When it comes to the actual business of writing, authors have their idiosyncratic ways. Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain and Voltaire, among others, did most of their writing in bed. A.A. Milne, best known as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, preferred working at the bottom of his garden in a shed from which children were strictly forbidden. Philip Pullman insisted on doing his writing on special narrow-lined paper with blue margins and he, too, worked in a hut which, by his own admission, was dusty and cobwebby. Jeffrey Archer advised renting a cottage in the country away from distractions, and writing solidly until the work was finished. Joanna Trollope liked to write on an A4 pad, sitting at the right-hand corner of the kitchen table. Alan Bennett said that, when writing, he acted things out, pacing about the room and saying dialogue out loud, and for that reason he liked to work in an empty house. Perhaps the strangest modus operandi of all was that of Thomas Wolfe who, being extremely tall, wrote standing up using the top of a refrigerator as a desk. As he finished each page, he tossed it into a cardboard box on the floor.
How long it would take to write a book like his was a question Billy often asked himself. It seemed like forever as it
made glacier-like progress with the addition of a few paltry words each day. How he envied those writers like James Hilton who wrote Goodbye Mr Chips in four days and Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in just three, thanks mainly to a nightmare which, he said, presented him with the entire plot. On the other hand James Joyce took seventeen years to complete Finnegans Wake while Flaubert needed eighteen years to write Madame Bovary. As for those writers like Anthony Trollope and Larkin, who turned out books during their leisure hours while pursuing demanding careers, Billy took his hat off to them.
Exactly when writers did their writing also varied widely according to personality and circumstance. Some preferred to stay up late or get up very early to take advantage of the small hours when things were nice and quiet. Not Billy. He liked his beauty sleep. Not only that, he never wrote in the morning because his brain was usually too heavy with sleep and needed time and innumerable cups of coffee to bring it round.
He had formed the habit of using up the first part of the day devouring caffeine and the Daily Telegraph right up to the very last page, including the obituaries in order to check on his own shelf hfe, that is, on how long he possibly had left to live. Then he rounded off the a.m. by solving the easy clues of the crossword, much to Laura’s annoyance as she was left with the hard bits, though he suspected that she secretly enjoyed the challenge. The real reason he spent so much time on the newspaper was not hard to fathom. Anything to put off the evil moment when he’d have to sit before that typing machine and think of something interesting to say. If anyone ever tried to tell him that writing was easy, he knew right away that such people had never tried it.
Finally, after lunch, Billy had a Churchillian nap and then he could postpone the moment no longer. He went to the typewriter but before he began, he switched on some music,
Handel’s Chandos anthems for preference because the anthems seem to offer familiarity and security. Finally he plucked up courage and began, which was always the difficult part. And then the strangest thing of all happened; once he was sitting at the machine, it wasn’t too bad and one or two ideas that he didn’t know he had came floating up to the surface. He tried to write something every day, even if it was only a couple of hundred words. Five hundred words were usually his aim and if he managed a thousand, he reckoned he’d had a successful session, even if what he’d written was gobbledegook, as it usually was. It was a thousand words he didn’t have before and they could always be worked on, amended or even deleted later. After all, they were not written in aspic.
Whoever writes in aspic? it occurred to him to ask himself. And come to that, what exactly was aspic? He looked it up and found it was an aromatic oil, a poison, or a meat jelly. Who was the nutcase who sat down one day and said to himself:‘I’m fed up writing in ink.Today, I shall write using aromatic oil. I shall use aspic and no one will ever be able to delete it.’ Billy had to give up.
In the early days, his office was a converted bedroom and he knocked out his script on a portable Remington. He worked every day, converting his memoirs into a novel, applying the principles he’d learned on the Buttershaw course.
Though it was based on his true life story and many of the events had actually taken place, he used poetic licence in fictionalizing characters, embroidering the story and altering the time frame. At the end of six months, he had turned out over one hundred thousand words in twenty-nine chapters under the pseudonym Tim Lally. At last, he thought, after all the wrong turnings and the cul de sacs I’ve been down, I’ve found something I can do reasonably well. This is how I’ll spend my retirement — writing! Eureka!
He hated it on those occasions when he struggled to produce the next sentence or paragraph and he found himself staring at a blank piece of paper. But there was nothing like the satisfaction when the work was finished and he could finally write ‘The End’.
One day Laura asked, ‘Why the pseudonym and why Tim Lally in particular?’
‘Charles Dickens called himself David Copperfield in what was really his autobiography. Lally was my mother’s maiden name and Tim Lally was a distant cousin of hers long since deceased. I liked the sound of it as my nom-de-plume.’
It was time to give the book an airing and to get some reaction. Was it trash or did it have any merit? But who to ask? Who was his ideal reader who could give him an objective assessment? He used the immediate family as guineas pigs by passing it around, though all the writing manuals advised against it.
