I am writing a novel. I have been writing it for five years. But most of the time I write it in my head. Does this sound familiar? Am I just another wannabe novelist who talks big but will never produce a finished book? It’s possible, but my novel feels much more real than that.
In 2008 at the age of 50 I finally published my first book, a non-fiction work that I researched and wrote in five years, fitting it into cracks of time while also working full-time as a journalist. As soon as it was done a novel started forming in my imagination, as if my creative brain had been activated and needed another, freer outlet.
By the time I took myself to Varuna, the Writers House, for a writing residency of two weeks in 2009, the first chapters had formed themselves so clearly that they erupted as fast as I could type and I left with 14,000 words. (This was much more successful than my first visit to Varuna to work on the non-fiction book, which ended in less than 24 hours when my husband called to say he had broken his ankle and was in an ambulance.)
Without jinxing myself further by telling too much, my novel-in-progress is a story about several people living in Sydney in 1999 against the backdrop of the Olympics, the dotcom boom and other millennial anxieties. Initially, I thought I more or less knew where I wanted to take them but once I had set them free they started taking me in other, unexpected directions. Suddenly the story was not as straightforward as it had seemed.
By this time I was (for a second time) literary editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, a more than full-time job in which I am always reading, interviewing authors, commissioning reviews, and otherwise filling my head with other people’s books. Every spare hour when I might sit down and write a few hundred words, I need to read a few chapters. And I am not one of those people I so admire and envy who rise at dawn, go straight to their desk and write before the day’s other activities. In my case, fiction seems to demand an uncluttered mind that can roam.
Anyway, says the sensible part of my brain, why does the world need a novel from me when there are dozens published and forgotten every month? And how often do journalists make an elegant transition to fiction? We are trained to suppress our imagination and stick to the facts; to compress complex ideas into tight sentences; to work fast with little revision. Faced with the infinite liberties of creative writing we tend to cower like zoo monkeys released from their cage.
So I did not get back to my novel until 2011, when I took eight months long-service leave and planned to dedicate myself to writing. I became the full poseur and took myself to Provence for a month where I rented a friend’s stone cottage in a hilltop village, wrote in the sunny top-floor bedroom in the mornings and played tourist in the afternoons. I made some progress but not as fluidly as I had in that first rush of words at Varuna; perhaps the distractions were greater in Saignon than in Katoomba.
Back in Sydney I enrolled in the first Faber Academy novel-writing course, which ran part-time for six months at Allen & Unwin. There was plenty of inspiration and helpful advice from my tutor, Kathryn Heyman, and other visiting authors. I’m not sure I became a better writer but perhaps the best part was simply the encouragement to carry on, and the sense that we all believed writing fiction was an important way to spend our time.
There was research to do too, to place my novel accurately in what was becoming a historical time; this appealed to my journalist’s instinct and short attention span. By the end of the course my first draft was close to 40,000 words and about halfway through my intended story.
During those same six months, however, my mother’s health had declined rapidly and I was visiting her every day, busy with chores and fearful of what was to come. It wasn’t an ideal state of mind for writing. As the Faber course ended so too did my mother’s life, and I vaguely remember attending the party where everyone else celebrated and read from their work; I was in a fog of grief, hardly able to listen.
From the day Mum died, on August 16, 2011, I have not written another coherent sentence of the novel. My imagination shut down like a garage door. Slam. Real life was so overwhelming and sad that fiction seemed irrelevant. Very soon, though, another idea emerged, it felt urgent. In the following year I commissioned and edited a collection of personal essays on losing a parent, as well as writing my own 5000-word memoir of the experience. The book came out in October 2013.
And now I am ready again to take up the novel. After all this time it has not died. It lives in a part of my mind that is constantly active and excited, where my characters move about, where I pluck details from my thoughts and observations and tuck them into the story. Something I hear or read might trigger a useful idea: ‘‘Ah, that’s how I solve that plot problem,’’ or ‘‘That’s how I deepen her personality’’.
It is a fantasy life, a mental escape from daily tedium, yet it’s also very practical and I jot occasional notes that I hope will make sense when I go back to them. I should be writing more of it down, but of course that’s the hard part.
I was comforted recently by my interview with the Australian writer Mark Henshaw, who published a very successful first novel, Out of the Line of Fire, in 1988 and 26 years later, at the age of 63, has just published his second, The Snow Kimono. In between, rather than try to support his family as a full-time writer he enjoyed a career as a curator at the National Gallery of Australia. After writing the first chapter of the second novel in the early 1990s he hardly touched it until he was ready to retire and write again. The novel then emerged in 18 months and the excellent reviews suggest his writing matured rather than withered during its long gestation.
