half-completed. The following month, my family moved back to North Carolina and I finished the book soon after that.

Message in a Bottle was published in the spring of 1998. I spent nearly two months on a book tour (50 events over 49 days, making it the second largest tour ever for Warner Books). The novel spent seven months on the best-seller list in hardback and another five months on the list in paperback. While on tour, I visited the movie set of Message in a Bottle while simultaneously working on a novel entitled “The Best Man.” The story just wasn’t working out, however; I threw out 200 pages and knew I had to start over on a completely different story. In the summer of 1998, once the tour was completed, I wrote A Walk to Remember and spent part of the fall editing that book. In December 1998, film rights to A Walk to Remember were sold to Warner Brothers, with Denise DiNovi producing again.

In February 1999, the film version of Message in a Bottle premiered, starring Kevin Costner, Paul Newman and Robin Wright Penn. It opened at number one at the box office and went on to gross more than $120 million worldwide.

I spent the spring and summer of 1999 writing The Rescue.

Right around the time school for Ryan began, A Walk to Remember was published and the book tour included 42 events in 37 cities in the U.S., and another few cities in Europe. In the end, it would spend nearly six months on the hardcover best-seller list, another five months on the paperback best seller list, and it became the most popular novel in hardcover that I’d written up to that point.

As in 1998 I tried writing a novel that didn’t pan out. I again threw out 200 pages, and started A Bend in the Road in July, after my editor came down for a visit to help me come up with a story.

In the fall of 2000, I went on tour for The Rescue. 32 events over 29 days, and another 11 days in Europe. The novel hit #1 on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today hardcover fiction lists, and spent nearly five months on the best-seller list. A couple of months later, I finished writing A Bend in the Road.

In April 2001, once the editing was completed on A Bend in the Road, I started my sixth novel, The Guardian. In May, filming for A Walk to Remember began, and in July, plans were made to adapt The Rescue into a television series.

In September, I went on tour for A Bend in the Road. This time, a smaller tour — 20 events in the U.S. and a week in Europe, taking a little more than a month. Still far larger than most tours, but relatively small for me.

Throughout the fall, negotiations continued for The Rescue to be adapted as a television series, with Denise DiNovi and I serving as executive producers. The film rights to A Bend in the Road were optioned, and I finished the first draft of The Guardian. I then adapted that novel into a screenplay.

In December 2001, I began my seventh novel, Nights in Rodanthe, and in January, 2002, I made the decision to publish that novel prior to The Guardian, given the structural challenges I was still wrestling with in that book. Nights in Rodanthe was completed in April, and I spent the summer editing and rewriting The Guardian. In September, Nights in Rodanthe debuted at #1 on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. The film rights to were sold to Warner Brothers, with Denise Di Novi again producing. The book tour covered 23 cities in 21 days, and upon my return, I finally finished editing The Guardian.

New Line Cinema’s filming for The Notebook began in November 2002, with plans for a 2004 release. The film featured James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Ryan Gosling, and Rachel McAdams, and was directed by Nick Cassavetes, with Mark Johnson producing. In the fall of 2002 — as the filming of The Notebook commenced — I continued work on the adaptation of The Rescue as a weekly television series, and began writing my eighth novel, a sequel to The Notebook, The Wedding.

In early 2003, my brother and I spent three weeks traveling the world, and upon my return, I finished writing The Wedding. The Guardian was released in April 2003. I toured for a month, and the novel spent nearly five months on the best-seller list. Over the summer, I began work on my first non- fiction book entitled, Three Weeks with My Brother, and finished the first draft in September, just as The Wedding was to be published. The Wedding spent five months on the best seller list, and Three Weeks with My Brother was scheduled for publication in April 2004. In the midst of this busy year, I also learned that CBS passed on The Rescue as a television series, which was a bummer. You can’t win them all. In April 2004, Three Weeks with My Brother was released, my brother and I toured eighteen cities, and it spent nearly six months on the non-fiction best seller list.

In June 2004, the film version of The Notebook was released, starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. It was an amazing success, an instant movie classic, and a perfect companion to the book. Seeing it for the first time on screen, I was immensely flattered. The screenwriter, Jeremy Leven, drew heavily from the book. As an author, there’s no finer compliment to receive.

In August 2004, I was surprised when three of my novels, The Notebook, The Wedding, and Nights in Rodanthe, all appeared together on the New York Times paperback bestseller list. Around that time, I was also asked to serve on the USA Track and Field Foundation Board of Directors, an honor which I eagerly accepted.