‘Don’t show it to your family,’ they said. ‘If they criticize it, you’re likely to blow your top that anyone would dare to suggest that your oeuvre is less than perfect. On the other hand they may be afraid of hurting you and you are liable to receive unwarranted praise.’ Not from his kids! If they thought it was garbage, they wouldn’t hesitate to tell him.
‘This is a really great read,’ said Laura when she had turned the last page. ‘Well worth publishing. It has the makings of a bestseller.’
But was Laura the best person to exercise objective judgement? Nevertheless, that inital reaction pleased him no end as it was a welcome relief to learn that it made sense to someone else. When a writer finishes a long piece of work, he’s been so close to it that he’s never sure how it’s going to be received. As for the word ‘bestseller’, he wasn’t sure what that meant. Top ten? Top twenty? Or, as is the case with pop music, top fifty? His dictionary didn’t help much either for it defined bestseller as ‘a book that has sold many copies, overall
or in a given season’. Furthermore, there was no guarantee that anyone actually read the bestsellers in question. Some people bought books simply for display and to show off to their friends.
Lucy was next to read it and she was equally enthusiastic. ‘The title alone will hook the readers, Dad. It’s like that famous old Charlie Chaplin film The Kid. What exactly does the expression “our kid” mean?’
‘It’s the nickname I always received in my family. In the north, it means a brother or a sister. In the north-west, it can be a younger or an older sibling but it’s always a term of affection, signifying, “You belong to this family no matter what you do, whether you’ve robbed a bank or committed a murder.” It can also be used when a telling-off is due, for example, “Scram, our kid. Go home.” A friend from northeast England told me that in his part of the world, the term had a slightly different connotation. He wrote: “In Geordieland, our kid, or in the vernacular ivor kid, means the eldest son, so the Geordie youngster who, when bullied, shouts, I’ll set wor kid on ye! he means I’ll get my big brother to wallop you!”’
This interpretation was confirmed when Billy heard Bobby Charlton, talking about the 1966 World Cup, say,‘So, I passed the ball back to our kid,’ meaning his big brother, Jack.
‘Thanks for the lecture, Dad.’ Lucy grinned.
‘Well, you did ask.’
‘Are you sure no one else has used the title?’ Laura asked.
‘It doesn’t matter, Laura, even if they have because there’s no copyright on titles. However, I checked it out and could find only one Our Kid and that was written by Ann Pilling in nineteen eighty-nine. It was a very different kind of story.’
The boys were next to read the manuscript. Considering their reaction to his memoirs when they’d made so many cracks, it took him aback and threw him off his stride when
they said they liked it. He thought maybe he preferred it when they were abrasive adolescents because at least he knew where he was with them. Now the two youngest, Mark and John, were sure he was going to win fame and fortune.
‘Publishers will scratch each other’s eyes out to publish this,’ Mark said. ‘You might get to number one in the bestseller list, Dad, and become a millionaire. We’re always reading in the papers how some unknown author was discovered and went on to make his or her fortune.’
John had even grander dreams of success. ‘Freddie Forsyth, Wilbur Smith, Tom Clancy, move over and make way for Tim Lally. Where will you moor your yacht, Dad? St Tropez or Monte Carlo?’
Billy laughed. ‘And pigs might fly. Dream on, you two. The media love to pick up on cases where some unknown has been paid half a milli on or more for a first novel. Rags to riches stories like that are meat and drink to them. A favourite example is someone like Colleen McCullough who was a lowly paid nurse until she wrote The Thorn Birds, for which she was reputedly paid over a million dollars. The tabloids love to exaggerate and talk about the immense wealth of novelists but it’s only writers like Catherine Cookson, Danielle Steel, and John Grisham that make it to the top and such cases are rare. I should think my chances are somewhere between zero and nil and I stand more chance of winning the lottery. I read somewhere that the great majority of writers are on the breadline and few can make a living from it.’
Matthew had a different hope. ‘Apart from the money, Dad, you might achieve a literary reputation and be written up and reviewed in the highbrow newspapers, like the Guardian or The Times. Now that would be something.’
Billy grimaced. ‘I want my book to be read, enjoyed and understood by the ordinary man in the street. In general, your average readers aren’t looking for novels of literary merit; they want a good story to read on the train or on the beach,
something that’ll appeal to their imagination and keep them turning the pages.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Dad’s quite right when he says few make a living out of writing. When I took it up, the best advice I ever received was: don’t give up the day job. That’s why I continue with my art therapy. Fortunately, Dad has his pension and doesn’t need to rely on writing.’
Things were going too fast for Billy’s liking. ‘Whoa!’ He laughed. ‘We’re running ahead of ourselves here. Who said anyone will be interested in my book? Who wants to read the ramblings of an old codger like me? Not only that, publishers will probably think that, as an OAP, I’m a one-book writer when what they’re really looking for is a young person who can turn out dozens of books, like a sausage machine.’
