Mother Writes: Time to get over it?

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

Time to get over it?

My eldest daughter lost in a book

When I sent my novel out to ten literary agents several years ago, three of them were interested and asked to see the full manuscript. Fast forward to the present, and I have a much, much stronger manuscript (at least, I believe it to be) and nobody is giving me anything close to green signals. What this means is that in this short space of time the publishing landscape has changed considerably and it's a landscape I'm not very familiar with. I have heard many a time that there are more people out there writing books than reading them (eek, can that really be true?) and of those people that are reading novels, more are reading kindles now than physical books.

Just reading back over what I've written, the pragmatist in me is saying Just get over it. Get over the paper issue, educate yourself on ebooks and get yourself out there. But the romantic, literary me (the 'me' that dreamed up this book in the first place) struggles to get over the 'paper issue' and can't quite embrace the digital technology entity that the publishing industry is evolving into. The world acclaimed Hay-On-Wye Literature festival banned kindles and e-readers this year. But is Hay-On-Wye just charmingly anachronistic, increasingly out of touch with current reading trends; a book loving group of die-hards just digging their heels in?

A few months ago, my local bookshop closed down and I was truly gutted. Langton's had been around for almost a century and as well as being a bookshop, its cafe was home to numerous local groups and on friday mornings I took my kids there for a free story time. One of the guys working there told me they were running at a huge loss each year and just couldn't sustain that. He also told me that a lot of people who continued to buy books from there did so out of 'sympathy'. How can a business possibly survive on sympathy?

Sorry, this is a bit of a gloomy blog. There is so, so much positive in the world of books, I do know that. And I think it's important for me to remember that whether produced digitally or on paper, books still have the capacity to change lives. And they are still WORDS!

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Mother Writes...What's it all about?

When I was little, I imagined with the supreme confidence of a child that when I was all grown up, I'd be a celebrated writer. And by grown-up, I probably meant about eighteen. The concept of even reaching the age of thirty, let alone beyond, was off my radar and my seven-year old self shuddered at the ominious thought of not having published at least several novels by that grand old age.

Fast forward to the present. Here I am, age thirty-five, wife to a lovely hubby and mother to three gorgeous children. Now, am I writer? My seven-year old self would hold a very strong opinion on this: No, because I don't have a single published novel to my name. But I'm pleased to say that now I'm all grown-up, I'm also a bit more measured and realistic in my expectations of myself. Don't get me wrong - I love my seven-year old self for believing I could achieve that much but I have, over the years, come to an important conclusion:

If you dance, you are a dancer. If you paint, you are a painter. And if you write, you are a writer.

But we have to actually do it, not just talk about doing it. It's all too easy to procrastinate about our creative endeavours and that's all I ask of myself now: to create; to write. And if I'm lucky enough to get something published (which I'm pleased to say that I have done, in the form of short stories, reviews and articles), well, that's a bonus. And that's what this blog offers: little slices of honesty on my plate of life as mother, wife and creator of words. It's often not easy to juggle all three, particularly dealing with bouts of chronic insomnia. But I have to trust this is all part of the journey, and challenges are what make life interesting.