I’m here for anything with an equine related metaphor - they’re difficult beasties to work with, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of a perfect collected canter or trot passage or piaffe, except for a thought or emotion perfectly encapsulated on the page. Of my four horses I think Persistence is the easiest ride, Luck is always spooking and dropping a shoulder just before the fence…
I found this so encouraging, Emma, thank you. If someone like you has unpublished novels under your bed, then I'm proud to have several on my bedroom shelf. Your horses have made my writing task today seem less apocalyptic..
Such a great comment, Helen. I feel the day is less apocalyptic too. I have had 12 books published, 2 re-published, and I also have 5 unpublished novels in my office cupboard. Two were written before my first novel was published and I felt that it had been such a waste of time and effort - but of course it wasn't - they helped me learn how to write a novel.
Most authors do have unpublished novels under their beds - and not a few writers whose debut is genuinely the first novel they ever actually wrote really struggle to keep their balance and once they're published, especially if it's a hit. Being published is profoundly weird and it changes your relationship to your writing for ever - it's just as well if you have some experience of keeping going.
Thanks Emma, kindred spirit, and Tally ho. I loved this post, feeling energized as I imagined my fellow writers checking and re-checking the condition of their team of horses while I do the same. The great thing is to be prepared for a miracle and to never give up.
Tally ho! I do think it's energising for most of us to realise that there's an innate energy in all of these: talent wants to be used, hard work is satisfying in the short term, and persistence in the longer term. And I don't think that you can always make your own luck - but I do think it's a smaller component than it sometimes seems. What looks like luck is so often only that because, as you say, the writer was prepared for it to happen.
This is great, Emma. So sensible, if you don't mind my saying so, and helpful in the detailed analysis you have given, but also encouraging - and, in my experience, so true. And while I really like the idea of the four horses galloping forward together - it's interesting that, in having to select an order in which to write about them, you begin with hard work and then go on to persistence. I don't think people who haven't tried to write realise what hard work it is, and also these two are within one's control, whereas the other two are, well, in the lap, or perhaps the gift-giving hands, of those ancient gods you mention. So I imagine your horses as four side by side, but as two pairs, perhaps distinguished by their colouring. I'll stop here since, knowing that horse colours have special names, but not being horsey, I wouldn't like to get it wrong!
I'm so glad it's useful, Jee. One of the things I was determined to do in writing This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin was to convey to non-writers the sheer graft that writing takes, week in week out. That your bum can, honestly, get sore from so much sitting... And as you say, at least hard work and persistence are something you can do something about. Except that, actually, you can also do something about the other two: both luck and talent may start by being god-given, but there's a lot you can do to make the most of them - or waste them!
I’m here for anything with an equine related metaphor - they’re difficult beasties to work with, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of a perfect collected canter or trot passage or piaffe, except for a thought or emotion perfectly encapsulated on the page. Of my four horses I think Persistence is the easiest ride, Luck is always spooking and dropping a shoulder just before the fence…
Luck's a spooky creature - but Hard Work is a faithful cob who'll keep going forever as long as he gets Sundays off.
I found this so encouraging, Emma, thank you. If someone like you has unpublished novels under your bed, then I'm proud to have several on my bedroom shelf. Your horses have made my writing task today seem less apocalyptic..
Such a great comment, Helen. I feel the day is less apocalyptic too. I have had 12 books published, 2 re-published, and I also have 5 unpublished novels in my office cupboard. Two were written before my first novel was published and I felt that it had been such a waste of time and effort - but of course it wasn't - they helped me learn how to write a novel.
Most authors do have unpublished novels under their beds - and not a few writers whose debut is genuinely the first novel they ever actually wrote really struggle to keep their balance and once they're published, especially if it's a hit. Being published is profoundly weird and it changes your relationship to your writing for ever - it's just as well if you have some experience of keeping going.
This post proves that Emma is one of my heroes.
Aw, thanks Abney!
Thanks Emma, kindred spirit, and Tally ho. I loved this post, feeling energized as I imagined my fellow writers checking and re-checking the condition of their team of horses while I do the same. The great thing is to be prepared for a miracle and to never give up.
Tally ho! I do think it's energising for most of us to realise that there's an innate energy in all of these: talent wants to be used, hard work is satisfying in the short term, and persistence in the longer term. And I don't think that you can always make your own luck - but I do think it's a smaller component than it sometimes seems. What looks like luck is so often only that because, as you say, the writer was prepared for it to happen.
This is great, Emma. So sensible, if you don't mind my saying so, and helpful in the detailed analysis you have given, but also encouraging - and, in my experience, so true. And while I really like the idea of the four horses galloping forward together - it's interesting that, in having to select an order in which to write about them, you begin with hard work and then go on to persistence. I don't think people who haven't tried to write realise what hard work it is, and also these two are within one's control, whereas the other two are, well, in the lap, or perhaps the gift-giving hands, of those ancient gods you mention. So I imagine your horses as four side by side, but as two pairs, perhaps distinguished by their colouring. I'll stop here since, knowing that horse colours have special names, but not being horsey, I wouldn't like to get it wrong!
I'm so glad it's useful, Jee. One of the things I was determined to do in writing This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin was to convey to non-writers the sheer graft that writing takes, week in week out. That your bum can, honestly, get sore from so much sitting... And as you say, at least hard work and persistence are something you can do something about. Except that, actually, you can also do something about the other two: both luck and talent may start by being god-given, but there's a lot you can do to make the most of them - or waste them!