'You really do it because you love it' says Inverness writer up for Booker Prize
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In Ascension, the third novel by Martin Macinnes, has recently been named as one of the longlisted 13 books up for the Booker Prize. Here the writer talks about his work and being named on the prestigious list.
Q How are you feeling about being longlisted for the Booker Prize for the first time?
A It’s quite a surreal feeling. Mainly I just feel extraordinarily fortunate, grateful that more people are now going to hear about my work.
Q Your third novel In Ascension seems to keep coming back to the idea of transformation – I don’t know if you would agree with that? And perhaps you would describe the book as you see it?
A Yes, that’s a fair interpretation. It’s the story of a young woman, Leigh, her fraught relationship with her family and her search for the origins of life. It’s quite an epic story, going from deep-sea vents to the edges of the solar system, but it’s also intimate and quiet, I think.
Q When did you decide to become a writer of fiction? Did you start doing it immediately once you had decided or did you put the idea aside to pursue other things, like studies?
A I’ve done this for as long as I can remember. As a child I had a typewriter (I think we got it from the old Index on the High Street), and I used to write stories on that. I never really thought of writing professionally, as a ‘career’ or anything, it was just something that I loved to do. I studied and travelled, and I really started making a commitment in terms of the amount of time I spent writing from my mid-twenties on.
Q What are some of the ideas and themes you are interested in exploring in your work?
A I’m interested in writing about the natural world and the place of humans within it. I try to write about human drama taking place inside of and as part of a much bigger story, the story of the creation and transformation of everything.
Q How did your education in Inverness play its part in your decision to pursue writing as a career?
A I had some wonderful teachers in Smithton Primary School and Culloden Academy. In primary school we had worksheets called – I think? – SRA, which I loved, and were probably the first creative writing exercises I ever did. Mrs Francis and Mrs Wallace in Culloden pushed me and helped me become more confident as a writer, as well as recommending brilliant writers I wouldn’t have heard of at that age otherwise. I read a lot from the library and from (mainly the horror section of) the James Thin bookshop in town.
Q For anyone who is still deciding what to aim for with a career and is maybe thinking about trying to write fiction, what are the positives as you see them of becoming a writer?
A Being a writer isn’t really a viable career, to be honest. There isn’t a regular or predictable income, and so much of it depends on chance. So you’re going to have to work other jobs at least part of the time (and probably most if not all of the time). So you really do it because you love it, as an end in itself.
The best advice to anyone serious about writing is to read everything you can, and to be patient.
Q What are you working on at the moment?
A I’m in the early stages of my next book, but it’s too soon to say much about it, as my books tend to end up quite different from how I pictured them at the start.
Martin MacInnes’s latest novel In Ascension (Atlantic, £18.99) is out now. The Booker Prize shortlist is announced on September 21, and the winner on November 26. More on Martin:
