Reading and writing
The most thought-provoking novel I’ve read recently, the one that sticks in my mind despite my having to return it to the library because I’m too skint to buy books, must be Lorrie Moore’s A Gate in the Stairs. Questions I could think about: who is the novel’s protagonist? At first it seems to be more about the family for whom the narrator babysits, the mother, or the child, rather than the narrator herself. But by the end it’s taken a different direction. Also a lot of questions about racism, not necessarily those made explicit in summary and dialogue. I’ve lived in mixed-heritage families since I was five years old; the implications of division of people into separate ‘races’ is something I want to think about in the novel I’m starting to work on.
As a writer I feel like a failure at the moment, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I completed a volume of short stories, about half of which have been published or won prizes, but everyone tells me it’s incredibly difficult to find a publisher for story collections (unless you’re an acclaimed author). So I have to admit I’ve hardly been trying. I’ve got a break coming up…maybe then… But I have been enjoying writing, especially in a spontaneous way (as opposed to the focus and structure of a novel). My New Year’s resolutions this year were ‘have a laugh’ and ‘be a writer’; I’ve been trying to write funny stories; and from October I’ve got a studentship to write full time at Northumbria University (where I studied Fine Art for my first degree). What I find keeps coming up for me this year is ‘life is too short’…to do housework when you want to write…to worry about what people think…not to say what’s on your mind…to miss the spring, or the summer…not to love and care.
Hi Sarah,
Look forward to reading more…
Kx