Colm Herron's Blog
March 15, 2014
AS BIG ARNIE DIDN'T SAY
First of all, as Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t say: “I’m back.” After a prolonged absence – 13 months of spying and writing – I’m back. John Doe, Joe Blow, Joe Bloggs, whatever you want to call me, I’m back to blog.
You may have noticed the word spying there. The truth is, I’ve been out and about working undercover for ages now and I’ve written up lots of reports. My publisher calls them fiction but I call them faction. They’re true you see. And I used the latest ones to write THE WAKE (AND WHAT JEREMIAH DID NEXT) which is now available from bookshops and on Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble.
The people I eavesdrop on are ordinary on the outside I suppose but I’m looking for more than what I see and hear. Looking and listening between the lines you could say. Sometimes I come home with nothing to report. An unrewarding day and a blank page at the end of it. Experiences can be dull or radiant depending on how you’re feeling at the time. Wrong side of the bed in the morning, blank page in the evening.
Usually I feel a bit like the photographer that keeps snapping as he walks through the town or perhaps waits in a checkout queue and then later on selects the pictures that turn out right. Two women chatting in a supermarket queue but there’s something about the way one of them talks. Maybe it’s that single turn of phrase she comes out with. Children playing a game in the street, not at all like the games we used to play. What is it that they’re playing? What is it they’re chanting?
I turn the corner and there’s a drunk shouting abuse at nobody in particular. How did he get to be that way? He used to come into the Strand Bar and he was never like that. Car sitting in a jam, driver’s window open, radio blatting out news item about two peace doves released by Pope Francis being attacked by a crow and a seagull. Or did I hear that right? Maybe I didn’t hear it right. Some other driver blew his horn right in my ear halfway through it. Doesn’t matter if I picked it up wrong. I could use it.
Fiction or faction, a lot of these things end up in the books I write. I make it ten years now I’ve been at it. And it took me all that time to get a publisher. Did I tell you that? I’ve got a publisher– Nuascéalta Teoranta – and they’re as welcome as the flowers of May. And they’re going to make me famous! I couldn’t ask for much better than that now, could I? And all this after what seems like a lifetime of rejection letters and emails like this one here.
Dear Mr Herron,
Thank you for your submission. I thought the tone of B***** L******** was entertainingly profane and found the semi-autobiographical elements intriguing. You capture the mood of the time with authenticity and an infectious exuberance. The characters and events ring true, and are always quite gripping. Also, your narration is intimate and highly atmospheric. The theme of being isolated from or ‘missing’ your generation’s great cultural/social movement is a fascinating, and to my mind completely original one.
However, while the book would be absorbing to a certain readership, I feel this market is perhaps too niche for our company. I would suggest you try submitting it to smaller, domestic publishing houses.
Best of luck in the future.
You get the drift. What the harassed junior editor working nine to five at Filcher & Shiester really wants to write is “Listen, I’m like a fecking battery hen in here at this cramped desk and I’ve mountains of vampires, zombies, witches and at least seven alien abductions to get through before lunchtime. Do you seriously think anyone at any water cooler in the country is going to spend one minute talking about some axe murderer thinking weird thoughts in, where is it, Saint Petersburg? Now go eat a grape.”
___________________________________________________________________
Find my website at colmherron.com
Follow me on Twitter: @colmherron
You may have noticed the word spying there. The truth is, I’ve been out and about working undercover for ages now and I’ve written up lots of reports. My publisher calls them fiction but I call them faction. They’re true you see. And I used the latest ones to write THE WAKE (AND WHAT JEREMIAH DID NEXT) which is now available from bookshops and on Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble.
The people I eavesdrop on are ordinary on the outside I suppose but I’m looking for more than what I see and hear. Looking and listening between the lines you could say. Sometimes I come home with nothing to report. An unrewarding day and a blank page at the end of it. Experiences can be dull or radiant depending on how you’re feeling at the time. Wrong side of the bed in the morning, blank page in the evening.
Usually I feel a bit like the photographer that keeps snapping as he walks through the town or perhaps waits in a checkout queue and then later on selects the pictures that turn out right. Two women chatting in a supermarket queue but there’s something about the way one of them talks. Maybe it’s that single turn of phrase she comes out with. Children playing a game in the street, not at all like the games we used to play. What is it that they’re playing? What is it they’re chanting?
I turn the corner and there’s a drunk shouting abuse at nobody in particular. How did he get to be that way? He used to come into the Strand Bar and he was never like that. Car sitting in a jam, driver’s window open, radio blatting out news item about two peace doves released by Pope Francis being attacked by a crow and a seagull. Or did I hear that right? Maybe I didn’t hear it right. Some other driver blew his horn right in my ear halfway through it. Doesn’t matter if I picked it up wrong. I could use it.
Fiction or faction, a lot of these things end up in the books I write. I make it ten years now I’ve been at it. And it took me all that time to get a publisher. Did I tell you that? I’ve got a publisher– Nuascéalta Teoranta – and they’re as welcome as the flowers of May. And they’re going to make me famous! I couldn’t ask for much better than that now, could I? And all this after what seems like a lifetime of rejection letters and emails like this one here.
Dear Mr Herron,
Thank you for your submission. I thought the tone of B***** L******** was entertainingly profane and found the semi-autobiographical elements intriguing. You capture the mood of the time with authenticity and an infectious exuberance. The characters and events ring true, and are always quite gripping. Also, your narration is intimate and highly atmospheric. The theme of being isolated from or ‘missing’ your generation’s great cultural/social movement is a fascinating, and to my mind completely original one.
However, while the book would be absorbing to a certain readership, I feel this market is perhaps too niche for our company. I would suggest you try submitting it to smaller, domestic publishing houses.
Best of luck in the future.
You get the drift. What the harassed junior editor working nine to five at Filcher & Shiester really wants to write is “Listen, I’m like a fecking battery hen in here at this cramped desk and I’ve mountains of vampires, zombies, witches and at least seven alien abductions to get through before lunchtime. Do you seriously think anyone at any water cooler in the country is going to spend one minute talking about some axe murderer thinking weird thoughts in, where is it, Saint Petersburg? Now go eat a grape.”
___________________________________________________________________
Find my website at colmherron.com
Follow me on Twitter: @colmherron
