In any drawn-out labour, there comes the time when you need to ask: ‘How am I doing?’
To share or not to share?
In any drawn-out labour, there comes the time when you need to ask: ‘How am I doing?’
Writing is not amenable to an annual assessment and review. You can’t ask your boss or your colleagues what they think. So one of the questions I faced after completing that first draft: should I show it to someone and, if so, who?
It was pretty pointless doing that if all I wanted was a pat on the back. I realised that having my ego stroked, while undeniably welcome, wouldn’t help Grosse Fugue be as good as it could possibly be. But if I wasn’t planning to publish, why reveal it? What could it gain?
Well, the truth was simple. I might have started off with noble intentions of purity of purpose, my high artistic ideals never to be sacrificed on Mammon’s altar. But the more I wrote, the clearer became the notion that the world should not be deprived of such breathless brilliance, that I owed it to my fellow humans to share my work. Or, more seriously, that maybe, just maybe, it would no longer be satisfying enough just to write, now I had to be read.
It’s only fair in this sort of confessional to be open and honest. I did harbour huge ambitions for the book. Once it was sitting there, I wanted it to make a difference, to challenge as well as to entertain and move.
Two Russians were banging around in my head. Myakovsky remarked that “Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Perhaps more appositely, Zamyatin said this: “There are books of the same chemical composition as dynamite. The only difference is that a piece of dynamite explodes once, whereas a book explodes a thousand times.”
Well, I wanted my novel to explode a thousand and more times.
I had decided to postpone the sharing thing until I’d completed a first draft. Then I started talking to people and, if they seemed genuinely interested, I’d give them a print-out to read.
And then I waited for a response.
I don’t recommend this approach. Silence can only be interpreted as judgement-by-cowardice. Some commented constructively, others were enthusiastic. But I lost count of the number of people who said bugger all. This was hideous.
So, in the end, I decided to see how literary agents would respond. That was fun.
Ian Phillips is a freelance writer for businesses whose first novel, Grosse Fugue, will be published by Alliance Publishing Press on April 3rd. He’s tweeting developments @Ian_at_theWord.
Ian,
My rigid appoach is the only way I know.
The traditional route to publish my novel is the preferred option. I have made a combined list of twenty agent's and publisher's, from the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. Bloomsbury are on that list. I am not prepared to consider sef-publishing, and I hope that it will not be necessary.
However, before I make a submission, I will consider attending one or more of the courses that my fellow blogger's have spoken so positively about. I am in no rush to publish. I have to be thoroughly prepared. I will know when I am ready to put my neck on the line, but I am hopeful.
I plan on letting my friends and family read my manuscript once it's finished. I know they will give me honest answers, especially my boyfriend. After all, our relationship is based on honesty! My brother will also 'tell it like it is'. He never shies away from saying exactly what he thinks.
Hi Ian,
Another insightful post as ever.
I have submitted a the first three chapters of a previous novel out and got reponses from all those submissions I sent out. There were the obligatory not suitable for us and one gave a reason. Hence the reason I put it in a box and have started to rethink the whole thing. But if I hadn't got the rejections I wouldn't have put it away and thought on how to improve it. I haven't quite manage to get that thick skin that is needed to be able to deal with the rejection letters when they come in but if I had I don't know that I would have been thinking how to make it better.