I first saw this quote by Mark Haddon when author D.G Kaye shared Mary Jaksch’s blog containing 50 authors’ tips on becoming a good writer: http://writetodone.com/become-a-good-writer/
“I don’t remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.”
Mark Haddon is an English novelist, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003). He won the Whitbread Award, Guardian Prize, and a Commonwealth Writers Prize for his work.
I had to laugh at this quote, as I’ve not yet ‘come out’ to my family and friends. I’ve been writing for 4 years now, and still none of my relatives and extended family have even an inkling of what I do all day. According to them I’m retired and look after my grandchildren when I’m needed, and also care for my 92 year old mother on a daily basis. Although I’m not gay, my writing is a little secret that I share only with Sam, my husband.
Sam agreed in 2013 that the plot of my debut novel ‘The Porn Detective’ could be loosely based on a few issues we had overcome in our own marriage some years before, but just as long as I wrote under a pseudonym. I thought this was a good idea as I had already written a couple of non-fiction books under my real name, and I wanted my non-fiction and fiction works to be totally separate. After some deliberation I decided on the name of Stevie Turner.
Will I ‘come out’? Hmm…I don’t know. At the moment I’m slowly re-writing The Porn Detective (which was unpublished last year) to make it the best that it can be. I’m taking my time and have learned not to rush things. I will eventually send it back to the London agency who originally deliberated on whether to represent me in 2013. If they still say no, then I may scrap the whole project and ditch Stevie. Who knows? Trouble is… all my novels are known under Stevie’s name, and so it’s all a bit of a palaver. We shall have to wait and see.
Don’t ever scrap your name or your work! Great post as always Stevie, and thanks for the mention. 🙂 ❤
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Thanks Debby. I’m totally re-writing it. I’ve learned a lot over the past 4 years, and am putting what I’ve learned to good use!
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I wish I’d kept stuff I wrote through the years. It’s always interesting to go back to random things we’ve written and find that it can be repurposed. 🙂
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Do n.o.t. scrap a thing. 😀
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Too late…
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O.u.c.h. Oops. I don’t scrap a thing but then I can’t find it later either.
Well, I do sometimes.
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Reblogged this on Haddon Musings.
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Thanks for the re-blog, Bernadette!
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It is interesting and a pity how reluctant we are to claim the title of writer. I say we because I do the same thing.
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Good morning, I found your blog this morning through Susan Toy’s Island Editions blog. Great to be on the same list as you.
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Thanks Kristina. Will check out your blog too!
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Wishing you well with the rewrite and it’s publication.
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Thanks Brigid.
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Your post reminded me that we never really know all the people we meet on the web, they could be mass murderers! All we have to go on, is the way they speak and the work they do, no judging a book by its cover, so to speak!
People use different names and old photographs, even a different sex sometimes.
As if I wasn’t confused enough already…
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I’m definitely not a mass murderer! Quite a few people think I’m a man until they check out the photo on my website (taken in November 2015). Sometimes it’s nice to have a little bit of anonymity.
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I have to be relatively anonymous, as I hate photographs of myself. None of them match the me I know!
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You see, you’ve given the game away, now. I follow your blog but hadn’t previously visited your separate website. I now know what you look like. I wonder if any of your friends/family are also followers of your blog. I can hear them now: “OMG! You know that book? The one by Stevie Turner? Well that’s not her real name. It’s actually that woman who buys her ‘Woman’s Weekly’ here, you know, the one with the dark curly perm. Who’d have thought it!
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Perm? I wish! It grows like that out of my head…
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Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
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Thanks for the re-blog.
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