Will my manuscript look excruciatingly bad when I return to it? Will any of my ideas work when I eventually try to capture them in the limited expression of words? These fears might be keeping me from my computer. I tell myself I need another stretch of clear time – two weeks or maybe the rest of my life – to find momentum again. I think it’s a healthy sign that I still want to do so. Meanwhile, I can say I’m writing a novel.
Susan Wyndham is literary editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. She is the author of Life In His Hands: The True Story of a Neurosurgeon and a Pianist (Picador, 2008) and the contributing editor of My Mother, My Father: On Losing a Parent (Allen & Unwin, 2013).
this is such an important and encouraging piece to read as I try and juggle work, and MA thesis, art and creative writing – thank you! I think ‘keep going’ is the most important advice you can give to a very much part-time writer.
Thank you for this response, dear Felicity. I feel like you – inspired by Susan’s example. And you are indeed juggling so much… Which makes you an interesting person, of course.
I was so excited to read this, Susan and Lee. Every time I read your non fiction, Susan, I think, Where is that novel? And now I know, around a few more little corners. When they’re finished, it doesn’t matter how long they took. I’ll wait patiently, and will be thrilled to hold it in my hands when it is here.
I’m with you, Belinda! And I just loved that time when the 3 of us stayed in Varuna.
Excellent and very inspiring blog post, thank you. Look forward to reading Susan’s novel in the fullness of time…
Persephone, so glad you found Susan’s post inspiring. Like yourself, I’m really intrigued by the sound of her novel and can’t wait to read it when time comes.
I really enjoyed this piece, thank you. But I have to admit that even without the sorts of distractions Susan has had (and others often mention) it’s still really easy to procrastinate and find ways of avoiding the writing challenges. The only thing that has ever worked for me is an arbitrary deadline imposed by a boss/editor/book group/anyone but myself.
Thank you, Frank, and true – procrastination unfortunately comes very easily to writers… Glad though you’ve got the deadline strategy.
Thank you Felicity – I’m so pleased you found my slow, halting progress encouraging rather than dispiriting. I like to think I am learning along the way. And Belinda, that is such a lovely, kind comment, thank you. I hope (gulp) I can one day justify your confidence. Your novel was certainly worth the somewhat shorter wait. Seems ages since our Varuna stay but yes, it was wonderful.
Susan, how wonderful that your novel would not die. It is still with you, challenging, exciting, inspiring you. What a marvellous and important part of you it is. Acknowledge it and nurture it. Sure, there’s suffering there, but how can you have creation without pain? Eventually when you finish it, it will reward you with the most magnificent feeling. Enjoy the journey, no matter how long it takes. Keep making notes–writing down scenes, word, ideas. One day, you will be able to see it all. Then you will sit down and nothing will stop you from finishing it. I’ve just completed one I’ve been writing for thirty years! It’s the best feeling. Better than falling in love!
Thank you for your comment, dearest Victoria, and how inspiring it to hear that a novel you carried inside you for 30 years is eventually out there! I didn’t realise it was so long and I look forward to be reading it later this year.
After reading this, I feel like I’ve just had coffee and a chat with a good friend! Susan has put my thoughts into words. I suspect she had to give her grief for her mother its own space (and essay!) before she could return to her fiction. I’m so glad she did, and I’m looking forward to its publication, because I’m sure it will be on the shelves one day. Thanks Lee and Susan.
Louise, thank you so much for this moving comment. I’m so glad Susan’s post spoke to you, just as it did to me.
Thank you all so much for understanding and sharing my thoughts. I feel encouraged by your responses and the fact that you’ve been there….Let’s see what happens. No nagging!
What a lovely and affirming piece – and a reminder that ‘life is what happens to use when we’re busy making other plans’. I particularly liked this part: ‘After all this time it has not died. It lives in a part of my mind that is constantly active and excited, where my characters move about, where I pluck details from my thoughts and observations and tuck them into the story’ – for the last eighteen months I have been preparing to publish The Ark, and also writing my fourth novel but all the time in the background, I have been thinking about another novel I want to write, inspired by my experience with post natal depression and I am exactly like Susan – always working on it in some corner of my mind, tucking things away for future reference.
Thank you so much for your response, Annabel. I’m so sorry to hear that you suffered from postnatal depression, but I suspect your writing about it will transform such a difficult experience into something beautiful. I find it really interesting that after all this time writing speculative fiction you’re back to being interested in the realistic one. Hurrah to diversity in writing!
Thanks for this, Susan and Lee. I’m delighted to hear Varuna has been a haven for your writing, Susan – my most recent stay was a hugely productive week in August and I very much hope you can get back there soon for another dose of its special tonic.
So, so many writers – aspirants and established authors both – will relate to your experience… I certainly do, I’ve been struggling with one manuscript for the past 8 or 9 sporadic years of this sometimes traumatic but often wonderful life, and I’m delighted your excitement for the project hasn’t flagged. I admire and envy those preternaturally focused, disciplined writers too, but the distractions are real and demanding and I do what I can these days with a happy heart. Writing makes me glad. That’s become enough as it dawns on me (staring down the barrel at a second baby’s arrival in early November) I’m about to have even less time, not more.
