On the Key to Writing a Novel

the One that I Found

I was twenty and had just finished university.

I’d written two short stories. Maybe three.

One day, I decided to write a novel.

The main reason for this was because I saw myself as a poet, and I thought that in order to support themselves poets needed to write novels.

Hah.

I moved to Edinburgh, found a bedsit up four flights of stairs, got a narrow-lined A4 pad.

But although I’d just finished an English Literature degree, I didn’t really know to go about writing anything longer than four pages.

I knew there were novels and I knew there were people but I didn’t know how people produced novels.

The bookshelf of Penguin classics seemed to suggest that they appeared fully formed with a black spine and endnotes.

I was far clearer on the drafting of poems, because I’d read The Road to Xanadu and The Waste Land Facsimile.

And then I read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast — his late memoir of his early years.

The key was as simple as this, from the top of page 17 —

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

After reading these two sentences, I found a way of working that allowed me to write my first novel.

It didn’t involve daily wordcounts or story arcs or anything to do with different drafts.

Instead it was about keeping yourself interested in what you are writing, and never writing yourself out.

I completed a first draft in a couple of months.

No magic, just work.

I’ve read lots of things subsequently to back Hemingway up.

Writers talk about not emptying the well, not eating your seedcorn, not underestimating the importance of sleeping and dreaming.

But this, for me, was what made a novel writeable.

I’m sure it has been, and will continue to be the key, for many other writers.

When he’s not annoying as fuck, Hemingway really is a darling.

Photo credit: Brown-Hotel-Motel-Room-Keys ebay.