Will Self at The Bloomsbury Institute 4th October 2012

Muttering ‘What’s all this bollocks?’ Will Self climbed up onto his elevated chair next to his editor and scanned the room like a velociraptor looking for flesh.

‘AND I SHALL BE QUEEN!!’ he shrieked more than once.

A theatrical start but what followed was an interesting exploration of a complex man, who is shot through with contradictions. I had spoken to him earlier, at the wine reception in the conservatory. He signed my book and he was calm, earnest. He can’t help that melancholic face but later, when he was excited, there was something highly daunting about his intellectual dismissal of anyone he considered inferior.

‘Someone earlier said my book was warm. I have never been so fucking insulted!’

He would repeat this during the evening – almost spitting out the word ‘empathy.’

On reading other people’s fiction
It was clear that he loves to talk facts, technique. Although denying that he is interested in anyone elses’s fiction, he spoke well of Kafka and Joyce. He had read them in the last few years. He also acknowledged reading Oliver Sachs’ Awakenings. Sachs had impressed him and you get a sense from Self that rarely does anyone impress him. He said he reads to look at the mechanics of things – or as Auden used to write in other people’s margins – if anything was GETS (good enough to steal).

On writing
I asked him (in the before as a ‘shy sharer’ – his phrase) if writing was a curse. He agreed that it was a compulsion. When talking to a very young writer who asked him ‘What advice would you give your 20 year old self?’ He replied ‘Get a job. You’ve got ten years to fanny around.’ He admitted that he was sitting in squats taking drugs – but a writer should be travelling, learning.

On the continuous present tense used in Umbrella

He feels that he cannot go back to ‘The Count took tea at 5 O’clock’ realist style of fiction. ‘There is no way back for me now. Finegan’s Wake is next.’ He admitted that he is excited about Umbrella as a trilogy and he had a productive summer blocking out the other two books. Despite the fact that he hated writing Umbrella, he seemed lighter and excited when he mentioned the next two. Self adopted the continuous tense for the emotional intimacy and although he may hate to hear it – it did indeed make the book a warmer one that the novels that have gone before.

Real people in Umbrella
Albert Death is based on his grandfather – a 6ft 7in man who was a mathematical savant and incredible autodidact. Self scanned the room with dinosaur intensity again. ‘We’re all pygmies compared to him.’ Audrey Death? Entirely fictional. ‘I like old women (a ‘hoorah’ sounded from the back of the room) and young women…I wanted to create a woman to love.’ It was probably the most enigmatic thing he said all night.

Sarcasm
‘Winning the Man Booker? I should have fucking won it years ago.’

(on white Australians) ‘There they are crouching on the verge of this incredible civilization..with the amazing tradition of storytelling…putting meat on BBQs. They are ridiculous!’

‘Oliver Sachs must have felt very demeaned by being played by Robin Williams.’

(on charm) ‘What is the use of charm. It’s the answer before you’ve asked the question. It’s close to fascism.'

(on them choosing the book for the Man Booker) ‘They chose it because there are no gags – so it is considered serious.’


Self has a strong interest in psychology and believes the ‘hard zombie’ theory – that although we technically have free will, we are in fact ruled by deterministic elements. He also believes in more ethereal concepts and ‘could never live in an old mental asylum.’ (Talking about the one he visited while researching the book.)

I did chat to him afterwards. He had told a story about a chimp – the alpha of her troop – he met when researching ‘Great Apes.’ The chimp had pointed at his tattoo on his arm to show her but the keeper had whispered ‘Don’t put your arm anywhere near the bars. She is trying to trick you and wants to break one of your fingers. I know all of them and if I stepped inside, I would be killed instantly.’

Self said 'Of course, these are highly intelligent animals held prisoner against their will and they are fucking furious!'

That was actually the point that I took up with him quietly afterwards – we both agreed it was bizarre that people are shocked that apes are developing, with weapons etc. The conversation extended to animals and I asked if any other animal had inspired or sparked his fiction. ‘I’m not an animal person,’ he said, but he was interested when I said that I worked with wolves – although his first response was a Benny Hillesque ‘What…professionally? Nar Nar.’ He was still up and performing - looking around to see who was listening when he said ‘They are just dogs. JUST DOGS!’ At which point, rather than tell him off like a naughty boy who had eaten too many cakes at a party, I shook his hand and as Shakespeare might say, took my leave.

