"Who Travels Alone"

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 647, 26 April 1929, Page 16

"Who Travels Alone"

The Adventures Of A Lowbrow Novelist L Written for The Sun.J I AM GLAD my first month in London is over. To be dumped in the centre of this city, quite alone, is an emotional experience that carries its dangers as well as its values. The dangers lie in what I have come to call the Empty Hours. The trouble with a writer is that he can do his day's work in three hours. After that his writing is second rate, and if he persists he will suffer the unpleasant re actions of creative effort. Three hours make up a very small portion of a day, and if one sleeps nine hours there are still another 12 to be occupied. The problem of filling in those 12 hours has become an engrossing, at times a desperate and frequently an amusing, experience. At first I threw back my shoulders, expanded my chest, and drew in deep breaths of the hundred tons of soot said to be suspended over London. “I am in the centre of the world,” 1 told myself. “No one could be lonely here. There are so many places to sec. so many phases of life to study.” Thereupon I trudged dutifully through a arious parts of the city, visited most of the show places, and tried to react in the correct way towards the atmosphere of Westminster Abbey, with its hoarded dust of kings and soldiers and poets. As a matter of fact I was shamefully unimpressed, and got closer to the heart of old London when I discovered the queer little crooked lanes that run off Fleet Street into a quaint world of cobbles and gables and old. old buildings. One day I went due east into the fastnesses of Whitechapel and Poplar. I discovered Limehouse, of Thomas Burke fame, and got down into the Chinese quarter. Here I found queer little narrow streets, ancient and dirty houses —mud, squalor, and poverty. I looked at the men, women, and children crowding the streets and discovered that they carry their poverty boldly. The slums are their world, and I believe they love their old houses and crowded alleys. . . . At night these places are kinder beneath the gas lights, and if fog drifts in from the river—which is pretty often—there is a hint of mystery. Then it is really Thomas Burke Land, and a faint atmosphere of adventure comes into the streets. But the reality is grey and sordid, and I escaped to the West with a shudder of relief. Meanwhile, the three hours of work daily have been yielding results. In spite of the pessimists I signalised my arrival by having a short story accepted by the “Royal Magazine” at most encouraging rates. Various other scripts are going the rounds and I have embarked upon a serial story that is to take some paper by storm. Writing a serial is a curious experience that seems to me most fitting in an age of machinery, it is a mechanical art. It is necessary. I understand, to take a group of characters, give them a story, and parcel the whole thing out in neat instalments. The opening must be bold, with a keynote of action, and die introduction of a theme and plenty of characters. And each curtain must be clean cut. That sounded fairly easy, but after 20,000 words I am not so sure. My own characters refuse to be mechanical, and at present they are showing every sign

of taking charge of the story and running it their own way. The result may be a poor serial—but a better story.

When I was free-lancing in Sydney (it seems like another life, now) I underwent each morning a trying ordeal of suspense. This began when the postman’s whistle first sounded up the street. For the next 10 minutc-s I would be as a soul possessed, pacing feverishly, slipping out to the front gate to cast casual, but secretly tormented, glances towards the approaching postman. Sometimes I would school myself to wait for him, and at others I would rush inside and skulk in a front room, peering through the blinds, until he had passed. There were always possibilities in that post A bulky envelope meant a returning manuscript. Sometimes there would be postal notes for small contributions, and once in a while a cheque would be taken reverently from its cover. It was impossible to settle down to a morning’s work until this suspense was over. There is nothing of that now. Once a script is finished I post it away to my agent. It is like putting a penny into one of innumerable slot machine* that infest London. Invisible machinery is set in motion. Away goes my type-

script. Unknown editors examine ii and toss it contemptuously aside. Bui I know nothing of this. My agent is the man who receives the returning effort and the leaves him unmoved. H e immediately sends it to another editor, and if it happens tc appeal, he argues and pleads until he gets the highest possible rates. Where I would accept 10 guineas thankfully, he fights for 18. And all this time 1 am working blithely away, not in the least afraid of finding a fat envelope waiting to distract my morning’s work. The literary agent is a buffer, and a source of hope eternal. My second novel, by the way, has been accepted for publication. There is a great difference between the writing of a first and second novel. A first book is dashed off in a glow of inspiration and a mood bf creative recklessness. Npthing needs to be considered but the necessity to get the story on to paper. With a second book this attitude is impossible. The first is on the bookstalls. The critics have ignored it, or indulged in little intellectual sniffs at it, or given it a couple of lines somewhere at the bottom of a column. But it is out in the big world, and somewhere, perhaps, it is creating a public for its writer. That public may have decided to read the second book, and the publishers are concerned with their spring or autumn lists. And so there is always the danger that a second book may be written in a half-fearful mood of conscientious endeavour. Acceptance is reassuring. At times, lately, I have played with the idea of drifting a little further on my travels. “Who travels alone. . . There is loneliness in such a pilgrimage; but there is fascination, also. My own decision is all that is needed. And so, perhaps, my stay in London may be interrupted if the unknown roads continue to beckon. My next letter may come from strange quarters. There is adventure even in the uncertainty. And adventure, to a writer, is tlio mother of invention. MONTE HOLCROFT. London.