International Dublin Writer's Festival - Saturday 09-21-24 *Transcript of talk / Dublin

Personal Background:

Good morning my name is Robert Craven. I am the author of ten novels, my 10th, Malign Intent was released earlier this year.

 

• Firstly, I would like to thank Laurence O’Bryan and his team here for this opportunity to talk with you this morning. 
• Secondly, if we have time at the end, I’ll be happy to take some questions from you, (the audience).

 

Purpose of the Talk:

Publishing is a very, very tough game, more so in fact over the last few years and it’s getting to the stage where there is just not enough space even for the good writers to find a degree of “success”.

I’d like to start if I may, with two quotes – the first

• Is from over a hundred years ago. The respected American writer and critic, VAN  WYCK  BROOKS wrote an essay deploring the use of
  ‘HIGH BROW’ and ‘LOW BROW’ to categorise fiction. He maintained what mattered was the QUALITY of the result on readers and their culture. Genres have the immense ability to communicate and influence.

The second quote comes from OpenAI’s CEO Mira Murati in a July 2024 interview referring to the phenomenon of Artificial Intelligence:

• “Some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

Ms. Murati forgets one fact – No machine understands or can relate to the human condition or the experience of existence – that is OUR jobs as authors. AI may replace but will never expand the actual process of creativity.
This morning, I'll be offering insights and suggestions in maintaining quality throughout the writer’s journey. That essential quality is your ‘Voice’.

Personally, writing is, I think, a constant exploration. As you create more work, resilience and self-belief become more essential. I see writing as a life-long journey. If you feel compelled to breathe life into the characters you’ve created, it will be worthwhile persisting with it, if only for yourself. Therein lies perhaps a realistic view of “success.” A project completed a piece of your own creativity realised.

A tangible result. A book.

ESCAPISM

Initial Inspiration:

My earliest book memories are of reading.

• Willard Price’s ‘Gorilla Adventure’,
• Clyde Robert Bulla’s ‘Viking Adventure’

I fell hopelessly in love with the sheer escapism of the adventure novel.

If I could pinpoint the one book that inspired me to think about having a go at writing, it was Stephen King’s ‘SALEM’S LOT’. I discovered KING after Tobe Hooper’s TV adaptation of the novel. I had to read the book. After that I devoured ‘The Shining’, ‘Carrie’, and ‘The Stand’ and ‘Christine’ – King was a gateway to the other writer’s who have had a profound impact on me.

• Alastair Maclean
• Elmore Leonard,
• James Herbert,
• John le Carre,
• Jack Higgins and the very underrated Alan Dean Foster.

These authors would inspire me to write my first story in 1991, titled ‘The Chase’.
I submitted to a writing competition. A speculative fiction magazine called FTL, run and edited by John Kenny offered a cash prize for an original short story. The winner and seven runners up would get to have their stories published and illustrated in the edition. I didn’t win the cash prize, but the short piece I wrote titled ‘The Chase’ was published. 33 years later, it still looks good.

In May 2011, I landed a small press publishing deal and I’m holding in my hands the first edition of GET LENIN. [ holds up copy] – this is edition #1

It had taken 5 years to write, pitch and get published. I saw it through without losing heart – I absolutely believed it would find a publisher – and it kick-started my writing life.

And it spawned a 5-book action / thriller series featuring Allied spy, Eva Molenaar. She’s very much a James Bond kind of character with nail varnish. I liked the idea of a female protagonist, and I revelled in her daring wartime escapades. But I stick to one caveat with the books - I envisioned a tight time frame spanning 1933 – 1946 and after closing the series off with EAGLES HUNT WOLVES.

Other genres

I decided to stretch out from the WW2 genre and explore other avenues.

• The Bond ‘style’ Novel – The Road of a Thousand Tigers
• Steampunk – The Mandarin Cipher
• And The crime thriller / police procedural. A Kind of Drowning, Malign Intent.

The transition from one genre to another without losing your ‘voice’ and style can be daunting. And the keywords here are Adaptability. AND Versatility.

One of the best examples of this is David Morrell, the creator of the Rambo books. He created a trilogy of Victorian novels and took the adventure genre format and adapted it to Victorian prose, creating both a realistic and gothic world with a great ani-hero Thomas DeQuincey and his daughter, Emily.

• Murder as a Fine Art.
• Inspector of the dead.
• Ruler of the Night.

Morrell takes the classic Victorian mystery and flips it into a thriller but without compromising on authenticity. I loved these so much, I sent a thank you message to his website. Purely as a fan.

• To my surprise he wrote back thanking me. And for the next few years, an unexpected correspondence began. I cannot emphasise enough his generosity and advice. I gave him a thanks in the acknowledgement notes of MALIGN INTENT.

Rejections (and Criticisms):

Rejection is an unpleasant fact or writer’s life. It is one of necessary evils writers must endure in pursuit of their goals. GET LENIN is a good example: 285 pitches to publishers and agents of which only 71 responded (all rejections). You build up a layer of tough skin.

