One Year of Blogging...thanks for hanging out with me.

It's exactly one year since my first writing blog post. Since then, I've blogged about three works-in-progress, completed two, chased agents,  and moaned about that a lot, secured a contract with an agent for the first book, and a "we'll see" for the second, from the same agent. My gut feeling is that they want to find a publisher for Hafan Deg before they consider Strachan's Attic. The agent wasn't sure about Strachan for the first three chapters, set in modern day Toronto, but then decided it was okay once the World War ll England chapters unfolded. They haven't said they love it, as they did with Hafan Deg, but they haven't rejected it out of hand, either. No news is...etc.

Meanwhile, I'm bowling along with Summer Must End, and can't help wondering how many books I'll finish before I publish. I will publish, you know - it's just a question of when, and whether it will be posthumous or not. I'm a very fast writer, and work as quickly as any of those one- or two-books-a-year novelists out there - Jonathan Kellerman, for instance. After years of writing, I no longer slog over the words. I'm getting a handle on how to map out the structure, and almost understand the the rules of the game. In an article in the Guardian by Darrah McManus on November 16, celebrating Margaret Atwood's 70th birthday, the following caught my eye:

"I believe that most writers get better as they get older. Unlike, say, rock musicians, exploding in a star-burst of youthful inspiration, novelists take their time. They grow into and with the act of writing; over decades, over thousands of hours and millions of words."

Well, it's certainly been decades, although I'm not certain how many words I've written in total, but I have a large box that contains everything I've done, and it looks rather a lot. Averaging 100,000 words each for the full length books, plus dozens of poems, short stories, plays, and novellas, I'm guessing I've done at least a million words. Perhaps they weren't particularly brilliant words, and this could still be true. Can we ever really know when we've reached excellence? There's so much doubt, often eclipsed by enormous certainty;  I'm somewhat bi-polar, figuratively speaking, about my writing. Is it really any good?  Have I found my unique style, my true voice? I only decided to find that out for sure last year, when I figured it was now or never to publish, and it was time to announce that I was ready. But publishing was never a real goal. I was simply having fun with words and enjoying the process.  But this year, I need to know if anyone gives a toss.

It's been a fantastic year, sharing all of my thoughts on writing with you. I've made so many real friends, people I know I can count on when I'm down, people who lift me up, and spur me on, regardless of where their own journey is taking them.  In a crazy fantasy, I imagine us all sitting down one day, face to face, in a comfortable living room somewhere, sharing some wine, perhaps, and able to voice those ideas that were so difficult to express in emails, despite the fact that we think of ourselves as good writers. Whoever gets rich from their writing first can arrange it. Which is why it's a fantasy. Getting rich can never be a goal.

I've been reading a first novel by Jonathan Bennett, a Canadian with Australian ties, like me, who writes lyrically about Sydney and Toronto, and whose words spurred me to email him. I've mentioned many times how generous published writers have been in responding. I think of dear SarahBeth Purcell, and Martha Moody, Ben Nightingale, Bonnie Kozek, Darcy Pattison, all of whom have shared their thoughts on the process of being published and were unstinting with their time.

Now here's Jonathan Bennett.

I only wrote to say how much I like his book, After Battersea Park, and certainly expecting nothing in return from  him. And now he's looked at my sample chapters at my website, offered solid feedback on them, and even made nice noises about my paintings! I got his permission to print the following, the last paragraph in his first email (we've exchanged several since):

"Good luck with your own work. I wouldn't worry about the agent and publishing part. Getting a book into print might feel good, but it isn't sustaining. The writing must be all that matters. ABP, for example, is long out of print. For all I know you'll be its only reader this year. So, if not for the deep importance of the act of writing to my sense of self, I can't say I'd bother. There are simpler ways to punish oneself!"

And then this, later:

"If publishing is important, then sure, pursue it with the zeal it requires...my last paragraph was just a caution, that, well, a book is just a book. It's not some kind of metaphysical deliverance. I think I once thought it would be. I think many writers who want to get published think that too."

Jonathan's second highly-received novel is available: "Entitlement: A Novel".  Take a look at the reviews, both here and at the Jonathan Bennett website.


