Taking your work out across the Red River
There’s a popular line about writing: you do it for yourself.
And it’s true, up to a point. It would be difficult to sustain the long hours and the figuring out merely on the faint promise of producing a bestseller.
In my experience, you write because something in you insists on being written. I’ve used the phrase before: I don’t write to tell a story; I write to find one.
But still. It is deeply gratifying when someone else picks the book up, devotes some of their precious time to it, and perhaps even passes it on to others.
In the past couple of weeks, I heard from a reader in British Columbia, Canada. He’d received my debut novel On The Way Out as a Christmas gift from a cousin here in Ireland and, to my delight, enjoyed it enough to order five more copies for his book club.
Buy On The Way Out in your local bookstore or from our online store
He has visited Ireland on several occasions and is curious to see how the novel will work with readers who don’t have his level of connection with this country. It is fascinating to see whether – and how successfully – my book grounded in one place can travel elsewhere with different reference points.
What carries?
What translates?
What doesn’t?
With June O’Sullivan, author of The Sky Is Not Enough
In her live album version of Roseville Fair (listen here, you know you want to: YouTube link), Nanci Griffith paid tribute to Bill Staines, who wrote the song.
They were close friends and she spoke of how he was responsible for her ‘…ever getting up the courage to go out across the Red River and take my music to other places…’
On The Way Out is wrapped in the rhythms, the language, the weather and the voice of the west of Ireland.
Like Nanci’s music, you hope your work can travel. You hope that because beneath the setting, the concerns are familiar enough to ring bells elsewhere: people trying to do their best, struggling with change, trying to make decisions that will serve them well.
There’s always a question about how much you should explain.
Do you smooth the edges? Translate every idiom? Clarify every local reference?
I believe it’s no bad thing if a reader has to pause to look something up, read a phrase a second or third time or simply infer meaning from context. A novel doesn’t need to do all the work. Part of the pleasure lies in those tiny acts of discovery.
It’s been a source of amazement to see where On The Way Out has travelled so far.
It has made its way to the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Germany, and likely a few other places I haven’t yet heard about.
Buy On The Way Out in your local bookstore or from our online store
It’s like watching from the school gate as your child goes down the corridor for the first time. They get smaller. They are brave and vulnerable.
You want to tell them everything, maybe even haul them back, but you can’t. The path is theirs now.
Eventually, they turn into the classroom and they’re gone. You’ve done your bit. You’ve laid a foundation. You can only hope that everything will be fine the far side of the Red River.
More on the craft of writing: See HERE. I’m adding to this on an ongoing basis. As I learn, hopefully you can too. Every day is school day for us all.
