This may anger some people. I can hear them squawking, “What the hell do you know about literature?” I’m just trying to tell it like it really is. People can theorize all they want, but when you get right down to it, the novel’s form is extremely broad. Indeed, that very breadth is what helps to generate its amazing, down-to-earth vitality. From where I stand, the statement “Anyone can write a novel” is not slander, but praise.
In short, the world of the novelist is like a professional wrestling ring that welcomes anyone who feels like taking a crack at it. The gap between the ropes is big enough to pass through, and a step is provided to make your entrance easier. The ring is spacious. No security men block your way, and the referee doesn’t bark at you to leave. The wrestlers who are already there—the established novelists, in other words—are at the very least resigned to your presence: “No worries—come on up and take your best shot” is their attitude. The ring is—how shall I put this?—an airy, easy, accommodating, altogether laid-back environment.
While entering the ring may be easy, however, remaining there for long is hard. We novelists are of course aware of this. It’s not that difficult to write a novel, maybe even two. But it’s another thing altogether to keep producing, to live off one’s writing, to survive. That’s a Herculean task. It’s fair to say not many are up to it. To accomplish it, one needs, well, a special something. Talent is important, of course, and backbone. Like so many things in life, luck and fate play a big role, too. But there is something else that is needed, a kind of qualification. Some have it and some don’t. Some possess it from birth while others struggle mightily to acquire it.
Not very much is known about this qualification—indeed, it is seldom addressed in public. The reason, for the most part, is that it is virtually impossible to visualize or put into words. Yet novelists are keenly aware of its importance and of how necessary it is to sustain their craft—they can feel it in their bones.
I think this is why novelists tend to be so generous to outsiders who step up through the ropes to make their novelistic debuts. “Come on in,” some will say, while others seem to take no notice of the new kid in the ring. When the newcomer is unceremoniously tossed out or steps down voluntarily （most will fall into one of these two categories）， the old-timers will say “Too bad, kid,” or “Take care of yourself.” If someone manages to stick it out for the long term, on the other hand, those novelists gain well-earned respect. This respect will be given rightly and properly （or so I would like to believe）。
Another reason novelists can be so magnanimous is that they understand literary business is not a zero-sum game. In other words, the fact that a new writer has appeared in the ring almost never means someone already there will have to step down. On the surface, at least, that kind of thing doesn’t happen. In that sense, the world of writers and the world of professional athletes are diametrically opposed. In pro sports, when a rookie makes the team, an old-timer or another new player who has failed to impress is either given their walking papers or moved to the far end of the bench. No parallel exists in the literary world. In the same vein, when a new novel sells a hundred thousand copies, that total isn’t subtracted from the total sales of other works. To the contrary, a runaway bestseller by a new writer can give the whole publishing industry a boost.
Nevertheless, if one takes the long view, a fitting kind of natural selection is in operation. The ring may be spacious, but there still appears to be an optimal number of writers inside it. Such, at least, is my impression.
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I have been getting by one way or another as a professional novelist for over thirty-five years, as of 2015, when I wrote this. In short, I have been in the ring all that time—“living by the pen,” to use the old term. This, I guess, can be regarded as a real accomplishment in the narrow sense of the word.
I have seen the debuts of a great many new writers during that time. Many have been praised to the skies for their works. They have been toasted by the critics, awarded various literary prizes, talked about by the public, and have sold lots of books. Bright hopes have been held out for their futures. In other words, they have stepped up into the ring bathed in the spotlights, their theme music rising around them.
Yet how many of those budding writers who debuted twenty or thirty years ago are active as novelists today? Not many. Only a very few, to be more precise. The rest have quietly slipped from the ring. In many, perhaps the majority of, cases, they have gravitated to other fields, having grown tired of novel writing; or perhaps they simply found it too much trouble. And those first novels that received so much attention? One would probably have a hard time locating them in bookstores today. Although the potential number of novelists may be limitless, the amount of shelf space is most certainly finite!