The Elegant Variation: The Shock of Every Writer's Life.

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December 08, 2009

The Shock of Every Writer's Life.

Over a year ago, in a conversation with my editor, I confessed that I'd been struggling -- really struggling -- with the second novel. I speculated that this could have something to do with the publication of the first novel, and the new & unprecedented feeling of paralyzing terror at the thought of sitting down to write.

The next day, a copy of the Paris Review Interviews (Volume 3) arrived at my door, with this Ted Hughes exchange bookmarked. My editor really is a genius.

When asked, "How has criticism of your work affected you or your poetry?" Ted Hughes responds:

I think it's the shock of every writer's life when their first book is published. The shock of their lives. One has somehow to adjust from being anonymous, a figure in ambush, working from concealment, to being and working in full public view. It had an enormous effect on me. My impression was that I had suddenly walked into a wall of heavy hostile fire. That first year I wrote verses with three magical assonances to the line with the intention of abolishing certain critics! Now I read those reviews and they seem quite good. So it was writer's paranoia. The shock to a person who's never been named in public of being mentioned in newspapers can be absolutely traumatic. To everyone else it looks harmless, even enviable.

I won't go on, because there is nothing more obnoxious than a writer complaining how hard it is to write. Complaining writers need a slap!

Posted at 06:08 PM in Guest Bloggers | Permalink

Comments

Don't you also think it's because you spend your whole life writing your first novel, and a year or two writing your second?

Posted by: Niall | December 08, 2009 at 07:11 PM

I'm not sure. Most of the time, the "first novel" isn't actually your first novel. It's usually your third or fourth (it was my fourth). There's a loss of freedom, a sense of self-consciousness when writing the "second novel" (the first novel after publication) that I'd never felt in my life until after what Hughes calls the "great shock." You think you're prepared for public consumption, and then you're not.

Posted by: Katherine Taylor | December 08, 2009 at 07:56 PM

Yes. Thank you for this.

(My first was my third, too.)

Posted by: Antoine Wilson | December 11, 2009 at 08:55 AM

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MY NOVEL

HARRY, REVISED - Get all the details here.

TOUR DATES

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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Dictation: A Quartet by Cynthia Ozick

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Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

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*Now in Paperback*

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Here Is Where We Meet by John Berger

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SECOND LOOK

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

December 08, 2009

The Shock of Every Writer's Life.

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MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

December 08, 2009

The Shock of Every Writer's Life.

Comments

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

Post a comment

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism