It’s almost like an illness, the state you can get into checking proofs. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t get feverishly anxious about the commas that have been missed or over-added, the mistypes and mis-spellings? Yesterday I fell into a dither over the inclusion or omission of an e in Acknowledgements. There’s a town nearby which I’ve learnt to spell Bridgwater without an e although I always want to spell it Bridgewater, like the surname of a childhood friend. In our latest book together, I had Acknowledgments without an e until this was queried. This led to panicked googling and more questions and indecision: whether to be old-fashioned or up-to-the-minute, Anglicised or Americanised, and — confusion growing by the minute — which spelling belonged to which option.
In the end, the Acknowledgements on the last page of ‘The Garden of the Grandfather, Life in Greece in the 1960s” has an e, and the whole thing, warts and all, is in the hands of the printers. Any errors still remaining are necessary oblations to the gods in acknowledgment or acknowledgEment that there is no perfection this side of paradise.
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Thoughts for fiction writers
Thoughts for fiction writers: what and why do we write?
First, the ‘why’. We write to communicate our ideas. That means we write for readers. That begs the question: the ‘what’. What kind of novel should we write to find the readers we want?
From clay tablets to illuminated manuscripts, from parchment to print, the path from writer to reader is always changing. With the digital revolution, more books are published each year than ever before. It seems every second person wants to write a book and does so. It’s remarkably easy to self-publish a novel. In that ever-expanding universe, broadly speaking, the men write crime, thrillers and sci-fi; the women, gothic tales, fantasy and romance. A huge number of these novels are never read by anyone outside the writer’s immediate circle. The writers who are natural publicisers or trained in marketing may do well. The quality of the writing has no bearing on the quantity of sales. There is no filter.
Meanwhile, life in the traditional publishing world continues. Publishers have always been on the lookout for the next new trend while they publish what followed the last trend. Their best-selling titles subsidise their punts on new writers. Once you are an established name, you can go on writing the books that you are known for. You are as safe as any writer ever is, as long as you keep up your standard. Even when your standard slips or you write something that is outside your usual stamping ground, you may still be published on the strength of your name. However, if you have never been well-known, then you are in the publishers’ bran tub, with or without an agent. Your latest novel may get picked out of the sawdust and given the necessary marketing boost, or it may join the thousands of rejected titles. If you are entering the fray with your first novel, you are lucky if you are one of the very few who are taken on as a calculated risk.
Literary or genre? If you write genre, then you are more likely to be taken up. This is simply because the great mass of readers read fiction that can be easily classified: as in crime, romance, spy, thriller, war, sci-fi, fantasy. But trying to box novels into literary or genre is not easy. A literary novel may have content that can be categorized as belonging to a genre. Crime and Punishment comes to mind, as well as Anna Karenina and War and Peace from 19th century writers. In contemporary writing, The English Patient is a good example of a literary novel in the category or genre of war and romance.
Does the difference between literary and genre fiction lie in the quality of the writing? Sometimes, but not always. The quality of the writing is not a certain indicator of whether a novel is literary or genre. Genre can be well written. Literary novels can be poorly written. There are well written novels and badly written novels. Badly written novels will sell with the right marketing. A commercial success does not mean a book is well-written.
To justify the description ‘literary’, the novel should provoke thought. It should pay attention to human nature. The three elements of a novel – plot, character and context – should be balanced in such a way that each aspect illuminates the others. The theme may be concerned with a fundamental life dilemma. Literary novels have originality in ideas and style.
Discussing this with a friend, novelist, short-story writer and artist Marcus Campbell, he offered the following thoughts about literary fiction writing. “we write to explore and thus reveal a particular truth, which may, in the end, express some universal aspect of Truth”. He developed this further: “We write for the satisfaction of telling that truth in such a way that it convinces the mind and moves the heart of unknown readers, who may then experience our writing as a thing of value and beauty.”
Laudable aims, difficult to achieve in practice. Even if you write beautifully, convincingly, movingly, such work nowadays is unlikely to reach the readership you hope for. Where is the literary agent who will put time and energy on a long bet? What publisher will touch it?
To sum up:
For finding an agent, a publisher and commercial success, write genre.
For self-satisfaction, a faint chance of publication and critical acclaim, write literary fiction
Whatever we write, let’s write it as well as we can, and trust to luck.
What’s in a name?
If only I’d foreseen the plethora of Susan Barretts that abound in the writing world, I’d have called myself Zuilla Plenkinthorpe when I started out in the 1960s. This morning, while tidying my tracks on the internet, I came across one more Susan Barrett to add to the list of – what might you call us? – sib-writerlings. There’s a writer about economics and accountancy and at least two novelists sharing the name, and now here comes another. This newcomer was, like me, born in Plymouth, although many decades later than me by the lovely look of her. But she had the foresight to put a J between her forename and surname.
