Fast Facts:
Pursuit: Award-winning author of twelve novels, translated into more than twenty languages worldwide.
Definition of success: “Accomplishing what you set out to accomplish.” More below!
The Guardian describes his work as ‘compelling, unputdownable thriller writing of the very highest order.’ The Independent on Sunday calls him ‘a powerful talent’, and The Times talks of his ‘incisive, often beautiful writing.’ He is an author or twelve novels, has been twice shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger and a further thirteen international awards, including two Barrys, the association 813 Trophy and the Européen Du Point. He is the winner of the Livre De Poche Award, The Strand Magazine Novel of The Year, The Mystery Booksellers of America Award, the USA National Indie Excellence Award, the Inaugural Nouvel Observateur Prize, the Quebec Laureat, and both the Villeneuve and St. Maur Prizes. My own discovery of his talents came with A Quiet Belief in Angels, a crime thriller as poetically enticing at it is harrowing, and I’m pleased to be told by the man himself that he’s recently penned the screenplay for Olivier Dahan, director of the Oscar-winning film La Vie en Rose.
I think you’ve already guessed I’m a fan, so enough from me – here to tell us how it all began and to share the secrets of his success: R.J. Ellory!
“I always knew, fundamentally, that I wanted to do something creative,” Ellory begins, “but I had no idea what it would be. I was interested in music, art, photography, film, but in November of 1987 I had a conversation with a friend who was reading a book. He talked about this book with such passion and such intensity, and in that moment it was as if someone had switched a light on in my mind. ‘That’s what I want to do,’ I thought. ‘I want to write books that make people feel like that,’ and so – that evening – I started writing. And what do I think drew me to writing? I loved reading. That was the simplicity of it. I just loved reading. So, between November 1987 and July of 1993, I wrote twenty-two novels. I spent those six years sending my material out to British publishers, and received about five hundred complimentary, very polite ‘Thanks but no thanks’ letters. I also have two lever arch files with something in the region of three or four hundred straightforward format rejection slips. This is just from companies that didn’t even look at the material I sent them. I understand the sheer volume of work that a handful of people have to wade through in a publishing house. People have given me figures on just how many unsolicited scripts come to the major publishing houses each week, and that figure is astounding. My belief was that if I just kept on going I would eventually find the right person in the right company at the right time. I had this quote from Disraeli: ‘Success is entirely dependent upon constancy of purpose’. However, after six years of doing this I finally thought ‘Enough’s enough’, and I stopped writing. I then studied music, photography, all manner of things, and didn’t go back to writing until the latter part of 2001. It was then that I wrote ‘Candlemoth’. I sent that to thirty-six publishers, thirty-five of whom sent it back. All except Bloomsbury, and an editor there gave it to a friend who gave it to a friend, and it wound up at Orion with my current editor, and we have now worked together through thirteen books. Since Orion signed me there have been a couple of comments made by a couple of publishers I have met about how they should perhaps have pursued things with a little more tenacity back in the early days. The earlier unpublished stuff will probably stay right where it is in the loft. It was a different genre, more supernatural in a way, and I write better now anyway. I think the time away from it between 1993 and 2001 made me more succinct, gave me a greater clarity about what I wanted to say. I have gone back recently and read some of my earlier work and it was a little verbose. But hell, it was good practice!”
Pick up one of Ellory’s novels and you’ll see that the pages are replete with what the Yorkshire Post describes as ‘taut, muscular prose that at its best is almost poetic.’ There’s a rigid structure to it but it doesn’t clunk, it clicks, intricately engineered like the parts of a Swiss watch. I can’t comment on Ellory’s writing prior to the eight year hiatus, but it seems to have turned out for the best. If you’re a writer you’ll know how difficult it can be to harness your voice and not clutter it with the verbosity Ellory hints at of his early work. So what’s his secret? Is there a daily routine that focuses his creative mind?
“For years I wrote longhand, almost three million words, but now I use a computer. Sometimes when I’m away from home I’ll write longhand, and then transcribe when I return. I tend to write a whole book, furiously ploughing through it, and then I go back through from start to finish and handle all the snags, anomalies, mistakes, cut back on the over-writing as best I can. It’s kind of organic in a way, like it’s something that takes on certain character aspects of its own. It’s like living with a bunch of people for a few weeks, and you watch them grow, watch them take control of certain elements of the story, and then when you’re done it’s like losing something. Capote once said that finishing a story was like taking a child out into the yard and shooting them. Perhaps a little melodramatic, but I know what he means! When a book is finished it kind of leaves a hole in you, and then you have to start another one right away! I am disciplined. I start early in the day. I try and produce three or four thousand words a day, and work on the basis of getting a first draft done in about twelve weeks. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes shorter. For me a book always begins with the emotion I want to evoke in the reader. That’s the most important thing for me. How does a book make you feel, and does that memory stay with you? So that’s my first consideration: the emotional effect I am trying to create. The second thing is the location. Location is vital for me as the location informs and influences the language, the dialect, the characters – everything. I choose to start a book in Louisiana or New York or Washington simply because that ‘canvas’ is the best to paint the particular picture I want to paint. I buy a new notebook, a good quality one, because I know I’m going to be carrying it around for two or three months, and in the notebook I will write down ideas I have as I go. Little bits of dialogue, things like that. Sometimes I have a title, sometimes not. I used to feel very strongly about having a good title before I started, but now – because at least half the books I’ve published have ended up with a different title – I am not so obsessive about it! And as far as little idiosyncratic routines and superstitions are concerned, I don’t know that I actually have any that relate to starting a book. I do have a routine when I finish a book. I make a really good Manhattan, and then I take my family out to dinner!”
