Finishing a novel is always linked with shame—or rather, the lack of it. There's a moment when I realize I'm no longer ashamed of the jumble of words I've produced, that the embarrassment of having written a mishmash of ideas subsides and I'm no longer terrified of The Public reading it. This is when I begin to think of my manuscript as a novel. I never know when this is going to happen; during the writing of the manuscript, it sometimes feels as if that moment of clarity is never going to arrive, that the novel will never arise from the manuscript's fuzziness of thought and expression. I have friends who read the manuscript in its final stages, and this helps lessen the acute awkwardness of having to go public with my work: the comments give my work a kind of validity, a right to exist. Tash Aw in Daniel Alarcon's The Secret Miracle
1 comment:
Interesting thoughts I really enjoyed your blog.
Post a Comment