I find it hard to imagine what that time in her life must have been like, as a fresh graduate from a prestigious MFA program full of bright young things with a crisp manuscript under her arm, knocking on doors. It’s a testament to the success of The Animators that she can speak about that earlier attempt at a debut novel without flinching.
‘I never felt particularly gifted at school. When I was young it was something that I struggled with – that learning format – and that actually did me a lot of good. Because as a writer and an artist, you need to be resilient in so many ways. And the setbacks still hurt, rejections hurt, and it hurts to not get what you want, but it makes you more ready to accept the long-game.’
I ask Whitaker what she thinks of MFAs.
‘The frustrating thing about writing is that nobody else can really teach you, you just have to constantly teach yourself. You just have to try out different methods and find out which one works and which one doesn’t. A professor can point you in the right direction, but they can’t teach you how to write. Sometimes you go up an avenue, and it’s wrong, and it’s like, well, that’s 400 pages down the drain.’
‘The frustrating thing about writing is that nobody else can really teach you, you just have to constantly teach yourself.’
Thinking back to my own schooling, I wonder if any of my teachers ever ‘saw something’ in me. I talked and whined about my own adolescent woes far too much to be able to intelligently observe the world around me; I got a B+ overall in English Extension, so I’m sure Mrs Brooks would be surprised to know I’m now a writer. Helen Garner tells a story of running into one of her old Melbourne University professors, who had dug up her final thesis from the archives to see if they could ‘spot any sign of an early talent’ – but apparently had found ‘no sign of any talent whatsoever.’ I love replaying the YouTube video of Garner telling this story for the same reason I love listening to Whitaker speak about her work – it’s wholly reassuring to know that I wasn’t born lacking any kind of ‘something’ that I’d need to spend a lifetime trying in vain to catch up to. That perhaps, after all, the equation is knowable; that the blood and sweat will be proportionate to the quality of my work. Talent is dead – long live effort.
I ask her about the redrafting process again, the way a child asks to hear the gory bits of a ghost story over and over. It was terrifying and exhilarating to think of so many rounds of complete redrafting, rewriting the book from start to finish. She did this four times before selling The Animators to Random House, then again another one and a half times.
‘So seven years from start to finish, and that’s including the time spent editing with my agent. She’s a great editor. She’s the best. And my editor at Random House, Kate McKenna, who is brilliant. I learned a lot from her. This book owes a lot to her. Sometimes I wonder if, as a writer, I work really slowly, but I’m not sure that’s the case. There are some writers who put out a book every two years, and I’m like, “how do you do that?”’
This idea of a ‘prolific’ writer, to my mind at least, is often connected to the figure of the ‘young prodigy’. In Malcolm Gladwell’s essay, ‘Late Bloomers’ (published as part of What the Dog Saw) he talks about how we mistakenly equate genius with precocity. This is not only about youth, but about the time it takes. It’s easy, when you’re chatting over bubbly at writers festivals and being sent books in the mail, to get whipped up in pressures.
‘Every industry prizes youth in a way that’s a bit gross and a bit harmful,’ Whitaker says. ‘I hope this next book doesn’t take seven years, but it might! And that’s okay. If it does, it does.’
*
At Byron Writers Festival I met a Big Important Person, who wouldn’t stop talking – on stage or off – about the negative aspects of the publishing industry. It got me down, and might have really disillusioned me about my future career had I not met and hung out with Whitaker. One of the things she spoke so passionately about at the Greek restaurant was about community – about sharing your work and getting opinions and feedback on it.
‘At NYU my peers were amazing. I went to school with brilliant people. I learnt a lot from putting crap work in front of them in class, and as much as it sears to hear what’s wrong, it’s useful. I got to hear what wasn’t in my skill set and what I needed to build on.’
This is why I like Whitaker so much – somewhat paradoxically, her attitude to her craft, her candour about the hard work of it, sets my mind at ease. Walking back to my car from the Greek place, I find myself thinking: Maybe, if I work for seven years, I could write a book as good as The Animators. Maybe Kayla would read some of my work one day and give me feedback. I think to myself that not only can I play this long game, but also: I want to.
The Animators is available now at Readings.
