More Than Words
Canongate stalwarts Dan Rhodes and Louise Welsh talk new novels, flat pack furniture and knob gags.
DAN RHODES: So here we are, still in the game after all these years. I once heard Julian Cope say that writing books is like assembling IKEA wardrobes – the first one takes ages and almost kills you, but by the second you’ve got the hang of it and can nail it in half the time. This does seem to be true of IKEA wardrobes but, no disrespect to the Archdrude, I haven’t found it that way with books. If anything it seems to get harder – Little Hands Clapping took ages and kept going horribly wrong. How are you finding it, four books in?
LOUISE WELSH: Isn’t it interesting how authors repeatedly compare novels to something more solid, though an IKEA wardrobe wouldn’t be my first choice. In some ways the process is easier fourth time round. I was still struggling a lot with the basics of grammar and style with The Cutting Room – I didn’t know what a sentence was. I’m a better writer now in terms of technique, but I think that holds its own pitfalls. Authors can develop slick tricks which move the book along, but are ultimately unsatisfying to read. Some of the shine can also rub off; if we’re not careful the process can become more routine and so less exciting, which I think shows in the writing. For me the solution lies in trying to do something a bit different from the previous book and living in a miserable state of anxiety: Will it work? Is it even a book? How was it for you?
DR: I agree about the anxiety – I always think that if a book isn’t making the author miserable then they’re not working hard enough. There are far too many churned-out books clogging up the shelves (that said, I do often fantasise about rattling off a million-seller in a fortnight…) Amid all the wailing and gnashing, though, I was very glad to find I could still keep myself amused. Just because I’m old and grey, it doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with knob gags, of which there are a fair few in Little Hands Clapping. Any knob gags in your new one?
LW: Of course! In fact I sometimes think my entire oeuvre is one not-so-big-knob-gag. One of the tragedies of my writing process is that I don’t really make myself laugh when I’m writing (apart from unintended double entendres). Writing sex scenes isn’t a turn-on either, which also seems a bit of a shame – especially as composing creepy scenes does creep me out. Writing is a rather stupid occupation, no job for a grown-up. I think we do it because not doing it feels worse. And it’s a pretty absorbing way of passing the time until the inevitable happens – writers’ rates of mortality are remarkable when you consider we’re not handling heavy machinery – though I’ve heard assembling flat-pack furniture can be dangerous. Steer clear of those wardrobes.
Louise Welsh’s new novel is Naming the Bones.
Dan Rhodes’s new novel is Little Hands Clapping.
