Where did they get my email address?
From: [email protected]
Dear Mr Ndonga,
Thank you for your recent email. I can’t imagine how you got my address, even though, as you say, we are fellow writers with friends in common – although you don’t say which. I am terribly sorry to hear of all the difficulties and persecutions you faced in your native country, and certainly the very second I can manage it I intend to join PEN: and this brings me to the crux of the matter, in that I cannot possibly afford to credit your bank account with any amount, let alone the sum you mentioned, for as you know, novelists are either bestselling or scraping along, and I unfortunately fall into the second category, as presumably do you. (By the way, I could not find you on the Amazon site under Ndonga – do you use a pen name?)
Sorry I can’t help financially, but good luck with your future writing,
T. Devino
I dispatched my novel to Miracle on the Thursday by courier instead of delivering it myself as I usually do, but I didn’t feel like facing her until she’d read it, and frankly I was exhausted, absolutely drained, and so it was quite late when I checked my calendar and emails and stuff and realized that I was supposed to be going to a writers’ meeting next day, one that might be useful.
My career clearly needed all the help it could get, so despite being completely wrung out I girded my loins and set out.
It was the first regional meeting of the Affiliated Authors to be held in Shrimphaven, though why they needed a regional meeting so close to London baffled me, until I walked behind the scenes at the museum and realized that most of the members present hadn’t got enough miles left on the clock to get to the Great Smoke and back.
Anyway, after due consideration of the options I sat next to this lively looking woman with the aisle on the other side for escape if necessary before Battle of the Zimmermen commenced at tea and bickies time.
She looked at me and then smiled. ‘Aren’t you Tina Devino?’
I admitted modestly that I was, and then she said her mother-in-law adored my books, she was such a keen gardener, and she herself loved the way I drew parallels between plants and sex. ‘I’m Ramona Gullet, by the way – I write dark psychological suspense.’
‘You are? Then I’ve heard of you, too!’ I exclaimed. ‘Someone from Women For Intellectual Advancement tried to get me to speak to them recently, and said you’d given them a brilliant talk.’
She shuddered. ‘Oh God, it was absolutely awful! That dreadful woman just bullied me into it, and then they all sat around afterwards picking my novels to pieces and being patronizing! And I did it for nothing.’
‘Thank goodness I got out of that one,’ I said.
‘Well, it was good copy, so I did manage to get something out of it – I used the experience in my new book, Blood on the Table.’
‘Did you? I’ll pop into Necromancer’s Nook on my way home and see if they’ve got a copy.’
The panel came on and we had to hush up while this dismal earwig of a man told us all about his little publishing house, which was in fact so small that not only had I never heard of it, but I reckoned you’d have to have a map reference to find it at all. In any case they only published really cutting-edge poetry, and we all know how big the audience for that is.
Then it was the turn of the haggard black-haired woman who’d clearly drawn herself the huge crimson lips that nature hadn’t given her over her own thin lizardy ones. She told us how she’d had a mega success with her non-fiction book: S & M: A Complete History, but somehow no publisher wanted her brilliant first novel, Slapping the Leather, and so she’d had to resort to self-publication. Now it was selling like hot cakes, she bet the publishers were all kicking themselves.
Well, whatever turned them on.
After that, the man from the Affiliated Authors thanked them both and said what an interesting contribution they’d made by telling us about their experiences, and then asked if anyone had any questions.
And boy, did they! I kid you not, I think more than three-quarters of that audience were self-published, and the first man’s question summed it all up when he said that he sympathized with the second speaker because no publisher had taken his History of Newts in Little Botting with hand-drawn illustrations, although he knew personally that there was a huge market out there for it and all his friends thought it a work of genius.
Where have I heard that line before?
‘In the end I had to publish it myself,’ he said in aggrieved tones, ‘and I’ve still got five thousand copies in the garage because selling them myself is proving exceedingly time-consuming and since I can’t garage the car and those old Hillman Imps can be temperamental if you leave them outside in winter, it’s very inconvenient … and why on earth won’t booksellers stock self-published books like mine?’
‘Because there isn’t a big enough market for books about newts in Little Botting to make it worth their while, dimwit,’ was obviously the only reply. ‘Or any of the other minority-interest books and strangely attenuated novels the rest of you have had printed.’
But no, the small-press man and the haggard harpy and the Affiliated man, who was very kind in a well-meaning way, earnestly discussed this at length and I thought they’d never shut up.
But finally they had to call a halt as it was tea and bickies time. Ramona and I looked at each other and with one accord escaped outside and went for a stiff drink at the Frog and Bubble. She is really nice, so one good thing came out of the dismal session anyway, and next time I went to a London meeting of the Affiliated Authors (which were not at all like this one), at least I’d know one person because she went to them all.
Dear Tony,
While I was, of course, very sorry to hear that Father O’Donovan suffered some sort of mental crisis over Christmas and has now gone away on a six-month retreat to find himself, I can assure you that it was nothing to do with me.
