The Creative Identity

Things Agents Don't Say

I never thought there was much truth in those stories that ridicule writers' attempts at getting their manuscripts noticed until I started canvassing agents and publishers and came across the weird and the wonderful first-hand. For your enjoyment today, and in no particular order, some hair-raising blunders of the 'how not to approach an agent' variety. And, of course, if you are an agent or publisher, I'd love to hear your own special stories. Why did the author add white powder to his submission during the anthrax scare? It freaked us all out and his submission ended up in a test lab. I got a spec query scribbled on a piece of cardboard posted through the letterbox. Don't spray your perfume on your submission. Are you Elle Woods? And maybe it's time you visit the counter for something less... overpowering. I don't return manuscripts within twenty-four hours, sorry. Why do you think 'I know where you live' is supposed to help you? My other clients are 'commercial dross'? Tough shit. Don't send me vouchers, not even the 'fine variety' from Argos please. I don't do callbacks, especially not at a time set by the writer. Once I received a submission from a writer who insisted I represented his fantasy novel, even though it is quite clearly pointed out on my website that I do not represent fantasy, nor am I ever going to. Don't tell me that all of your friends have loved your novel and that I will too.... Read more →

Having To Read And Learning To Write

Nobody knows the answer to all questions, not even Google (and especially not Google Translate). As I've grown older, I've realised that the more I know, and the more it is evident that I know nothing. It rings so painfully true that in fleeting moments of despondency I ask myself, but what's the bloody point, then? I will never catch up! Perhaps it isn't really a matter of answers but of questions. Does it matter that I think I can write while writing encompasses so wide a spectrum of subtexts, from the technical to the artistic, that I cannot even explain what it is, exactly, that I do know? Does recognising a subtle mix of magical and surreal mean that I can write it? No. Does knowing about paratactic and hypotactic styles, about rhetoric, dialectic, Aristotelian principles and basic story-telling techniques mean that I can write better than I would otherwise? Yes. I tell myself, yes, I can write, but what does it mean? How did I learn? Can creative writing be taught and if so can anyone learn it? In her book Reading Like A Writer, critic and essayist Francine Prose begins with that same classic question that often seems to displace writers' sense of identity, as if a bona fide writer and learning to be one could not be connected on a practical, let alone philosophical, level. 'Can creative writing be taught? It's a reasonable question, but no matter how often I've been asked it, I never know... Read more →

Try This

Paper suffers everything and blushes at nothing. -Proverb- I've never been able to keep a diary. For many years, especially when I was much younger, I wanted to be a surrogate Anne Frank, minus the horrendous tragedy, but it just never worked. It did not because I do not believe in writing for myself; give me an audience, however, and I am typing away even before I've finished thinking. And it doesn't matter that the audience may be minute because to me an audience of one is as good as an audience of one million. Nothing sets fire under my creative brain faster than knowing that I am writing for The Reader. Action's the word and today I would like to prompt you in your own terms. Life is a verb: which verb? Write about it. And Life Is A Verb also happens to be a book of course... Read more →

Process Blunders

In 2007 I listened to Poppy Adams talk about her novel, The Behaviour of Moths. She spoke of the day she finished her manuscript, when she picked up the phone, called a few agents and very nearly screeched down the line that she had written a novel and would you be interested? This approach did not yield much besides a string of 'thanks but no thanks... click'. Poppy eventually succeeded in publishing her work. Unlike many authors who shy away from good connections in order to promote a life of merit built on tears, poverty and rejection, she confessed that she asked colleagues and family whether anyone knew an agent or anyone in publishing and it was through networking that she landed representation and, later, a deal (and here's a lesson for every prospective writer: don't regard time spent networking as wasted time, as you really do not know where those idle chats will lead you and your work). This finishing-a-manuscript-and-calling-up-an-agent is one of the funniest, most spectacular blunders in relation to the writing process. I first heard about this when I was at university and, quite frankly, I assumed it was an urban legend perpetrated by content writers with nothing better to do than talking rubbish. Oh no, it's all true and it still happens. You should not go down this route under any circumstances, and neither should you ever turn up unannounced at an agent's (or publisher's) office requesting your manuscript to be assessed there and then, not... Read more →

On Writing And Pigeonholes

In 2003 Sophie Dahl was appointed as one of the judges of the Orange literary prize. Many people doubted the legitimacy of her position, to the point whereby she felt the need to defend herself: 'I don't think there is some sort of specific criterion that qualifies someone to be a judge, I don't need to justify why I was asked. I've always talked about loving books and liking to read. It's lovely now because I can discuss them'. Her rebuttal sounds deeply lyrical and also very simplistic, for reducing the judging of a literary prize to a love of books and reading is on a par with professionally likening the person who hems trousers at the dry cleaner's with the artistic director at Christian Dior. On one side we have the populist approach, which a few years later allowed Lily Allen to be chosen as an Orange judge, and on the other we have the academic approach, equally repulsive in its inability to see past any fewer than five degrees, twenty-five publications in the field and many years worth of sucking up to one's elders. When you're a writer, you will find that fighting such conflicting preconceptions is part of your daily quota of bile. I must admit that even I have often felt the need to latch onto my qualifications in order to silence the naysayers who narrow their eyes as they silently wonder whether I've made my degrees, my work and my experiences up. This is because... Read more →