How do you Measure Success as a Writer?

This question hadn’t really occurred to me until I was catching up with an old friend last week and telling her about my debut novel coming out. I can’t actually remember what was said, which admittedly takes some of the power away from this anecdote, but I was left wondering at exactly what point I would consider my writing career successful. I do remember that I felt a little stressed and uneasy when I was babbling about the book and didn’t really know why, but whatever she said really helped (although I really can’t remember what it was).

I think that much of my squirminess came from a fear of being judged. I have worked with hundreds of authors to get their books ship-shape and shiny, and advised them about the process, but now that my book’s coming out I regret not offering them counselling and alcohol as part of my service. It’s terrifying. My book goes out into the world and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to control it once it’s left my grasp. People will judge it, love it or hate it, and I just have to sit back and take it and hope that I’ve grown enough layers of skin for the task. However, even worse than being judged is not being judged. What if the only people who ever read it are my friends and family and some guy from Exeter who accidently clicked the ‘buy it’ button when he was trying to turn the TV over? Far worse than being hated is being ignored. I’ve got a solid marketing machine, but what if it’s just not that interesting? What if it’s crap? What if I’ve devoted my life to something I’m no good at and it’s the biggest pile of crap ever written? Damn my friend for stirring up these emotions with her forgettable counsel.

I’m sure that anyone doing anything similar (like taking all their clothes off and running through town) would probably feel similar; it’s only natural to feel terror before exposing yourself, inside or out. But taking stock and thinking about what I actually want to achieve is helping. If I don’t set some kind of marker of success then I would only be happy if I got Fifty Shades of Grey success. Anything else would be a failure. It’s good to have lofty ambitions, but does anyone really want to spend their whole life chasing a lottery win? I could rely on reviews to see what people think, but I get the feeling that people only write reviews if they really love or really hate something. That’s half of the problem; you don’t get a list of every reader’s phone number so you can call for feedback. So how does a writer ever feel successful? Well, book sales are the obvious marker. But am I aiming for tens? Hundreds? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? How will I ever know these things?

After giving all of this some thought I have come to a small handful of conclusions. Firstly, all of the things I’m worrying about are attempts to validate me as a writer. Do I actually need anyone to like my work? Am I not successful because I write exactly what I want to write and I do it well? Secondly, this whole writing hoo-haa is a lifetime process. I’ve written lots and plan to write more. I love the project I’m currently working on and I finished the one that’s coming out some time ago. Why should I care about it? I learnt a lot from it, but I’ve moved on. The only way to succeed is to be forward thinking. Also, should we ever really attach ourselves to an outcome when being creative? I want to sell books now, but I couldn’t give two shits about it when I was ten years old and writing little books that made me smile. In fact, I think I need to remember that little girl more often. She would blather on the page for hours and hours and make everyone read it, believing that it was the best slice of fiction ever to grace a leaf of A4. Little Hayley rocked!

But I have to be realistic. I don’t think I’m quite cool enough to completely switch off from what people think of my books. In fact, I’m excited to find out what people think, but I genuinely think I’m halfway to success because I’m proud of what I do. At this early stage of my publishing career, the other half of success would really just be for a steady stream of people to read and enjoy the book.  

   

 
Diazepam for Sale, the debut novel by Hayley Sherman is now available on Amazon
 
Time travel as a cure for depression, the Mods and Rockers on the West Pier, a vengeful Sat Nav lady, a seagull-stalked Frank Sinatra and Diazepam for sale... 
A fairytale for a prozac nation...
Fiction for a world that doesn't behave the way it should....

www.hayley-sherman.co.uk  

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Frankie Boyle: Arsehole or Arsehole?

Only discovered Channels 4’s Funny Fortnight a few days ago, but better late than never. Caught the divine Dylan Moran, the hysterical Alan Carr and then there’s Frankie Boyle…

In case you’re not familiar, well, Frankie Boyle looks like Henry IIX in a suit, but hasn’t got the same good humour, sensitivity and respect for women. In fact, he’s a bit like that Scottish guy I’ve seen shouting in the street who’s got one shoe and sometimes pisses himself until someone moves him along. But no one’s moving our Frankie along. His gleeful repertoire delights in AIDS, cancer, rape and other human trifles and every twisted punch-line is met with a rapturous ovation from an audience who can’t all have been drugged and paid to be there.

