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Comment from the book world in March 2016

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March 2016

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'That extra magic fairy dust'

28 March 2016

‘The debate about whether you can teach creative writing is a funny one. Nobody ever says to a pianist, "Oh, you don't need a conservatoire, why don't you just practice your piano, then you'll get good." Good creative writing courses provide discipline, advice and criticism... But there is that extra magic fairy dust that good writers have that can't be taught.

Writers who say they don't read their reviews are lying. I'm always curious as to what people think, but I don't sit there crying over a bad review. Online reviews are often the most cutting - people don't pull their punches online, particularly on Amazon or GoodReads, so I always brace myself.

I've written eight novels, and the process never gets easier. I research; write; research some more; tear my hair out; think I'm writing awful stuff; do a lot of editing. And I always hit a point about three-quarters of the way through where I think, "Why on earth did I do this?" The only solution is to pick myself up and push on.'

Tracy Chevalier, author of At the Edge of the Orchard and Girl with a Pearl Earring, in the Sunday Telegraph's Stella.

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'A fictional world was in my imagination'

21 March 2016

‘I tend to do what I want to do. For a long time I did not write fiction. Then suddenly a fictional world was in my imagination, so I wrote it. It's ridiculous to say I'm passive in relation to these things, because obviously I do exactly what I want to do... I'm a sort of hedonist in the sense that I want to enjoy my life, and sometimes that means writing fiction and sometimes it means nonfiction.

There's a way in which, nonfiction or fiction, you learn your own mind, you find out what matters to you, what the questions are for you... And with fiction, you can put the problem out in front of yourself in a three-dimensional way, and work through it, and that's very, very interesting.'

Marilynne Robinson, author of The Givenness of Things and Housekeeping, in the Observer.

 

'The day I quit my job was the best day of my life.'

14 March 2016

‘Quit your job! The day I quit my job was the best day of my life. I wanted to be a writer. It took me four months, and resulted in How I Live Now. I found my fame and fortune with it, and I thought, "Publishing people are so friendly!" But they aren't, not always! Despite that book being a big success, my second, Just in Case, was turned down flat by both my UK and US editors. My agent, who is smart, told me not to listen to them, just to keep on working on it. I did. After it came out, it won the Carnegie (the UK's most prestigious children's book award).

I never set out to write books for children: they just got marketed that way. My subject has always how to become a person. That starts early in life, and doesn't end when you are 19. It just goes on and on.'

Meg Rosoff, author of Jonathan Unleashed, her first book for adults, in the Independent on Sunday.

 

Writing bestsellers about your inner life

7 March 2016

‘I can't talk to people. I'm very shy. It feels like an enormous restriction in my life, like I'm exploding because I can't express anything. But if I'm writing then I don't have that problem. For me, literature is a place where I can gain some freedom, to write whatever I want...

My friends, acquaintances, girls... had always held a low opinion of me... which burned inside me. However, I knew I had it in me (to become a writer), because my yearnings were so strong and they never found any rest. How could they? How else was I going to crush everyone?

(Later I decided) I am not an author any more. I couldn't do it though. I started writing a few months later. I have a feeling something is broken and I'm trying to heal it. Writing is the only way I know. It's an addiction....'

Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of My Struggle, a six-part autobiographical sequence which has been an international literary sensation