Being a novelist …
I know I bang on and on about the importance of networking and the value of Zoetrope for just that purpose, but once again it’s proving its worth to me, in the bittersweet wisdom of Carol Lefevre, whose picture graces this post. Carol’s a fellow writer, and a good one, and her novel Nights in the Asylum is published in the UK by Picador on May 18th, or preorder (I have) on Amazon.
While I am going through ‘finding things to do while an agent reads your novel’ angst, Carol is going through another kind of experience entirely. This is what she said ….
‘The truth is, there is no end to anxiety for a writer, and it does drive some mad in the end. When my novel was out with publishers and I knew they were reading it, I would wake up five times in the night to check my email (responses had to reach me in Australia via London) and then end up reading the manuscript and wondering if it was really any good. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been turned down – it was my best shot after many rejections.’
Oh boy, do I ever empathise with that experience! But she continues …
‘Now that it is in print, there are the new anxieties of if and how it will be reviewed, how it will sell, how to say something interesting at a writers’ festival that will impel people to buy the book. No wonder the literary field is strewn with bodies, those who have succumbed to drink and despair. But I ask myself what else I would rather be doing and the answer is, I just don’t know. I love to write, so that’s the gig, I guess.’
And if that wasn’t enough to show that the writer’s experience is always edged with thorns, here’s how it was for her on 2 April, in Australia, where her book was published by Random House …
‘It was strange today – first day of publication here and it was….quiet. Eventually I gave in to the temptation and went on a round of the bookshops in the city. The big stores were slow in getting it on display, but eventually I found a little pile of them in a nice independent bookstore. Spotting them was a special moment.’
Kudos to Carol for making it through the mill, and for sharing the process so the rest of us can feel the vicarious thrill of the special moment. That’s what makes writing worthwhile – even if it’s not your novel in the bookstore.
1 Comment
B.A. Goodjohn
12th April 2007thank God I’m not alone. I can entirely empathize with everything Carol says -especially the checking of email in the middle of the night. These time shifts kill me!
Good interview, hon. Always useful to hear how other writers handle life and its challenges.