An agony that knows no bounds
Deciding what to write a book about is nothing compared to the drudge of actually doing it
Every now and then I brainstorm ideas with friends who are looking, like me, for new books to write. Although a prominent publisher has admitted that 97 percent of the manuscripts on his desk are returned to sender, these authors are in the fortunate position of already having willing publishers. What we lack is the most important and seemingly impossible ingredient of all: a compelling subject.
In my case, the prospective book I’ve been kicking around for ages is on a mesmerizing topic which needs to be written – but possibly not by me. (Surely I’d have started it by now if it were the right one?) Unwilling at the moment to discuss the once-cherished idea off-handedly, however,I’ve spent so much time researching and thinking about it that I reserve the right to change my mind - again.
It’s sometimes hard to decide in the book-writing business if one is building up steam or running out of it. But the real problem for me currently is a reluctance to be defined exclusively by southern African race relations.
One of the subjects I’ve been considering on the grounds that heated dinner party conversations are all potential book themes is the question of whether or not South Africa is turning into Zimbabwe. It’s such a divisive idea that I would consider using a pseudonym like Hannah Harrumph or Primrose Tshabalala, but someone else is bound tackle it long before I make up my mind on the merits of spending months combing through the evidence for and against. Having embarked on a book, you are expected to end with a thought-provoking punchline. Saying - as Zim author Peter Godwin did at the launch of his latest and excellent The Fear - that SA may or may not be in the throes of Zanufication is hardly a potent enough argument to justify a whole book.
Many journalists move around the world and find richly varying projects to tackle as authors as they go. Others, like Godwin, move around but continue to write about what they know best - home. Not wanting to get stuck in a parochial groove is one thing, but you do have to have something to say as an author in the 85 000 words that make up a book. Since most of what we mull over day to day concerns our own environment, I suppose we need to keep practicing mind-shift in order to change gear. After all, it may be a rite of passage for wordsmiths like jouros and academics to write books, but readers are entitled with the escalating cover price to expect some real expertise from the authors they’re supporting.
Worryingly, I may never know enough about anything else to escape from a lifetime of investigating southern African race relations. There may just seem to be fascinating subjects beckoning everyone who aspires to authorship - though let’s hope many more of them are to be published online than in paper form or we might not have a single tree left on the planet to read under.
Last week I watched Oprah discussing a best-seller about over-eating with an author who claimed we get fat, deliberately making ourselves unattractive, so as to break our own hearts before someone else has the chance do it for us. Pass the chocolate fudge cookies.
I bet there are dozens of titles to tackle on accepting economic redundancy without jumping off a building. Once considered geeky, financial sustainability if on everyone’s lips all over the globe these days. Indeed, the world of finance has become so notorious as to be almost sexy. As for other improbable subjects, an English friend of mine once wrote a fabulously well-read book called How to Complain, though here in South Africa we need no instruction on whingeing.
Sage C.S. Lewis said the only people who achieve a lot are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while conditions are still unfavourable. “Favourable conditions never come,” he argued. This is probably why I’m forever asking myself: Do I want to write another book badly enough to even begin the difficult process all over again? Every book represents such a struggle that it’s a wonder so many are actually written. As American super-storyteller Philip Roth told Vanity Fair recently: “I’ve written before, but I’ve never written this book before. And it poses all kinds of problems I’ve never faced. So I really have to learn all over again how to write a book.”
According to Roth, authors shouldn’t judge themselves on how many readers they have, but rather ponder how many readers a writer needs. His answer sounds outrageous in the pompous literary world. “All you need is four readers,” he claims - including your mother, publisher and editor, one assumes.
Which raises the overarching question of why we want to write books at all. Is it for profit, fame, influence or legacy? There’s a good pinch of activism in most authors, never mind that some of our causes are hopeless before we’ve even drafted the first par. I heartily support home-grown Nobel-winner Doris Lessing when she writes: “The price of liberty is, more than ever, eternal vigilance, which is why I think the most valuable citizens any country can possess are the troublemakers, the public nuisances, the fighters of small, apparently unimportant battles. No government, no political party anywhere cares a damn about the individual. That is not their business. So I believe in the ginger groups, the temporarily associated minorities, the Don Quixotes, the takers-of-stands-on-principle, the do-gooders and the defenders of lost causes. Luckily, there are plenty of them. So – to the barricades, citizens! – if we don’t fight every inch of the way, we’ll find ourselves with our numbers tattoed on our wrists yet.”
Overall, leaving aside the elusive subject on my next book, it’s reassuring that even the most successful authors find writing difficult. “I find it arduous and un-doable,” insists Philip Roth. “It’s laden with fear and doubt. It’s never easy – not for me. The ordeal is part of the task, and the satisfaction usually comes at the end. You stood up to it, you endured it! You achieved the unachievable – for you. But the next time out, I find it impossible all over again.”
