A Literary Life

To fully understand the genesis of a novel, you cannot begin with the moment the first words are typed.   A novel might have lived inside its author for decades.   It is often noted that first novels are often veiled autobiography.   This observation is sometimes nothing more than assumption from the reader.   Many readers of my novel, The Inheritance of Things Past, have presumed that it is autobiographical, that I am in some way its central character, Will Hargreaves.   Indeed, the comment was even made by one of the examiners in my viva voce for my PhD.   It is a question that has haunted the background of all readers’ exposure to my novel. The Inheritance of Things Past My novel was loosely inspired by a real life situation – the suffering and eventual death of my cousin.   I was not close to Ian Dutton – in fact his existence was unknown to me until just two years before his death.   His father, my uncle, had fallen out with ...

This comes almost two hours into Saturday, when it should have been a post for Friday.   But being called into work early, and getting home after one am did not allow me time to post at all in Friday.   As sleep is calling me, I will leave you with a description of my novel and a little insight into the writing of it. The Inheritance of Things Past, Ben J Dutton The Inheritance of Things Past [2008] (hence TIoTP), tells the story of Will Hargreaves, a man in his early thirties diagnosed with a potentially fatal cancer.   It is a novel predominantly constructed by Will’s memories – of familial ties, his lifelong friendship with David, of his love for a young woman named Sarah Crowe at university, and his more recent relationship with Laura Johnson.   These relationships – familial, friendly, sexual, romantic – become the background to a life shown through four decades.   They become the things that define Will Hargreaves. It is a novel that wa...

I have been a terrible, terrible blogger. I see that this blog was birthed in 2009 and then promptly died. My new year’s resolution for 2011 was to begin again with the blog. Well, it’s Saint David’s Day now, 1 March, and I finally get around to it. First the important matters: my debut novella, “The Inheritance of Things Past” is now available for your Kindle, at the worth it price of £0.86 – eighty-six pence! – or $0.99 ! What are you waiting for? Go buy now! You don’t really have to, but if you love a good story, you won’t regret it if you do. So what have I done in the fifteen months since I last checked in: I completed writing a second novella (currently entitled “Grass and Ember”) but came in too short for mainstream publishing at 65,000 words. I began work on a third. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. I have yet to finish the third, fourth, or fifth because I began working in a shop: and that shop began to take over my life. I had one period where I worked 53 days without...

So yesterday I continued working on the most difficult pages of my new novel, Grass and Ember, a particularly harrowing four chapter arc that ends one characters story and propels the reader into the final third of the novel. I've been working slowly on these pages, as it seems each word needs to be precise, more precise than I usually go for. I like my prose to have looseness, almost like a conversation, but this needed the exactness of poetry, it needed to sing. Now when I write I mostly do it in silence. I loathe distraction when I'm writing because I like to lose myself in the work. I see sentences rising up, a symphony of words, and a distraction can cause all those words to come tumbling down, and my reconstruction of them never feels as solid as the first elusive thought I saw. However, launching into this four chapter arc I found my resistance was up, I simply did not want to go there and write them, to think what my character would have to think for this sequence ...

'The Inheritance of Things Past' continues to sell well, especially considering the minimal advertising it has won and the lack of publicity in the British press. To those who have bought it already I thank you, and if you are considering it, then thank you too. For those who have yet to hear of my novel, its summary is something like this: Will Hargreaves, a successful film producer, learns he has cancer. Fleeing to the wilds of Scotland he remembers the moments that have led him to this: His fiery relationship with a beautiful singer, Sarah Crowe, and the truth and depth of his love for a work colleague, Laura Johnson. Facing up to his past is only the beginning of a journey that will teach Will how to live and how to love... It has been praised by playwright Dic Edwards as "Very impressive: strange and original in feel." It is available from all good retailers for £6-99. Sales pitch over. I started 'Inheritance' as a short story for my Creative Writin...