The Killing of Mockingbirds.

Okay.
I’m mad now.

Various writer’s blogs are hitting a ‘why bother’ note.

M.G. observes during a book sale at the library that many of the works sold off at bargain basement prices are quality literature. Books that probably didn’t generate enough interest. I can relate to that, having recently seeing the book ‘Fugitive Pieces’ being sold off for a mere buck at the Almonte Public Library.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere Forest, Bernita and Brown Trout decide to forgo seeking out an agent/publisher and to just self-publish, or indeed, just ‘write for themselves’.

Well fuck that, guys. And I’ll tell you why…

At this moment I am actively reading three books.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
(both versions – the very naughty version and the less inflammatory version)
Watership Down by Richard Adams
And…
Wait for it…

Love’s Tender Fury by Jennifer Wilde (Not related to Oscar)

Let’s start with the uber-trashy romance, shall we?
Some might remember Jennifer Wilde’s spritely Trollop/Heroine, Marietta Danvers. This spunky, red-headed vixen stuttered in mock outrage/modesty as she slept her way though copius ‘true love’s in at least 3 novels. Shamelessness coupled with unabashed sluttiness took Marietta from England to the colonies, back across Europe and Russia, and no doubt heavily lined the pockets of Jennifer Wilde, ‘her’ agent and ‘her’ publishers quite nicely.

Literature?
No.

Entertaining?
Hell YES!

Oscar Wilde wrote for money. He constantly lived a caviar lifestyle on a burger budget. This did not stop him from writing some of the finest work in the English language. At the time, Oscar was regarded as a fop and a joke, and sent on tour in the US and Canada as a publicity stunt to promote another’s work. Oscar turned the attention to his advantage, built a following and while on tour he wrote his only novel - which he heavily re-edited after the first edition shocked his Victorian audience. He removed some of the seamier bits and added a few chapters, but he did not add the obligatory moral at the end.
He had his limits.

Literature?
Yes.

Entertaining?
Yes, but now rather dated, unlike some of his finer poems and plays.

Bear with me here, folks…
Now, I asked this question a while ago.
What sort of writer do you want to be?
Not one of you stated the obvious.

There are no limits to what you can write, except the ones you put upon yourself.

No one forces you to stay within a genre. There is no shadowy figure lurking, ready to leap upon you to revoke your artistic license if you write a short WESTERN NOIR, and then write a ROMANCE novel, and then submit an essay on the themes currently prevailing in FANTASY.

Hello?
There are no rules.

Keep this in mind as I talk about ‘Watership Down’.

A tale about rabbits. Not adorable, fluffy, Thumper-esque Disney sort of rabbits, but a group of pragmatic rodents with a distinctive culture and moral code of their own.

Deceptively simple, brilliant, entertaining and literate, the resounding success for ‘Watership Down’ surprised everyone - especially the author.

Like William Goldman’s ‘Princess Bride’, ‘Watership Down’ initially was a story told by a father on a long drive to entertain his daughters. One night, while reading a dismal bedtime story to his daughters, Adams threw the book aside and declared (As so many of us have) “Good Lord, I could write better than that myself!”

And then Richard Adams did what some only talk about. He sat down and wrote the story he made up about the rabbits that his daughers loved so. He wrote it in bits, in the evenings, instead of watching TV (see Barry Eilser’s blog on how TV is a time-suck). Adam’s daughters read it, made suggestions and then Adams consulted an expert on rabbits and altered the story so that while Hazel and the other rabbits could talk and reason, they behaved like proper rabbits.

Despite the fact that Adams wrote Watership Down for his daughters, he knocked on a lot of agent’s and publisher’s doors. He refused to alter the draft to ‘suit’ much younger children or much older children. The rejection notices piled up. He noticed a small publisher had reprinted a book called ‘Wood Magic’ by Richard Jeffries and felt they might find his book worth a look.

They did. They published it.
Cue the rave reviews, fan letters from all ages, etc…

Watership Down hasn’t been out of print since. But if Richard Adams had given up, self-published and claimed he “wrote it for himself” and just left it at that, then his daughters would still have his book true… but the rest of us wouldn’t.

And that would be a sin.
Yanno?

Like killing mockingbirds.

Your call.