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Hi Stu,
Have you heard our big news? Internationally acclaimed Booker-winner Hilary Mantel is judging the 2021 Mslexia Novel Competition – she'll be reading your work alongside top literary agent Jo Unwin and Ebury Commissioning Editor Mariane Tatepo! And with a top prize of £5,000 plus intros to agents and editors at an invite-only publishing party, there has never been a better year to throw your hat in the ring.
We asked Hilary what she’d wished she’d known when she was at the stage you are at now: starting out, yet to break through as a novelist, full of ambition and excitement about the book you’re writing.
She began writing at 22, and worked for five years on her first novel, an epic set during the French Revolution – but could not secure either an agent or a publisher. Rejection coincided with illness, major surgery, and upheaval in her personal life. She spent the next three years on reconsideration and repair.
Deciding this was not the right time for her kind of historical fiction, she wrote a brisk and humorous contemporary novel, Every Day is Mother’s Day. ‘When it was finished I picked an agent’s name out of the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook, almost with a pin, and landed on the desk of Bill Hamilton of AM Heath,’ she told us. ‘He sold my manuscript and we’ve been together ever since.
‘I later reworked my historical novel, A Place of Greater Safety. When it came out in 1992 – 18 years after I began it – it won a big prize. But that’s another story.’
Looking back at those early years, here’s what Hilary wishes some wise and kindly older lady novelist had told her at that time:
‘Don’t try to edit while you are writing. Your first draft is all about energy and unleashing your power. Respect the process of creation and give it space. It’s like planting a seed. You have to water it and watch it emerge and grow before you can prune it into shape.
‘There isn’t any failed writing. There is only writing that is on the way to being successful – because you’re learning all the time. It follows that that nothing you write is ever wasted, and that to become good, and better than good, you need to write a lot.
‘Suspect the judgment of others. What people coming from a different critical context might describe as slowness or failure you need to reframe as patience and a learning process.
‘Harness the power of intuition to free up your story. Many of us learn to write in an academic style, building a logical argument, picking over every line. This can inhibit a novelist. Aim at perfection – but in your final draft.
‘Rules that are valid in the rest of your life are not always valid for your writing. “Try, try and try again” does not always work for the creative process. Sheer bloody persistence won’t necessarily get you where you want to be.
‘Trust that your work will find its natural form – because it will. Our education system fosters habits of mind that knock out the habit of trust in what we create. You need to rediscover that trust.
‘If you are a great reader then you can become a great writer. If you read many novels, and many different kinds of novel, the principles of novel writing will be encoded deep inside you. That’s what I mean by trust. If you are a reader, then you know subconsciously how to tell a story.
‘Be protective of your work and resist the temptation to show it to anyone before you are satisfied with it yourself. When you do show it, make sure it’s to someone who is qualified to make a judgment. People who love you, or who feel threatened by you, will not provide you with the feedback you need.
‘Seek support from the right people. Try to get a professional opinion from someone who doesn’t know you. But always try to balance their feedback with what you know and trust to be true of your work.
‘Have the courage to try something new. If the world doesn’t seem to want your work, then be adaptable and flexible, but don’t compromise your vision or sell yourself short. Timing counts, and your time may come.’
So there you have it from the horse’s mouth: ‘Timing counts, and your time may come’. We would only add that it might be this year!
The deadline for our Novel Competition is 20 September, so there’s still loads of time to dot and cross those ‘i’s and ‘t’s. Remember, you only have to submit your first 5,000 words by the deadline – we don’t ask to see the full manuscript of longlisted entrants until February 2022.
Meanwhile, keep an eye on your inbox for craft and editing advice from our judges.
May the muses be with you!
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READ MORE: THE MANTEL METHOD
If you're on the market for more of Hilary's pearls of wisdom, check out our recent blog post in which she shares her novel-writing process:
'Get up in the middle of the night to work on it, then go back to sleep and dream about it...'
Full article
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Copyright © 2021 Mslexia Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you have signed up to receive information about Writing Opportunities with Mslexia. We will never pass your details on to anybody else. You can unsubscribe from Mslexia emails at any time using the links at the foot of this email.
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