As every reader knows, there are books, and then there are Books. Books for me, the ones with a capital B, include Half of a Yellow Sun (amazing plot, amazing love story, amazing message), Lolita (a very difficult book to read, written in the most beautiful prose; Nabokov was a master of his adopted language), and The Lover (the unforgettable, lasts-a-lifetime teenage angst of first love).

Sarah Lane – 30 November 2014

The Back Flap

Quarterfinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

What if the muse, aka the goddess of art, was male? The God of My Art paints a portrait of the artist as a young woman and explores unrequited love as her source of inspiration for art.

From the back cover:

Helene vividly remembers that night in Prince George when her alcoholic mother threatened to leave. She also cannot forget the day her stepfather sent her away to a group home. Now, years later in Vancouver, she has met a man who can make her forget all that.

The God of My Art is layered with unforgettable scenes of youth, obsessive love, and artistic longing. At the core of this haunting coming-of-age tale are the shifting faces of Helene–teenage runaway, university student, and budding artist. Related in Helene’s engaging voice, this novel chronicles her seminal love affair with Matthew, a globetrotting mountaineer passionate about Nietzsche, and the art he inspires within her. As she wrestles to become the artist she wants to be, she encounters unforgettable characters along the way, including Hana, a lesbian theatre student fed up with her partner’s multiple affairs, and Laurent, a French exchange student who grapples with existential questions of his own.

Bold and poetic, sensual and confessional, The God of My Art is the beautifully written first novel by Sarah Lane, one of Canada’s most exciting new literary voices.

About the book

What is the book about?

The God of My Art is about a young woman from a small northern town in Canada who can’t decide what she wants most: to escape poverty or be an artist. She ran away as a teenager to Vancouver, and she has since managed to finish high school and get into university. That is when the trouble begins, however: she feels like a fake and an outsider amongst privileged middle-class kids. And then she meets Matthew, who lives in a wealthy neighborhood and whose parents work for the United Nations. He plans to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders as a logistician after completing his degree, anywhere in the world that is at war. In the meantime, to kick up a few thrills, he rock climbs and mountaineers. He has a fling with her, and then he’s gone.

This relationship is the catalyst for the coming-of-age story of a young woman and artist that follows in what is both a female bildungsroman and a kunstlerroman. As the story of a young woman coming into her own, the novel emphasizes dialogue and internal thought over action, and focuses on Helene’s psychological growth and changes to her character. As an artist’s novel, it shows Helene’s sensitive and unconventional nature as she struggles to fling off the welfare class values of her impoverished background, where art has no place, while refusing to conform to the new middle class values that surround her at university, where art is held in higher esteem.

It is most definitely not a religious book. It is a philosophical novel. Another word for the artist’s muse is the goddess of art: the eternal feminine who inspires the enamored male artist to great works of art. In The God of My Art, the muse is a man, so the title makes reference to the male source of the artist’s inspiration.

When did you start writing the book?

In January 2002.

How long did it take you to write it?

Two years to complete the rough draft (it was rough). Four years to collect dust in a drawer (they say you’re supposed to let a novel sit a while, so there it sat). Four more years to edit it (I love editing; it’s fun.)

Where did you get the idea from?

My brain. It’s not autobiographical. I get that question a lot because of the first-person point of view.

However, the book is about becoming an artist and the sacrifices that entails. I am not a painter, but I am a writer. I wanted to figure out that strange and awesome urge to create art. Where does it come from?

I also wanted to grapple with the old question of where the balance lies between freedom and responsibility and between necessity, fate, and a lack of choice. I was particularly interested in how class, gender, terrible childhoods, other people’s decisions, and random accidents could influence my characters’ choices and limit their freedom to decide their lives.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Everything, from start to finish. It was my first novel. First novels are hard.

What came easily?

The language and flow of the prose once the story was in place.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

Entirely fictitious, except for the bits about a couple of French intelligence analysts writing that the war in Afghanistan was planned in July 2001 as a backup action if the Taliban didn’t sign a natural gas pipeline deal (they didn’t sign), a series of articles in Time whitewashing the Taliban to the American public while the deal was in the works, the USA withdrawing and Canada objecting to the classification of slavery as a crime against humanity at the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism in South Africa, and Afghan women risking their lives for years to smuggle out footage of public stonings of women in football stadiums to international broadcasting stations, footage which never aired until after the events of September 2001. These things really did happen.

Also, there is a monument outside the central train station in Vancouver whose inscription is dedicated to “All Women Who Have Been Murdered By Men.” There really were up to 600 initial potential suspects into the killing of fifty plus women from the downtown Eastside in Vancouver before the police narrowed it down to one. So the police must have figured that 599 other potential serial killers were running around Vancouver at that time.

Of course, Albert Camus was a real philosopher (The Myth of Sisyphus should be a required high school reading).  Hippocrates really did say, “Life is short, art is long.”

