ASPIRING WRITERS!
PERSISTENCE PAYS!
All great writers did not achieve success and fame instantaneously. They suffered neglect and poverty but they did not give up. Some of them died without recognition during their life-time. Most of them suffered at the hands of the publishers and were cold-shouldered by the affluent whose patronage they sought. Almost all well-known writers experienced difficulties and agony to get their manuscripts accepted and printed. But they persisted and achieved popularity in the end.
Homer, the greatest Greek poet, who wrote immortal epics like ‘Iliad’ and Odyssey was a classic example. The following couplet about him shows his misfortune:
‘Seven Wealthy
cities contended for Homer dead,
through which while living he begged his bread!’
Kinglake wrote a literary master-piece of his time Eothen which was persistently rejected by the London publishers. He was frustrated and in sheer desperation gave it as a gift to the only publisher who came forward. It became a best seller!
George Bernard Shaw’s first novel aptly titled Immaturity was summarily rejected by the publishers. Another book met with the same fate. When he became famous after initial failure, publishers were after him. They vied with one another to publish his books including the ones, which were previously rejected! He proudly declared: “When I started writing, Shakespeare was a divinity and a bore. Now he is my fellow writer!”
Publishers are generally hard-headed businessmen and they do not know the intrinsic value of a book. They go after writers of established fame. We all know that Thomas Carlyle’s French Revolution was an epoch-making book. He had to knock at the doors of several indifferent publishers till at long last he could hook one! The remuneration he received was meagre.
Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wake Field initially met with miserable fate. Goldsmith sat with his hand under his chin as his rent was in arrears and the landlady asked him to quit. His friend Samuel Johnson barged into the room and enquired about the problem. Having come to know that he needed money urgently (of course he himself was not in a position to lend him any!) he ransacked the place and found the manuscript of ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ in the waste-paper basket in a corner. He took it to a publisher who paid a paltry sum for it. Even that money was paid not because the publisher knew its value but because he held burly-looking Johnson in awe! With that amount Goldsmith cleared the arrears for the time being and celebrated the event with a bottle of Madiera!
Johnson himself faced frequent crises. His dignified letter to Lord Chesterfield, whose patronage he initially sought for his Dictionary and after unsuccessful attempts eventually spurned, became a classic in English literature. This greatest writer of his time, the Dictator of Letters, lived in poverty. He covered himself with a blanket with holes through which he thrust his hands to read! When an anonymous friend put a new pair of shoes in his room because his own shoes were worn out and developed holes, he threw them out! Such was his sense of self-respect!
Edgar Wallace, the fiction writer whose thrillers brought him into lime-light, had his own difficulties in the early stages. One of his detective novels was rejected by the publishers. In disgust, he somehow managed to publish it with his own money. The book became a great success and it brought him profit. The publishers came forward to finance its further editions!
Robert Ludlum had to wait for some time to achieve recognition. He produced several novels including ‘The Materese Circle’ which became recently the number one Best Seller world-wide, although he was only a B.A. from the Wesleyan University. Persistent efforts brought him literary renown.
Arnold Bennet, wrote several books including The Old Wives Tales which was his magnum opus. The publisher was reluctant to publish it. Bennet did not throw up his sponge. His patience and perseverance paid rich dividends.
John Galsworthy, the prolific writer, had to overcome insurmountable barriers when the publishers cold-shouldered him. For sixteen years he remained in obscurity. No publisher was prepared to take the risk of publishing his works. Finally there was a wind-fall when one of them came forward.
How many poets and writers can say like Byron: “I awoke one fine morning and found myself famous!” His Don Juan made him the favourite poet of the drawing room elite. Macaulay, however, had no problem because he was a high-placed official, Member of Parliament and Secretary of Education. He wrote his ‘History of England’ with the proud claim that it would replace the latest fashionable novels on the ladies’ tables!
I like Jane Austen’s novels including Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility for her characterisation and realistic portrayal of social life. But her most popular novel Pride and Prejudice was not printed for sixteen long years! This happened on account of the publisher’s recalcitrance, pride, and prejudice. She remained patient.
In Search of Excellence a successful publication of Harper and Row was earlier rejected by a large number of publishers. Its authors Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman were first-rate researchers who did an excellent job in deriving the secret of success of America’s best-known companies. Even Harper required a lot of persuasion to print it!
The Bronte sisters had hell of time to get their popular novels accepted by the publishers. They waited for a long time. Charlotte Bronte’s popular novel The Professor was published by Smith Elder & Company after it was rejected by several publishers. The same fate overtook Wuthering Heights written by her sister Emile Bronte! It ran into difficulties when six publishers rejected it.
Many great writers rose from humble positions to attain fame as authors, T. S. Eliot, Alexander Dumas, Charles Lamb and A. E. Coppard were clerks. Shakespeare was an actor. Bernard Shaw was an Estate agent’s assistant. Charles Dickens was a factory hand. John Bunyon was a tinker, Oliver Goldsmith, W. H. Auden, D. H. Lawrence were of the teaching profession. John Masefield and Joseph Conrad were in business. Edgar Rice Burrough (the creator of Tarjan) was a worker in a shop. Thomas Hardy was trained as an architect. William Makepiece Thackerey (whose name Bal Thackerey, the Shiv Sena Supremo bears) was an artist.
When such hardships and disappointments were faced by many great writers and when such possibilities were open to persons who were unconnected with writing, young writers need not despair when their juvenile productions are rejected by the publishers. They should buck up and persist. Writers are not born. They are made. The art of writing can be sedulously cultivated provided they have persistence, and passion.