Don’t rush that novel!

Our society has become very impatient with just about everything. We can now do research and collect vast amounts of information with the click of a mouse via the internet. We carry around various gadgets and devices so we can do our work when away from both the home and office. We even speed through rush hour traffic to get to work faster (I never really understood this one).

But if there is one thing we (I’m mostly talking about Americans here) don’t rush, is the novel. I recently came across this post from the Guardian Unlimited that takes a lot of jabs at us, gives us credit for one thing:

When it comes to the novel, however, Americans are still willing to take it slow, or at least reward the writers who do. Indeed, in recent years a highly visible group of "Great American Novels" have emerged from 10, 12, and even over 20-year gestation periods.

This basically means that novelists who take their time writing that novel will usually see the fruits of their labor rewarded by their books being more popular for a longer time. Think of it like this: Mozart was a very popular and prolific composer – writing some 600+ pieces of music during his short lifetime. You can probably imagine there will won’t be a huge difference between Symphony #40 and Symphony #41. Now, take Beethoven, who only composed 9 symphonies during his life. Each one is vastly different from the other and really stands on its own.

I hope my comparison makes sense. Maybe the public gets tired of authors who churn out a novel or two every year. Maybe those who take two decades to write a single novel have something really special to share with the public. I don’t know. But, as the article says, Americans are very patient when it comes to novelists and their works.

The mainstream loves it, though. How easy it is to get tired of writers who publish every year – to take them for granted. When a writer disappears, only to return seven, ten years, the whiff of something heroic is afoot.

Personally, I think the allure of the reclusive novelist is still a widely romantic idea to the reading public. We are drawn to people who are different than ourselves and maybe even a little mysterious.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that authors that do publish a new novel every year are hacks. Quite the contrary, many of them are extremely talented and I imagine will be read for decades to come. But those who publish a little less, and take their time with the writing process, might be remembered a little more.

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