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Bryony Rheam was born in Kadoma in 1974 and lived in
Bulawayo from the age of eight until she left school.She studied for a
BA and an MA in English Literature and taught in Singapore for a year
before returning to teach in Zimbabwe. She won the Zimbabwean best first
novel award and gives an account of her experience in writing the award
winning novel, This September Sun:
“The process of writing is never an easy one. Time and again I read
about writers who confess to disliking everything about it: the need to
be disciplined, the hours sat in front of a keyboard (even when the
ideas are flowing) and the drudge of writing and rewriting paragraphs,
scenes and scenarios. Having the ideas is the easy part. More than
once I have wished for someone to invent some sort of gadget that would
allow me to plug my brain into a computer and for the story to download
itself.
Unfortunately, as this gadget is still to be invented, I have had to
rely on my own reserves of determination and discipline. There is a
popular idea of the writer having a muse, and when the muse is with
them, they have to write. Associated with this, is a feeling that
writers are somehow special people – gifted, at least – who need to keep
their own hours and express themselves as creatively as possible.
Whilst there may be an element of truth in this supposition, I’m
afraid the truth is a lot less romantic in reality. Writing is a job.
It’s a job that brings the writer an income, however small, and it’s a
job that needs to be treated as such. Of course, not everyone is a
writer and not everyone who wants to be a writer can write, but those
who can should not delude themselves into thinking that
it doesn’t require hard work, constant attention and, until you finally
have something published, frequent times of self-questioning. Is this
good? Is this acceptable? Will anyone enjoy it?
It took me about ten years to complete This September Sun.
That’s not to say that I was writing every day, or even every month! I
wrote in spurts, carried away at times by a determination to at least
get the story down, and at other times hampered by periods of self-doubt
and, dare I admit it, laziness. When I look back, I can see that the
times I worked the hardest were the times when I had had some
encouragement from someone who read the odd chapter or so, or when I had
a deadline to meet.
The best thing I ever did was apply to go on a British Council run writing course, Crossing Borders.
I was lucky in being accepted as it was the last year that the course
was being offered. It was wonderful. For someone like me who works
well to deadlines, it made me work hard at completing unfinished
chapters and linking various ideas. Only a small part of what I had
written was sent to my mentor in the UK, but I had to do a lot of work
to get to the point of choosing which excerpts to send.
I’m often asked by aspiring writers to read their work and it is a
task I try to avoid if possible, not just because it feels like extra
work to read through, but because I often find that the kind of people
who ask me to read their work are looking for a specific type of
response from me. They want to be told that it’s good, they want me to
be overwhelmed with awe at the quality of their writing and tell them to
get it published right away. I know this because I’ve been there
myself and I know the awful cringing feeling of embarrassment they feel
when told their writing ‘still needs some work’. So it was also hard
for me to send off chunks of my writing to someone in the UK who knew
little of Zimbabwe and of the events of the past 50-60 years. I had to
make a conscious effort to send off the parts that I felt genuinely
needed comment and assistance, rather than pieces I knew were good.
Like every writer, my work is very personal and I don’t take criticism
well, but it actually wasn’t like that.
It was uplifting to find that some of the parts I saw as problematic
were actually fine and interesting to see someone else’s point of view
on pieces that hadn’t occurred to me needed reworking. The best thing
about the course was that I didn’t have to take on board all or any of
the suggestions. Ultimately, it gave me the confidence to believe that
my story would be well-received and I had the impetus to get on with
finishing it and stop procrastinating!
It was a great moment for me in November 2009 when I attended the launch of This September Sun at the Bulawayo Club. The number of people who attended the launch and who bought copies of the book was quite overwhelming. Owen Sheers,
the Welsh poet and writer, who had led a writing workshop I had
attended at the Intwasa Festival a couple of years previously, gave the
opening speech. At that moment I felt I had come a long way. An idea
became a story which became a book. I’m glad I stuck at it. My next
novel, which I’m working on at the moment won’t be quite as long and I
hope it won’t take me even half the time it took me to write This September Sun. I’m on my own now – and I’m employing the muse on a more permanent contract.”
This September Sun’ was published by ‘amaBooks in Zimbabwe and by
Parthian Books in the United Kingdom. It is to be published in Kenya by
Longhorn. Elsewhere it is available through the African Books
Collective. It is now a set book for ‘A’ level Literature in English in
Zimbabwe.
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