Grist for the Mill by Chris Womersley / Features / Untitled Books

Chris Womersley credit Melissa Hobbs melissahobbs.com.jpeg

"Was it really better - as the motivational types would have it - to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all? Is there not comfort in some sorts of failure?"

Grist for the Mill by Chris Womersley

Chris Womersley's fiction and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Granta New Writing and The Age. His debut novel, The Low Road, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Book in 2008. When he was invited to be a Writer in Residence at The Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2011 he thought it was a hoax.

One of the reasons I always liked the idea of being a writer was that it meant I would never have reason to speak in public. Even at high school I dreaded the moments I would have to read something in front of the class or (perish the thought) give a presentation. I avoided any situation where I might be called upon to speak in front of more than two other people. If a theatre show betrayed any suggestion of having audience participation (two words that - like 'colonic' and 'irrigation' or 'street' and 'theatre' - should never be used in conjunction) then I would stay home, thanks very much. I might have managed to squeak out a 'thanks for coming' at my own wedding, but on that occasion I might have been drunk.

Studying creative writing in my mid-thirties, I came to dread the class when it would be my turn to read out my work. The night before would be sleepless and I would even, on occasion, resort to feeble excuses ('Oh, I forgot it was today'; 'Sorry but I've been ill and haven't been able to work') in order to be passed over for the next poor sap in line. It couldn't be put off forever, however, and I would sweat and stutter, mumble and sigh through the reading. The reasons for my terror of reading aloud from my own work are complicated, rooted in ambition and a horrible stew of inflated ego and self-doubt that probably could be summed up thus: What if I were not as good as I thought I was? What if, I wondered, my stories are really no better than the woman who writes interminable pseudo-autobiographical stories about coming to terms with being a lesbian?

Was it really better - as the motivational types would have it - to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all? Is there not comfort in some sorts of failure?

Writers are anxious re-arrangers of things, according to Joan Didion, and she is probably right; after all, she also said that writers are always selling somebody out. Writing is a private act, secretive. Moving words around on a page day after day, sorting memories, distributing clues, deciding what to reveal and what to keep hidden. Text and subtext, truth and lies. For the writer, fiction is often part exposure, part feint.

Without wishing to get overly mystical about things, the act of writing fiction involves a strange and rather delicate splitting of the self. The fellow who does the dishes, forgets people's names, ferociously bites his nails and eats porridge for breakfast - the everyday me, in other words - and the one who performs the slightly dreamy act of writing are, subtly, different. The everyday me doesn't actually narrate my works of fiction. Instead it is the writerly version of myself - the one with access to the (hopefully) best possible word, who can spend months revisiting sentences to ensure they are just right, who can see the structure of the story being told, who understands his characters; the one who rearranges.

Before I was a published novelist, I foolishly allowed myself to fantasise about what it might be like to have a book out there in the world with my name on it. There would be fame, of course; humble but inspiring speeches upon reception of awards; fans; adulation. Money!

My imagination got the best of me, naturally, because letting my imagination get the best of me is a hazard of the job. Sadly, few of these things has come to pass for me. Instead, there have been a number of what we might call unintended consequences of being a published author, the most notable of which for me is the curious ritual of the public event.

The trouble with the public event for an author is that the audience expects the writerly, more knowledgeable version of the writer to attend and is often non-plussed by the everyday stuttering chap who shows up to talk about the book their other, writerly self has somehow managed to write. More than once I have been asked a specific question about an aspect of my work, only to struggle to recall if I had, in fact, written what has just been claimed.

But this is not unusual. Most published authors have stories of public humiliation: there's the excruciating fifteen minutes sitting at the book-signing table next to crime writer Val McDermid, with her queue of eager buyers stretching out of sight through the front entrance of Queensland State Library, while your own 'queue' consists of your knock-kneed publicist chatting up the sleazy sales bloke from the chain bookstore; the event at the local library cancelled for complete lack of interest, free wine and crackers notwithstanding; the ageing fellow enthusing about a novel he believes is yours but was, in fact, written by your arch rival, the guy you think is actually, you know, terrible.

None of which ever happened to me, of course. Like I say, sometimes my imagination gets the better of me.

