Nicholas Shakespeare

Melbourne Writers' Festival - Session 2

Usually I choose sessions at the festival with writers whose books I have read. This year, I went for a few writers I didn't know, and tried to read at least one of their books beforehand. With Nicholas Shakespeare, I read Secrets of the Sea and around 60 pages of In Tasmania. At first I thought Tasmania was all he wrote about! But he began by talking about his latest book, Inheritance, and how the story was given to him by Murray Bail who read about it in a lawyer's office. In a nutshell, a young man accidentally attends the wrong funeral and, by signing the condolence book, ends up inheriting a large amount of money from the dead man.

I can imagine any writer leaping on an idea like that - it appealed to me, too. (Yes, I bought the book!) He said that he thought that this gift of a story meant it would be fast and easy to write, but it took him three years. Whatever the idea is, you have to find your own story in it, and that is what takes the time and effort.

He said he thought this book was about a man trying to learn how to be authentic, and that just to learn how to be yourself is a big enough job for any life. Celebrity can create a crack in a person so that the devil or other people can get in and contaminate you. An interesting viewpoint. He also said any novel is an exercise in failure - you know it's not going to be as good as you want it to be, but you put your best into it and acknowledge its flaws, just like you do for your children.

His father was a diplomat so they lived in some pretty dangerous places when he was growing up, including Cambodia and various countries in South America. Inheritance is his first novel set in England, where he was born. He moved to Tasmania to get away from Bruce Chatwin, as he'd spent 7 years writing his life story and wanted to go somewhere Chatwin had never been. And then found a village of Chatwins in Northern Tasmania. He said another reason he moved there was so he'd have time and headspace to read all the books he'd always wanted to. He tries hard not to let his writing time be eroded by technology and all its distractions.

Secrets of the Sea has many beautiful and arresting images in it, but the one that stuck with me (whether I wanted it to or not) was of the child, Zac, "who had been discovered by Tildy at the age of eighteen months with a large spider sticking out of his mouth." The spider was a huntsman. In question time, I just had to ask if that had actually happened, and he said yes! At his local childcare centre, a boy had eaten a huntsman. A later metaphorical reference to legs dangling from the child's mouth only served to make the image stay even more firmly in my head. Such is the power of words.

Melbourne Writers' Festival - 3

The session with M.J. Hyland was in the largest theatre, and was almost full. A lot of people were curious (her second novel was shortlisted for the Booker), a lot of people had obviously read at least one of her books. The joy of listening to a fiction writer speak, particularly one who examines her own work and processes, is that you gain fascinating insights into the process of creating imaginary characters and worlds. MJ was no exception. She began by talking about the book that inspired This is How- it was a collection of 12 oral histories from murderers, 'Life After Life'. And went on to pondering the problems involved in using a first person/present tense voice. 'It's like ventriloquism,' she said, and comes with serious limitations. For example, if readers don't like the character or find him sympathetic, the book fails.

She begins with a loose outline or loose idea and theme and then creates a character, but she doesn't know a lot of it until she writes. Setting is important - she sets novels in the 1960s before mobile phones and technology because it creates more difficulties for characters but allows more to happen. In a boarding house, perfect strangers are rubbing up against each other, which is a perfect place to begin. She never wants a perfect answer - we are complicated persons so a story and character should never be simple.

Being shortlisted for the Booker made her feel self-conscious, anticipating the reaction to her third book. So she played with style, feeling she had to prove she was a 'writerly writer' but none of it worked, and it took a while to shake that self-consciousness. She finds endings difficult and is often unhappy with them in her books - she tends to leave things open which she realises is a problem for readers. (A reader near me muttered about the ending to 'How The Light Gets In', and wondered why the editor lets her get away with it!) She also talked about how strong the voices of her characters are, and how it takes a while to shake the previous character when she begins a new novel.

Her early drafts are long and messy - twice as many words as the final draft - and she takes half the words away, so that there are still shadows in the final story, but not the words themselves. She talked briefly about teaching creative writing (I was really hoping she wasn't going to be one of these writers who takes the money for teaching but scorns creative writing courses! And she didn't.) She said it constantly surprises her how many younger writers write way too fast - they complete a story and rush to post it on their blog or on a website, and she is constantly telling them that good writing takes TIME. She was also quite scathing about the idea of writers posting stuff for each other and then giving a cyber "group hug".

The interviewer then asked her if she was mean to her students, and she said, 'Yes!'. What makes a good writer is the ability to be patient and revise. Finally, talking again about language, she said she aims for unadorned prose. Early drafts might have complex language and lots of descriptive words, but as she revises, she simplifies - her aim is to make herself, as the writer, invisible, and yet achieve a certain effect. MJ was great - very open and willing to talk about her processes, giving us an insight into her books. Everyone in the audience went away buzzing and talking at length about writing!

Melbourne Writers' Festival - 2

Debut With Style featured a mix of writers, some with several novels published - Lisa Unger and Japanese writer Hitomi Kanehara - and some with just one or two books - Reif Larsen and Evie Wyld. Was the audience there to find out the secret recipe for that first publication success? Towards the end, it seemed the key was to have an agent (heard that one before) although Hitomi said there are no such things as agents in Japan. One writer also shared with us that receiving the news that their first novel was going to be published was on a par with having a baby (presumably achievement- and excitement-wise, she meant).

