I’m currently knee deep in the New Book, much of which has been plotted whilst gazing at the above scene, which is the glorious view from my local pub – the famous surfers’ paradise, Fistral Beach, can be seen in the background. I’m fast approaching the end of the first draft, so I’m being strict with myself regarding time spent on tinternet. I am also trying not to think too much about the book industry side of things. I seem to write best when I’m not too bothered about how the W.I.P will be received, or indeed if it will be published.
After receiving a glowing rejection from a large American publisher last week, I found myself saying to a writing acquaintance that ‘this industry can be hard on the heart’ but it can also be hard on the creativity. So in a spirit of remembering what’s important, here’s a quote from my new hero:
“It’s the most satisfying thing in the whole world: to create characters, to bring them back to life, the people you’ve known, loved and seen. There’s nothing as good … and if it doesn’t happen that you become some great writer, it’s not such a big deal, it really isn’t.”
I stumbled upon this story over the weekend. The writer in question is Harry Bernstein, author of the critically acclaimed novel The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers.
Mr Bernstein is 97, has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and when asked about his writing, he said:
“I had written all my life, although not successfully. Whenever I did write though, I found that it absorbed me completely, and I forgot where I was and what kind of a world I was living in, so I thought perhaps I should try it again.”
Two things struck me here: firstly, he had written throughout his life, not successfully, as he puts it, and yet he hadn’t given up. Secondly, that when he wrote, he forgot ‘what kind of a world’ he was living in, which exactly articulates something I have been feeling for a long time.
As much as I love writing, will I have enough ’stuff in the basement,’ to quote Rocky Balboa in Rocky VI , to keep doing it when I’m in my nineties? I hope so, but I’m not convinced, since some days I don’t have enough stuff in the basement to finish a tricky paragraph. But hey ho, I shall persevere and who knows, with a bit of luck I might one day be the nonagenarian author still writing in her local pub and dreaming of great white sharks at Fistral Beach.
Meanwhile, hats off to Harry Bernstein, and may the ink in his pen keep flowing.
Lisa Glass blogs as part of the Vulpes Libris (Book Fox) collective. Her novel, Prince Rupert’s Teardrop, is out in paperback now.
