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WILL YOU HELP ME WITH MY DISSERTATION/TRANSLATION/THESIS/ESSAY ?The longer answer would involve me pointing out that I am the one person whose comments will be worse than useless to you, if you want to pass any kind of examination. I would talk about states of barely-suppressed hysteria, accidents, flukes and chaos in ways that will not appeal to literary theorists who want everything to be neat and under the author’s thumb. I wo...
HOW DO I GET PUBLISHED ?Write as well as you possibly can. Markets won’t help you, networking might (Although it will probably also involve the removal of your soul and will only help a little if you can’t write.) Sleeping with writers makes them very happy, but as the ability to type with any kind of skill is not contagious, it won’t actually help you. And then we get into slee...
NO REALLY, HOW DO I GET PUBLISHED ?Find someone you can trust to look at your work, get it into the best possible shape, ruthlessly. Take advice from The Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook on agents and editors that might suit and then contact them, one at a time. You will probably need an agent to help you catch any editor’s eye, these days – no one really has the time to read any more....
WILL I MAKE MONEY OUT OF LITERARY FICTION ?No. Or not quickly, unless you are incredibly lucky. Fiction is not exactly fashionable right now and never really has been a big earner. Then again, if you are writing literary fiction, you probably do it fairly helplessly, because you love it. The fact that we do it for love is, sadly, well-known amongst publishers, editors and so forth and this means we will receive the...
WHO WILL MAKE THE MONEY ?And if they mess up too badly you’ll end up out of print. But who needs money ? - be happy if you’re in print at all - you can sell your organs to foreign businessmen, you have possibilities, get on with it… And you could be a poet – they don’t make anything…
WHAT ABOUT THE GLAMOUROUS JET-SETTING LIFE OF THE NOVELIST, THEN ?Endless community halls and libraries, immensely tiring tours of places that might be interesting if you ever got to see them, food you can’t eat, or never get, not enough sleep, crushing isolation, little or no chance of a cup of tea on the road, endless working to subsidise the writing… oh yes, it’s all a breeze. Sometimes, you may get to meet the forme...
IS THE AUTHOR DEAD ?No more than usual. (And stop hanging out with academics. In the end they just run out of new things to say and end up with nonsense like that.)
IS THE NOVEL DEAD ?above. Get some new pals, go out more, really… The novel is much older and much healthier than the literary establishment that snaps round its
CAN YOU REALLY TEACH CREATIVE WRITING ?No. But you can help someone to think like a writer and to find out how they write. You can help someone find what only they can say and how only they can say it. But many institutions can make money by claiming to teach creative writing – if you’re signing up for one, do check whether they are actually going to help you, or put a whole lot of irrelevant work i...
WHAT IS THE KEY TO WRITING GOOD FICTION ?Which isn’t the answer you wanted. I could say “capturing point of view”– but that comes back to years of practice and observation. Or learning a lot about your soul - same problem, if not worse. Just try to be aware of how you work and how that could help you tell other human beings about human beings who don’t exist, but could. Help us to dr...
BUT FICTION IS ALL JUST RECYCLED FACT AND SCRAPS YOU OVERHEARD ON BUSES, SURELY ?You can rip off your life and other people’s stories if you like, but that’s more theft than fiction and it will leave you with precious few friends and very little life remaining. Practically speaking, things you make up (it’s called fiction, remember) will fit your story better and be more fun for all concerned. This is, at one level, a meditative fligh...
I WANT TO BE A WRITER, WHAT SHOULD I DO ?Give yourself a severe talking-to. But if you can’t persuade yourself otherwise (and probably you can’t) then what you have to do now, and ever
HOW DO YOU WIN LITERARY PRIZES ?Sometimes this will involve writing a really good book. At other times, you’ll have to marry, divorce, fuck, deal drugs to, blackmail, kidnap, or lord knows what to God knows whom and it still may not work. Prizes do not make sense, keep away from them, do not consider them, they are none of your business, if you write, unless you happen to be judging one, in which c...
WHY DO YOU WRITE UNDER YOUR INITIALS ?NOT because I wanted to give endless journalists the chance to write acres of nonsense about two letters. I was worried that if I ever got published people would come and complain if they knew who I was, so I wanted to hide. (I didn’t know how impossible anonymity is these days) And, rather more centrally, the authors I first loved all had initials – J.R.R. Tol...
SO HOW UNHAPPY WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD ?Past , or present, misery are not essential for the production of art. In fact, they are something of a handicap. Yes, God forbid any of the British media should actually end up discussing a book, or writing in general, or giving some kind of respect to readers, or something dreadful like that.
BUT EVERYONE WHO INTERVIEWS YOU LIKES YOUR BOOKS ?Like hell they do. Which I don’t mind at all – I object to people pretending to like my work and then sloping off to give me a kicking. Why not have a good discussion about why they think I’m crap – all seems a bit spineless to me.
DO YOU LIKE YOUR BOOKS ?They’re the best I could do at the time. But no, I don’t like them. And it’s not part of my job description to even find them bearable.
ARE YOU AN ORDAINED MINISTER ?I’m serious about the fact that human life has a spiritual aspect and I’m aware that I work in an area that is numinous, that relies on a power outwith myself – my work reflects that. I think it is healthy to reflect that. I am not, however, a very good or religious person.
YOU WRITE IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS, WHICH DO YOU PREFER ?long as I’m allowed to write the best work I can and serve the characters and the plot, I’m happy, whatever I’m doing. But the ultimate test is prose fiction and that’s probably the most rewarding personally.
DO YOU ENJOY BEING A WRITER ?Why would I enjoy something obsessive-compulsive, massively isolating, poorly paid and filled with opportunities for the unscrupulous to abuse
WHY DOES FICTION MATTER ANYWAY?Because it is the form that proves most deeply that other human beings are as human as we are. It makes strangers irreplaceable. It prevents psychopathic behaviour and keeps imagination alive. Without imagination we are helpless, personally, spiritually and politically helpless. And it is, No. This is something you do with your brain. Fuck your brain and you fuck your writ...
WHY DO YOU READ FROM WORK IN PROGRESS ?It helps me to finish rewriting something if I imagine a big bunch of people who could kill me at any time, listening to it in my presence. It helps me to listen to a piece out loud, although I do "listen" to the musicality of the work (or lack of it) while I write. I try not to inflict anything that's very rough. I also get hugely bored with things that I've fin... |
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A L Kennedy: frequently asked questions