Anyway, Susan, I am always so comforted and encouraged knowing I’m not unique in any of this; you have an established base of loyal and enthusiastic readers who shall greet your foray into fiction with delight when it comes. I hope that thought helps sustain you.
Dearest Diana,
firstly – congratulations on the imminent arrival of your second child!!! How very wonderful. Secondly, I’m glad you live your life first. For some years I put my life on hold in order to just write and instead of being productive, I got blocked. Only when I fell in love and became focused on that paradoxically did my blockage lift. Now I believe we need to live and write at the same time even if this makes the writing process longer. Once again, I’m so happy for your news!
Thanks, Lee! Susan is right – babies are a worthwhile reason for not getting a novel finished, but DAMN if I don’t want to finish it anyway. I am starting to imagine a laptop propped on the residual post-delivery belly during those few days in hospital…
Lee, I think you’re right – I hope so. I hope the chaos becomes the fuel. Looking forward to reading your book and interviewing you for the Varuna Alumni News.
Lilian! Fantastic to hear from you! I miss my blogging friends and must do better keeping in touch with you all.
Susan, I agree the headspace is very different. Sometimes I wish I could manufacture the urgency I find so useful in meeting journalism deadlines to my fiction writing, but I seem to need very different sort of engine to drive those efforts.
Oh, Diana, sometimes I think someone needs to write a book about heroic female writers… Writing in the hospital with the post-delivery belly… Now, this is indeed an act of heroism! And thank you for being interested in my book. This is very kind of you, particularly amidst your wondrous busyness 🙂
I came to this via Diana Jenkins, so glad I did. I’m on my 4th novel, but I still need this encouragement. I’m not a fast writer. I need a calm brain for writing and life is often agitated. So I want to join the cheering squad for Susan and Lee and everyone here. Thanks for the story about The Snow Kimono… Love it!
Thank you for your reply, Lilian, and I’m actually glad you’re a slow writer! In my experience, slow writers tend to produce the best books – well thought/suffered-through, complex, urgent.
Thanks Diana and Lilian for your supportive comments. Babies are a worthwhile reason for not getting a novel finished! But it seems life will always throw up interruptions and I do wonder how productive writers shut everything else out. I suppose I have to do that with my job as a journalist but that doesn’t require the “calm brain” you and I require for fiction, Lilian.
Lee, how interesting that you have decided life and love feed your writing rather than interfere with it – your new book is testament. We will all do it in our own ways if it’s meant to be. I’m cheering you all on too.
Thank you, dear Susan! And I wish you to find soon that ‘calm brain’ space again. Meantime, I’m enjoying your journalism.
Being a journalist probably helps with your credibility in writing and getting published. A friend of mine in the US was a newspaper journalist and then wrote a couple of fiction books which went quite well – one was billed as “The first, great redneck novel!”.
Angus, good news about your friend. Thank you for your words of encouragement.
I hope you’re right Angus! I certainly know a lot of publishers. And I have published two non-fiction books and proved I have some kind of writing ability as a journalist. But every book has to stand on its own and no one will publish me out of kindness (nor would I want them to). Maybe I’ll write the second great redneck novel…good idea.
I write to thank Lee and the other contributors to this largely wannabe writer blog because those wishing to share their life experiences need the sort of views shared with the unusual honesty I find here. This comment is made by an older codger whose first two co-authored nonfiction books came out the same year, 1974. Since then there have been ten or so other non-fiction publications, some in translation, and so forth, plus short stories and journalistic reporting for two publishers. Yet — and this is why I provide the background — I always feel my inadequacy to accomplish the next task. Lee’s blog, with the sort of telling by others, keeps us all encouraged. I express appreciation.
Dear Rob, many many thanks to your for your kind words and ongoing support! Now, with your publication record you’re definitely not a wannabe writer! But I know so well this feeling of inadequacy that comes with every new writing project. What consoles me, though, is that such literary giants as Phillip Roth and many others always speak of just same feelings. I think for writers really devoted to their art nothing ever gets easier. Oops, did I just say this provides me consolation? Thank you again, Rob!
Just read Life in His Hands written by you Susan.
Great book and so true.
Charlie Teo removed my Large Brain Tumour 9 1/2 years ago and I’m still going strong at age 72.
3 operations and over 20 doses of radio therapy, all over 3 months of time.
Great man and I wish him and his staff all the best.
Dear David, I’m so pleased to hear from you. You are well placed to judge my book and I’m grateful that you read it and found it engaging and true (the best compliment). I’m also gratified to hear about your successful treatment. I hope you continue to enjoy a long healthy life.