1967 - 2017

     How best to celebrate a 50th anniversary - apart from over eating and drinking? Well, one way is to try to pass on whatever 'wisdom' you think you've acquired. It might be ignored, even resented, but there's just a chance that it might help someone. That's why, after five decades and 70+ published books I thought I'd share my observations about writing for a living. I can honestly say that there's not much I don't know about the frustrations, disappointments, mistakes, as well as the euphoric successes that are the lot of all professional authors. And I know, because they often ask me, that there are many wannabe bestsellers out there, eager for any advice that might help them to get published and stay published. So over the next few weeks I will be presenting an A-Z of Successful Authorship. But first a word of warning. This is not a 'how-to manual'. I have nothing but contempt for unscrupulous writers of 'how to succeed' books, who prey on the hopes and dreams of would-be J.K. Rowlings, John Le Carres or Wilbur Smiths by offering sure-fire formulas. There are no quick-fix solutions. There is no one-size-fits all procedure. Every writer is on his/her own and must blaze his/her individual trail. What follows is just some of the things I've picked up while hacking my way through the undergrowth of the book bizz. So here goes.

A is for Ambition

     Why does anyone want to be a full-time author? Why would he/she choose to spend every working day in solitary confinement putting words on a page? No-one should embark on a writing career who has not faced up to the question, 'What's in it for me?' Am I attention seeking; so insecure that I need proof that what I think, feel, believe matters to others? Do I see writing as a way to megabucks or celebrity? Would a writing career validate my reclusive nature, freeing me from the need to deal with bosses, colleagues and customers day after day? If the honest answer to any of these questions - or just about any other question we might think of - is 'yes', then the best advice is 'don't do it'. There's only one answer that really matters to the question, 'Why should I become a writer?' That answer is, 'Because I already am one.' I don't believe any sane person ever woke up one morning and thought, 'Do you know what - I think I'll become a concert violinist, or a trail-blazing artist or a brilliant inventor or a captain of industry.' So why should we imagine that it's possible to decide, out of the blue, to become a crime writer or an author of children's books or sci-fi novelist? Writing is not something I do; it's something I am. I can't remember the time when I did not work out my thoughts and feelings on paper or on a keypad. I need to 'enflesh' the abstract processes of my mind; to find the most precise or expressive words; to arrange impressions in a sequence that gives them meaning and power. This is how I communicate with myself and how I learn to communicate better with other people. I write something every day and I would obey that compulsion even if not a single word of mine had ever been published.

     We are probably all familiar with the quip 'Everyone has a book in them and in most cases that's where it should stay'. Well it's true. Most educated people are reasonably competent in using their native language for all necessary communication with others, but letters, memos and - heaven help us - tweets have nothing to do with the writing of effective fiction and non-fiction. There are many reasons why some books should not be written. Here are just a couple: (1) Poor books clog up the publishing machine and dissipate the time and energy that should be spent on helping talented authors, (2) Poor books debase the writing business. One thing that makes me want to throw something at the telly is when a retiring politician or sportsperson or an actor between films, when being interviewed, is asked, 'What are you doing now?' and replies, 'I'm writing a novel'. The likelihood of the celeb producing something of literary worth is remote but he/she will get published - and be paid a handsome advance - because a publisher wants to cash in on his/her fame (or notoriety). 

     In all of this I am not referring to the one-off book that certainly should be written because it contains information of interest to a large audience - the political memoir, the expose of crime or corruption, the biography of some too-long-overlooked person, etc. Nor am I discounting the well-researched tomes which fuel the academic process. My only concern is with offering such insights as I have gained to those who aspire to membership of that profession which is one of the important pillars of our civilization - or, indeed, of any civilization at any time.

     The next blogpost will be B is for Booksellers, a moving tale of the good, the bad and the ugly.

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THE FIRST FEMINIST?

    

       This little picture which hangs in my study is a wedding portrait of the devoted wife of one of the more extraordinary humanist scholars of the Renaissance. Her maiden name was Jeanne Louise Tissie and in 1524 she married Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), polymath, doctor, lawyer, theologian and compulsive controversialist. He was as devoted to his young bride (17 years his junior) as she was to him. After her untimely death he wrote 'There was never anger between us on which the sun set'. This married relationship must have had influence on the treatise he published around the time of Jeanne's demise - Declamation on the Nobility and Pre-eminence of the Female Sex - a runaway bestseller rapidly translated into most European languages.