Thanks for hanging out with me this past year. Writing is a solitary occupation, yet I never feel entirely alone.  I imagine you all out there, creating your own precious words, and we are like a closely-knit club, a small,  exclusive network, and able to reach out for support at the touch of a few keys. How has blogging or communicating with other bloggers affected you? For me, it's been inspirational.

Late, but wonderful news: SarahBeth has received enough financial help to get that treatment for Willow Fern. Perfect Thanksgiving message to receive.

Writers' Insecurities, and the Bravery of Bonnie Kozek

Well, my lecture on Monday seemed to hit a nerve. So many of you reacted to it, that I'm happy to say I won't be picking on you again, as it would only be preaching to the choir, yes?

My concern today is fear. There's a lot of that out there. We fear we haven't quite got our books right, that they need something else that we're missing, that we're still not quite saying what we intended. That our readers will miss the point, somehow. That we've said far too much. After suffering the fear we often feel at the moment of querying an agent, we then suddenly think - after it's gone - that perhaps, after all, it's all a load of rubbish, and no wonder we get rejections. The following are a sprinkling of neurotic fears I found in the pages of The Writer's Chapbook. Read these and realize you are certainly not alone and that your nervousness is mild in comparison with some of the Greats.

". . . I've done as many as twenty or thirty drafts of a story. Never less that ten or twelve drafts. It's instructive, and heartening both, to look at the early drafts of great writers. I'm thinking of...galleys belonging to Tolstoy, to name one writer who loved to revise. I mean, I don't know if he loved it or not, but he did a great deal of it. He was always revising, right down to the time of page proofs. He went through and rewrote War and Peace eight times and was still making corrections in the galleys. Things like this should hearten every writer whose first drafts are dreadful, like mine are."
Raymond Carver

"I do a lot of revising. Certain chapters six or seven times. Occasionally you can hit it right the first time. More often, you don't. George Moore rewrote entire novels. In my own case I usually write to a point where the work is getting worse rather than better. That's the point to stop and time to publish."
John Dos Passos

". . .By the time the thing is in typescript, it is really with physical nausea that I regard it. When the proofs come back I have to take an aspirin before I can bring myself really to read it through. Occasionally when I'm asked to correct or edit a version, I always ask someone to do it for me. I don't know why. I just have a nausea about it. Perhaps when one day I get something I really do like, I won't have to take aspirin."
Lawrence Durrell

Whoa, I guess we aren't this bad, are we? Along with those fears, I hope these guys all had some pleasure, some moments of bliss over their work. It's sad to think that their writing was purely imperative to them, and that they experienced no joy at all. I can put up with fleeting self-doubt and trepidation, as long as I remember just how satisfied I am with the occasional perfection of it (to my eye, at least) - even that one line, that one paragraph, that no one else could have written. I hope you feel the same way.



Bonnie Kozek doesn't seem to be equipped with the usual fear mechanism, or she is, but is incredibly brave. I came across her during some online writer meanderings recently, and she gave me a quick rush of adrenaline, and filled me with awe. Most women don't write in her stomach-clenching genre, other than the obvious pathology-trained Patricia Cornwell or P.D. James, and they appear tame in comparison.

From what I've seen of Bonnie's book, Threshold, it's an in-your-face, raw, unrelenting, no-holds-barred, graphically-violent, roller-coaster ride.

Now I happen to enjoy a good thriller. Harlan Coben is my all time favorite, and he can turn a terrifying phrase better than most, but it's not Stephen King horror, not too, too, disturbing, just enough to have you sweating a little as those scenes unravel.

So I'm apologizing here for not reading all of Bonnie's book yet. It will take some courage on my part to step into her tough fictional world. I have, however, come across these reviews:

“… a fast, enjoyable read. . .left me excited enough about the character of Honey to read the next in the series which will be out this year. I highly suggest reading Threshold if you enjoy suspense/thrillers with the hard-boiled edge, or even if you're not sure if you do and just want to try them. I think this is a wonderful book to try out the genre.” The New Pedler Review of Books

And this one, which is long, at Pulp Fiction Reviews

I don't promote writer's books very often, but I believe she deserves our support, published as she is through a small house, with equally small print-runs. And this isn't a one-off. Bonnie is a prolific writer.

Bonnie tells me it's not for the faint-hearted, so be warned. Check her out and get back to me. I want to read it, really I do. Perhaps one of you, or my thriller-loving friend, Judy, will vet it for me first...