My second, third and fourth novels were mistakes, essentially.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've had a dozen novels published and have made far more than a dozen mistakes. Which is why Randy Susan Meyers and I wrote a guidebook to help authors avoid making our mistakes.
After these three novels I gave up writing novels for a time; I was dissatisfied with romantic doom, yet didn't see much way around it.
I had novels to write, so I wrote them.
It always strikes me how almost unbelievably bad are the early versions of my novels.
I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the unkindness of publishing my early novels.
My first novel was rejected by some of the most eminent publishers in the world. Starting again was a real wrench.
Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays.
I've had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn't get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull.
I did not think much what I was writing them for, except that I knew I wanted my next novel to be in some less conventional form than straight narrative.
I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.