The book business can be a surreal world where strange things happen for which we never do find an explanation. For example: we put a book out there and we do some publicity and bookstores order it. Quite often then, after the initial flush of interest, there’s a bit of a lull and sales dwindle to a trickle or, sometimes unfortunately (often dependent on the activity of the author) to virtually nothing. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, a wholesaler will order a dozen copies and they’ll disappear really quickly and they’ll order some more and then there’ll be a resurgence and we all get very excited … and then it goes back to nothing again. With sales that go through a wholesaler rather than to a specific bookstore, we never ever know where they’ve gone. We never can find out why or make any rational judgment about whether it might happen again … it’s just one of those utterly inexplicable magical processes for which a rational explanation never can be found. Most of the time we have absolutely no idea what’s going on with our books; we just cling to the broomstick sprinkling fairy dust as we go and hope it’s not too bumpy a ride.
Which is sort of like writing, in a bizarre kind of way. I’m currently writing my second novel – and what a very different experience from writing the first, but that’s another story – and because I’m more comfortable with the process of how writing ‘happens’ now, I can relax a bit and take it all in this time around, rather than panicking all the time that I’m doing it wrong :-) And the process of creation is a pretty fascinating thing at this relatively early stage when you know what you’re going to write and you have your plot and your characters – but you’re not entirely sure how it’s all going to come out on the page or what other connections you’re going to make as you write … But it’s an equally magical, inexplicable process. Almost as if there’s a tapestry weaving itself in your head while you’re not looking. I can be peeling potatoes or planting broad beans and all these perfectly-formed lines and plot developments will suddenly spring into my head as if from nowhere – I wasn’t consciously thinking about the novel at all. Like the sudden resurgences of book sales, I have no idea where it comes from and no way at all of finding out, but it’s the very best kind of magic there is.
