Glenda Larke

When I started down the road to being a published author, there were times I wanted it so bad it was a physical ache. I would carefully calculate exactly how long before I could expect to hear back from the publisher/agent I had sent a manuscript to, and then wait by the letter box. Back in those days, all I wanted was to be published. That was all. That would be the pinnacle. After that, everything would be a sparkle in my eye.

Ha. Then I got published. And I found out it wasn’t all I wanted. I wanted to be other things as well: a commercial success, to be sought after. I wanted to be receiving paeans of praise from my peers. I wanted loads of wonderful reviews. I wanted the moon…

Giving a reading at Worldcon Glasgow 2005

I was lucky; for a while there, it seemed that I might actually get it. Reviews of Havenstar (my first book) were excellent. STARBURST magazine gave it a 10/10 rating. It got on to bestseller lists. And then it vanished from sight and the bubble popped.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: getting published is the world’s greatest rush, but things often go downhill from there, not up! It was another five years before I had another book published and I never have got back into the UK market. I’ve sold to Australia, USA, Germany and Russia, but not to the UK. And that’s another lesson the naïve writer learns : there’s not much that is logical in the business of publishing.

After that first heady publication, after you have recovered from the choked-up joy of holding that shiny new book with your name on the cover, you start to worry yourself sick (or at least I do) about things like: will people like the book? Will it sell? Will it earn out? Will it get reviewed? Will I get another contract? Am I going to get writer’s block? Will I finish that next book in time to meet the deadline? Will the next book be as good? What about the one after that? Will it get nominated for the Aurealis shortlist? And if it does, then you start worrying: will it win?

(At this stage, any unpublished writer reading this is going to be thinking: what an ungrateful prat!)

Possibly it’s all part of the human condition to never be content. Or maybe it’s just megalomanic me.

Some of what we worry about has validity. Writers do get dropped. Or publishing imprints do fold (see what happened to my Havenstar just when it started to fly). Books do fail to sell – even the good ones.

And maybe, just maybe – because I will never be content, my writing will get better and better as time goes by. That’s the theory, anyway.

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Sunday, 19 February 2006 (7 Comments).

Over at Ben Peek’s blog here and at Elizabeth Bear’s here , there are great lists on what they have learned as a writer…

So here’s my ten things I have learned as a fantasy writer:

1. No matter how brilliantly you write, there will still be people who will assume you write crap because it’s fantasy.
2. There is no way a fantasy writer can answer the question, “What’s it about?” without sounding like an utter idiot.
3. There will always be the odd person who thinks you write the other kind of fantasy.
4. No matter how much you think people who read speculative fiction of any kind must be in search of writing that is sharply different, imagination-challenging and intellectually stimulating, the truth is that, by and large, what sells best is the comfortable stuff that wouldn’t challenge a Barbie doll.
5. There is no way a fantasy writer can answer the question, “Will they make a film out of it?” without sounding like you’re making excuses for not being good enough.
6. It’s better not to look at the expression on the face of the person who has just said, “Fantasy? Oh, you write children’s books!” as you try to explain that no, you actually write stuff for adults.
7. Fantasy writers stutter a lot when speaking to people who don’t read fantasy but want to know all about it.
8. Science fiction writers are not always kind about fantasy books or fantasy writers.
9. Any sff book that achieves success in the wider world of literary fiction gets called something else—like “magical realism” or “surreal fiction” or “fabulist” or “a visionary portrayal” or “an allegorical look at the modern world” or “a futuristic tale of…” You get the picture. Never science fiction or fantasy.
10. Marketing people think dragons on the cover sell books, even if there’s no dragon in the story. Likewise with wolves, chain-mail (especially on women), swords (especially wielded by babes), castles on crags, bearded ancient sages with staffs, eagles, stormy skies, ravens…

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Sunday, 26 March 2006 (11 Comments).

The other day, I was sitting talking with a group of friends and I told a story about my childhood. One long time friend then said, “Oh, Glenda—why don’t you write that sort of thing instead of this – this other stuff?” This other stuff being fantasy. Despised pulp, less than literature, childish drivel, or whatever. What on earth can you say in reply to a remark like that?

I was on the Purple Zone this morning (the great online forum over at the website of Harper Collins Voyager Australia) and read what one writer was told when registering with the lecturer of a writing course: ‘Well, there’ll be people writing serious stuff and they may not want to read your work. But don’t worry, there’s always a couple of people writing genre stuff in each class who stick together in the corner!’

