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Comment from the book world in August 2015

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August 2015

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'Give in to your obsession'

29 August 2015

‘By rejection number 45, I was truly neurotic. It was all I could think about-revising the book, making it better, getting an agent, getting it published. I insisted on rewriting the last chapter an hour before I was due at the hospital to give birth to my daughter. I would not go to the hospital until I'd typed The End. I was still poring over my research in my hospital room when the nurse looked at me like I wasn't human and said in a New Jersey accent, "Put the book down, you nut job-you're crowning."...

The point is, I can't tell you how to succeed. But I can tell you how not to: Give in to the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript-or painting, song, voice, dance moves, [insert passion here] - in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it for good. I guarantee you that it won't take you anywhere. Or you could do what this writer did: Give in to your obsession instead.'

Kathryn Stockett, author of the huge bestseller The Help, in More magazine

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'It starts with the book no matter what.'

24 August 2015

‘The truth is, we spend so much of our time advocating internally for our books, making sure we have the right cover, the right subtitle, filling out forms and so forth, that we often don't have time to be entrepreneurial. But when a moment of clarity comes, it's fun to pursue it or to brainstorm with an agent about a client whose writing you really like...

I've learned that despite all the new bells and whistles, there's no substitute for giving the bookselling community time enough to read a book and get behind it... Despite all the things that we tell authors to do, there has to be a book that you want to recommend to five other people after you put it down. It starts with the book no matter what. Without that it doesn't matter how much you tweet. You'll get one wave of publicity and then it's over.'

Dawn Davis, founder of 37 Ink, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in Poets and Writers magazine

'One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph'

17 August 2015

'One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone.'

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in an interview in Writers at Work

'You feel that if they hate it, they hate you'

10 August 2015

'That's the essential goal of the writer: you slice out a piece of yourself and slap it down on the desk in front of you. You try to put it on paper, try to describe it in a way that the reader can see and feel and touch. You paste all your nerve endings into it and then give it out to strangers who don't know you or understand you. And you will feel everything that happens to that story -- if they like it, if they hate it. Because no matter how you try to distance yourself from it, to some degree you feel that if they hate it, they hate you.

Which isn't the truth, you understand. At least you understand that in your head...but not always in your heart.'

Stephen Leigh, author of The Crow of Connemara

 

Fiction's the best way of getting at the truth

3 August 2015

‘When I look back at those three books (The New Confessions, Any Human Heart and Sweet Caress - and I put Nat Tate in, and make it four books, - though there was no grand plan, (I see that) what I was trying to do was to show just how powerful fiction can be, so it occupies the real like a version of history, it has its own absolute verisimilitude...

It's all to do with fiction: life is mysterious, human beings are opaque - even your family, spouse, children, you don't know what goes on in their heads. How do you find out what makes people tick? The answer is the novel. That's why it endures and thrives, it's the best art form for making sense of the human condition. It deals with the messy, random business of our lives, this common adventure we're on, the human predicament. Fiction's the best way of getting at the truth, however paradoxical that sounds.'

William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart and the forthcoming Sweet Caress, in the Bookseller