Looking Back

'Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs.'

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

It strikes me as strange that in the week that my second novel is published I'm musing on the long and decidedly bumpy road to this point, so bumpy in fact that my husband suggested I must have done something awful in a past life to gather so much bad karma. To be fair, there were many pieces of good fortune along the way to lure me on: grants, residencies, the publication of short stories and non fiction pieces. But always the novel eluded me. It took me twelve years to find a publisher for my first novel (actually my second) and in that time and even since then, I have come to know the tone and tenor of every form of rejection, from the blank silence that is never filled so you wait each day for a response, not even knowing if your manuscript has been received, to the glowing personal phone call - 'This is an extraordinary novel, perfect in every sense, but I'm afraid I can't publish it. . .' In between these extremes are a vast array of styles: the blank 'with compliments' slip; the pre-written standard note; and the hand written personalised note, its words scrutinised over and over for any subtext. Aside from the waiting and the silences, the worst for me was the one that began – 'Do not despair. . .'

My first novel, Nowhere Man (still unpublished) found me an agent and a ream of rejections. Most publishers loved it or admired it (or so they said) but no one would publish it on the grounds that it was terribly bleak and would only work as a second novel. I set to work on a new novel and Gathering Storm was finally completed at a time when memoir was at the height of fashion and fiction was at its lowest point in history. Consequently, although it was appropriate for a first novel, all it received were flattering and often elaborate rejection letters. In the end, despite their tone or their word count, rejection letters are still rejections.

Some time before Gathering Storm found a publisher, my eldest daughter gave me a magnet that says in big bold letters, NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP. It still sits on my filing cabinet in my study and over the years has proved to be a most useful piece of advice. Ironically though, despite the fridge magnet admonishing me to 'never give up', it was only when I made the decision to 'give up', that my novel was published. For some time I had felt a growing tension between my need to find more work, my family and my own writing. Perhaps I was simply discovering the truth behind the old adage, 'two's company, three's a crowd'. Something had to give. Rejections are not easy to stomach at the best of times and despite the fact that I felt writing was my path in life, I also felt that I simply couldn't take any more rejections. I felt beaten down by them and bitter that the beauty of the creative process was being overwhelmed by the ugly realities of a market driven world. It was also hard for my husband and children to watch my frustration and frequent despair. All this was compounded by the fact that my agent ran out of publishers to send my novel to and set it aside.

Much to their astonishment, I announced to my family that I was giving up writing. With that decision came a sense of letting go as I took my attention away from rejections and simply accepted where I found myself. Not long after that the little miracles began. First, a creative writing student of mine who was gifted with a strong intuitive ability, unexpectedly announced that my novel (called at that time Lucky Road) had not found a publisher because I needed to change its title. I took little notice of this, but that evening mentioned it to my husband, who immediately suggested, Gathering Storm. I will never forget the feeling of rightness that came over me when I heard that title. The next day a friend mentioned to me that a new publisher had joined Penguin. I emailed my agent to suggest that we try one more time, and within weeks I had an enthusiastic offer of publication and importantly, a passport to keep writing.

Gathering Storm was reasonably successful; it sold well, gained critical acclaim and was published in translation in the Netherlands. On that basis, I simply assumed that publishing the next novel would be straight forward. I was wrong. Flight was too different from my previous novel and didn't fit with the direction in which my publisher wanted me to go. It was rejected and I found myself floundering once again. It's always harder to go through something a second time, particularly when it is unexpected. I battled with myself. Should I write what was expected of me or should I follow my heart? This was a particularly difficult decision at the time, with a building global economic crisis and a publishing industry in flux. In the end I had no choice, my heart won but it meant another bombardment of rejection slips and the onset of a deep-rooted weariness that came close to stopping me from writing again. It was a publisher at HarperCollins who finally rescued me and for that I will be eternally grateful. There is nothing more special than when someone really 'gets' your novel, and she 'got' Flight. She was patient too, waiting as I honed the novel to its final form and trusting that I would do it well. The journey since then has been smooth but I won't make the mistake again of assuming that it will always be this way. The wheel of fortune turns and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

So what have I learned from this? Paradoxically, I have learned not to give up but also to let go. And I have learned that above and beyond outcomes, the importance of writing lies in the process itself, something that is difficult to remember when writing and the need for an income become entwined as mine has for some time. During those years of rejections I edited and assessed other people's manuscripts, mentored a good number of people and taught many creative writing workshops and courses. I still do. It has been a great privilege to teach and to work with aspiring writers. In that time I have been constantly touched by people's faith in me. I have learned a lot about myself and about the creative process, which no doubt has informed my own work and made me a better and more courageous writer. I have learned patience, how to savor the journey of writing and not reach out impatiently for the destination. And hopefully I have helped some writers to find their voices. Looking back over these years I see that though I often felt in limbo, actually there was good reason for fate to unfold in this way. Now, given the opportunity, I wouldn't change anything. Perhaps that's the greatest lesson of all.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Rewriting The Future

'The world is changing and the time has come to let go of the old ways, the ones that ensure the repetitions of history. Peace is a gentle thing that can no longer be fought for. Instead it will enter our hearts and spread from there like the ripples of a pebble dropped into a pond.'

