Jennifer Rohn has just realized a dream to which many of us romantically minded scientists aspire – she lives a double life not as a spy but as a novelist.
I’m very proud of her. When I read “Dr. Rohn is unusual. American-born, now a British resident, she earned a Ph.D. at the University of Washington, Seattle, and then did postdoctoral research in London and the Netherlands, before leaving bench science to become an editor and journalist, writing features for professional publications such as Nature and The Scientist”, I think of a similar blurb I once dreamed of for myself in the context of a hypothetical book cover. Then I remember that I’ve done other things of which I can be proud, and can stifle the envy to some extent.
It’s just that it’s NaNoWriMo – and it being only November 3rd, not too late for you aspiring lab-litters to participate, even if you’re _inter_nationally located. For me, though, given all I have on my plate, it will have to wait until things calm down or I retire, whichever comes first. Lots of new trainees arriving this month, and I need to be organized for them, if not for myself.
I was going to cite Cormac McCarthy, whose success came late, but I see his first novel was published when he was in his thirties, as was the case for Dame Iris Murdoch and Robertson Davies.
Better examples for my hopeful purposes, then, are Millard Kaufman, Hedi Kaddour and Norman MacLean. MacLean started publishing after his retirement. And his was the first fiction published by the University of Chicago Press! Jenny is following in illustrious footsteps…
Writing a novel is like diving into the deep end. One prevaricates endlessly, fearful of the long drop and the coldness of the water, but it really is lovely once you’re in.
Bbbrbrbrbrrrrr yy-esss it’sss lovvelely innniinnn heerererree.
Perhaps I have the advantage with regard to surface-area-to-volume ratio.
Or
your balls have already been frozen offI tried NaNoWriMo one year, and the result was risible and very, very terse. If there is a novel in my brain, it is disconnected from the rest of my brain, or present only in primitive stem cell form. Perhaps a misplaced primitive streak cell or laggard neural crest cell, more likely to form a tumor than produce a novel. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing, but rather that a novel is something I’d much rather read, than write.
A better (and more likely) measure of creative success for me would be an exhibition of my artwork (watercolor, colored pencil, and mixed media) at a decent gallery. A friend’s father, who is a retired physicist, recently had a show of his sculptures at a gallery, with write-ups in the newspapers (this was in Brazil), and I felt immediately that this was the creative goal for which to aim.
Or your balls have already been frozen off
No, just tucked away in old-fashioned beach wear.
Heather, I’m not convinced that writing a novel at a frantic pace is great training for what is a complex discipline. But as Henry says, the only thing to do is to plunge and start, a bit at a time, until you finish – which could take a month but could equally take five years.
The really difficult part is then being prepared (if necessary) to realize what you’ve produced is rubbish and move on. You will still have learned a lot.
I wrote nine (count them) novels before getting into non-fiction writing. I do still intend to get into fiction, but I have now learned enough about writing to know that those nine novels will never be published – I could take the basic ideas of a couple of them and make them work now, I think, but I would have to re-write from scratch. But it was still a very useful learning experience.
If you really want an example of late achievement in fiction, showing there is still hope for all of us, take a look at Mary Wesley who didn’t have real success until she was 70.
Tolkien, too. The Hobbit was published when he was 45 – The Lord of the Rings when he was 62.
Kristi and Brian: exactly my experience a couple of years ago! Risible, terse rubbish. (Well, there are a couple things in there, but they’ll have to wait until they wilt from inattention.)
K: We have three painters in my Paris lab who regularly exhibit on the walls of the waiting room for the genetics consultation side of our floor, and some of them actually have gallery exhibits in the city as well.
It’s not so much that I couldn’t write, per se, but I can’t bring myself to make writing fiction a priority over, for example, reading it. Or getting the laundry done, folded, ironed and put away, making sure there is food I could cook in the house, and otherwise being present for the other three people sharing my daily life. Or making sure import-export forms for human tissues and amendments to radioactivity use authorizations are filled out. Or… whatever else I could do with the estimated fifty hours needed to get a rough first draft together. So I am admirative of those who are sufficiently driven to overlook the other claims on their time.
Meanwhile, I will certainly look at Mary Wesley’s writing, who as an individual sounds utterly fantastic. I’m already familiar with Tolkien, but I forgot he was that mature when his writing was first published. Not that 45 is so mature as that, but it’s old enough to not be qualified as “young genius” anymore.
So I am admirative of those who are sufficiently driven to overlook the other claims on their time.
Writing is a lonely business. I get all mine done on the train.
Good word, ‘admirative’.
There’s a lovely article in a recent New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell about late-blooming genius:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
Interesting stuff.
Good to know about your painter colleagues, Heather! I’ve displayed a few of my collages in a university “Arts and Medicine” show, and even sold one (much to my surprise – I hadn’t thought to put a price on it, until the buyer called me and inquired whether it was for sale).
For those of us with neglected or looming scientific writing demands (manuscripts, abstracts, grant proposals, etc.), there’s InaDWriMo. I plan to draft my word count commitment for that event, after a lunchtime meeting today.
Ah, I am a late-bloomer, as I have just realized Heather has already blogged about this piece! I must be a freaking genius.
The quilter and fiber artist who writes the Spirit Cloth blog does most of her needlework on a commuter train, “unplugged and recycled”, as she describes it. Truly amazing and beautiful work (and I’ll bet that her process provides entertainment and distraction for a few other commuters).
Here’s the link for Kristi’s tip to InaDWriMo!
Admirative – that was lucky Franglais. But I can see that taking a train on a regular basis could be qualified as being driven. Especially if you work on your own and not someone else’s book.
Jenny – I’m convinced of it.
Hypothesis better books are written by older people, in general. Given that the maxim ‘write what you know’ is undeniably true, older people will have more to write about than younger people.
Fun fact: Norman Maclean taught literature at U. of Chicago for years, but that doesn’t mean he got published right away when he decided to write:
“The life began in 1902 and the work not until 1973, after Maclean had retired from the University of Chicago, where he taught Shakespeare and the Romantic poets. His collection nearly went undiscovered, suffering serial rejections from the New York publishers, with one editor sneering: “These stories have trees in them.” " source
I might also comment to Henry above that while “write what you know” is certainly a good maxim to follow for a good novel, it doesn’t have much to do with writing a book that gets published and promoted by the “legitimate” houses. “Write what will interest an agent and editor” is a better dictum for that. (Don’t worry too much if you really know what you’re talking about or not.) Of course, you’ll feel cheap afterwards if you take that approach. POD is a nice way around that, to some extent, as you know……
I spent another year not working on my album. My friend and I have a band name, an album name, and even the name of the racehorse we want to buy with the profits, but only one song. And it is 8 years old.
It sounds like the theme song to the future Piled Higher and Deeper animated feature.