Every Friday I transfer posts here from the Virtual Pint Archives.
Three pints today — 60 ounces of posty goodness. These three ended up being loosely related, all touching on reading somehow. Nothing particularly deep and meaningful. Just enjoyable (for me) little conversations with people who took the time to write in with questions or comments.
- Readers matter most (August 2002) — Although it would be nice if the writer wouldn’t keep them waiting forever for a response…
- Living the story (September 2002) — Author websites and book categories. And the first time I ever talked about how story is real for me.
- What’s the writer reading? (September 2002) — Here’s the first mention of beginning work on the (at the time) mainstream novel Drown.
If you’d like to start a conversation anytime, use the Want to talk? link on the sidebar.
Cheers.
To me, reading is a dialogue with the writer. This is true of both fiction and non-fiction. I have always been a much more talented reader than a writer. I read the part of Drown you posted and was hooked. I hope you write more. Did you call her Jane because it’s the second most common woman’s name after Mary?
I like mystery stories. Right now I’m reading Ruth Rendell, Robert Barnard and Stuart Kaminsky. Rendell is subtle and scary. She’s english. Barnard is amusing and witty. Kaminsky’s detective is a Russian policeman in Moscow, so solving crimes often has political complications.
Any way, readers always say the same thing to writers. Write more!
I called her Jane because that’s her name. Hmm, that probably sounds flip and isn’t meant to — it’s just the truth. I actually can’t go very far at all down the road with a character without knowing their name, and it has to be the right name. I never choose them for “meaning” or for any other conscious reason — I just wander around the house looking distracted and, I don’t know, feeling the character, and imagining them saying their name, or someone saying it to them. When it’s right, I know it.
I like mysteries too, although my tastes run to John D. MacDonald and Lee Child and Helen MacInnes. And I used to also really enjoy the Amanda Cross books, although I haven’t read her in a while.