How Hard Can It Be?
I remember thinking this when I decided to write a novel. It was about five years ago, I had a block of a few hours every afternoon to myself and I’d always fancied having a go at writing a book.
As it turns out, my naivety knew no bounds…
But we only know what we know. None of us is gifted with knowledge past our own experiences. And so, I had no way of comprehending just how hard it is, when I sat down to write that first ‘novel’. I didn’t know it when I sent that first draft away for critique, or when the critique came back suggesting I should go away and learn how to write a novel. I had a stab at a rewrite, then put it in a drawer and began something new.
I didn’t even grasp how hard it can be when I sent part of my third ‘novel’ away for a multiply published writer to take her hatchet to. And, boy, did she ever totally eviscerate my writing and get unnecessarily personal whilst she was at it. Her criticism was extreme. It was enough to make me consider turning tail and running for the hills. Taking up crocheting instead. Or chess. Or deep-sea diving. But I’m very determined when I want to be (some might say bl**dy minded…) and I managed to separate emotion from advice, absorbed the useful bits and sallied forth with a determination which had deepened, rather than waned.
Even when people began to tell me my stuff was good, I hadn’t grasped it. Because throughout all these formative experiences I still had no idea how little I truly understood about the world I was getting into. There was too much ‘I’ and ‘me’ involved in the whole thing. I hadn’t grasped the nettle of what I was trying to achieve – and for whom.
And perhaps the question I should have asked myself back then was how hard can it be to write a decent novel? Because it isn’t difficult to string 90,000 words together into a story and call it done. What is hard is to craft it into something entertaining and fulfilling for the reader. To leave them with more than they had before they opened the cover. To make them smile, or sigh, or laugh, or cry. To leave them thinking about the characters long after they close the pages. To make them want to come back to your books time and again…
I’m edging towards understanding, I think. My first novel (of publishable standard) is a little over a month away from its launch date. I’m building a solid foundation from which I hope to develop, with the help of my wonderful publishers, Champagne Book Group.
What I’m saying is that nothing worth doing is easily achieved, in any field. And that’s as it should be. Finding things hard to achieve is what makes the achievement worth holding close to our hearts. Never give up. Never give in.
These days I have an alternative question for that naïve version of myself…
Why would you want it to be easy?
Oh- and why puffins? Well… Why not?
Plus, I couldn’t work out how to import the picture I really wanted, and rather than destroy something in frustration, in this instance I am taking the path of least resistance, instead…