I don’t get it, but I feel as if I should be on-board. I loved Brass Eye and enjoy a good shock, but it’s hard to laugh without a little safety net of irony or self-deprecation. If Frankie thrashed himself with holly branches as he delivered the lines I’d probably feel a bit more comfortable watching it. In fact, I knew I would go straight to hell if I laughed at it. I could feel the heat on my toes as I cracked a smile at a joke involving a vagina and a dead man’s handshake. Thankfully, my laughing gear wasn’t given too much work to do for most of the programme, so I think my soul is safe. The high point for me was watching the moral dilemma of the celebrities in the audience, wondering if applauding John Terry’s rape face would offend their fan-base and affect their sales, but that was it really.           

Strangely, I applaud Frankie Boyle’s balls. Not many people are able to get up and say exactly what they think, but is this what he thinks? Surely he can’t function in the world, haemorrhaging so much bile. He’s got a wife and kids and hasn’t been murdered, so he can’t be that bad in real life. All I can think is that it’s shock for the sake of shock, which is almost original if not a little brain-numbing. Or maybe it’s a case of ‘shit happens, so we may as well laugh at the people it happens to’. He’s obviously hugely talented and awesome with language; I just wish he would let a little sunshine in his life.

   

 
Diazepam for Sale, the debut novel by Hayley Sherman is now available on Amazon
 
Time travel as a cure for depression, the Mods and Rockers on the West Pier, a vengeful Sat Nav lady, a seagull-stalked Frank Sinatra and Diazepam for sale... 
A fairytale for a prozac nation...
Fiction for a world that doesn't behave the way it should....

www.hayley-sherman.co.uk  

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My Dentist Thinks I’m a Car and The Crooked God Machine

In the early chapters of my new book, The Applauding Coat Factory, the main character has an ancient car and when he opens the door to get in or out, it sounds as if the creaking is saying ‘Shoooees!!’ in a desperate, drawn-out plea; as if it wants him to paint it pink, replace its tyres with heels and finally free it from this car-ish nightmare; as if it really never wanted to be a car at all. Now, I am a lady (although I don’t really enjoy heels and the like), but imagine the knots that appeared in my head when (only weeks after writing this) I went to see a new dentist and found that he seems to think I’m a car. That’s the only explanation I can find for it. He didn’t particularly want to talk to me, even though I have a reasonable grasp on which teeth hurt. He sat me down, jacked me up energetically, pumping with his foot and then walked around me, stroking his chin, obviously calculating the cash-to-dim-woman ratio. But it was at this point that my car-ish nightmare really began. There was no ‘Open wide’. He cranked opened my bonnet, clanked around with his tools and I swear there was a faint smell of petrol. And his hands moved so quickly and brutally. When I think about it now, I imagine myself pinned to the chair by those hands with my arms and legs kicking out in all directions. Strangely, the only noise I seemed able to make sounded a lot like ‘Shoooeeess!!’

This whole ‘my dentist thinks I’m a car’ thing fits in quite neatly with the book I’m reading at the moment, The Crooked God Machine. For a start, it’s a gruelling, often horrifying read set against a charred landscape where death is commonplace and God is on every channel, screaming for the people of Edgewater to repent (okay, so the connection is a loose one!) There are monsters and deadheads, hell shuttles and every character is hideously damaged. The real connection, however, and my reason for bringing it up is that the author, Autumn Christian (great name), is a master of surreal description. The true horror of this book is in the details, the language, which I found myself swimming in rather than reading.

‘I curled up against her ribcage and tried to guess how many birds could hide inside her bones.’

What a beautifully horrific sentiment. I don’t think I’ve ever read such engaging, languid language in such a hopeless context. Everything is wrong in this book. In fact, it’s been so dark and so wrong for so long that it’s now commonplace and no one even reacts anymore. As a reader you begin to feel the same way. Reading about the baby who chews off his own thumb and spits it against the wall in the beginning of the book bent my stomach out of shape, but after many more hours in Christian’s company, I felt as desensitised as the residents of Edgewater. Every description was a pair of bloody dentist’s hands in my mouth that I couldn’t bite off so I may as well accept. Horror isn’t particularly my bag, but the dystopia that the author has created made the book unputdownable and beneath this desperate world is a story of love and spirit. Highly recommended!     

Incidentally, I’ve got to go back to the dentist in a few weeks for treatment and I really hope there’s a different mechanic on that day.

Also incidentally, I’ve just read that Autumn Christian was born in the late eighties of all things. Really makes me wonder what I’ve been doing with my time.  

   

 
Diazepam for Sale, the debut novel by Hayley Sherman is now available on Amazon
 
Time travel as a cure for depression, the Mods and Rockers on the West Pier, a vengeful Sat Nav lady, a seagull-stalked Frank Sinatra and Diazepam for sale... 
A fairytale for a prozac nation...
Fiction for a world that doesn't behave the way it should....

www.hayley-sherman.co.uk  

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