You learn to roll with the punches. It’s here that resilience is formed. That tough outer shell that must be coupled with unshakeable self-belief in your work.

As these rejections piled up, it only made me more bloody-minded, more determined, and eventually, I did land a small press publishing deal.

To book end this; during the height of the COVID pandemic, I pitched A KIND OF DROWNING to 127 publishers and agents – this was universally rejected – BUT
I made a very useful contact. Mark Lucas from the Soho agency, London. We spoke on the phone for 40 or so minutes and it was one of the most important conversations I had. 40 minutes of 40 decades of expertise in the business.

And I re-worked the book, he was generous with his time: we spent two months reviewing and suggesting where it could improve and I found myself, re-evaluating my style. And Re-inventing my own writing style.

(Like a singer relearning how to interpret a song.)

Criticism

I will be the very first to admit, I can be sensitive to criticism – you think your words are dipped in gold, you think you have a literary masterpiece on your hands, then you hand your precious words over to an editor, a cold set of eyes that doesn’t have any emotional investment. Then you re-work, revise and suddenly your words of magical beauty are now just clunky-sounding fool’s gold.

I have been fortunate over the 10 novels to have only garnered a handful of 1 & 2-star reviews. Some people didn’t enjoy it (books are subjective by their very nature), though you get the odd vicious one. I tend to just ignore these. But I DO pay close attention to the 2-star reviews. They do carry some useful commentary, some kernels of truth, because they tried to like the book more than they could.

 

• Overcoming Writer's Block:

I have a very good friend, Tony Floyd Kenna, a fine singer songwriter who has an on-line music site called Independent Music Review where he invites music lovers to review a CD or streaming album. This opportunity not only has kept the creative juices flowing writing reviews, but I have made great friends with the musicians who have kindly reciprocated with sharing my books on their own platforms and buying my books too.

This is one thing I CAN recommend – if you can find a niche outside of the writer community BUT who are nevertheless creative – chefs, musicians, gardeners, people from industries that use the written word, but not dependent on it. If you can build a network that runs parallel but not running into your own work, it will reap unexpected rewards.

When I go on holidays, I pack a small notebook and keep a travel journal – sometimes a new scene, a weather event or a person witing at the airport or sitting in a restaurant across from you can become an element in your books.

I could also recommend you create a website and good practice is to keep the content fresh & relevant to your work as It grows and evolves.

 

Maintaining Motivation:

There is always going to be tough times. There are going to be days when you cannot face the project. If I am struggling with a draft, which is common, I try to set a ten-minute task, i.e., one sentence, one paragraph, even one line of dialogue that might need a rewrite.

Set a small goal. Go for a coffee with a friend or give your dog an extra walk! Give your head some space.

*Quote

Agatha Christie once observed her best ideas came from washing the dishes.

• I also journal every day. I set myself small tasks for the day, you will be amazed where the ideas come from of percolate in your subconscious.

 

Practical Tips for Other Writers (3-4 minutes)

• Routine and Discipline:

Everyone should develop their own routine. I am an early bird by nature and get up at 5am every morning, rain or shine. I work roughly until 6.30am. Doing this every day for three months gets you an almost complete first draft. Then I put the draft away  for about two months. I work full-time, so my daytime job and responsibilities keep my mind off it.

Then, I take it out and read it through, four or five times. Then I start looking at structure and plot. Timelines are always a challenge. I always ask myself -

• Is the framework good enough to hold the synopsis?
• Are the inciting incidents in the right sequence on the timeline?
• Is the dialogue authentic of is it just tin ear dialogue?

I also have a few trusted beta readers who will look at it too. Once I get edits, critiques and suggestions back. I collate them and start to rework. Usually, a book takes about 4 to 6 months to rework, I may go through anywhere between 8 & 13 revisions. Malign Intent took 2 ½ years from start to finish re-worked at least ten times. Before that, A Kind of Drowning had thirteen full re-writes before it was released on Amazon & KOBO platforms.

• Reading Widely:
  I cannot stress enough the importance of reading. Good books, bad books, all genres. You will realise in some instances you are a better writer than the one you are reading and in other instances you realise how far you must go! I read for pleasure (If I’m not researching) – it’s a lifelong love affair. There really is nothing like discovering a new genre, a new author or revisiting a classic.
• Your library card should be a vital tool in your writer’s toolkit

 

Conclusion (2-3 minutes)

• Encouragement: Offer some final words of encouragement. As I started this talk with two quotes, I’d like to finish with two quotes too…

1.

The Legendary Spanish cellist Pablo Casals was once asked why in his 90s did he still practice 6 hours a day – he replied, “Because I think I’m making progress.”

2.

The American poet - Kenneth Koch once told his Summer Academy:

“Go home and dream, then write a poem about your dream & also to write a prose account of your dream. And then discover that the prose accounts were better poems than the poems. Go home and dream, ladies and Gentlemen, go home and dream.”

Thank you all, for listening!