Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai is the youngest woman ever to receive the Booker Prize for her novel, The Inheritance of Loss, published in 2006. But she started out like everybody else with her first book called Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, not knowing exactly what she was doing and by plowing through anyway.

Below are excerpts from an interview conducted a few years ago where she talks about  the “incredibly messy” process of writing a first book, how to know when to quit revising, her writing rituals and she gives some advice to aspiring writers.

Bold Type: What was your process for writing this book–did you start with the characters or with the plot?

Kiran Desai: When I started writing it I had no idea what the story would be; I had no idea of the plot. It sort of gathered momentum and drew me along. It was an incredibly messy process and I don’t know if it was the smartest way to go about it because this was my first book, so I had to teach myself how to write as I was writing it, and I don’t know if I went about it the right way but I certainly had a lot of fun. It was very messy though–I had to throw out many pages–about half the book I think I ended up editing. Once I was aware of all the different ways to go, all the plot turns to take.

BT: So how did you know when you were done, when the story was complete?

KD: I think that’s perhaps the hardest thing, to know when you’ve finished, because it seems like you can always go on polishing and polishing and working on it some more. But after a while I think I was so close to it that I couldn’t even see it anymore; it didn’t make sense to continue on my own, and so I finally showed it to my agent and wanted an editor to help me take it to the next level. But, I also realized that after a point you can’t go on perfecting something and polishing it and making it better, because you lose something in the process, the freshness of it, and I realized that even if it wasn’t completely perfect I had to leave it; it was enough–I couldn’t work on it any more. It’s a balance; if you perfect one thing you lose something else, and that’s the stage where I think you have to know when to stop.

BT: Do you have any private rituals or special environments that you need to create in order to write best?

KD: Well, I carried this book around all over the place when I was writing it, just took it with me everywhere–I was writing in India and in this country and in Mexico and in different environments and different rooms everywhere. I had to be quite adaptable, I think, to try and work wherever I was….

I really like working in the kitchen; I find that wherever I am I work near the kitchen or in the kitchen itself. I can constantly make myself little things to eat or cups of tea; I find it’s the perfect balance, in that I can write a bit, eat a cookie, and then I write a bit more, eat some ice cream. Reward myself– it’s constant rewards. And I work best in the morning, as soon as I get out of bed I start writing, and late at night. I have dead space in the afternoon, which I think comes from growing up with an afternoon siesta; my brain just shuts off from about two to five.

BT: In writing classes one’s often taught to flesh out every character and plot twist well in advance, and you’re proof that that’s not always the necessary formula. As you said, you had an unconventional method for writing Hullabaloo; this being your first book, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

KD: There are all kinds of theories that you get told in writing workshops–”Write what you know,” and that sort of thing, which I don’t believe at all. I think one of the great joys of writing is to try and explore what you don’t know, that’s exciting to me. There are all kinds of little things–show, don’t tell–I just wouldn’t pay attention to any of that really. I don’t think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different. I can’t imagine how they come up with these rules–they’re really ludicrous. You can’t learn to write in that fashion. What inspired me really was reading, reading a lot and learning from other writers. Learning how they are going about something–I was very aware of that when I was writing this book. Every book that I read at the same time I’d think, “Hmm–how do they do this?” Looking at it in that way, from a technical point of view, which we don’t usually do as a reader. But really I think that’s for me what was important; I was training myself to look at my work with a critical eye….

If you want to read the rest of the interview, you can find it here.

So what do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Did you learn anything new?  As always, I’d love to hear from you.

Years ago I attended a weekend workshop for writers led by Marge Piercy and her husband, Ira Wood. One of the enduring memories I have from that workshop was a question I asked Marge during the Q & A section of the workshop. She had mentioned earlier that she had written several novels (seems like it was 5 or 6) before she got her first book published. Considering she said it took her a couple of years to write one novel, this was quite a feat of resilience, in my opinion. Not to mention that I was in a similar situation myself. So when given the opportunity, I asked her how she kept going during that time of getting several books rejected multiple times. Her answer surprised me. She said that she got angry!

