Antony Gormley “Everybody says ‘what does it mean?’ …but what does life mean? Life is there to be lived, not to mean things, it’s to be experienced. They think… ‘oh we want a label, we want to know what it is, what it’s called, what it’s made of, and what it means.’ Well why not just be it, do it feel it.”
[in an interview from ‘Lily Cole: Art Matters’ – Sky Arts]

We have a tendency these days to over-analyse, to label, which is constrictive. Gormley [see his ‘Another Place’, left] is talking principally about art, and art as a part of life, but I think his words also apply to books and the publishing industry. The fixation of booksellers and publishers with genre, sequels, celebrity names, with which section a book will sit within, means many authors with non-traditional, non-genre, stand-alone novels are being over-looked. I made the mistake in a letter to a prospective agent of describing my novel ‘Ignoring Gravity’ as being about a ‘detective of identities’ who researches the family history of an adopted girl. The rejection letter said the novel was too long for a detective novel. To say this missed the point is an understatement.

If you agree with Antony Gormley, perhaps you will agree with:-
Rachel Joyce – I have to have faith in good stories and good characters winning through
Val McDermid – If I published my first three novels now, I wouldn’t have a career
Simon Sebag Montefiore – it is essential to sit all day without doing anything

 

‘On Sculpture’ by Antony Gormley [Thames & Hudson]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Don’t be hung up on meanings & labels: I agree with… Antony Gormley http://wp.me/p5gEM4-gy via @SandraDanby #amwriting