All the rest I made up: the characters, the story.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

I may be a slow writer, but I am a very fast reader. So I have read a lot of fiction in many genres. I am reading every dystopian novel I can get my hands on right now because I plan to write a dystopian trilogy after I finish the book I’m currently working on.

As every reader knows, there are books, and then there are Books. Books for me, the ones with a capital B, include Half of a Yellow Sun (amazing plot, amazing love story, amazing message), Lolita (a very difficult book to read, written in the most beautiful prose; Nabokov was a master of his adopted language), and The Lover (the unforgettable, lasts-a-lifetime teenage angst of first love).

I think everything I read influences me, but I’m a picky reader. I dislike books that you can’t put down because of plot twist after plot twist and nonstop cliffhangers but which ultimately leave you with nothing but a few hours of entertainment. I like books with deeper meanings that leave you thinking about and questioning your own life. And if you can’t put those books down because of cliffhangers and plot twists, so much the better. The Fault in Our Stars comes to mind. Now that is a good book that leaves you with a ton of life stuff to think about, and you can’t put the damn thing down (I stayed up half the night crying as I read straight through to the end).

On the other hand, I try to read anything that is considered good for its genre. I don’t really like romance, but I’ve given its best authors a go. I don’t really like plot-based books, but I’ve read quite a few by James Patterson. I read these types of books as homework, as a writer trying to decipher what other writers are doing and how they are doing it so well. I think it’s important for writers to read in genres different from their own to improve their style. The best writers nowadays tend to combine elements from different genres (think Divergent, which has a romance weaved through an otherwise dystopian story).

For pleasure, I mostly read literary, general fiction, world fiction, and young adult. My favorite authors include Caryl Phillips (Dancing in the Dark), Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible), Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart), and Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).

Do you have a target reader?

Yes, female university students. Amazingly enough, some of the best reviews of The God of My Art have come from middle-aged men. So there you go: written for young women, loved by middle-aged men.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

Sit down at my computer and waste time on Facebook?

Seriously, when I actually write, I now start with an outline. For The God of My Art, I was more of a panster than a plotter. I don’t think one method is better than the other in terms of the finished product, but I’ve since learned that outlining is definitely a faster way for me to write. For the novel I’m currently writing, I plotted out each and every plot point, which took me three weeks. I’m halfway through writing the first draft now, a mere three months later. So I’d say I’ve kicked it up a notch from taking ten years to write The God of My Art, as a panster.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

When I wrote The God of My Art, I edited as I wrote. Little good that did as I later revised it extensively. Now I don’t allow myself any revision or editing until I’m completely done the first draft.

Did you hire a professional editor?

Yes, I did, both for a substantive edit and a copy edit. I found the substantive edit the most useful, and I revised the novel quite a bit after that edit. As for the copy edit, I don’t have a good eye for detail, as I tend to skim read. However, I do have a Masters in Comparative Literature, which enabled me to do most of the copy editing myself prior to shipping it out.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

No, I can’t stand it. I need silence (at home) or the hum of background noise (in a café). But music is just distracting.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

Why bother? It’s harder to get an agent in Canada than a publisher.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

I submitted The God of My Art to a slew of small presses and got a lot of positive personalized feedback (I didn’t submit to large publishing houses, as that requires an agent). When one small press editor explained to me that they publish 1-3 novels a year and that they get 1000-2000 submissions a year, something clicked in my head. Even if my book made number four on every publisher’s list, it still wouldn’t be picked up. So I took the plunge.

I have been traditionally published in a few literary magazines. I do plan to submit all my future novels to the Canadian small presses before self-publishing for the simple reason that they can submit books for awards for which indie books are not eligible.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

Professionally designed. Unlike Helene, the protagonist in The God of My Art, I’m not a visual artist.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

Winging it all the way. I have two kids under four, and I’m writing another book. I don’t have a lot of time for promotion, and like many authors, I’d rather use my spare time for writing (and reading).

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

1. Don’t put a crappy book out there. Make sure it’s the very best it can be. If it’s good, it might live longer than you do, even if it gets off to a slow start.
2. Don’t wing the marketing bit; have a plan in place before you publish (see previous question as to why I don’t follow my own advice).

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in British Columbia.

Where do you live now?

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

What would you like readers to know about you?

I’ve travelled a lot. I learned French as an adult and became fluent. I wrote The God of My Art while living in the French Alps, hence the French connection woven throughout the novel.

What are you working on now?

I’m writing a psychological thriller about a doppelgänger and the madness of salsa dancing. A young woman takes up salsa dancing to break out of her shell only to meet her doppelganger, who begins to terrorize the original woman. It is a psychological literary novel loosely based on the Russian classic The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

End of Interview:

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Get your copy of The God of my Art from Amazon US (paper or ebook) or Amazon UK (paper or ebook).