A Quote by Julian Barnes

In 1980, I published my first novel, in the usual swirl of unjustified hope and justified anxiety. — © Julian Barnes
In 1980, I published my first novel, in the usual swirl of unjustified hope and justified anxiety.
At 18, my first short story was published - I was paid a penny a word by a science fiction magazine. I continued to write, and five years later I published my first novel, 'Sweetwater.'
I published my first poem in 'The Paris Review' in 1980.
The 1980's was the first time in the history of imperialism that people from the imperial society went in substantial numbers to stay with the victims in the hope that their presence would offer some protection and some help. These were not the usual students from elite universities. These were people straight out of middle America.
If you are justified, you can no more be unjustified than Christ can be pulled down from heaven.
It had been fourteen years and I hadn't had anything published. I had 250 rejection slips. I got my first novel published and it was called Kinflicks. It turned out to be a best seller.
My first book published in France was translated and titled Exercices d'Attente in 1972. It was a collection of short works written and published in Romania. In 1973 I was ready to publish the novel Arpièges, which I had started writing in Romanian and of which I had published some fragments under the title Vain Art of the Fugue. Some years later, I finished Necessary Marriage.
If the tradition which claims that war may be justified does not also admit that it could be unjustified, the affirmation is not morally serious. A Christian who prepares the case for a justified war without being equally prepared for hte negative case has not soberly weighted the prima facie presumption that any violence is wrong until the case for an exception has been made.
I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference.
'Floating Worlds,' published in 1975 and the lone science fiction novel by acclaimed historical novelist Cecelia Holland, was unique in being completely devoid of the usual pulp influences present in much space opera up to that time.
In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does.
Just keep writing, and try to finish that novel. Remember, all authors started exactly where you are right now; the only difference between a published author and a non-published one is that the published author never stopped writing.
It's been more than a decade since I put that self-published novel, 'Lip Service', up on a website. Since then, many hundreds of authors have gone from self-published to traditionally published.
I have been amazed by the interest in cognitive behavioral therapy that has developed since 'Feeling Good' was first published in 1980. At that time, very few people had heard of cognitive therapy.
I only published my first novel at the age of 40. Till then, I wrote short stories.
I wish I could go back and re-write my first novel for the first time. Because I really didn't know what I was doing, and although it was published, it is, after all this time, kind of an embarrassment.
When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.
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