I retweeted a post on Twitter today from Jonny Geller, joint CEO of literary agency Curtis Brown. He has been in the agency business for almost twenty years and has a senior role in a very successful, well-known agency so he is someone to sit up and take notice off if you have any interest in the world of writing.
The post on Twitter linked to a BBC article giving his top-ten tips for being a literary agent.
I have no aspirations to be a literary agent, although a job that requires the reading of fictional novels sounds very appealing. The article is still pertinent to a writer and would-be published author as it provides some insight into the type of writer he is looking for.
I can appreciate top tip number 2: Be Prepared To Start At The Bottom. As a solicitor and someone who worked their way up from a paralegal, through a training contract to become a qualified solicitor, I know that perseverance and dedication with a good dash of ambition can push you towards achieving your goals. I also know that it can take a long time, a tough skin and an ability to absorb disappointments, learn from them and move on. Jonny Geller's tip is about the agency business and I have experienced it in the legal profession but I think it equally applies to writing.
There are plenty of discussions on writing sites about what it takes to make a successful writer and how you measure success. It will always mean different things to different writers, for some it will be the act of getting the words out of their head and into print, for others it will be seeing a story through to completion, some will be happy to know that anyone enjoys what they write and for others it will mean getting that elusive publishing contract, making a fortune through massive sales, getting accolades or being a bestseller. What you consider success may depend on what you foresaw when you first felt compelled to write. For me it was a very secret ambition I held for most of my life. I daydreamed about writing a novel but I was always too busy with my life and pursuing my "proper" job. I was too full of doubt about myself; this idea stopped me - who am I too write a book? I quite literally woke up one day with the idea in my head and, when I got an empty house, seized the opportunity; I lifted the laptop and started writing. Within a day it became an obsession but I told no-one. I even took my laptop on holiday in the hope I would steal some time to keep going with the story. At that point I had to confess to my husband that I was writing a novel. I had such a sense of achievement and happiness when I completed it, but I still did not tell anyone I had done it. In other parts of my life that sense of achievement would have been accompanied with an element of pride but it so personal creating something and then finding the courage to share it with the world.
I slowly ventured into the virtual world and started to share my story. What I found was, people liked it but technically I had a lot to learn. I have accepted criticism, compliments, read and read more, absorbed as much as I can about the writing world and the technique of writing and continue to do so. I have found the quick high of writing flash fiction and short stories, the slow burning passion of writing a novel. I have managed to complete two novels (although that first one is going through a rewrite of the whole story) and I am currently writing a third. Due to the writing, I participate in more social media than I ever have before. Where has all of that led me?
One of my novels, The Glass House, was chosen as a One to Watch in March by the editors of the HarperCollins owned Authonomy blog but I have not self-published, I have not won any writing competition awards, I have not got an agent or a publisher. So, am I a writer?
I have the confidence now to say I am a writer but I see that as being different from an author. I think of an author as someone who has published. I write under a pen name and I do not talk about it much in my real life. That leads me to one of the top-tips from Jonny Geller that I found most interesting. Top tip number 5: Look For Career Writers.
To quote from the article:
We get around 13,000 manuscripts a year and I'm looking for someone who is a career writer. There was a statistic recently about self-publishing that 75% of those asked said it was a hobby for them. I'm interested in the other 25%.
I'm interested in people who are obsessed with writing, who cannot not write. It's a very peculiar and distinct little group of people who will make their living as a writer.
My job really is to identify somebody who can write a story in a way that only that person could have written it. If I can identify that voice then I'm half way there. It is easier to help someone with a story if they can write, than the other way around.
My career is a solicitor. That is what I studied, trained, worked and pushed for to qualify as. When I admit to people that I write I say, 'it's just a hobby.' I feel like that because, whilst I love it and would be thrilled to find an agent and publisher, the realist in me recognises how difficult that is and just how many unknown, undiscovered writers there are out there dreaming the same dream I am and never making it a reality. Does that mean I should give up and it will never happen? Not a hope. I get far too much pleasure from writing. I had to take a hiatus from writing, including this blog due to my full-time work commitments. I found room for it all again and know how much I missed it. The characters and story ideas were still with me and I needed to find time to express them. That is the compulsion that drives me to keep writing.
I can understand the description Jonny Geller applies to his vision of a career writer when he says they are obsessed with writing and cannot not write. I have been there and felt that compulsion, the need to get the story that I could watch in my mind into words, despite a lack of sleep and stinging, sore eyes from spending too long in front of the laptop. So, maybe I do have it in me. Perhaps one day I will be that career writer but to achieve that I believe it is important to be able to write in the first place and that is what I am still trying to discover about myself; do I have the talent to make it? In the meantime, I will continue to love this crazy, emotional obsessive hobby.
My favourite tip is number 10:
don't take the job or yourself too seriously.
It's important to remind yourself that you are not really in control of anything and learn from your experiences.
Advice I could apply to just about every aspect of my life and that we could all do with remembering.
You can read the full BBC article
here.
