…one I’ve started, that is. It feels a bit like a failure; as if I wasn’t up to the task somehow.
Clearly doing so doesn’t make it a ‘bad book’; after all, “Do Not Say We Have Nothing” by Madeleine Thien is clearly not a bad book. Presumably you don’t get shortlisted for the Booker Prize by being rubbish.
It doesn’t happen every often, this giving up on a book. Which is good. What’s also good is, I think, that I’m prepared to do so; that it’s a sign of – I don’t know – confidence, maturity, self-knowledge. Or of bravery even. The ability to say “This isn’t for me. End of.” The close it up and send if shelf-wards.
Looking at it from the other perspective, if someone might give up on something I have written then that doesn’t make it a ‘bad book / story / poem’.
At least I hope not..!
Ian Gouge - Writer 