Yes, I did have a conversation with him at your Christmas Eve party, but we discussed plants, flowers and books, all perfectly innocently – he is a very keen gardener, isn’t he? – and he asked me for a copy of one of my novels, I didn’t force it on him.
Actually, Snapped Blooms, being one of my earlier books published before Salubrious Press asked me to spice things up a little, has rather fewer scenes of a sexual nature than my recent ones, and also I sent a note with it pointing out which pages he ought to avoid in view of his vows of celibacy, so he didn’t have any carnal thoughts thrust upon him, as it were, though it was all good wholesome earthiness: I don’t do bad sex.
Honestly, you’d think I was an embodiment of the Antichrist the way you go on!
Tina
Seven
Flat
The Ramblings,
Bosson Surcoat,
Cresney
Dear Ms Devino,
I write firstly to inform you that I have no intention of sending you any further undeserved sums of money, and should you persist in your demands I will put the matter in the hands of my solicitor who will know how to deal with you.
Secondly, I am delighted to say that, no thanks to you, Ripplit Publishing has accepted my novel Banking On It and it will appear later this year in a two-volume edition. You were wrong about small firms who advertised for manuscripts all being vanity publishers, for I am not paying them one penny apart from a contribution to the costs of production, which I will easily recoup from sales, for they inform me that they send promotional material to every single bookseller in the country! I enclose a photocopy of their glowing appraisal and acceptance of my work in the hopes that it may be a lesson to you.
Yours sincerely,
Harold Snaith, ACA
NOVELTINA LITERARY AND CRITICAL AGENCY
Mudlark Cottage, The Harbour, Shrimphaven
Dear Mr Snaith,
Thank you for your interesting letter, and the enclosed copy of the book acceptance by Ripplit Press.
I also note your refusal to p
ay me for the work I have done, but despite this I certainly wish you all the success you deserve, and indeed, under the auspices of Ripplit Press I am confident that you will receive everything due to your particular genius.
Might I suggest that you join the Affiliated Authors Group? They are always looking out for new novelists of your calibre, and at their regional meetings you will find many, many kindred spirits.
Sincerely yours,
Tina Devino
Sergei was in an unusually tender and affectionate mood on the Monday, full of schemes for promoting my next book, all of them highly imaginative but all, unfortunately, equally impractical.
Much of our conversation was carried out with him lying on the wooden floor for the sake of his back, which had been giving warning twinges. He once badly strained it lifting a too-heavy ballerina, which led to him having to leave the Royal Ballet – but I knew to avoid getting him started on that grievance! In any case, the pursuit of health and fitness led him to develop his own exercise routine, which had been lucrative.
After a while I arranged a couple of sofa cushions alongside so we were at least at the same level while we talked and could hold hands and, occasionally, kiss …
I remembered what I’d been going to ask him and casually mentioned that I’d passed the end of his street after my meeting with Miracle while he was seeing a friend off, but had been too upset after what had just happened to come and say hello. Luckily he didn’t question why I should be in his part of town at all if I wasn’t coming to his flat, but instead immediately said he wished I had called in, because his guest had only been Grigor.
‘You remember Grigor, don’t you, Tsarina? I took you to one of his first performances.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, relieved because Grigor had been rather Sergei’s protégé since he’d arrived on the British ballet scene. He is a tall, dark young man, albeit weak in the chin (but clearly not the knees or he wouldn’t be able to lift all those ballerinas about like so much thistledown).
After a while Sergei said he thought his back was fine, the twinges had been a false alarm, and got up again, but he still seemed more interested in consoling and encouraging me than our usual pursuits (pursuits being the operative word on an energetic day), and so we walked round to Lemonia for lunch.
We saw Linny across the room with a couple of her Rich Bitch local friends, but although she waved she didn’t beckon us over to join her, which was thoughtful of her as I could see the other women at her table all urging her to, though it certainly wasn’t me they wanted to get their acrylic nail extensions into.
But they were out of luck, because Sergei was tenderly seating me at a table for two and divesting me of my coat as though unveiling something terribly beautiful and precious, which was very endearing when the room was full of much younger, prettier and thinner women than me.
‘Now I have you to myself, Tsarina!’ he said, all gleaming, liquid dark eyes, beautifully moulded lips and flashing teeth – a bit Valentino and slightly manic, but then, when was he not? And I thought he’d had me to himself all morning, but I didn’t say anything because he could be quite thrillingly sheikhish like this sometimes, and actually I rather liked it.
Then while we ate he asked me all kinds of things about Miracle, contracts and publishers and stuff, which he hadn’t seemed very interested in before, but I felt sure it was all meant to show me he really cared. He hung on my every word. I’d never known him quite so unself-absorbed and he even offered to drive me back to Shrimphaven afterwards, though I tactfully declined because he drove in a series of thrusting leaps, much the way he danced, and I wasn’t sure the rest of the road users were quite au fait with ballet moves.
I roughed out a whole chapter for a new book on the train back, despite being seated beside a serial crisp eater, and arrived home to find that my author copies of the paperback of Spring Breezes had finally arrived.
