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The slowness of the hand eases the creative mind

Being listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction is a heady experience for any writer, so why does Dublin writer Christine Dwyer Hickey turn to a copybook and pen when thoughts and words flow too swiftly for her keyboard to contain?

"I use the computer to write; but when I am stuck I can unblock it by handwriting, it’s something to do with the eye hand contact and if you are stuck, it can help you."

Where other writers tend to get writers block Dwyer Hickey faces a dilemma of too much, too soon. "I tend to get too many words and thoughts at a certain point and I get blocked, not from too little but from too much, and I have to unravel and thin out," she says: "Words and ideas come too quickly and I have to slow myself down."

Nonetheless, Dwyer Hickey’s 2005 Orange novel Tatty was published in Britain in July 2006 by Random House under its Vintage Books imprint.

Though Tatty was listed for the 2005 Orange Prize its Irish publisher, New Island Books, did not at the time have a British publishing deal in place for the book at the time of nomination.

Agreeing rights between publishers took time, but once agreed, Vintage behan to break the Irish author in the UK market. Tatty is also being published in Polish for the Poland market; but there are now so many Polish nationals living in Ireland that a Polish translation could even do well in Ireland.

Meanwhile, Dwyer Hickey is working on a new novel set between Italy during the Second World War and Dublin in the mid 1990s. A commissioned collection of short stories set in Dublin’s Phoenix Park has been put on hold while the first draft of the novel proceeds.

"I want to stay focussed on the novel. With short stories there are so many different themes going on in your head. A novel is much different and is a different mind set because you have to stay in the environment of the novel and you cannot chop and change, especially when you get to certain points of it. It gets intense, so you are better staying with it," she says. "Short stories are a bit more difficult in a way, because everything has to be so lean in them. They are two different kettles of fish."

Dwyer Hickey in starting out as a writer gave herself a dedicated year to achieve some publishing success. "I would do a little every day in short stories and practice writing. Almost to the year, I won the Listowel Writers Week short story competition and that encouraged me to go on."

She spent half an hour each day writing by hand in a large notebook and would edit that work the following day in a different notebook, chopping and changing as she went and trying to learn the craft: "Which I am still trying to do," she says. "You never learn it!"

Now an established novelist, Dwyer Hickey continues to write short stories and featured in a number of recent anthologies. She currently writes four hours a day, from 10am to 2pm, up from her original 30 minutes a day..

"I won Listowel Writers Week twice with short stories and a competition in the Observer in the early 1990s and that encouraged me to chance a novel," she says.

That novel was The Dancer and the first of what became a trilogy with The Gambler the second volume and The Gatemaker the third.

The trilogy was re-issued in Ireland by New Island with the final volume re-published in time for the 2006 Christmas market.

In keeping with the experience of most modern Irish writers, Dwyer Hickey had her three books published before she teamed up with an agent. Now she has a Dublin agent and an agent in Britain acting for her with Vintage.

"I approached the agent in the end, because I was getting into a knot, and didn’t know what I was doing," she says. "It’s great to have an agent because they look after everything for you; although it is hard to get an agent if you are not published."

While the agent approaches the publisher on behalf of the writer, an agent cannot do so with everybody who approaches them for representation, she says: "An agent has to say to the publisher that the writer is wonderful, but if they keep doing it with everybody, then the publisher is going to get fed up with them. They have to be choosy because their own reputation is on the line."

Agents help to get a book published; they look after contracts, they make sure rights are honoured, and they protect a writer from the business side of things.

"Getting the book published is only the first job they do," says Dwyer Hickey. "They are like a business manager for the writer."

Now well established in Ireland and Britain, and recalling her own beginnings, Dwyer Hickey suggests that with so few outlets currently available for new writing, beginner writers could do well to consider entering competitions.

"To give yourself the best shot make sure it’s the best it can be. Edit it and re-edit and look at it again and leave it and go back to it before you send it off. Because winning a competition is a great opportunity for any writer," she says. "Agents and publishers note who the winners are, for future reference. It helps."

© Brendan Nolan 2007

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