Waiting to Blume
Do you feel as if you’ve hit a wall with your writing? Take inspiration from Gillian Harvey, who can prove wonderful things happen to authors at all stages of their careers
When my first novel was published in 2020 and wasn’t the roaring success I was hoping for, a part of me felt my career was over. ‘Well, that’s it,’ I thought. ‘I’m a failure.’ Since then I’ve realised how, as writers, we can never really say that. Last year I landed a new publisher, and this year I’ve made the top 10 ebook chart. Things have begun to turn around.
But in reality I can’t even class my first book as having not reached readers as I’d hoped. At least not without adding the caveat… yet. Because for writers, as long as our work is out there in whatever form, anything is possible at any time.
Take Judy Blume for instance – the author whose books I gobbled up as a teen. Her novel Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret (a simply unforgettable treat of a book) is being released as a film – 53 years after it was published.
Of course, nobody could accuse Ms Blume of not having already been a success. Her books set the standard for YA novels, were ahead of their time and so memorable that despite it being thirty years since I consumed them, I can still remember them vividly, and can even quote from one or two of them.
But although she probably thought she’d peaked, 2023 has heralded the start of a new chapter for Blume – an introduction to new readers and viewers. And the chance to hit the big screen.
It’s this type of potential longevity that makes me glad that I was born with a bent for writing. Had it been tennis, I’d have pretty much succeeded or failed by age 12. Modelling? Let’s face it, despite the increase in plus-age models in recent years, your chances are still greater of breaking into that career in your teens. Ditto actors. Ditto Olympic athletes, racing drivers. Even career criminals probably need the energy and verve of youth to hit the big time.
We writers don’t have to worry about wrinkles or stiff joints; we don’t have to worry that we’re not the young, beautiful whippersnappers we once were. We can hide, wrinkling, behind our screens and keep churning out the books or poems or short stories just as prolifically as ever, and with just as much chance of ‘breaking out’.
True, writing is not the only occupation without an age ceiling. Recent events have proven you can even lead the free world in your eighth decade (or at least, try to). And in some fields, being a little older may add gravitas.
But how many professionals can make it once they’ve popped their clogs? Because, as writers, even if we’ve shuffled (or been dragged screaming) off this mortal coil, the work we leave behind still has a chance of taking off posthumously.
Sure, you can be president in your 70s. But so far, outside crackpot conspiracy theories, nobody’s run for office from beyond the grave.
And you know what this means, don’t you? Writers can never describe themselves as having failed. Only as being a work in progress – someone who’s waiting to ‘Blume’.
Who knows what glorious, good news might land in our inboxes tomorrow. Is that the phone ringing? Maybe it’s an international publisher with a lucrative offer. When you’re scanning the cinema listings for Friday night, you never know if next year your own film might be on the menu.
I’m the type of person who always moves her goalposts. My original goal was to get published. Then to publish a successful novel. But each time I hit a milestone I hope for more. More readers, more people finding my books, my stories being adapted for the small screen, or even the big. These are dreams I still cling on to and although they feel unobtainable, nobody can say they will never happen. If not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow in fifty years’ time. Just ask Judy.
In fact, even when I’m lying on my deathbed at, say, 110 years old (my family has good genes and I’m aiming for three figures) if someone asks whether I’ve achieved what I wanted in life, rather than smile sagely and say something sappy about family or love, or that it doesn’t really matter in the end, I’ll simply say: ‘No, not yet. But any day now… any day now.’
We writers may have the odds stacked against us.
But time is definitely on our side.