On novel-writing by Booker Prize winner

[Hopscotch]

John Banville, 2005 Booker prize winner, has written a charming short essay on novel-writing called “Writing a novel is like wading through wet sand, at night, in a storm” in The Guardian, 3 Oct 2020.  Here's an excerpt; the whole thing is at the URL below:

“At what moment can the composition of a novel be said to have begun?...For my part, any novel that I am working on seems to have had no beginning, but to have been always somehow under way; perhaps there is only one novel, of which every so often I publish a segment. Yet in the case of The Sea I do seem to recall an initiating moment. I say ‘seem’, because it’s possible I imagined it; in art, origination myths are common, and enduring.  I see myself walking on a beach on a cold pale morning in the spring…”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/03/writing-a-novel-is-like-wading-through-wet-sand-at-night-in-a-storm-john-banville-on-the-sea

[TimothyEllis]

Funny, for me it's more like running on hot white sand, on a brilliant summer's day.

 

[Simon Haynes]

For me it's like eating handfuls of sand, until eventually I get used to the texture and manage to stomach enough to finish off the whole damn beach.

[cecilia_writer]

For me it's like walking on the kind of beach I've coincidentally just been writing about, which is part shingle, part sand of various consistencies and then there are the mudflats...

[idontknowyet]

I find writing to be more like bobbing in the waves sometimes youre up, sometimes youre down, and most of the time the words/water controls you even though you think it should be the other way around.

[Jessica]

I find writing to be more like bobbing in the waves sometimes youre up, sometimes youre down, and most of the time the words/water controls you even though you think it should be the other way around.

Comes close to my experiences. ;D I'd describe it more like being abandoned in the middle of a desert with an empty map, a compass that doesn't point north and a bunch of people who won't stop talking all at once or don't speak at all for weeks. I'm annoyed and miserable most of the time but, deep down, there is this curiosity that keeps me going, and I arrive... somewhere, eventually. It's never the place I wanted to go to, but it seems it's the place where I should be.

[TimothyEllis]

there is this curiosity that keeps me going, and I arrive... somewhere, eventually. It's never the place I wanted to go to, but it seems it's the place where I should be.

"I'm going there. But I like it here, wherever it is." Song lyric.

[Jotheboat]

John Banville's The Sea is the only book I have kept since purchase. I have read and re-read.
His prose is exquisite.

[Vijaya]

You all made me laugh about running in sand, eating sand, being in a desert. Although I go to the beach often, all my writing feels like hacking my way through the woods--dark, dark woods.

[Jeff Tanyard]

You all made me laugh about running in sand, eating sand...

 

[Vijaya]

 

[R. C.]

Thus far, my writing experience has been...



(digitalndesign April 12, 2016)

Cheers,
R.C.

[Luke Everhart]

Thus far, my writing experience has been...



(digitalndesign April 12, 2016)

Cheers,
R.C.

That looks like a blast 😁👍 

[PJ Post]

My beach is a lot less pretentious.

And...

Thus far, my writing experience has been...

Yep.

[Anarchist]

For me, it's like creating a flower arrangement. I can be creative, but I also know what works with my audience. I stray at my own risk.

Ultimately, it's a matter of putting in the time. I can agonize over getting everything perfect. Or I can recognize that "great" is good enough. It's time to ship it and start working on the next arrangement.

[Paul Gr]

I wouldn't write if I felt like that about it, I find writing to be fun and interesting.

[Post-Crisis D]

there is this curiosity that keeps me going, and I arrive... somewhere, eventually. It's never the place I wanted to go to, but it seems it's the place where I should be.

"I'm going there. But I like it here, wherever it is." Song lyric.

At 3:14.