And then there's the writers' festival, the glorious umbrella under which many of the aforementioned rituals take place. I've been on a number of different panels during several festivals in the past few years: I've mulled over the dark in literature in a hot tent in Byron Bay with MJ Hyland; the gothic with Louise Welsh in a Melbourne bar; the ins and outs of writing criminal characters with Michael Robotham on Sydney Harbour. I was beginning to think I had a handle on the whole Being on Stage thing.

But then there was Cheltenham.

The invitation to attend the 2011 Cheltenham Literary Festival as a guest came late one night. A final email check, and there it was. I thought it was a cruel hoax. That someone would fly me across the country to shoot the breeze about books has always seemed rather improbable to me. Would someone really be willing to fly me to the other side of the world? Apparently, yes.

The program, when it arrived was extensive and, well, strange. In addition to writers, there were a number of comedians, actors and chefs who, while no doubt very talented in their particular field, seemed to have little to offer the realm of literature. Never mind, I thought. At least I might learn a thing or two about cooking the perfect duck or hosting my own talk show. Sandwiched in-between were a number of writers of actual books, among them Will Self, Edna O'Brien, China Mieville and AL Kennedy.

This year the Cheltenham Lecture was given by Marina Warner, Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex, writer of numerous books and articles and winner of many prizes. Her book Phantasmagoria - about changing characterisations of spirits and souls since the Enlightenment - was a great source of inspiration for me when I was writing my novel Bereft, a novel which is, in part at least, about death and haunting.

Her latest book Stranger Magic is an examination of the Tales of the Arabian Nights. She spoke eloquently of the spread of the tales and the way their fixation on commerce and riches as rewards mirrored the tenor of the age and the concomitant spread of capitalism. Embedded within the narrative is a subversive counter-narrative which offers an alternative to the apparent misogyny of the umbrella story (women as treacherous, untrustworthy - deserving only of death). Increasing in frequency through the stories are tales in which women are given more dynamic roles and Scheherezade herself is, of course, a heroic figure.

The pleasure of any writers' festival lies in the variety of authors and subjects on offer. And so to David Vann, author of Legend of A Suicide and, more recently, Caribou Island. He said he found it almost impossible to get his novel Legend of a Suicide published because of the grim nature of its subject. It was eventually published in 2008 because it won a prize, one of the conditions of which was publication. Most of the reviews in the US, he said, praised the quality of the writing but advised the public to steer clear of it because of its subject matter. The New York Times, however, supported Vann and the novel has gone on to win a number of prizes and be translated into several languages. 'I sell more of Legend of a Suicide in Catalan than I do in English in the US,' he said, laughing. 'The French love it, too.'

One of the highlights for me was a chance to hear AL Kennedy, China Mieville and Sebastian Peake discuss the bizarre and compelling Gormenghast Trilogy, written by Sebastian's father Mervyn in the late 1940s. Although I only read it for the first time a few years ago, the tale of Steerpike, Countess Gertrude, The Earl of Groan and other castle-bound freaks has come to occupy a special place in my imagination.

My own participation was listed as a Writer in Residence, an alluringly vague term that indicated all that was required of me was to stare out the window of my hotel and type a few paragraphs here and there for a festival blog. I could do that. In addition, I would front up to a session with my fellow Writers in Residence to discuss the experience. I could do that, too.

The hotel was lovely, the buffet breakfast delicious, the week surreal. I was taken aback at the number of orange-coloured folk on reality TV shows. For my first blog post, the organisers wanted to know what it was I - as an insider, as it were - was most looking forward to. I wrote that the best thing about literary festivals was the opportunity to get very drunk with famous authors and perhaps even mine them for high-class tattle.

This particular post wasn't published.

My session, when it rolled around, was late on a Thursday night. My fellow Writers in Residence and co-panellists - Gail Jones, Witi Ihimaera and Kalinda Ashton - were only just outnumbered by the paying public. Our session was hastily relocated to a smaller room, an anteroom really - a cupboard? - off to the side of one of the writers' room. Noting Witi's presence, a large gentleman expressed (apparently genuine) surprise that Maoris might be able to do anything other than play rugby, a remark Witi greeted with far more civility than it deserved. Ah, I thought, here comes the latest round in a long line of strange experiences as a published author. At least it might give me something to write about one day...

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Bereft by Chris Womersley is published by Quercus.

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Thursday, 12 January, 2012

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Issue 41 / February 2012

"Was it really better - as the motivational types would have it - to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all? Is there not comfort in some sorts of failure?"