At first my southern soul—trained since infanthood to be nice—was a bit shocked by this statement. Anger, said all my training, was not nice. But then it occurred to me that this was really about the healthiest and self-preserving thing she could do. Rather than being a victim to the process (and believe me I’ve met plenty of writer victims over the years), Marge Piercy took charge of the situation. She absolutely refused to give up. She spoke about becoming more political as a result. To the point that at the workshop she was incredibly frank about the reality of the writing profession and its injustices to all the wide-eyed, naive novices. She was so frank, in fact, that I wondered how many would-be writers were leaving their dreams at the door as they left.

But there is wisdom in frankness, too. Over the years I’ve allowed myself to get angry over the inherent craziness in the process of getting my books out into the world. There is enough apathy, indifference, overwhelm and sometimes downright greed that goes on in the publishing world that not just writers are angry these days but agents and editors, as well. Great writers are passed over for the latest craze. Imprints are closed just as they’re about to sign your book to a contract. Endearing executive editors are replaced. Agents have stockpiles of fantastic material that they can’t sell because it’s too artful and not commercial enough. Not to mention everybody trying to keep up with the profound shifts occurring in the publishing industry with the advent of ebooks and indie publishing. 

So if aspire to be a writer, or are already a professional, perhaps you need more than the most elaborate laptop on the market and all the typical writer’s tools. Maybe you should invest in a punching bag, too, or some other appropriate way to vent your anger. Whether seeking readers in traditional or indie ways, rev up your resilience and fight for what you believe in!

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Author website.

According to Writer’s Almanac, Elizabeth George is a woman considered by many to be the greatest living mystery novelist.

She graduated from college with an English major. Rather than sitting down to write novels, which she knew was her calling, she did what she calls the “Divine Dance of Avoidance.” She was busy doing everything except writing. She got a teaching credential, became a high school English teacher, and got a master’s degree in counseling. Every summer break, when she’d get 10 weeks off of school to write, she would be filled with anxiety about starting a book, about whether her plot or characters would be any good, or whether she’d be able to write convincingly, or whether she’d be able to finish anything she started.

And then, in 1983, her husband bought a computer in order to write his graduate thesis. They’d never owned a computer, only typewriters, and she said she knew it could make her “life as a writer much easier,” to be able to cut and paste and edit on the screen. She chose to make it a defining moment: When the computer arrived at their house, she said:

“I was faced with the simplest life question I’ve ever had to answer. I asked myself whether, on my deathbed, I wanted to sigh and say, ‘I could have written a novel’ or ‘I wrote a novel.’ Believe me, the answer was simplicity itself.”

Her first novel was rejected by everyone she sent it to, but the people at Scribner’s said along with their rejections some nice things about her writing style, and she was thoroughly encouraged.

She made a trip to England, wrote a second English crime novel which was similarly rejected, made another trip to England the following summer, and when she returned she had 42 days left until she needed to go back to the classroom to teach high school English for the year. She felt like she’d come up with a great plot, structure, and twist, and she was determined to write the novel before school started up. So she sat down and wrote for 8 to 16 hours a day. She finished the first draft of the novel in three and a half weeks. She revised it and sent it off to an agent. The agent sold it Bantam Books, which was just beginning a line of hardcover mysteries.

The book was A Great Deliverance, her first published title and the first in the Inspector Lynley series, and it was a great success. She quit her high school teaching job of 13 years and began writing full time.

Her writing process:

Elizabeth George writes five days a week when she’s working on the first draft, and when she’s on subsequent drafts, she writes seven days a week. She always gets up at 6 a.m., she says, feeds the dog and takes vitamins and works out on an Exercycle for 30 minutes while reading a meditation book, then inspirational book, then a novel. And she lifts weights for 35 minutes while watching The Today Show. She meditates for 10 minutes, sits down at her desk, reads great literature for about 15 minutes — something along the lines of Jane Austen — and writes a paragraph or page or two in a journal. And then she begins to work on the novel she’s writing. She keeps a plot outline, and everyday she writes a minimum of five pages, even if she’s on the road for book tours or on vacation.

George said,

 ”The only way to succeed at the writing life is to be able to live according to a schedule that accommodates time to write.”

So what do you think? Is it time to stop that “Divine Dance of Avoidance”?

Read the article: Getting it Write
Elizabeth George, author of 13 best-selling novels, “spells it out for aspiring novelists.”

