I completed writing my third novel Silencing Anna two months ago. Finishing a manuscript always feels great but it’s followed by a post writing phase that I call withdrawal stage. After months of immersion in a world of your creation where you control everything, coming up for air to face the real world is sobering.
I don’t know about other writers but once I complete a book, I miss hanging out with my characters every day, talking to them, sharing their pain, struggles and joy. When I’m writing a novel, I live in my head so long that I sometimes forget about the real world. I walk on the streets lost in that world, weaving conversations between characters in my head, sometimes aloud, totally unaware until people look at me strangely, probably wondering if I’m a loony talking to herself before moving on. In Nairobi, anything short of stripping naked will only attract a casual glance, thank goodness.
That’s one of the advantages of living alone. I can conduct entire conversations out loud complete with hand gestures, pacing from one room to another and there’s nobody around to raise an eyebrow or wonder why I’m still in my PJs at four o’clock in the afternoon. I find walking very useful for jumpstarting my creativity. Solutions to difficult scenarios often come to me when I’m walking, on the street or in the house.
Creating has always been my favourite part of the writing process because it’s just you and the page. You can block out the world and just focus on getting the words out. Once the book is finished, comes the part riddled with anxiety – how will this book be received? There’s no way to know the answer to that and waiting for an agent or publisher to give you feedback on your manuscript is the hardest part. Even when you think you’ve written something fabulous, there’s still that nagging thought – what if nobody likes it? Scratch that, I meant to say – what if people read and remain indifferent to it?
In the world of writers, the opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. When people read your work and are left completely unmoved, that’s a writer’s worst nightmare. Contrary to common perception, people hating your work is actually a good thing. Hate means the book resonated with them in some way and that’s why they reacted so strongly to it.
Even when they send you hate mail or troll you on social media, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. At least people are talking about your work as opposed to reading and not even bothering to react or share it. Some writers say that if your work does not provoke strong negative reactions, you’re doing it wrong. I see their point although who doesn’t want to create something that people love?
So anyway, here I am twiddling my thumbs and hoping for good news. I am determined to go the distance with this book. I lost steam midstream with the last one, Duel in the Savanna, and ended up giving it for free to readers on my blog. I can only say that my love affair with publishing had reached its lowest point two years ago, hence the decision not to publish. You can read about that here. Click here to download the Pdf or read the chapters online.
People have suggested I ditch the whole traditional publishing thing and self-publish but that has its own challenges, especially marketing and to some extent distribution, although Amazon has addressed this last part. In Africa though, digital publishing and online sales is still a very small percentage of book sales so we still have a long way to go.
The most interesting part after getting published is realising how differently people react to your work, even among those who love your book. The book can be read by 100 people and they will have 100 different reactions, some that you could never in your wildest imaginings have thought of. Once it goes out into the world, your novel acquires a life of its own. People make assumptions about you based on your work, arbitrarily assume that a character in the novel is you and decide they know you based on that. That always makes me smile. I’ve written three novels and all have a woman as the main character. I can’t be all these women. If I was, I’d have multiple personality disorder.
I first realised how varied readers’ reactions can be when Dr Iribe Mwangi featured my first novel The Unbroken Spirit on his book club show on Kameme FM, a Kikuyu language station, a few years back. He narrated a chapter or two each week and invited listeners to comment on the book. It was amazing hearing people call in and speak about which parts resonated with them and how they interpreted the book, talking about how a particular section reminded them of something that happened in their own lives.
I still remember the day I got a call from a university student who wanted to meet and discuss the novel. I thought it was a prank until he showed up with a colleague and they asked if they could record the conversation since getting the author’s voice on tape was part of the course requirements. I almost fell off my seat to be honest. That whole conversation was surreal. I don’t write literary novels like Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Margaret Ogola and Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye (both deceased), all literary giants in Kenya.
I finally asked them why they were studying popular fiction. They told me they study all kinds of books and even mentioned David Maillu, whose works are racy to say the least. Clearly, literature departments at our universities are more liberal than I imagined. Kudos to them, exposing students to all forms of literature.
Although it’s flattering to have your novel studied in universities, what makes me jump up and down is hearing an ordinary person, especially someone who doesn’t read much, say they enjoyed my book. I write stories for the ordinary man and woman on the street because I grew up reading books and loved the amazing adventures that books exposed me to, without having to leave the house. I want other people to have the same experience.
For me, the best reaction from a reader of my book is, “I couldn’t put it down.” That’s when I know I’ve done my job. I look forward to sharing Silencing Anna with you. In the meantime, poke around my blog and check out my other stuff. Happy reading!
And please drop me a line, always glad to hear from you.