Soon after that the Shrimphaven and District Gazette called to do an on-the-phone interview, which they were going to run with a picture of me they kept on file (I am big in Shrimphaven), so there was one source of publicity, at least, and a small drop in the ocean though it might be, I almost felt like a real author.
This big arts centre about fifty miles away asked me if I would like to come and do a novel-writing workshop for their Literary Society, all keen writers, two and a half hours all about myself and getting published and so on, so clearly my fame was spreading faster than manure, and when they said they would give me a hundred and fifty pounds how could I say no? God knows, I needed the money, and I realized I would have to do this sort of thing full-time if I didn’t have a bestseller with Dark, Passionate Earth, or find another publisher (and agent), so I agreed.
At least I am a novelist. Half the writing workshops in the country were taken by people who’d never had work published, unless by themselves, or they’d been published in a totally different field from the one they were actually teaching. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Speaking of which, that reminded me about the time I was asked to go to a centre for the visually impaired and do a talk. Well, they were almost all (a) extremely old, (b) had just had lunch, (c) were most of them deaf as posts and (d) wanted to go to sleep; so after shouting out the first paragraph I’d prepared about my novels, which seemed to send them off quite nicely, I just walked about telling funny stories to the few who were awake, and after about half an hour most of them came alive again and we had a really exciting discussion about Stephen King, whom they all adored.
But I digress … So off I went to the Whimpergreen Foundation Arts Centre with my talk all prepared – one I’d done successfully all over the place – with worksheets and discussion ideas and all the rest, and I was supposed to be met in the café beforehand and given lunch by Luella somebody – it might have been Whimpergreen. In which case clearly this was a family-funded thing, and if it was a business don’t they call that sort of thing nepotism?
She proved to be a stocky, belligerent-looking woman with little piggy eyes who met me with the accusing words: ‘So you’re the Romantic Novelist, are you?’
I said, ‘Guilty as charged,’ smiled sweetly and added, ‘But I can assure you there are more than one of us, though thank you for the compliment.’
She looked a bit gobsmacked, and so was I when I discovered I had to buy my own cafeteria-style lunch, which is not quite what I was expecting, though it was very good if pies are your forte.
Luella sat on the far side of the table with her arms crossed, studying me as if I was a low form of plant life, which was not good for the appetite.
Then to top it all, this deaf old bat sidled up, plonked her tray down next to me and started whispering on and on about some novel she’d written, and said she was sure I would want to read the synopsis and first chapters over lunch so that I could discuss it with her at the meeting.
And I said no, I’d rather just eat, and I wasn’t going to discuss individual manuscripts, but my talk was about how to write a novel that sells, which I’m sure she would find very relevant.
At this heresy there was an audible intake of breath from Luella and several other people sitting around earwigging, then they all rose up and surrounded me like a posse and led me into a back room. It was dark and gloomy, with a sparse selection of hard chairs and a Formica table, and I thought they were just going to incarcerate me in there and go away, but it turned out that this was where the Literary Society held its meetings.
So they all sat round the table and looked at me expectantly and I waited for Luella to introduce me … and waited.
She was slumped in her seat picking at the skin around her fingernails, but after about a year and a half she looked up and said brusquely, ‘Tina Devino. I expect she will tell you all about herself.’ Then she folded her arms and looked unamused, like Queen Victoria crossed with the Empress of Blandings.
Well, never have two and a half hours gone so slowly, although that particular workshop usually overran, especiall
y with questions and answers and worksheets. However, I’d hardly even got into it before Luella started fidgeting, sighing, rolling her eyes and muttering things like, ‘Get on with it!’ and ‘I thought you were going to tell us how to write a novel!’ and stuff like that. Then she flatly refused to do the questionnaire I handed round, which usually broke the ice and got everyone bonding and talking.
When it got to her turn to answer she said she never read books and wasn’t interested in them and she couldn’t remember ever writing anything, and what was the point of all this? Really, she was just a great, glowering black hole in the room, sucking everyone else’s creativity and enthusiasm into it, and clearly she intimidated the life out of the others for it was like getting blood out of a stone to get them to say anything.
To lighten things up I made a little joke about Devino being a good name for a writer, because having a name near the beginning of the alphabet meant you were usually on the first couple of bookshop shelves nearest the door, and that was it – a red rag to bully Luella. Clearly, being Whimpergreen and the last one to be called for anything in school had rankled all her life, though I should think no one would have picked her anyway if she had always looked like that.
She tossed her pencil down so hard it ricocheted off the table and nearly hit the woman opposite, who had to duck. Luella said she wasn’t getting anything from the session and it was a complete waste of her valuable time, and then stormed out, leaving a nasty silence.
I struggled on, but due to non-participation I’d run through my stuff like greased lightning and was starting to lose the will to live. Anyway, I carried on with the last bit, all about how to aim a book towards a particular market slot for the best chance of success, and then they woke up and got all puckered round the mouth, and were going: ‘Oh, no, no, no! We couldn’t possibly write a novel aimed at a market, we have to write what is in us.’ And: ‘We don’t write for the money, only for art’s sake.’
Written From the Heart Page 5