…in the fall of 2004, … I began work on True Believer. For whatever reason, work on that novel was exceptionally slow. I completed the novel in January 2005, it was rushed into print and published in April, where, like most of my other novels, it spent approximately five months on the best seller list. The tour, by the way, was the shortest I’ve done — only fourteen cities — but that was largely due to the fact that I already had another deadline looming. Immediately after finishing True Believer, I had embarked on a sequel, my first attempt at writing what was essentially a two-part novel. The story in At First Sight picks up two weeks after True Believer left off, and I completed the novel in June 2005. With the editing completed by July, the publisher decided to publish it in October. It debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Autumn 2005… I was already hard at work on Dear John. The book was inspired by the movie Casablanca, one of my favorite films, and like Casablanca, Dear John explores what it really means to love another. The book was published in October 2006 again debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

I began writing my thirteenth book, The Choice, in early 2007. With The Choice, I wanted to return to the structure of The Notebook. …that fall, I went on yet another book tour for The Choice.

January 2008, …I began writing my fourteenth novel, The Lucky One. Unlike many of my other novels, it was inspired not by life events, but by an image: an image of a soldier finding a photograph and eventually searching for the woman in it. The idea for the novel had been gestating for a while, mostly because I was unsure how to structure it, but once I got started on it, the writing went relatively smoothly.

I finished The Lucky One in June 2008; it was published in September. That fall was exceptionally busy: I had a media tour for the film version of Nights in Rodanthe, a U.S. book tour, and another book tour in Europe. At the same time, Dear John, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, began filming, and I spent some time at the set as well.

Simultaneously, I was already working on a new project. In August 2008, I learned that Miley Cyrus was interested in the possibility of working with me, and after meeting with executives at Disney, I agreed to write a screenplay entitled The Last Song. Between those three tours, I worked on the screenplay throughout the fall, completing the first draft in December 2008, and the final polish in January 2009. After that, I immediately began writing the novel of the same name. It’’s odd, I know. Usually, screenplays are adapted from novels (not the other way around) but since I was responsible for both and scheduling necessitated that the film begin shooting in the summer of 2009, I had no other choice. The Last Song, which is both a love story and a coming of age novel, was completed in June 2009, right around the time that filming began.

Spring 2009 brought other news as well. Film rights were sold for The Lucky One, and it is scheduled to begin filming in late 2010. The Last Song is scheduled for release in January 2010, and Dear John will follow a month later in February 2010.

Which brings us, of course, to the fall of 2009. …and my mind is already turning to my next novel while updating this website. Oh, and I’m writing a short book about coaching the 800m, which is something that I know few people – other than track fans like me – will want to read.”

Sparks writes novels his novels in around 6 months, is hugely prolific, very active on the promotional side of his work and sees HUGE sales. He also absolutely sees producing novels to be his job. All in all I find his attitude and execution hugely inspiring.

I mentioned recently that I entered an online pitching competition with an agency in NYC. It wasn’t successful but the agent’s response was interesting and has given me something to think about:

Every now and again I read a book to see what all the fuss is about. That’s how I ended up reading Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ saga and, eventually, Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’. Topping the bestseller lists worldwide and in particular in Europe right now is (Swedish) Larsson’s Millenium trilogy of which ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is the debut. Of all the books I have mentioned in this post I probably enjoyed it the most. The quality of the writing was the best I thought and I really liked Lisbeth Salander, the hacker PI lead protagonist of the series. I couldn’t stand Bella in ‘Twilight’ – I found her limp-wristed and rather pathetic – although in the films I felt she was portrayed as a much stronger character.

There is a lot in the media at the moment about the fact that Larsson’s books have all been posthumously published (and the ‘romance’ of success after death – see Eva Cassidy, Van Gogh etc) and that there is some debate over whether Larsson actually wrote them – some of those that knew him as a journalist think his writing was not of this quality. Blomkvist, the other protagonist, a journalist, natch, was also quite an appealing character, although I was slightly put off by the way women constantly throw themselves at him for sex, which he accepts, generously.

The story itself… well I am not really a fan of crime (since my early forays into Agatha Christie), but it was well set up, whipped along and I enjoyed the contemporary, technological elements which I understand critics are citing as one of the reasons for its popularity. It had a sort of double denouement too, both of which surprised me, but I wasn’t sure if that wasn’t because I hadn’t cared enough to really wonder. I’ve said before that I read to experience circumstances, feelings and emotions that I wouldn’t expect to experience as part of my ‘real’ life, but in the same way that I am not keen on reading about child abuse and such like in Misery Memoirs, I’m not all that interested in  psychopathic, sadistic, misogynistic, serial killers with torture chambers in their basement either. They’re just not my thing.