I found him complex, exhausting, funny, scary, vulnerable, strange, witty, wordrich, awkward, insecure, fascinating, infuriating, egocentric, shy………

What a night.

Recently shortlisted for The Scott Prize, I was not surprised not to win. That is not pessimism talking – but it is another stage that all writers should face: realism and some objective (as far as possible) view on their writing. I rushed to submit to The Scott Prize. I know that some of the stories were good – they have had some literary pats on the back for being just that. But did the collection hang together? Was there a coherent unifying theme? No. There were some weaker stories too – less dark, less ‘me.’ So a learning curve and also a great thing that I even have a collection that loosely hangs together and now can/should be hammered into some kind of shape. Writing has taken a back seat, while I have been working at Victim Support in London. Working as a journalist, seeking stories and realising that I have bad habits when it comes to my IT skills and the way I do things – opened my eyes. But it also made me realise that I will never be a 9 to 5 person, unless there is a job where specific time is given to dreaming. It’s hard for a non-writer to understand but freebasing of the mind is a must on a regular basis. Remember being told off for dreaming at school? It has always been considered a wasteful exercise but it is in fact deeply productive. No one should stop someone in full flow of reverie, although I appreciate how difficult it might be for a teacher of 30 to allow all their charges to stare out a crow while they need to know algebra. I have some horrible and life-changing things happen to me but a writer is shaped by what they experience, whether they are moulded by kind hands or kicked in the stomach. The shape we emerge informs us, changes us, pours into our words. I am still hurting and my writing is a little raw now, rather than angry. But it gives me facets, shades, levels of experiences that others might never experience. So I am peculiarly lucky – to know what it is to be broken and then get myself back together. The writing world is where I sit, I cannot get comfortable anywhere else. I love the people, that world of word magic. Mastery of words is something that no one ever really masters and so you are always reaching, stretching, laughing and crying in equal measure with each inch of progress and pint of failure. I would like to thank Jen from Salt Publishing for even looking and appreciating my words in my collection. Congrats to the very talented Carys and Rob. Such is the Snakes and Ladders of writing and all the more exciting for it!

Some good news

All writers need encouragement and this is such a shot in the arm:

(Taken from Salt Publishing's website)


The 2012 Scott Prize Shortlist


Thank you to everyone who entered this year’s International Scott Prize for Short Stories — the only such prize for full-length collections of short fiction in the UK. We were overwhelmed by the standard of entries and selecting a shortlist has been a long and difficult process. We are thrilled with the final list; every entry has had to work hard to get there and fully deserves its place on it.

This is the Scott Prize’s third year and we are delighted with the success many of our previous winners have gone on to have. We pride ourselves in not only championing the short story, but also giving that crucial publishing break to up and coming authors, many of whom start with their first love, the short story, and go on to further success with full-length fiction.

The winners of this year’s prize will be announced in April; meanwhile, many congratulations to those of you who have made it on to the shortlist:

Julia Bohanna (England) – Ink Eyes
Carys Bray (England) – Sweet Home
Madeleine D’Arcy (Ireland) – Waiting for the Bullet and Other Stories
Rusty Dolleman (US) – Other People’s Kids
Sarah Faulkner (US) – American Heartbreaker
Maurice Gartshore (Scotland) – Mother Icarus
Otis Haschemeyer (US) – The Fantome of Fatma
Julie Mayhew (England) – End Of
Alison Moore (England) – A Small Window
Rob Roensch (US) – The Wild Flowers of Baltimore
Chris Smith (England) – Between the Toes of the Cloven Hoof

Notes to Editors:

1. The Scott Prize is the only international prize for debut full length collections of short stories written in English.
2. The prize is administered by Salt and judged by Publisher, Jen Hamilton-Emery.
3. Previous Winners of the Scott Prize are:

2011:
Andrea Ashworth (UK) – Somewhere Else of Even Here
Cassandra Parkin (UK) – New World Fairy Tales
Jonathan Pinnock (UK) – Dot Dash (to be published 2012)

2010:
Patrick Holland (Australia) – The Source of the Sound
David Mullins (US) – Greetings from Below (to be published 2012)
Susannah Rickards (UK) – Hot Kitchen Snow
Tom Vowler (UK) – The Method