The Costa Monologues

Every writer’s dream is to be short-listed for a literary prize. Last week I was short-listed for a first novel award, but far from a dream, I would say it was more like a nightmare.

There is a horrible secret in the scheme of things that everyone forgets to tell you while you wait hopefully for the judges to notice your particular brand of brilliance. It is a secret so well kept, so dire that, like the woes of parenthood, no one dares speak of it. In the light of this I feel it my duty to divulge certain things, if only for the sake of other writers. This is how it was for me.

From the moment I was told about the prize, I found that I was taking part in an initiation ceremony, chiefly in my head. There was this question, you see, that I kept hearing. Actually, I confess it sounded more like a howl of despair. The conversation went along these lines;

‘What if I don’t win?’

‘Well of course you won’t win,’ the left side of my brain said. ‘Why on earth should you? You’re neither good enough/well-connected/lucky/young/modish.’

‘Stop, stop, screamed another part, probably the right side of my brain, sobbing. ‘What can she do? ‘

‘Do? Why nothing,’ said the left side, nastily. ‘That’s life, don’t you know?’

By now several days had passed. Until the moment I heard about the prize I had been writing the third draft on my next book. I had been working since September, rising early, writing until midday, walking along the tow-path after lunch, then working again in the afternoon, pairing down and polishing sentences as though they were precious stones.

I was now only three chapters from completion. But from that morning, hearing of the short list, I could not settle. I switched on my computer and within seconds various e-mails popped up, congratulating me. Next I had a radio and television interview. Bent double with appalling desire I made my way to the local studio and talked my way through a lengthy conversation of precisely one minute 40 seconds. Back home, I answered phone calls with gritted teeth and a fake smile. My family eyed me speculatively, rather in the manner of property developers who didn’t care too much for the proposed plans.

‘Why don’t you chill out?’ asked the left side of my brain, kindly if condescendingly, I thought.

It sounded like one of the teenagers who inhabited our house.

‘This is the end of the road for you. Personally I’ve no idea what they were thinking of, short-listing your book! Get on with what you’re supposed to do. Write your next one.’

But that was the problem, you see. I couldn’t.

‘Why not?’ demanded the left. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re a writer, aren’t you? So, write.’

That was easier said than done. Something had gone out of my latest manuscript. All the polish that was appearing on those lovely sentences, the rise and fall of the rhythm, was eluding me.

Leaving my desk I went into town and headed for the bookshops. It was a cold wintry day, dank and bitter, with a sharp wind from the North. Not a patch of blue sky, no sun. I wore my shades. This is a small town, you understand.

‘Idiot!’ said my left brain.

‘You never know,’ snapped the right side. ‘Someone might recognise her.’

The left side of my brain made a snorting noise, but no one heard. People in the shop were busy queuing up for a book-signing session. A famous author was in town.

‘Careful,’ said my left side. ‘You’re going a bit green. Woops, only joking!’

I made for the shelves. There was only one copy of my book on it. That was the good news. The bad news was - it was the same copy that was there last time I looked. I signed it.

‘Boo-hoo!’ laughed the left.

‘Oh shut-up,’ I said crossly.

‘Pardon?’ asked a startled woman, nearby. ‘Are you talking to me?’

I mumbled an apology and moved away.

‘You’re going nuts!’ jeered the left side. ‘Best go home back to Chapter Nine. It’s where you belong.’

‘The worst thing about all this short-listing,’ said the right side, conversationally, ‘is that while she’s been fantasizing, she’s lost all narrative drive, all momentum…’

‘I agree,’ said the left. ‘And now she’s in danger of losing her marbles too. So you know what you should do?’

‘Yes, yes, get back to the plot, start concentrating on the craft of writing, remember I’m doing this for me and not for fame or money or recognition.’

‘Good girl,’ approved my left side. ‘At last you’re making sense.’

‘She’s lying,’ said the right in a very small voice, sounding like a child. ‘She is doing it for all those things, money, fame…..’

‘No she’s not! At least, if she is, then not only is she a fool but the stuff she writes will be rubbish, too.’
It all seemed a little hard to take.

‘Now you listen to me,’ the left side said, bossily. ‘Stop skulking around in this bookshop and go home. Take your dark glasses off and get back to Chapter Nine. In case I haven’t told you, it’s terrific. So get to work, but before you do I want you to write a speech.’

‘Huh?’

‘Yes, a speech. You’re not going to win, not this time anyway, so you must have your “been-rejected speech” ready, right?’

I was speechless.

‘Remember Virginia Woolf?’

‘Didn’t she kill herself?’

‘Well yes, that is a bit cautionary, I suppose, but I was thinking more of something she once wrote in her diary. “Success is distant and illusory, failure one’s loyal companion, one’s stimulus for imagining that the next book will be better, for otherwise, why write?” You see how Virginia Woolf speaks for us all? So now write.’

‘To whom it may concern’, I wrote:

I am of course disappointed by the outcome of this prize. When I first heard I had been short-listed I was keen to win. But I have had a voice going on in my head for several days now, and slowly I have begun to realise that winning is not what this is all about. Winning is the very least of it.

‘Go on,’ said the left side, encouragingly.

What being short-listed has made me realise is that at last I can take myself seriously. I may never make any money, I may never…

‘Less of the whine,’ said the left, sotto voce.

What I have understood through a process of painful negotiation with myself is that I am a writer.

‘See how great it feels to say that,’ said the left side.

I am a writer who is happiest only when I am working on my next book, grappling with my characters, breathing life into them. What I want, more than anything in the world, is to be able to continue to write. Indeed, I now see, existence itself is impossible were I not able to do so. And all this jealousy, all this desperation to win is actually a distraction, a hollow thing by comparison to that impulse.

‘Do you really, really, mean it?’ asked the left. ‘You’re not just saying it for effect?’

I nodded. The right side of my brain nodded too, all three of us were nodding together for the first time in days. It was a great relief. Something, some danger had passed. The green-eyed giant that had been sitting on my head, squashing my characters, yawned and loped off. The air seemed clearer. I could smell the open sea even though we were miles away from it. Perhaps it was the ocean of my memory.

I opened up my laptop and put my head-phones on. J.S. Bach, tranquil and precise flowed into my head. The Partitas. Chapter Nine, I wrote. And I didn’t even see the left side of my brain smile with radiant contentment.