What question do you wish that someone would ask about your book
or your career or you, but nobody has?
I have had so many odd questions asked of me that it’s hard to
believe there are any left. A few favorites:
1)
Do you write mysteries
because you think you aren’t good enough to write mainstream novels? My answer to
that was that I thought there was a mystery at the heart of every good novel.
But I have a NEW answer! If I had a good enough imagination, I’d be writing
science fiction. Every time I read a book of sci-fi, I’m amazed at the kind of
imagination it takes to write it.
2)
Is Samuel Craddock ever
going to “get any?” Always asked by a middle-aged woman. I finally answered
that question. If you don’t know the answer, read the books.
3)
How long did it take you
to write (insert name of book)? The answer is that it doesn’t take me long to do the actual
writing of a Samuel Craddock novel. I always feel like I fall into it and swim
like crazy and then it’s done. But that doesn’t count the years of writing
novels that never saw the light of day, learning the craft, getting rejections,
etc. Which leads to the answer to today’s question.
Here goes: The question nobody has asked me that I would
like to answer is (tada): “You wrote for
a long time before you got published. How come it took you so long? (Subtle
question: Are you stupid, or what?)
I wrote six complete books and a few bits of books before I
got published. I’m not the only person who wrote that many. In fact, I’ve heard
that’s about average. If it’s average, that means some people wrote a lot more
than six books before they were published. I know one person who wrote nine—and
she is a highly successful author now!
But that was a few years ago. Now, I think it’s probably
fewer on average, because if people have trouble getting traditionally published
these days, they turn to independent publishing (which used to be called self-publishing).
Still, even people I know who published independently and are successful often have
a few books “stuck in a desk drawer” never to see the light of day.
That means I’m not the only person who could be asked the
question, “what took you so long?” For me, the answer is that I thought all I
had to do was write a book that was “good enough.” It turned out that good
enough wasn’t good enough. That doesn’t mean I haven’t read books that I don’t
think were “good enough.” I have. But the book was good enough to get the
attention of an agent, a publisher, or readers.
Every time I realized that the book I was trying to get
published was not going to succeed, I felt let down. But each time I wrote one,
I leaned something more about writing. I envy those writers who not only know
how to tell a story, but seem to have known how to get it onto the page as soon
as they sat down to write for the first time. But I think that’s rare.
My learning process hasn’t stopped just because I’ve published
eight novels.
I’m trying now to write something outside my comfort zone and it’s
as if I’m starting for the first time. The story is written. It’s 80,000 words.
But just because it has a lot of words doesn’t mean it’s done. I keep having to
go back and zero in on character development and plot line. I’ve struggled with
the beginning and the back story. The hook has eluded me. How to factor in the
back story has eluded me. (Finally I wrote out the back story out in a separate
file, which helped me figure out which parts really needed to be in the book,
and which could be jettisoned.) I’ve changed the beginning again and again, and
I suspect that I will find holes in the story once I start looking at it as
closely as I’ve looked at the beginning.
So, in answer to the question: I took me so long because writing
is hard. In fact, I’ll quote Philip Roth on this: “Writing isn’t hard work, it’s
a nightmare.” Or William Styron: “Let’s face it, writing is hell.”
