I've written novels, both published (and paid) and yet-to-be published, as well as poems fitting the same categories. I've got some twenty-three cantos of a novel-in-verse which some here have seen, but it's been shelved until I feel like it, partially because my editors are less interested in that than in more traditional novels. Thankfully, the fantasy field, as mentioned, has a long tradition of verse being used as chapter headers or even sections of narrative, so I've been able to play with that.

For other authors aside from Jane Yolen, there's also John M. Ford who does some amazing poetry, Suzette Haden Elgin, Vernor Vinge and numerous others.

In response to Janet and Marilyn, I'm writing, and have been for years, a novel. Perhaps wrestling with it would be more apposite. Have published poems and essays but no fiction. Why did I turn to this genre? Sometimes I am really not sure! Certainly I am not by nature a storyteller, but rather a connector and evoker....the book (prefer to call it a prose fiction rather than a novel!!) is set in first century AD on an island off the coast of Italy and a bit in ancient Britain, and I started it after being fascinated for ages by the time and places and wondering what it would be like to have lived there then...and by certain historical or possibly historical events...but the book is not at all a "typical" historical novel, more an imaginative evocation of an atmosphere...

Well, anyway, as, for my sins, I'm a one-project woman, this is why I haven't written many poems in the last few years.

For someone who can take months to write a single poem, it is utter madness to take on a prose book.

Christine

'Of course, so does A S Byatt in Possession--but the poems in it are pastiche of a certain type of poem--whether good in their own right I don't remember--I probably skimmed them because I was so caught up in the story!'

Me too! Glad I'm not alone.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention Poul Anderson. His wife Karen told me that he liked writing blank verse sonnets and submerging at least one of them in the text of every novel. So there's an easter egg for any fans of his work.

Kevin

Janet, I wrote half a novel - a very clever, funny satire on the year of the Watergate hearings - but like Marilyn I found plot almost impossible to handle. Also the sheer amount of material, that you have to remember exactly what you said someone was wearing on a given day or whatever. Pointless!! Looking back after I'd reverted to poetry I realised I was structuring the chapters like poems, which is clearly no good. It was fun, though, I had sections from different characters' points of view. One of my favourite scenes was where my experimental poet character heard that Ezra Pound had just died... oh he was so sad.

And while I didn't begin the chapters with verse, like Kevin, I did have about 2-3 wonderfully-researched epigraphs to each chapter. It was totally unpublishable.

Oh wait, I did write some 1972-type poems for the character - but as I recall, one criticism I got for them was they were slightly too good.

And I got shortlisted in a short-story competition. My only good short story.

With what relief did I write a sonnet one time and go: PHEW!

KEB

I labored for a couple of years on a novel (set in England in 1815) but what I got out of the experience was the realization that I enjoy writing dialogue and doing research, but am quite hopeless at plotting. This was before I rediscovered poetry, which came as an enormous relief because writing that wasn't like pulling teeth.

Susan

I wrote two and a half novels.

The first was written in three weeks, during a financial crisis when my aim was to make money without spending any. Naive! However a top agent accepted it enthusiastically and marketed me as "the second Margaret Atwood". After rejections by two publishers I decided I would recall it. Again naive!

Now it's out of date. I was well placed, by a string of coincidences, to have the inside story on a major international political drama, It was hotly topical. Now it would be ho hum. Also I read it about a year ago and squirmed.

While the first novel was being marketed the agent said to me:"Are you just a one book novelist or have you another book inside you?"

So I wrote a second thriller--more slowly this time-- it took six weeks. Even I hated it.


I tried a third novel and became so bored I decided that even starvation was preferabe to grinding out pot boilers. I stopped.

I turned, seriously, to poetry (which I had always written) and was happy. A singer wants the essence not the preamble.;)



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited March 29, 2006).]

Re Vikram Seth, there are some short sound clips from an interview with him HERE which might be of interest. The first clip relates to “his view of himself as a poet, the poetic nature of his novels”.

I haven’t attempted a novel, only some bits of “microfiction”. But sometimes I have the odd feeling that I myself am a character in a novel.

Henry,
It's a terrific read ;)
Janet

In answer to Janet's query, I published four crime novels. Can't remember how many others I wrote - probably about four (three crime, one black comedy).

Margaret.