It's now 25 years since I've been a published author. This first hit the shelves around February 2000.
I was in my late twenties, with a great idea derived from a nocturnal dream. It started with a date rape, following which the perpetrator's life is devastated as thoroughly as his victim's. My challenge was to elicit strong reader sympathy for both of them, and I'm sure I succeeded, for in quarter of a century, I heard mostly positive feedback. It fitted the Christian fiction market I aimed it for, because of the strong redemption, grace, and forgiveness themes.
My first ever sales opportunity made me quake in my shoes. I set up a stall of hot-of-the-press copies at a combined churches rally in the Adelaide Hills where we lived at the time, and sold only two copies. I hoped that abysmal response wouldn't prove to be a precedent of what to expect. Thankfully over time, quite a few thousand copies were sold, with a second printing and brand new publisher. And at around the halfway point, in 2014, the novel won a first prize in a category of the International Book Award.
The story still holds a strong place in my heart, because of all the excitement I found hard to keep a lid on, my comparative youth, and hard work. I had a new-born baby who I would drive to sleep in her car-capsule while her brother was at kindergarten, and then I'd park at some attractive spot and work on my writing. Both kids are now grown up with the addition of a 20-year-old brother. Coincidentally, I was the same age my oldest son (that kindy kid) is now; 29 just turning 30 for the publication date. When I mentioned that the slide from 30 to 55 seems fairly rapid, he wasn't impressed.
The purpose of this post is to celebrate that memorable stepping-stone. I've always loved the idea of time travel, including the notion of receiving insight from an older version of myself. If such a thing was possible, I've now reached a perspective (just turned 55) where I could speak back to my younger self (just turned 30).
The first thing I would tell her is that I have grown much older, but not rich or famous, or even well-known, as I'd fantasised. But I'm still writing! And that's the main thing. (I know she would've been disappointed to have heard that first bit, so I would've had to break it to her gently.)
Here are a few more things I've picked up in that quarter century I might've told her, or anyone else who might want to eavesdrop.
1) It's true when writers claim, 'My characters are my friends.'
I've heard that this comes across as an exaggerated claim, but it's nonetheless true. The thing to understand is that our relationships with our characters converge a lot with the ones we have with our flesh-and-blood family and friends. Our 'real' people are precious to us for obvious reasons. They make great sounding boards as we do life together, and often deliver surprises as their lives unfold along with ours. With fictional characters, the same thing happens but from deep within our psyches. For me, it's never been a matter of sitting down and nutting out a plot. There is a lot of spontaneity involved in getting to know the characters. Scenes in which they communicate, react, and develop bubble up from my imagination. So given this sort of ongoing revelation, of course I consider them to be friends!
But it's the same with the characters of other authors, when they're well written. Any characters at all have the potential to become our friends, even when we are technically not theirs.
2) Sadly, readers owe us nothing.
The quantity of feedback we receive isn't at all proportionate to the amount of time, passion, sacrifice, and vision we pour into each project. Each reader gets to enjoy the outcome of a writer's work for the couple of hours they take to read it, but they are under no obligation to pat our backs. Perhaps it's a good thing if it never occurs to the average reader that the souls of the writers hang over their shoulders like eager puppy-dogs, pawing their arms and demanding, 'Did you like it, did you like it, did you like it?' Who needs that sort of pressure?
I think this neediness is excusable on our part, because of the sheer volume of time and passion we've expended. But for our own peace of mind, we have to let it go. We must untwine the roots of ego that are tendrilled tightly around our brainchildren. We must regard the world of readers out there as a potentially friendly ocean we'll never fathom, rather than demanding echo chambers of our characters' worth and ours.
To use another metaphor, feedback is something like priceless gold dust. It shouldn't be our fertilizer, because it's sparse by its very nature. The only way to keep our enthusiasm and inspiration flourishing is through the joy of the project itself. We can be high-maintenance hothouse plants that bloom only when sprinkled with rare praise and accolades, or we can be more like the agapanthus that grows along my front fence, which is self-renewing. I never get out there and so much as water it, yet each summer, new flowers predictably pop. After all this time, I've learned that it's a no-brainer to choose the second.
3) People's memories aren't as long as ours.
The accolades and awards that have come my way have been fewer and further between than my turn-of-the-century self would have hoped, and they've taught me something sobering but valuable. It's simply that people other than myself quickly forget about them.
Why should they remember, after all? My dad once told me a story of how he kicked an astounding, match-winning goal when he was a young man who played football. He said that although he was the hero of the day, he'd be willing to bet that all those years later, not another soul remembered that event. That's liberating perspective.
Everyone's grey matter is limited, so their own milestones must take priority. And with the passing of enough time, even we begin to forget our own milestones, if we don't take care to record and revisit them.
I'll finish up by quoting in full this fantastic snippet of wisdom by an author named Joe Moran in his book, 'If You Should Fail: A Book of Solace. (I don't consider Picking up the Pieces or any of my other eight published books failures by any means, but that's the title of his book.)
He says:
'No truly worthwhile act has any surety of return. All creative work is a long-odds wager with our time and our lives. Books get pulped and shredded into road aggregate. Plays are performed to half full auditoria for a fortnight before the theatre goes dark. Films project into cinemas where paying customers fall asleep in the comfy chairs. A TV actor performs her big scene drowned out by the sound of thousands of hair dryers, vacuum cleaners and living room arguments. "All work is as a seed sown," wrote Thomas Carlyle. "Who shall compute what efforts have been produced, and are still, and into deep time producing?"
'Many seeds are scattered, most fall on stones. Art is a dead letter with no name on the envelope, sent into the void. The fruits of creativity are asynchronous and asymmetrical - a suspended dialogue with the absent and yet to be born. All we can do is keep the faith that our lone acts of creation occur like the movements of flocking starlings or shoaling fish, in tandem with others, and that they will one day feed into the accumulated beauty and wisdom of the world. Every creative act joins in this eternal symphony of human life. Failure is the price we pay for our part in the orchestra.'
Wow, in some perverse way, I find that encouraging. I'm still writing. Are you still doing your thing, whatever it is?
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