Check out Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.

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According to the Writer’s Almanac, Alice Munro, known for her short stories, was born in Wingham, Ontario (1931). She grew up on a farm, and she said,

Reading was an indulgence that you didn’t go in for if there was physical work to be done.

Women were only supposed to read on Sundays, because on every other day of the week they had no excuse to be reading when they could be knitting instead. So as a kid, she was always telling herself stories, and when she didn’t like the endings — like in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” — she would make up new ones.

She went to college, hoping to become a writer, but she dropped out to get married and have three children. She got divorced and went back to her hometown to take care of her sick father, and she was amazed at how much material there was there. She said,

What I wanted was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together — radiant, everlasting.

 

And so she took those things, and turned them into short stories. She has written 11 books of short stories, and a new collection, Too Much Happiness, which came out this year. In May, Alice Munro won the Man Booker International Prize.

 
Here’s her advise to aspiring writers:

It’s not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, ‘Read,’ but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, ‘Don’t read, don’t think, just write,’ and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you’re going to be a writer you’ll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think ‘There must be something else people do,’ you won’t quite be able to quit.

What do you think? Is this good advice?

Too Much Happiness: Stories by Alice Munro

Story in the New Yorker: Things You May Not Know About Alice Munro

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Aspiring writers are often told at writer’s conferences, “Don’t quit your day job!” These words frequently come from writers/agents/publishers who have been in the business long enough to know that having a career as a writer can be the Mt. Everest of dreams. So hanging onto something that you do that gives you self-confidence, and let’s face it, needed cash, is sound advice. I consider myself an author and this is an author’s blog. However, for those of you curious about my “day job,” I offer consulting to women in transition and anyone (regardless of gender) who wants to get past the obstacles that stop them from leading their best lives.

One of the things that resonates with the readers of my novel, Seeking Sara Summers, is that, no matter what your age, it’s okay to begin a journey of self-discovery. It’s okay to be happier and self-fulfilled. You don’t have to settle for a relationship or a career that is desperately lacking just because you don’t know what else to do. No one needs to settle for less than they know they deserve and coast through the rest of their life wondering what could have been, if they’d only had the motivation and courage to step into a bigger life.

As a former psychotherapist, who ran a successful private practice for over a decade, this message was one I wanted to make clear in my novel. Sometimes change is scary, but absolutely necessary. For Sara, the main character, this awareness came in the form of a wake-up call like breast cancer. Sometimes people are so ready for a change, a compassionate nudge is all they need to move in a direction that is more satisfying and rich.

What are you ready to change in your life?

I’d love to hear from you.

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In an email the other day, a virtual buddy of mine asked if I had any advice to give a beginning writer. This was my response:

As with any profession or craft, becoming excellent is simple but not easy. The best advice I can give to writers starting out is to READ.

Read really well-written books in the genre you want to write in. I heard this advice at the very first writer’s conference I ever attended many years ago, as well as the most recent one I attended.

One presenter, who has written dozens of books and is at the top of his field, even suggested that writers starting out read 100 books of whatever kind you want to write, before you even start writing. I heard gasps in the room when he said this. I have a somewhat softer take on that. I think you can start counting down the hundred while you are starting to write. And even if you read only 50, you’re still going to be better off than a lot of people out there.

It’s helpful to take classes or go to conferences or join a writer’s group (or several until you find the right one) . But the most important thing you can do, in my opinion, is to start getting words down on the page. Every day. Every day.

You can always hire a freelance editor to clean up your manuscript when you’re finished. There are hundreds of them. Many writers, offer this service, as well. They often rely on the income to keep writing. (In the past, I’ve done this myself.) An editor can do anything from line editing for typos and grammatical corrections all the way up to substantial editing around style, characterization, plot, etc.

There isn’t just one book about how to write that I would recommend. There are so many out there. I have a shelf full of them myself. Some can be quite helpful, like Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver. But most didn’t have a huge impact on me. I can honestly say that what made me a better writer was to practice the craft every day. Get words on the page (even if it’s just a few), and don’t let anybody or anything, including your own negative thoughts, stop you. Just do it! And in the meantime:

READ, READ, READ