Top up your stocks of whisky and Martini then, reserve a table at your favourite restaurant: sounds like a nice reward to me for those months of immersion! There are other rewards too though; I’d like to know what his proudest achievements are.
“Perhaps the number of languages into which the books have been translated. I have three or four bookshelves at home, and they are burdened with an individual copy of each book I have published in each language into which those titles have been translated. Taking into consideration that I have only released twelve titles in English, there are one hundred and seventy-nine individual volumes on those shelves. It is quite a canon in itself. To look at that reassures me that I have actually created something substantial, but it also serves to remind me that there is a great deal more I want to create.”
And the workload that goes hand in hand with such international acclaim?
“Well, to be honest, it is relatively full-time, when you take into consideration the sheer volume of hours that have to be devoted to Facebook, Twitter, other social media outlets, the websites, the blogs, the interviews, the e-mails that I receive from readers etc. I guess I get approximately fifty or so e-mails a day from readers, and all of them get answered personally and individually. I then maintain ongoing dialogues with some of those readers. I travel, I tour, I visit libraries and schools, too. I have seen more than a hundred cities in fifteen or twenty different countries. Within the first twelve months of being published I did over one hundred and fifty library events, traveling from one end of the country to the other, and then when the books started being translated I went to Canada, Australia, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, New Zealand, and I made numerous trips to the US as well to promote the American editions of the novels.”
Relentless is the word that first comes to mind. But these are fulfilling labours if you ask me, an adventure. Perhaps I’m envious because I like to travel, but in any case I can’t believe Ellory, or anyone else for that matter, would have it any other way.
“No, not at all,” Ellory asserts. “I work for myself. That means I have to be completely self-motivated, and so there is no possibility of pulling a sickie! However, that gives me freedoms I would not have with a regular job. You make a trade, I guess. Stability of employment and a regular income against the freedom to do the things you want to do. I am a bit of a workaholic, so I have no problem with actually getting done what I need to get done, but if – for example – something happens that demands my attention, I can get it done there and then as opposed to having to deal with it when I am afforded time outside of work. There are pluses and minuses regardless of what you do, but I am fortunate enough to now be able to support myself doing something that I love, and that is priceless.”
I ask Ellory how he defines the concept of ‘success’.
“That is a tough question! By whose standards? Other peoples’, or my own? By other peoples’ standards, I guess I have achieved a recognizable degree of success, but against my own standards I haven’t even got going yet. I have a huge number of aspirations and goals in life, most of them creative, and I am working hard to achieve all of them. I do not relax easily. I feel that I need to be working at something all the time. I am happy when I am working, when I have something to achieve, something at which I can become more proficient. That is just my nature. As for the definition of success, it is probably very simple. Perhaps it is nothing more than accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. I think the key to success has to lie somewhere within the framework of defining specifically what it is that you are hoping to achieve. Without a clear vision of where you are going, how will you ever arrive?”
And if you’re working towards a life-goal, what’s the advice from a writer’s perspective?
“This kind of advice has been given by people far smarter than me! What can I say except some of the familiar truths that have already been said? Persistence is the key, the backbone, the spirit of accomplishment and achievement. A person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it. All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim. They have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible, and then they accomplished it through persistence. Persistence is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. And don’t quit. Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit. With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, pretty much anything is attainable. The saints we revere and respect in all fields are the sinners who kept on going. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. Don’t lead a ‘What if?’ life. Do not concern yourself with what others think of your efforts. Do not spend a moment worrying about whether someone thinks you are the worst human being of all or the brightest star in the universe. Your integrity to yourself is more important than anyone else’s viewpoint. You know if you are doing your utmost. You know if you are being kind or tolerant, if you are being patient, compassionate, industrious, honest. You know if you are working as hard as you can to create great work. It doesn’t matter if you try and try and try again, and fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again. History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries. Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow. And stay away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but great people…great people are the ones who make you feel that you too can be truly great. People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. No-one can always be right. So the struggle is to do your best, to keep the mind and conscience clear, to never be swayed by unworthy motives or inconsequential reasons, and to do your very best whatever it is you are undertaking. Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. Commit yourself to success. Somewhere. Somehow. In some field. As Goethe said, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” And that may all have been said before, and – as I said – by people far smarter than me, but there is a great deal of truth in all of it and that is why it has stood the test of time.”
I’d like to thank R.J. Ellory for giving so generously of his time and for sharing his thoughts with us.
You can discover more about the multiple worlds of R.J. Ellory at his website www.rjellory.com and for the latest news and views, follow him @rjellory
There is an Amazon page here and you can find his latest novel, Carnival of Shadows here:
Finally, R.J. Ellory just happens to play a mean guitar! If you’d like to watch his band you can find a video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?