Do You Have A Novel In You?

A popular New Zealand author who has just published her 10th book offers tips to aspiring novelists  

- Nicky Pellegrino

Fifteen years ago I was a woman with a dream; I wanted to write a novel. I wasn’t sure how to go about it but I had a bright idea and I owned a computer, so how hard could it be?

Fast-forward to the present day and my 10th book, A Year At Hotel Gondola, is being published. I feel slightly dizzied to have reached this point and along the way have learned a great deal. Most importantly: it can be really, really hard to write a novel but it’s never impossible.

The bright idea is the easy part. Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert has this theory about ideas for creative projects. She thinks of them as kind of floating around in the ether and if one happens to land on you then you have to act fast. Ignore it and it will soon take off and find a better home elsewhere. So if your idea is a good one then you can’t waste time on waiting for the perfect time to write it. That golden moment when you have no deadlines, no family demanding your attention, no stressful job, no overflowing laundry basket – that’s never going to happen.

Wellington author Catherine Robertson has just published her fifth novel, Gabriel’s Bay. She started writing years ago, at the same time as she was running a business and raising young kids. “I used to get up early and write for an hour before breakfast before everyone else was up because I was too shattered to write in the evenings,” she recalls.

If Catherine, 52, had realised she would need to complete the manuscripts of seven or eight novels before at last succeeding in getting a publishing deal for The Sweet And Second Life Of Darrell Kincaid then she might not have kept going. “But you always think, ‘this is the one’. And you learn and get better. Sometimes the people you submit the book to will send back a critique and that is totally gold.”