New Writing
Turns out, I’m a new writer.
This information comes as a bit of a surprise to me since, sure, I’m young but really, honest to god, it’s been a lot of novels. Eleven years of writing, in fact, and – who’d have guessed – eleven novels and counting. And while I’m completely open to giving advice on how to be a new writer, and things to look out for, and all that jazz, I am ever more surprised to find myself described as a new writer. Reasonable hack seems more plausible, in fact.
Turns out, everyone is a new writer until the age of 35. We’re also young writers until then, by which time, so the theory goes, we will have acquired enough wisdom and artistic strife to make for decent scribblers. My agent’s policy, in fact, is never to take a client under the age of 45 unless she can absolutely help it. Anyone younger than this suffers from two great defects – they can’t take editorial criticism, and they don’t really have anything to say. So the theory goes.
Depressingly, I have some time for this hypothesis. Asked a few months ago why so many of my books were set in London, I was forced to answer, honestly, that I haven’t lived anywhere else. This doesn’t stop me, I hasten to add, from investigating a lot of places across the globe. I enjoy travel and adventure, and am continually scribbling away at other things (watch this space) where London isn’t such a star. But the simple truth remains… the world is rich with things I have not seen and therefore, cannot plagiarize… ahem, I mean… adapt…
As to whether age brings an open-minded attitude towards editorials, I’m not sure. No writer enjoys editorials, and I suspect no one does them with a particularly good grace. I suspect all age brings is a certain emotional maturity to cushion the blow of being informed that your towering work of genius is, in fact, a bit rubbish all things considered. Or words to that effect.
There are some interesting quirks of being both A Young Writer and at the same time, an eleven-years-in-the-business hack. For a start, other writers never quite know what to make of me. Sit me down in a room of fantasy and science fiction scribblers and there’s a usually very high chance that I am a) the only female b) the only person under the age of 45 and c) have a longer backlist than my companions. These deadly factors taken together tend to produce a ‘does not compute’ sign behind the eyes of the writers, in much the same way it can manifest a ‘no information – please panic’ look in the eyes of technicians when I tell them about my literary career. To my surprise, I also find myself having been with my publishing company longer than most of the people there who edit me, while simultaneously being many, many years younger. I don’t think it’s possible for a 25 year old to be an institution, but I’ll sure as hell give it a go.
This can sometimes lead to embarrassment. Last year, I attended a very nice festival with a lot of very lovely people, where one of my duties in exchange for silly amounts of cake was to sit on a panel entitled, you guessed it, New Writing. My fellow companions were a lovely lady who’s first novel was about to published, a very pleasant young man who’s second book had just been released, and a slightly temperamental older gentleman who’s first novel had just been released in the UK and who was advertising the fact by wearing a t-shirt showing its front cover. (Something which, while perhaps commercially sound, I can’t help but feel was a moment of fashion shame.) The audience answered a wide range of questions to which my main answer was… I’m sorry, I was 14 at the time and it was ten novels ago, I find it quite hard to remember… I doubt if I’ll be asked to sit on that panel again.
I suspect my age is one of the many reasons why so many people, when faced with the truth about my writing career, simply choose to ignore it. And fair enough – it is ridiculous. If there is any faith in the notion that I might, conceivably be telling the truth, the most immediate question is, ‘so have you had your book published yet?’ at which point the floodgates open and the whole messy story comes out.
In recent months, I’ve been dabbling with the world of play writing (long story) where once again, I am informed that I am a New Writer. But then problems! I’m not a nice, friendly, mouldable New Writer in search of delicate guidance and constant reassurance. I’m a New Writer with an agent and publishing experience and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, a lighting designer’s firm attitude towards theatre of ‘don’t give me this art shit – is it groovy and does it work?’ Asked to fill out a form recently for a ‘young writer’s programme’ I found I had very little to put on it. A whole page listing my training as a writer, and courses I had taken, had to be left blank as I have had none of these. Another page listing my theatrical career as a writer was only two points long… and the fact of all the novels had to be included in a box entitled ‘any other information’. It turns out, I fall into no easy categories. I’m not old enough to be Established but too experienced to be Young. I’m not ridiculously successful but then neither has my career been a complete cock-up, and the trend seems to be in a reasonable direction. I’m not a one-hit wonder, nor any sort of wonder at all; neither am I artistically tortured, living hand-to-mouth purely as a writer, spending six months of every year writing and six in a fume of impoverished creative torment. I work in theatre when I’m not writing, because I love it and because, let’s face it, writers ought to get out of the house sometimes. Surely this, more than anything else, is how we get past being both Young and New, and become something better?
