Michael Crichton
More literary gems
As you know, I periodically take time out to catch up on the literary journals. Keeps me on my toes. So I thought I’d share a few more discovered gems with you this week. Save you the hassle of ploughing through all those how-to articles and lists of writerly-survival-tactics for days on end – as if! They all come from very successful writers, so no disdainful sniffing there on the back row.
First a couple of perceptive one-liners from those who know:
‘Only bad writers think that their work is really good.’ (Anne Enright, Man-Booker prizewinning author)
‘Books are not written, they’re rewritten.’ (Michael Crichton, bestselling author)
Next a couple of comments with wise advice for writers:
‘As a writer you have to be assaulted by self-doubt whilst being bolstered by an insane faith that people will want to read what you want to write.’ But ‘one of the terrifying things about fiction is that you never know what you’ve got. There may be times you feel you’re writing something moving and gripping, only to find that nobody agrees. You might feel you’re writing against the grain, every word a struggle, yet somehow it works for others.’ (Nicci Gerrard/Nicci French, writer and journalist)
My comment: That’s fiction for you. An absence of visible goalposts. I felt much more confident in the days when I wrote non-fiction.
Nicci French also reckons that when you’re writing a book you can’t worry about causing offence or pleasing other people. An over-eagerness to ingratiate yourself ‘kills the magic of fiction’. She gave the typescript of her first book jointly written with her husband, Sean, to her father to read. He spent days going through it with a red pen, scoring out every swear word.
I identified with that experience. I dreaded my mother seeing my first printed curse, hearing her swift disapproving intake of breath. But actually she was unexpectedly tolerant; she admitted she didn’t like those bits but she understood why they were necessary.
Now a cautionary tale for publishers:
When a certain Swedish book was first circulated, retailers were apparently reluctant to stock it. A foreign novel by a dead author? No thanks. You can kind of understand that. Anyway, the publisher, Quercus, nothing daunted, went ahead and planted copies of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – in the back of taxis, on tube trains and with London’s Evening Standard. They gave away about 50,000 copies! Imagine what that cost! What a gamble. And what faith in their product. Justified faith as it turned out – worldwide sales of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy now top 50 million.
I sent this little story to my publisher this week – so watch out when you climb into a taxi in January! Sigh. One can but dream.
Down to earth now with a breath of sanity:
After 25 years of experience in the book industry, Liz Thomson, reckons that not everything can be a top ten bestseller. Sometimes books should be allowed to flower at their own level.
Indeedy.
OK, enough for one day. I’ll leave you with a smile:
Apparently an 81-year-old woman in Norfolk who witnessed the slow death of her husband, has strong views on the subject of prolonging life. She’s so desperate not to be kept alive if she becomes seriously ill herself that she’s had ‘Do not resuscitate’ tattooed on her chest and ‘PTO’ written on her back. (From that well-known literary publication, The Metro 8 Sept)
Keep smiling. You haven’t got to read all those journals now!