Fay, we've kept them guessing all weekend and what a pleasure it is to have you seated in
the 'dovegreyreader asks...' virtual armchair. I wonder if you could
talk us through where Chalcot Crescent came from, what compelled you to write it and does this quote from Frances really speak for you,
'I have always used fiction to get to the heart of the matter, to
discover what it is I know. It is up to the facility analysts, when
they finally get around to reading this text, to decide what is memoir,
what is fact, what is truth (Pilate-like I wash my hands) or some
embroidery of the truth.'
How I came to write Chalcot Crescent makes a
long story. Do you really want it? Stories
about publishing are always interesting to writers, editors, agents and publishers but I’m never sure about
readers. Their concern, quite rightly, is the finished book. But you have me seated
in a chair , and asked me a question so I reply. I seldom volunteer
information, but if people ask me questions I reply and reply and can’t stop. I
always speak the truth but claim I tell lies so I can deny anything I have said
afterwards, if people choose to use what I said as evidence against me, which
quite often happens.
But
here it is for what it’s worth: and it’s
in second draft – that is to say it is written down not spoken, the latter being
first draft stuff - so I can’t even disclaim it. And it is a
tale, I’m afraid, of authorial
delinquency.
Novel writing – I wrote the first in 1967 –
used to be such a simple process. You wrote
a novel and gave the finished MSS to a
publisher and if he liked it he would
print it and give it to a bookseller who would be pleased to put it on his
shelves (along with all your back list) and people would come in and buy. The
editor was a person who saw the book through the production process in-house,
and would not dream of making a comment
other than point out the odd
spelling mistake or inconsistency.
But the process is no longer simple; the art
form grew into an industry and no one but me seems to feel ashamed of thus
describing it. The writer provides the
raw material, but others refine it, process it and package it to suit the readership.
The writer is marketed as a personality,
the book as of a particular genre. The
writer, guided by the editor, provides a
synopsis, on the strength of which he( more often these days she) is commissioned, and given an advance to go
away and write what is calculated to sell. The jacket will be designed on the
strength of the synopsis.
Then you’re in trouble.
In the middle of 2007 I gave the publishers one such synopsis, too persuasive for my own good. They accepted it
with enthusiasm. For gloomy months I stared at the page. I would write a line or
two and then start playing Pharoah. The editor’s title ‘What Made Her Run’ left me feeling hopeless. It was my fault. I had
given them a domestic tale about a family riven by run-away wives – surely a genetic trait. By the beginning of 2009 the
novel had its jacket – tormented girl; leaning against wall (sales said this
was bound to sell) – but where were all the words that were meant to be in the
middle? Somewhere stuck in my head. So one
day in January I just I gave up and wrote
an entirely other novel I didn’t know I wanted to write in ten weeks non stop, about a house I’d lived
in twenty five years back, with my unborn sister Frances as its protagonist. 80,000 words of a Dystopia with jokes. Set in
2012 when we’re all living on National Meat Loaf laced with SRRI’s, suitable
for vegetarians.
Fay, I think you'll always be treasured for all your books, but is there one that feels most special, and if so why?
Puffball is
special because it is about the birth of one of my children. I have four boys.
My eldest son is a musician and turned
it into a kind of opera with speech not singing: and my second son is a film maker and he
turned it into a film directed by Nicolas Roeg. I discourage them from reading
anything I write – who wants a writer for a mother - but they somehow got hold of this one. We
work on it together but never discuss it, just accept it as a given.
I'm really sorry but we are terribly nosy here and love to know
about a writer's writing day, so can you tell us about that and what
the process involves for you? We are always very impressed with news of
special writing socks / jumpers/ trousers, fountain pens and ink but
really how the writing happens and whether the dishwasher needs to be
empty first etc.
The
south west wind blows really cold into my office windows: it is an old house
and we are on top of a hill. So I have
taken to writing down in the basement on the laptop in winter where it’s warm, if
haunted, and someone gave me some black
woolen mittens with bright bobbles on the knuckles for which I am very
grateful. I like it down there with the cobwebs and the bobbles dancing as
I type.
I'm
now adding an extra degree of inquisition because I think we'd really love to
know what writers do when they don't write, what interests you and
fills your non-writing days?
What
do I do when I don’t write? I teach. I
am a Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University
It’s meant to be one day a week but
always stretches to more. Teaching students who volunteer to learn is a delight. You just tell them what you
never knew you knew, and warn them about the problems they are going to run
into if they’re not careful, and incidentally teach yourself by analyzing what
it is you do yourself. Otherwise I just
assume I am writing all day, when not
sleeping or eating or going to the dentist.
If my head gets too tired I rest it
playing old fashioned empire building computer games. Chalcot Crescent was written with the help of Pharaoh.
I go abroad when publishers ask me to, and talking has to take the place of writing. Next week I go to Mantua for three days for an Italian translation of Puffball: in October I go to Norway to open
a conference on the changing face of copyright
. This is frightening, but I am only really there for light relief.
Who must we read? Which authors and books would you urge us not to miss?
Sadie Jones’s Small Wars, just out, is
really good.
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