     This contemporary of Erasmus, Luther and Rabelais deserves to be as well known as such luminaries. The fact that he is not is because, in an age when old ideas and beliefs were being challenged by unconventional and controversial scholars, Agrippa was that little bit more unconventional and controversial - too much the maverick to be embraced even by intellectual rebels. At various stages of his life he was accused of Lutheran heresy, of pro-Jewish sympathies, of defending a woman accused of witchcraft and dabbling in black magic - and there was some truth in all these accusations. Like several other truth seekers of the age, Agrippa travelled extensively, studying at various universities, seeking patronage at royal and noble courts, lecturing, earning his living as a physician. He grew up at Nettesheim and graduated from the nearby University of Cologne. He served in the army of the Emperor Maximilian I. He visited England where he impressed John Colet and was later invited to return to add his intellectual weight to Henry VIII's case for having his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled (an honour he declined). In 1529, having spent some years as physician to the mother of Francis I, Louise of Savoy, whom he managed to offend with his straight-talking, he moved to Antwerp where the Habsburg Regent, Margaret of Austria, one of Europe's most cultured rulers appointed him as official archivist and historiographer. It was at this time that his beloved Jeanne, who had borne him five children in five years, died of plague. He now published his encomium on women and dedicated it to Margaret.

     Into this extraordinary little treatise he crammed no less than 238 biblical references and numerous allusions to classical and more recent history to demonstrate the superiority of women in every department of life. He contradicted just about every contemporary assumption on the status, social standing and religious evaluation of women.

               Contemporary Thinking                                                 Agrippa’s response

1.Adam was created first and was, therefore, superior. 2.Eve was created to be Adam’s helper. 3.Sin entered the world because Eve succumbed to temptation. 4.God incarnate was a man. 5.St Paul told women to be subservient to their husbands.

1.Eve was created last and was, therefore, the summit of God’s creation. 2.In both Old and New Testaments woman is called the ‘glory’ of her husband. 3.Adam, not Eve, was forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree of life. So the sin was his. 4.God took male form to expiate man’s sin. 5.But it was women Christ first revealed himself to after the Resurrection.

Agrippa has an answer to every objection urged from holy writ and he then goes on to cite the lives and accomplishments of scores of women in antiquity who excelled in philosophy, art, science and politics. Some of Agrippa's arguments from the Bible and history might strike us as suspect. He is on surer ground when he describes the plight of contemporary women. They are, he states:

     "... obstructed by unjust laws, suppressed by custom and usage, reduced to nothing by education. For as soon as she is born a woman is confined in idleness at home from her earliest years, and, as if incapable of function more important she has no other prospect than needle and thread. Further, when she has reached the age of puberty, she is delivered over to the jealous power of a husband, or else is enclosed forever in a workhouse for religious. She is forbidden by law to hold public office. Even the most shrewd among them are not permitted to bring a suit in court."

     This denunciation of gender inequality has a decidedly modern ring. However, it was a huge step from women's lib to women's superiority but this Agrippa did not shrink from asserting. According to his argument, it was self-evident that the female of the human species is more beautiful, more virtuous and more constant than her male counterpart. If all this is so obvious, he concludes, why is it not openly acknowledged? The answer, in a word, is 'tyranny'.

     "Our modern legislators are of such bad faith that they have made null and void the commandment of God. They have decreed according to their own traditions that women, no matter how otherwise naturally eminent and of remarkable nobility, are inferior in status to all men. And so these laws compel women to submit to men as conquered before conquerors ... under the pressure of custom, education, chance, or some occasion favourable to tyranny."

      

     No other brave new thinker of this brave new world went as far as Agrippa in championing women's rights but the changes in education, the impact of printing and, particularly, widespread study of the Bible (to which literate women now had as much access as their menfolk) did open up the debate. That debate continued in scholarly circles for more than a generation. Meanwhile, more than ever before women emerged in the public arena as writers, teachers and preachers.

     And Agrippa? He was not taken seriously to task for the views aired in the Declamation but he soon had other things to worry about. His opinions on the occult got him into theological hot water, obliging him to renounce opinions he had expressed on magic. But as to his opinions on women, he retracted not a word. 

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The Summer of Discontent

     The king was dead. After 37 years of monumental forced change Henry VIII's vice-like grip was no longer on the tiller. Power lay in a council of peers. A council divided between men wanting to turn the clock back and others convinced that Henry's Reformation had not gone far enough. While England's leaders jostled for power the nation was in turmoil. Scythe-brandishing mobs ranged the countryside, demanding redress of grievances, ready to take the law into their own hands.
     Everything came to a head in the middle of 1549 - the Summer of Discontent. Exeter was under siege. Norwich, England's second city, was captured by rebels led by local landowner, Robert Kett. London's citizens braced themselves to face a march on the capital.
          
     In that same summer, life - and death - went on as usual in the Tower of London. Two of the prisoners held there were of particular concern to the nation's leaders. William West was accused of trying to murder his uncle, Lord de la Warre, one of the pillars of society. Robert Allen was no less a threat to the peace of the realm. He had been caught practising black magic and prophesying the death of the king.
     So much for the facts. How are they - or how might they have been - related?  
                                                                     

   That is the subject of The Devil's Chalice, a novel that 'perfectly balances fact and fiction...to enhance the tense, rebellious atmosphere of 16th century London' (History of Royals).