A lack of foresight is not as bad as the mistake I made when Amazon started Author Pages. Halfway through my career (actually, I don’t know if it was halfway or not – there’s no way of telling), I signed on for the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa. My idea was to get in touch with contemporary views of fiction. One of my tutors was an excellent writer of children’s nature books. Ah, I thought to myself; I’ve written children’s nature books, too; I can bulk out my list of publications with those titles. To my mortification, there is no way for the author to fix the order of the list of titles on an Amazon Author Page. When an interested reader clicks on my page, A Day in the Life of a Puppy pops up in pride of place – that is, if the clicker has opted for an alphabetical list. I want my novels to head the list, and my minimal children’s books forgotten. The system doesn’t allow me to delete them. Ggrrrr.
Something else I’ve learnt in the last years is, if I want to be welcomed by a publisher again, I must write a different kind of book. All this is to say that my next novel will be a tale throbbing with adjectives by Zuilla Plenkithorpe.
Coming to fruition
We’re not quite there yet but the finishing line is in sight. Our (second) Greek book has an ISBN number and the printer is booked. We have a few more photographs and sketches to get on digital file. I’ve just written brief biographies of each of us for the end of the book. Why do such boring things not stay done? I don’t know how many times I’ve written different versions of different lengths for different purposes. At least today there was a bonus. In my hunt for inspiration, I came across a quote from Gerald Durrell who’d praised our first book on Greece. He said “It is rare that you get a married couple who complement each other as well as Susan and Peter Barrett do, for her magical prose complements his delicate and lovely pictures so well and his pictures add a new dimension to the prose.” Well, it must be rare to find an artist-writer couple who have been married and working together for 58 years, and who continue to work together and are still married. Long may that last!
To be published soon by Pencross Books.
Owling
Long-eared owl scolds Short-eared owl:
“Shush!”
Short-eared owl warns:
“I’m not only short-eared. I’m short-tempered.”
Tawny owl murmurs: “How cute am I …”
Barn owl whispers: “I’m so shy, I won’t let anyone take my picture.”
Tawny owl wails: “I’ve been framed!”
Owling heard on Monday 27th November during the exhibition of Peter Barrett’s new paintings in Hemyock. Thanks to Dean, Sally, Olivia and Rufus.
A quick preview of Peter Barrett’s exhibition Nov 24th – 28th
Visit The Garages, Millhayes, Hemyock, Devon to see Peter’s latest paintings. Here’s a glimpse of what will be on view, Friday November 24th to Monday 27th, closing on 28th. 9.30 am – 6.30 pm daily.
Prices on request.
Stone circle, near Merrivale, oil on canvas 50 cm x 70cm
Winter sun on sea, near Branscombe, watercolour 38 x 54
Scots pines, watercolour, 54 x 48 cm
West Dart river, near Huccaby Bridge, oil on canvas, 78 x 90
Yar Tor, rain and sun, oil on canvas, 81 x 112 cm
separate pictures, oil on board, 24 x 24 cm each
top left: Blackcap. Top right: Kingfisher
bottom left: Goldfinches. Bottom right: Song thrush
Pictures at an exhibition
The subject heading came easily to mind, thanks to Mussorgksy. But this post isn’t about music. It’s to advertise Peter Barrett’s exhibition to be held at The Garages, Hemyock, Devon, November 24th – 28th, 9.30 – 6.30 daily. I’ve put a selection of the pictures which will be on show on his page: Peter Barrett
It seems daft to advertise such a local event on a website that can be reached from anywhere in the world — but never mind that. For years I’ve been meaning to develop a site for Peter’s artwork which can act like a stall at a fair if I also link it to some payment system like Paypal. Perhaps that will be my next project after The Garden of The Grandfather, and the novel, “Greek Gold” I shelved to work on that book about life in Greece in the 1960s. One thing at a time. And the one thing at the moment is making sure that the pictures at the exhibition have titles.
The one I’ve included in this post is one of my favourites Pencross Spring lane, oil on canvas, 41 x 51.
First draft finished
http://wp.me/P7IiJu-bq
Taking a breath now, having finished the first draft of our (second) book on Greece. Next step will be a determined hunt for publishers – Greek, English, American, German.
Changing from Windows 7 to Windows 10.
I feel as though I’ve taken part in an obstacle race. The first big hurdle was to decide whether to take my desktop to my computer doctor for a thorough wash and brush up. Then when he described all he could do on it, at cost of time and money, I decided to ditch that box and processor and start again. The stuff – not just the depth of dust in the keyboard, but the depth of data gathered in the computer- was startling. Miraculously, Doctor Dave saved the lot accumulated since 2009. There’s no need to throw anything away. It may come in!
Anyrate, within two days, I’ve gone from despair to joy, tinged with slight trepidation at learning a new rigmarole. Keyboard feels wonderfully smooth and quick; it’s sparkling new and dust-free. For the moment ….
Preview opportunity – follow links
Below, I’ve put a couple of links to the first couple of trial spreads for The Garden of The Grandfather. I’d like to be able to reproduce PDF files on the site, but I haven’t yet discovered the way to do that.
In the time it takes to fiddle with these things, I could have finished writing the book by now, and saved myself many extra white hairs.