‘Books are like autumn leaves’ my father said. ‘They lie on the ground, and maybe they are beautiful. But they are soon hidden beneath the layers that come after them.’
There’s a melancholy thought! Books should last, shouldn’t they? Especially the ones we have written ourselves. We spend so much effort on them, we feel they should be forever. They should be like Pride and Prejudice or Treasure Island, entertaining for generations.
No chance. The excitement of launch is quickly lost. The reviewers (if we had any reviews) turn to other books. The chatter goes on to other things. Have you read this? Not yet. Have you read that? No, I’m sorry, I will try. Better be quick. This and That will soon be covered in their turn.
From time to time someone may tell you how much they’ve enjoyed what you’ve written. Others may remember only a character, or a scene. They will frown and think, ‘Where did I read that?’ All the while the leaves are falling.
If you take a leaf home and spray it with liquid gold, it will last forever. Is it still a leaf? We do need a few eternal books like Pride and Prejudice, so that we can all share and talk about them, and watch the re-makes when they come round.
But we also want new stories, all the time, more and more and more of them, and mostly we want them to be new versions of the same old themes, told in new voices and with a few new twists. Their transience is necessary. If all books lasted forever there would be no room for renewal.
I could never make a leaf. They are complex, delicate things. But they’re being made all the same. It’s the tail end of February now. There’s a light green fuzz on the thorn trees that wasn’t there a week ago.
Better get writing.