An Absence of Thought

30 December 2014

It’s some considerable time since I visited these pages. Far too long in fact. Worse still, I’ve really had nothing to say. Other than my newsletter of late October there’s been nothing posted here since my two articles about the publishing industry back in September. What on earth have I been doing, I ask myself? The answer, it seems, is fairly simple. Having had the go ahead from John Hunt, I became obsessed with preparing THE BURDEN for publication to the exclusion of all else. Fortunately, that task is now complete and hopefully I can move on.

In writing terms, the last four months have been conditioned by a single event. The York Festival of Writing was a watershed for me. I remember building it up in advance and telling myself that its outcome would decide things for the foreseeable future. How true that has been! Although whether it was as a natural result of the decisions that were made there or whether I was determined to make it so, I haven’t stopped to think. I’ve even had to go back to my papers and look up the piece of work I pitched as I’m sure it wasn’t THE BURDEN itself. That had already done the rounds some time before and accrued its allotted share of rejections. My principal objective at York was to attract an agent and I was using material from another work in progress, BOXED IN, to do it. When that failed (as the pessimist within me would say it was bound to) I reverted to Plan B and immediately sent THE BURDEN off to John Hunt. They responded within days (bless them) and I remember my yelp as their first (positive) reader review appeared on their website. I’ve been driven ever since, my head’s been in a cloud and it’s only now that I’ve come back down to earth.

Ok, so you’ve written your novel, slaved away over countless redrafts and a sizeable chunk of your life has disappeared while you were at it. Acceptance for publication is great and justifies your efforts – but there’s still a lot more work left to do. Take proofreading for example. No point in having your carefully constructed masterpiece spoilt in the hands of your reader by typos and poor layout. To do this properly can take weeks and it’s while you’re slowly reading through it that you discover that you never did straighten out those little glitches in the plot you always meant to deal with. Another rewrite ensues. Which means another proofreading is required etc. And if you’re not careful, this circle can go on ad infinitum. It’s akin to owning property – there’s always some job or another waiting to be done. Wasn’t it Leonardo da Vinci who said ‘No work of art is ever complete, only abandoned’? Well, at some point you either abandon it or you go insane. I reached that point a week or so before Christmas – abandoning it, I mean, not going insane although my family might have you think different. Eventually I forced myself to let go although I could still see areas for improvement in the text.

And don’t even talk to me about the book cover. Another source of anxiety and procrastination. I’d always had it in mind to make the cover image the reproduction of a child’s drawing. This comes from a scene in the central part of the book in which Frank, the main protagonist, sets something down on paper in his first year at school that effectively describes his life and his fears. It goes to the heart of what the book is about. Great material for the cover, you’d think – until you actually have to do the drawing yourself. Imitating what a five/six year old can do naturally isn’t easy (on the right paper, with the right crayons) and at one point I found myself with 20/25 discarded attempts lying on the floor around me, none of which were quite what I wanted. Undaunted, I took them to a meeting of our local novelists support group where they received short shrift. A little miffed, I called in some help from my original publishers, Stairwell Books, well-known for their artwork, and got some good advice. Another dozen or so sketches and drawings later and I had what looked more like an idea for a cartoon series than a book cover. In desperation I turned to Shutterstock and selected an appropriate image, then presented all three versions to whoever showed up at my house for mince pies in the pre-Christmas period for adjudication. Unsurprisingly, the Shutterstock image won hands down. I returned my feeble attempts to their folder and settled for what was safe - but it had taken two more precious weeks.

Anyway, all done now and the files have been sent off to John Hunt. With luck, and no more glitches, I should see the book formally published in about six months time but with author copies available in the early spring. All of which means I’ve been able to relax a little over the Christmas period and enjoy a few mince pies of my own. Things can at last return to normal – whatever that is – and I can start planning for what comes next. After two years hard work, worry and all this anguish over THE BURDEN, there’s really only one thing I can do – and that’s start writing another novel. Work on MÄLAREN begins tomorrow. My family can hardly wait.