Some of the "tips" were predictable: write every day, write all the time, no matter what else is happening in your life, and you will eventually get to the stage where you can't not write. Lisa Unger said when she writes, she is alone in her space, alone in her head, and what comes is not controlled. She doesn't plan her novels, she starts with a germ of an idea or a place or a character and goes with it. She writes to know what is going to happen, and what will keep her turning the pages - in that way she is being true to the readers. She also said to the audience, 'You have to be present and centred in every phase of the writing, and not be outside in the publishing space.' There will be people relying on her words (to provide what they want) but she can't be out there with them while she is writing.

Reif Larsen said it's easy to let outside voices influence or change you or put you off. You have to create a safe space for yourself and be free of what the book "needs to be like". Early drafts will be messy - it takes either courage or insanity to keep going and get to the end. Evie Wyld had just done a stint as the writer in the Atrium, writing while everyone watched and could see her words. It made her realise how personal her writing, and the act of writing, normally is.

Hitomi was being translated (one person translated what everyone said, the other translated what she said!) so it was a little difficult for her, no doubt, but she talked about never being satisfied with her novels - that even when one is published she still wants to keep trying to get the level of her writing higher. Someone in the audience asked Reif if his next book was going to be illustrated (the current one has maps and drawings all over it) and he said no - it would be completely different. Each story is told how it has to be told. It seemed, in the end, that what the writers were saying was you have to write the book you have to write, without trying to please anyone except yourself. The revision is where you make it work.

Melbourne Writers' Festival - 1

What is happening in US publishing right now? Are things as dire as we hear? The first session I attended was all about this topic - Dennis Loy Johnson (Melville House), Rob Spillman (Tin House) and Heidi Julavits (The Believer/McSweeneys) were discussing it with Henry Rosenbloom from Scribe. At first it all sounded depressing - authors who lost their editors (lay-offs) and books that came out with no back-up from marketing, independent distributors who have gone down the tubes, a broken system.

But the positive side of all of this - from the point of view of these independent publishers - is that now there is a great opportunity to change things and fix what's broken. Big publishers are about making money, small publishers care more about their books. Big publishers throw $$ at books that are already selling well and ignore the rest of their list. Small publishers nurture each book because they have to to stay afloat. None of this is news to anyone who bothers to read the trade newsletters or industry blogs, by the way. I did wonder how many in the audience sat there in shock though!

One comment was about publishers who have been trying to stick to the old ways of doing things, but traditional media (newspapers and radio) virtually ignores books now, that's if they're still afloat themselves. As Dennis said, the people who buy newspapers are the people who read, so why would you cut out your books section? A book tour now no longer relies on traditional media to excite interest. A lot of it is done online, and many writers tour online - but first you have to build a big online community, otherwise it's not going to go far. I had to keep reminding myself that these guys were all from small independents, who can make their own decisions and, as they said, move a lot faster in response to shifts in things like social networking. The bigger the publisher, the more likely they are to be mired in paperwork, and doing things the old way.

Certain people dictate - the famous Cecily at B&N can force a publisher to change a book cover, for example, as can Tescos in the UK. But there was also a spirited discussion about book covers - how bland they have become, and how everyone copies each other, so we've had a run of cover images related to body parts (feet, torsos, hands, eyes). The other side of this is safe covers that offend nobody but say nothing about the book. Heidi talked about cover DNA - that everyone clones each other and very few publishers risk a contentious cover.

Heidi also talked about writers who have previously scorned the teaching jobs in universities and are now being forced to look for that kind of work because suddenly they can no longer support themselves from their book sales (but she wouldn't mention any names!). Some of the benefits of the 'new world' will be writers who can write what they want, instead of what will be safe - one example was being able to create an unlikeable protagonist. I'm afraid that might be OK if you don't mind miniscule sales, but I doubt the new world will look kindly on anyone who doesn't sell at all!!

There was also discussion about how reviewing and publicity has moved away from the traditional forms (the influential reviews in the usual places) to the online community. A NYT review has no more influence now than a respected blogger - and things like FaceBook pages are growing in terms of effects on readers. Everyone mentioned 'word of mouth' - how to get it, and make your sales grow. Again, the word community came up. Rob Spillman says he rarely buys a book now that isn't strongly recommended by someone he knows. (No one asked the question about book trailers - are they worth the money? I tried, but they ran out of time.)

Dennis mentioned one of their authors - Tao Lin - and some of his bizarre publicity and marketing strategies that have worked. My favourite was selling shares in the royalties for his next book, and actually getting 6 people to pay $2000 each for a share. Presumably if he makes more than $12,000 in royalties he gets to keep the extra! Of course, the amount of publicity he got for doing this far outweighed the benefit in royalties, except it would have meant more sales and therefore... more royalties!

I later went to another session on small presses, not realising that the same two guys would be talking. Some of the stuff was the same, but Zoe Dattner from Sleepers Publishing was the chair and the discussion was more about the practicalities of running a small press. They talked about using POD to keep their backlists in print, and hopefully the same quality of POD technology is about to arrive in Australia. Zoe said Lightning Source are about to set up shop here. My favourite quote was from Dennis who said that in small publishing you are only one screw-up away from going under!