Rosie Dub, Flight

I love the new year. There's a freshness to it, a tantalising sense of opportunity and new beginnings. This is a perfect time to publish one novel and begin another. Today, as I sat down to begin my new novel, Between Worlds, a box full of copies of Flight were delivered. It was a precious moment to finally hold this novel in my hand. Like the new year, it feels like both an ending and a beginning; the book symbolises the end of my long journey of writing, as well as the beginning of its own journey, into the hearts and minds of readers.

As I start work on Between Worlds which, like Flight, is set in the present, I find myself pausing to wonder about where humanity is heading. We've reached 2012 and many people are falling into fear over Mayan predictions of the end of the world. I have no doubt that this is a time of change – we can see it in the Arab uprisings, the global economic downturns, the changes in our climate, the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. . . The old structures are crumbling and the old powers are clinging onto the ruins, trying to ignore the fact that the people are now able to see through their ruses and will no longer accept inequity and abuses of power as a natural part of society. There is plenty of fuel for pessimism and fear but there is also plenty of fuel for optimism and hope. Each moment we have a choice to focus on one or the other, to see our glass as half empty or half full.

I'm turning fifty in a few days, so it is a natural time of reflection for me on the transitions of life and the inevitability of change. I know that I'm privileged to live in a relatively wealthy and stable society, though there's nothing to say that this will remain the case in years to come. I feel optimistic about the future of humanity and hope that I will be able to contribute in a positive way to creating a new way of living. Inevitably though, it is the younger generations who will bring about change and this is how it always is and how it should be, as is illustrated in the current upheavals around the world, the cycles that govern nature, and many of the greatest heroic myths. In The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, Otto Rank identified a common pattern of events in the life of heroes. The hero is usually a child of distinguished or powerful parents, and a prophecy usually accompanies his or her birth, warning that the child will cause the death of the father. Sometimes the father attempts to kill the baby, always to no avail. The baby is then put in a box and set adrift in the water before being saved by animals or people of low birth and brought up by them, unaware of his/her origins. At some point the hero must go on a quest in search of his/her origins and make retribution for the father's unnatural desire to halt change. It is necessary for the child to step into the father's shoes in adulthood, or on a cultural scale, for a new king to step into the shoes of the old king. When this potential is denied by the father then the cycles of life have been denied and stagnation sets in. It is the child's role to force change.

What astounds me is the integrity of today's young people, the extraordinary and mature way they are peacefully, but with determination, planting the seeds of change. From the crumbling ruins of the old structures is arising an amazing movement. No longer are secrets able to be kept hidden, no longer are lies upheld. Greed, inequity and corruption are being exposed. Eventually power will be something that can only be used with integrity, not kept for its own sake. I don't imagine it will be a smooth transition – change rarely is - but it will most certainly be interesting, which reminds me of the old curse – 'may you live in interesting times'.

The events that are happening in our contemporary world and the mythic theme of cyclic change are both deeply rooted in Flight, which begins with a prophecy concerning the protagonist, Fern: 'That one will be the death of her father. . . mark my words, the death of him'. This sets in motion a series of events which, as in myth, will inevitably lead Fern to her fate and hopefully to greater self-knowledge. Now, as I work on the sequel to Flight, I'm asking myself what the catalyst is that will force change by creating conflict and dramatic movement. But more importantly I need to know why there is a need for a catalyst. And of course the answer is that stagnation has set in. Fern has become too comfortable, she has failed to understand that transformation is a perpetual and vital process, not a product. As soon as the idea of self becomes crystalised, it must be transformed in some way, and if this transformation does not occur voluntarily, then it must be forced.

As with story, life is about change. So often we forget the cycles of nature, the waxing and waning of the moon, the course of the seasons, and the circular nature of our lives. Instead we cling to what we know, resisting the natural transitions in life, from child to teenager, to adult, to elder. Or more simply, we resist stepping from the known to the unknown. The wheel of fortune turns and we expend our energy on finding ways to stop it. Story is a reminder that change is natural, it helps us to link our lives back to nature and to understand that change is an intricate part of living. It also helps us to remember that life is a journey, which suggests movement, not stasis. By accepting the path of change, we develop. Like the seasons, stories remind us that life is cyclic, that change is inevitable. Whether or not we accept it, embedded in story lies the invitation to adventure, to journey, to evolve as humans - it's up to us.