Roses Are Red

For a change of pace, I offer the following:

In practicing the craft of novel writing, I have come upon certain truths – at least for me. The most important is that writing a novel is far more like the job of a craftsman such as an old time shoemaker rather than some sort of pyrotechnic display of creativity and inspiration.

Unless an author is a genius, he or she needs support and guidance. Virtually everyone agrees that reading what the masters have created is a good place to begin. Another good source for me has been the systematic analysis of the masters by competent novelists and teachers of writing. A small shelf in my library is burdened by these books.

Another truth is that I’m not going to make any money from my writing. That’s no big deal; I’m retired and do it because it’s fun and there are certain things that I want to get off my chest and into print. More than 10,000 novels are published every year and the vast majority of them produce very little income for their authors. Some of these books are very good, better than a substantial portion of those that succeed financially. Mine are definitely in that latter category. On the bright side, with the copyright laws now in place, my grandchildren may well be able to have annual pizza parties in my memory for decades to come – of course drinks will be extra and Dutch treat.

Before tiring of it and quitting for lack of adequate financial reward, I used to teach writing and give lectures on the subject for modest honoraria. In the lectures, I invariably described the work habits of some of the greats such as Thackery, Dickens, and Twain. While they were all geniuses, their work habits were those of crazed craftsmen. For example, Dickens committed about 2,000 words per day to paper in long hand. In contrast, when really cranking in mid-novel, I average a little over 500 new words each day.

The point of this posting is that at my last lecture in late 2004, a woman in the audience challenged me on this work bench approach to writing. It seems that she was a poet. (There are no longer poetesses are there?) She said that my workman like approach might well be alright for a pedestrian novelist but that she was an artist who leaped out of bed in the middle of the night to write down a couplet or two that come to her in her dreams.

The fairly large (large is the operative word here) audience sided with me – most of them apparently aspiring pedestrian novelists - but I did not have really good points to refute the poet and said that whatever worked for each person was right.

Only lately did the response that I wish I made come to mind. I have no quarrel with the lady's methodology and work habits and never disputed them. My answer should have been that of a novelist. My books have all come to me in relative flashes. Over the next few days, I refined the stories in my mind and the research necessary to place them in historical context went on from there for whatever period was required, usually months.

Novelists then outline their projects, some on paper and others, like me, in their minds’ eyes. The point is that the inspiration for the couplet comes not much more swiftly than that of the novel, but producing a 100,000 word novel simply takes a lot more time than writing down a sonnet that is running around in one’s head. In the case of a long book, it makes little sense to write oneself into exhaustion and collapsing.

One production example that jumps to mind is War and Peace; I don’t know how long it took Tolstoy to get the job done, but the Mrs. typed the document through six complete revisions. I won’t get into the question of marital devotion but that case must be in the top ten percent

Couplets and long novels don’t take a lot more time in the inspiration phase, but writing down something like Moby Dick takes a little longer than Roses are red, Violets are blue…

Blogging, in contrast, is easy.

Wild Bill