by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
JK Rowling (via Wikimedia Commons)
I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings. Ours was a joy, all of us together, including the three grandboys. I greeted them as they pulled up to the house. They tumbled out of the car like circus clowns. The two youngest held favorite toys. But the oldest, 10, had a thick paperback under his arm. It was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He’s about halfway through it. My heart sang.
Hard to believe that the Harry Potter series ended way back in 2007. JK Rowling did not publish another book until The Casual Vacancy in 2012. That novel was a stand-alone for adults, with the language and themes to prove it. Was Rowling worried about the abrupt change in genre? Not a bit. In an interview she put it this way:
Harry Potter truly liberated me in the sense that there’s only one reason to write, for me: If I genuinely have something I want to say and I want to publish it. I can pay my bills, you know, every day. I am grateful for that fact and aware of that fact. I don’t need to publish to make a living.
We both know what it takes to write a novel, we both know how much blood, sweat and tears go into writing a novel, I couldn’t put that amount of energy into something purely to say I need to prove I can write a book with swear words in it. So no, there was no nervousness – and again I don’t mean that arrogantly. I felt happy writing it, it was what I wanted to do.
I think we can all agree that JK Rowling can pay her bills. But what do you think of writing a novel as “blood, sweat and tears”? (Churchill actually said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” But that was too long for a rock band, so it was shortened.)
It was not Hemingway who said writing was a matter of sitting down and the typewriter and bleeding (it was either Paul Gallico or Red Smith, or maybe both). But the sentiment is the same.
There does seem to be a small school of thought that says quality fiction knows not blood, sweat and tears. I don’t know about you, but I can tell a bloodless book within about 10 pages, if I haven’t set it aside by then.
I’ll add that you can’t just bleed on the page, as that only makes a stain. The sweat comes when shaping the blood into a narrative form readers can relate to. The tears indicate some frustration at times, and I contend if you don’t have those you aren’t pushing yourself beyond your current capacity. Of course, you’re not obligated to do that. But when asked what she aspires to as a writer, Rowling said, “To get better. I think you’re working and learning until you die. I can with my hand on my heart say I will never write for any reason other than I burningly wanted to write the book.”
There are also some who say you mustn’t let anyone else—editor or beta reader or spouse—opine about your story. Rowling doesn’t see it that way, and I daresay she’s sold a few books. Of her editor on The Casual Vacancy she said:
When he read the book, he singled out certain things about the book that I would have liked someone most to single out about it. I just knew I had the right person. It’s a very intangible thing. It’s like falling in professional love, isn’t it? And once you’ve got that, something clicks and you know you’re in safe hands.
We certainly made some cuts. I decided to move some things around, he made some great suggestions. The book is broadly what it was when I gave it to him. I didn’t change much but what we did change tightened it up a lot, which is what you want.
Rowling has, of course, gone on to write a hugely popular series of detective novels under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. They are the product of, what do you know? Work.
I often start with a kernel of an idea then work out how to get there. I plan and research a lot and know far more about the characters than actually ends up ever appearing in the books. I have colour coded spreadsheets, so I can keep a track of where I am going.
It is how I have always worked. It was the same for the Harry Potter novels. It’s well documented the level of detailed planning that went into those.
JK Rowling is what I call a real writer. She could sit back and sip gin gimlets and collect sea shells for the rest of her life, but she won’t. She can’t. She writes.
What about you? Do you bleed for your stories? It doesn’t have to be absolute agony, a la Proust. But shouldn’t you have some “skin in the game”? Shouldn’t you “open a vein”?
I don’t know how a writer can NOT bleed for your stories. If I had a story that was easy I would probably think there was something wrong with it. LOL! And it’s hard enough second guessing yourself as you try to write the best story you can at your current level. It wouldn’t be any fun to write if you just basically phoned it in. You might as well just sit around breathing in and out and not bother to pick up a pen (or keyboard).
You’re so right about phoning it in, BK. Where is the fun or the challenge? Or the tremendous satisfaction that comes from knowing you’ve grown as a writer and can do things on the page you couldn’t do before.
“To get better. I think you’re working and learning until you die.”
I learn something new with every book, article, post, or even email I write. Education never ends. That’s what keeps writing a constant fascinating challenge. Yes, it can be frustrating, maddening, heartbreaking, discouraging, scary. But ultimately it’s the most fulfilling job I can imagine.
I put my characters through hell and it’s my job to walk beside them, feeling what they feel.
My beloved High School English teacher, Mrs. Bruce, told me there is nothing so wonderful as truly learning something new. (And she taught me to use so instead of as when constructed in a sentence like the one above!)
My stories are like my shadow, no escape. I live and breathe within the words. And even when they’re finished, they are still with me. They always will be. There is never a disconnect.
I like that, Bryan. “No escape.” That’s the kind of story that needs to be told.
It took me years to realize that struggle (AKA “blood, sweat and tears”) isat the heart of the creative process. Which is good, because the current book is a heck of a struggle. Fiction often flies off the fingers, but there’s always a point, for me, when there are blood, sweat and tears. Especially sweat.
Right with you, Dale. I do love the “flow” times. Even then, however, I know I’ll be at least polishing up the page at some point. Like Michelangelo giving David that last but of nose job, if I may make so immodest a comparison.
I keep saying, with every release, “This is my last. I’m not doing this anymore.”
But then, a character like Talia starts tap tap tapping on the window of my heart wanting in. I see her face and I know she has something to say to me. Maybe to readers.
Maybe I haven’t bled enough yet.
So I take a deep breath and unlatch it. Who knows where she’ll lead me?
LOL, Deb. Story people keep showing up. You must follow! And it just occurred to me that bleeding on the page has a first-aid kit, called revision and self-editing.
First aid kit…good one, James!
🙂
“I can with my hand on my heart say I will never write for any reason other than I burningly wanted to write the book.”
I can’t imagine why anyone would take on the challenge of writing a book unless they felt the heat from that creative flame. And anything worth doing is probably going to require blood, sweat, and tears. Besides, if it wasn’t hard, why do it?
I remember reading somewhere about a running coach pushing runners in an interval workout. After they’d run many laps, the coach requires one more and tells them, “It’s only pain.”
Haha! Reminds me of early workouts with the HS basketball team, and we’d run “Suicides.” That was a series of bursts up and down the court, and was well named. But when we played, no team was in better shape!
A friend of mine said to me, “Why don’t you use AI to help you write your novel. It would be a lot faster?” I told him, I love the process, the blood, sweat and tears. It’s part of the journey. I’m almost done writing my first novel and the joy I’m feeling for sticking with the process for two years is wonderful.
So true, Jillian. The machine brings no satisfaction with it!
I open a vein every time I work on my mainstream trilogy – that’s the only thing I have going that’s worth the time and effort of someone chronically ill.
I HAVE to leave a legacy – otherwise I’d spend all my time doing something inane such as watching every episode ever of NCIS. That’s for when the pain is dominating, or the sleep won’t come – because we all have to get through the next 24 hours regardless whether it’s fun or not.
There is a certain rightness about knowing what you’re aiming for. Unless major changes happen in the medical research world, I’m not likely to write many more novels. It does raise the standards – but it also gives me joy. At the same time it costs me everything I have left. Kind of like being told you have only so many months left – except my sentence is indefinite.
It focuses the mind greatly.