Lawrence Block: Writing the Novel

You can remind yourself, too, that most novels have taken awhile to find a publisher, that many smash best sellers were turned down by ten or twenty or thirty publishers before someone recognized their potential. And you can tell yourself that success doesn’t hinge upon merit alone, that the determination to keep marketing your book is equally essential if you’re going to get anywhere.

You already showed you’ve got determination. It takes plenty of it to get a novel written from the first page to the last. You’re not going to quit now, are you?

No trick, then? No handy household hints to make it easier?

One trick.

One way of taking your mind off rejection.

Get busy on another book. Get deeply involved in another book, so much so that the rejections the first one piles up won’t hurt nearly as much. You’ll be amazed, I think, by how much easier the second book is to write — and by how much you’ve grown as a result of the work that went into the first one.

One of the functions of an agent is to spare you the hassle of marketing your own work, not only because he’s better at it than you are but so that you don’t have to concentrate on two things at once. Until you acquire an agent, you’ll be wearing two hats, an agent’s peaked cap and a writer’s pith helmet. To keep the marketing process from taking your mind off your writing, make the business of getting your manuscript in the mail as automatic as possible. And, to take the sting out of the rejections your novel accumulates along the way, throw yourself into your second novel as completely as you can.

It’s a lot easier to begin work on a second book if some eager publisher snapped up the first one ten minutes after it left your typewriter. But it doesn’t happen that way very often. As I suggested earlier, a great many of us write first novels that turn out to be unsalable. And many who do go on to produce salable second novels — but that only happens if we get that second novel written.

There’s no reason to assume that your first novel will turn out to be unpublishable. But there’s every reason in the world to expect that it will take a long time finding its way into a publisher’s heart and onto his spring list. That time will pass much faster and be put to far better use if you spend it writing your next book.

Among other things, plunging into your next book may help you deal with the old My-Novel’s-Finished-And-I-Wish-I-Were-Dead Blues.

I almost hesitate to mention the depression that so frequently follows the completion of a novel for fear of making it a matter of self-fulfilling prophecy. I’d hate to think that, having finished your book in high spirits, you’ll now go sit in the corner and sulk so you can be just like the pros. I think it’s better overall, though, to be able to allow for this sort of thing. We writers tend to regard ourselves as unique specimens of humanity, so it may be reassuring to know that one is not the first person in the world to have finished a novel and wanted to throw up.

It does indeed happen to most of us, and I’m sure it’s not limited to writers. This sort of after-work depression seems to be the typical aftermath of any arduous long-term creative endeavor. Indeed, it’s quite obviously equivalent to the syndrome known as Post-Partum Depression, the feeling of emptiness and purposelessness so many mothers go through immediately after childbirth. For nine months they’ve defined themselves in terms of this life growing inside of them. Their whole purpose has been to carry their child to term. Now the child’s born and the mother’s chore is completed, and what’s she supposed to do for an encore?

Sound familiar?

It’s a little worse for a writer. The mother’s got a cute little baby to play with, and if changing him’s a bore, there’s still a certain amount of satisfaction in having him around the house. If nothing else, everybody who sees him is going to make admiring noises. Even if the kid looks like a monkey, nobody’s going to hand him a banana. They’ll all assure the mother that her kid’s a handsome devil.

Pity the poor novelist. Nobody comes over to visit his book and bring it a squeaky toy or a cuddly stuffed animal. His friends read it out of a sense of obligation, and what praise they offer has a suspiciously hollow ring to it. Agents and editors, meanwhile, have the effrontery to tell him thanks but no thanks. His child doesn’t fit their needs at the moment, he’s assured, although this is not to say that the little brat lacks merit.

My book’s no good, the novelist concludes. Therefore I’m no good. Therefore I’m a failure, and therefore I’ll be a failure forever, and if I had any brains I’d blow them out. If I had the guts to do it, which I don’t, because I’m worthless. So I guess I’ll drink myself to death, or go eat worms, or really get into daytime television watching.

There’s not much point in attacking this position logically. Logic doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it. Post-novel depression is just as likely to strike when the book’s a hit, and it’s absolutely devastating when the novel scores a really impressive success.

Does that seem strange? Here’s how the writer’s mind adds it all up:

The book’s a success. Gee, that’s terrific. But wait a minute. It can’t really be that good. I know it can’t be that good, because I’m the guy who wrote it, and I’m not that good, so how good can it be, huh? Now sooner or later they’re gonna find out it’s not as good as they think it is, and where’ll I be then? And anyway, what difference does it make if it’s good or not? Because one thing’s sure. I couldn’t possibly write anything that good again. Matter of fact, I don’t think I could write anything halfway decent again. Come to reflect on it, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t write anything again, decent or otherwise. I think I’ll throw my typewriter out the window. I think I’ll throw myself out the window. I think ....

I think you get the idea.

Does this really happen? You bet it does. I’ve written more novels than I can shake a stick at — though some of them deserve it — and I still experience a letdown when I finish a book, one composed of many of the thoughts presented above. After all this time, I recognize what I feel as symptomatic of Post-Novel Depression. You would think this recognition would help, and once in awhile it does, but often it doesn’t.

Some years ago, finishing a book was a signal for me to reach for a bottle. I put myself under considerable pressure in my work and felt that alcohol would do a good job of relieving that pressure when the work was done. What booze does, of course, is not so much relieve tension as mask its symptoms. When post-novel depression set in, I’d go on drinking in an attempt to alleviate the depression.

This wasn’t wise. Alcohol is clinically a depressant, and pouring it into a depressed writer is like pouring oil on troubled fires. It does exactly the opposite of what you hope it will do, deepening and exacerbating the underlying depression. A few celebratory “Hey-the-book’s done” drinks may be a great idea, but the kind of medicinal drinking some of us get into can be ruinous.

I don’t drink any more, and that helps. Another thing that makes my post-novel depressions easier to bear is that I don’t have as much of a high to crash from these days. I don’t write as intensively as I used to, having settled down to a steady and comfortable pace of five pages or so per day. I’m not panting when I get to the finish line, and that seems to make a difference.