This prompted Alma Alexander/Hromic into an excellent reply on her blog.

And I feel a rant coming on, too.

We all start by reading fantasy. Cinderella. Fairy Tales. Mother Hubbard rhymes. Local stories of taking animals. All those delightful kids’ stories that have charmed generations of children, and the modern tales that are just as good. We all have a background in myths and legends from whatever the culture of our upbringing. Religious stories are – almost by definition – full of the fantastic.

Then somewhere along the line, people seem to drop out and start reading what is supposedly “real” (even though it is fiction and not real at all). Unfortunately, many do it under the mistaken belief that fantasy is only for children.

Er, why?

Because only kids have the imagination to appreciate it? Come on.

Or maybe you think fantasy is poorly written. Er, what have you been reading, ever? There is enough top notch fantasy writing out there to keep you reading a book a day for a year and never be disappointed by the quality. If this is what you think, then you are choosing the wrong books. Or is it, dare I suggest, that you actually don’t read fantasy and are just guessing???? Shakespeare wrote fantasy. So did Dante, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Rushdie, Dickens, Isobelle Allende…

Maybe you think that when you’ve read one fantasy book, you’ve read them all? Excuse me while I roll around the floor laughing. That’s like saying I don’t watch TV/go to the movies because it’s all the same. Fantasy can be modern, medieval, ancient, futuristic. It can be in this world or any other. It can be sad, funny, tragic, happy, violent or romantic; it can be about love or war or passion or principles or education or …anything.

Maybe you think fantasy has no relevance to your world. Rubbish. That’s like saying we have nothing to learn from “Animal Farm” because it was all about animals. Of that Tolkien had nothing to say about the human spirit because he wrote about Hobbits and Middle Earth. All modern successful fantasy books are successful because people can relate to the story they tell.

There was a lovely article in The Guardian (Saturday January 21, 2006) where an author, Francesca Simon, (who loves”literature”) and her son (who loves fantasy) challenge one another to read the other’s favourite. Mother heads off to read Robin Hobb’s Assassin trilogy. Son ends up with Trollope.

End of experiment: son is absolutely sure Barchester Towers is not for him. Mother is hooked on Robin Hobb and goes out to buy the next book in the trilogy. It was no contest.

I have nothing to be ashamed of because I write fantasy.

And you—if you have never read it, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you tried once and hated it, then try again. You didn’t give up on mainstream books because you happened to hate one, did you? That’s like giving up on oranges because you had one sour one.

And bear in mind, we fantasy readers and writers do get tired of being scorned by people who don’t even read the genre.

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Tuesday, 4 April 2006 (24 Comments).

I take pride in writing fantasies that can be read on several levels. If you look, there is more there than just a great (I hope) story.

So what do I do when I see a reader’s comment that says something like, “A good entertaining story, but no great depth”? Get all huffy and mutter about readers that can’t see past the drip on the end of their noses?

And what about the opposite: the reader who talks about the deep dark meaning of my work and how I have commented on the connections between Donald Rumsfeld, the Da Vinci Code and the melting of the icecaps? (And no; no such book or reader exists…yet.)

Once a writer’s work gets out there into the public domain, what happens to it is largely beyond their control. And no matter how a reader might have mangled the subtler meaning, the writer has to grin and bear it – and to a degree sometimes even take the blame. Perhaps your writing lacked the clarity you thought it had?

Mostly though, I don’t think that’s the point. Each reader takes something different from a writer’s work. Perhaps the book did no more than entertain them for an hour or two. Perhaps it made them think about deeper issues of morality and ethics. Maybe it made them re-examine their politics, their environmental concerns, their relationship with their significant other, or how they feel about their dog. Perhaps it made them happier. Perhaps it even inspired them. And the writer will never know these things unless the reader sends an email or a letter or writes a review.

What does matter is this:
The writer has tried to let others see the world through the lens of his own eye. Each writer brings his own joys/fears/politics/ethics/morality to his writing. If, for a moment in time, the reader has been transported somewhere else, to see ( figuratively or literally) something they would not have seen otherwise, then the writer has done part of his job. If the picture the reader sees is not quite the one that you the writer intended, well – at least you have made them think. And that can never be a bad thing.

So if the reader doesn’t “get” what I have written, I smile, maybe learn something, and move on. I’m just glad there are people out there who read my work.

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Thursday, 11 May 2006 (7 Comments).