The loneliness of the long-distance writer can be paralysing.
Writing a news report or social media post is usually a sprint. A features article is a mid-paced run, interspersed with the occasional pacy downhill burst and laboured jogs on the climbs. A novel, however, is the writing equivalent of an ultra-marathon
However much support you have around you, for most of the race you are alone, battling your way to the end. You are constantly plotting, re-assessing your tactics, and fighting nagging doubts.
You question whether you will ever get there. You fear failure, or your legs giving out mid-way through. Ultimately, the thought creeps in that there really isn't any point. You’re just one of thousands competing to complete the same challenge, and it’s not even about who finishes first. There’s more to it than that.
The after-effects, though less physically painful, last much longer.
You’re grateful — truly grateful — to those who encourage you along the way. The people who say they are looking forward to seeing the result, and who send positive, welcome messages. They are like the crowd at the London Marathon yelling personalised encouragement as you pass. Aside from reading the name on your shirt, they have no idea who you are, but they get you there. Eventually, you’re over the finish line.
Or are you?
In your mind, you run it again and again. You alter bits, increase and decrease parts of the trudge to the final page, change trainers, and reassess your preparation. Eventually, you hit send. But to whom?
You research the ‘right’ agents, the ones you think your work will appeal to, but they don’t reply.
People claiming they are agents get in touch saying they have read your novel and love its evocative tone, the way it vividly captures this, that, and the bloody other. Your book deserves to reach a wider audience. But when you reply, it turns out they are just trying to sell you something. Their words of praise were scraped using AI.
Just as you don’t get free trainers unless you’re a top runner, you don’t usually get instant access to a bookshop unless you’re a top writer or a celebrity. But I’m not going to bang on about that again.
Then there are the scammers. Sometimes they are easy to spot, but not always. The more convincing ones offer real hope until you get in touch, only to find a fake profile impersonating an agent. If as many people had bought my novel as have claimed to have read it…
It’s cruel. At first it hurts, and then you wonder what they actually gain from the effort they put into the deception.
But what do you actually get back from the effort you put into this?
Is it the satisfaction that you completed it, like a marathon runner who receives a t-shirt with ‘Finisher’ rather than ‘Winner’ emblazoned across it? Is it the doubt that it’s any good? Or the frustration that you are likely to sell only to those who know you?
Again, I am so grateful to those who bought my novel The Choreography of Ghosts, and even more so to those who gave me their opinion on it, whether positive, negative, or a mixture of both.
I’m not fishing for people to say, "Yes, go on, write another." But despite my doubts, I am trying.
Maybe that’s why the novel has been such a long-standing form of fiction. Like going to work, having a pint down the pub, or running a marathon, you get to the end and you start again. It’s what we do. It’s what fills the space from the beginning of all our chapter ones to our final words.