‘You never know, Dad,’ she replied.‘You might just swing it. The first thing you need to do is win the enthusiasm of an agent who will pitch your book to a publisher and get you a contract.’
‘Why do I need an agent? Why can’t I pitch it myself to a publisher?’
‘You can, but publishers prefer it to come through an agent who’s done the spadework for them, sifting and weeding out likely manuscripts from the thousands that are submitted. Some scripts are illiterate tripe, and it saves publishers a lot of time and trouble if someone goes through them and picks out likely winners. But agents are like gold dust and not easy to get. I’ve heard it said that it’s easier to get a publisher than an agent as they take only a limited number on their lists.’ Lucy chuckled. ‘I like the story of one naive writer who came to London clutching his manuscript thinking he’d interview a few agents and then choose one. He told them what a great Hollywood movie his novel would make and he warned them that there would be fierce competition to become his agent. They should therefore make out a case for being his representative and then phone him to make an appointment. The
boot’s on the other foot though. There are too many writers chasing too few agents.’
‘I have a feeling,’ Billy grinned, ‘that the gentleman in question is still wondering why he hasn’t received an answer to his generous offer. In time, he’ll come down to earth no doubt. But then how do agents pick out potential bestsellers from the mass of manuscripts received in their post bag?’
. ‘I think it’s largely a matter of guesswork. Nobody really knows what’s going to be the next big winner. Could be a boy’s book of adventures or even a book on English grammar or spelling. Who knows what the public will go for next?’
‘I doubt the last two.’ Billy laughed. ‘Somehow, I can’t see Joe Public going for a book about punctuation. But I do wonder sometimes what criteria agents use to sort the wheat from the chaff.’
‘There was an article recently in a Sunday review section,’ she said. ‘It said agents have their own particular foibles. One said he can judge a script in thirty seconds flat.’
‘How on earth does he do that?’ Matthew gasped.
‘He looks at the submission letter and if it’s written on tatty paper, full of spe llin g and grammatical mistakes, he doesn’t need to read any further. Also if it’s written in stilted language.’
Mark laughed, ‘You mean like: “Esteemed Sirs, Following on my telephonic dialogue with your amanuensis, I should deem it an honour if you would deign to scrutinize the enclosed transcription.” We get letters like that all the time at the office. I can almost hear the literary agent dismissing this submission with a curt, “Next!”’
‘Exactly.’ She laughed. ‘Agents have their own idiosyncrasies and prejudices. On a course I attended, one agent, probably speaking with her tongue in her cheek, claimed that she automatically rejected stories with unpronounceable foreign names, children’s tales as they were not her cup of tea, extravagant science fiction containing technical gobbledegook because she didn’t understand it.’
It was Johns turn to join in the merriment.‘So Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are out, so are Alice in Wonderland and The Hobbit, along with Hitch-hiker’s Guide!
Lucy was obviously enjoying this exchange because she went on, ‘One agent does not like books that have the name of the protagonist on the first page. Another hates titles with an exclamation mark.’
‘There goes Moby Dick with its “Call me Ishmael” on the first line,’ Matthew said.
‘And it’s goodbye to poor old Charles Kingsley with his Westward Ho! and Lionel Bart with his Oliver! ’ Mark chortled.
‘Enough of this banter,’ Billy said. ‘How do we go about finding an agent?’
‘The best way,’ Lucy said, ‘is to go through the Writer’s Handbook and pick out a few. But not any old agent. Avoid those who ask for a reading fee and it’s pointless choosing those who specify special interests like poetry, horror, crime or religious works.We must look for those interested in your kind of work: family sagas and that kind of thing.’
Together they combed through the lists and identified the names of thirty agents and publishers who might be prepared to consider memoirs or family histories. Then Lucy said that she’d heard that some of them can take as long as six months to answer.
‘In that case,’ Billy said,‘it’ll take around fifteen years to get round them all if I write to them one at a time. I’m not sure I have that much time left! I’ll write to them all at the same time and accept the best offer, if any, that comes along.’
‘Is that an acceptable practice, writing to so many at once?’ Laura wondered.
‘It is, Mum,’ replied Lucy. ‘According to the Society of Authors it’s quite ethical to make multiple submissions without necessarily mentioning that copies have been sent to other agents.’
It was a mammoth task producing thirty photocopies of a
synopsis and the first three chapters of the book, together with a one-page covering letter telling about himself and his previous experience of writing. After three weeks’ hard graft of addressing and packaging, his desk was piled high with thirty crisp Jiffy bags. It cost a small fortune to post them out with return postage but finally it was done. Then there was nothing to do but cross his fingers and wait.