Cutting

One of the odd things about writing a book is that you have to write numerous scenes which won't finish up in the final book. By the time I've finished writing a book I've probably written scenes which, in total, are three times the length of the final book. Sometimes even when I'm writing a scene I know that I'll cut it all out later. But some how it has to be written. A friend of mine who reads for me, and whose views on writing I respect entirely, has an interesting idea about this process. She says that one should never be frightened of cutting entire scenes, chapters or sections out of a book because, even after something has been cut, the shadow of it remains in the book. That's so true. It's impossible to explain how it can be true - but it definitely is - and understanding that makes the cutting process very much less difficult.

Elizabeth Taylor

I've just finished reading a book by Elizabeth Taylor. You probably haven't heard of her. She wrote during the 1940s and she was never very well known. But her books are wonderful. Small, slight, dreary, English - they are nevertheless extra-ordinary. The people she writes about are always trivial people and their lives are always directionless. In her world it's always evening and it always rains. The houses are always surrounded by dark and dripping laurels. Expectations are disappointed, people fail to rise to the occasion or are forced into making cheap little compromises. The style is so light but some how it pierces the heart. That is because - beyond anything else - the world she creates is acutely and poignantly real. She is writing about all of us, although we may not want to recognise that. The best one I've read so far is called Mrs Palfrey at the Clarement. The one I've just finished is called The Sleeping Beauty. Elizabeth Taylor should be famous but she isn't.

Doris Lessing

I just found this Doris Lessing quote. It made my day. I agree with her so entirely. The quote goes like this: "It does no harm to repeat, as often as you can, 'Without me the literary industry would not exist: the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the accountants, the libel lawyers, the departments of literature, the professors, the theses, the books of criticism, the reviewers, the book pages - all this vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronised, put-down and underpaid person.'" Three cheers for you, Doris.