Not quite of this world June 30, 2008

Have you read The Intuitionist? It’s a novel by Colson Whitehead about elevator inspectors in a great city that might be New York. The protagonist is an inspector of the “intuitionist” school. She rides the elevators and gets an intuitive sense about their mechanical worthiness. Contrasted with this group is the “empiricist” school of inspectors [...]

The space inside my head June 29, 2008

Continuing with the point of yesterday’s post, I offer this quote from Iris Murdoch, one of my favorite writers:
“All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn.”

The annoying tyranny of others’ expectations June 28, 2008

As a writer, I would be satisfied to hide under a bushel basket (though I would not fit). For me, the act of writing fiction is a private, utterly solitary act. I am not comfortable consulting with others, giving progress reports, or discussing ideas. I want quiet and solitude. I want to write undisturbed and [...]

Servant of four masters June 24, 2008

When I stopped to consider all of the fiction ideas that dominate my thoughts, I realized that I am devoting a considerable amount of mental effort to four different genres of fiction: four very different types of creation.
I am currently working on a new novel, which has the working title of The Sleep of Reason. [...]

Sleep proceeds June 21, 2008

I am delighted to find that I’ve made good early progress on my novel The Sleep of Reason. I’ve managed to write nearly two thousand words in the last couple of days. I’m in the midst of chapter two, and I’ve generally found this part of the story to be one of the roughest for [...]

Fugitive from the Grammar Police June 20, 2008

It’s all about communication in the end. Getting your message across to your audience. That’s how I look at grammar. Which is to say, I consider the rules of grammar to be more guidelines than actual rules.
While I tend to adhere to the rules of spelling and punctuation, and while I really do tend to [...]

What to do with Ann Finnegan? June 16, 2008

Dirty little secret: I don’t like most of the novels I read in the mystery genre. I like the idea of mysteries, and certainly there have been some masterful works in the genre that can be considered literature. Most of what I read now, though, is formulaic and cliched. There are just too many “rules” [...]

In which I may eat my words June 14, 2008

In a recent post I mentioned that I rarely outline my stories before I write them. I think I may have to reassess that method now with The Sleep of Reason.
This story is told in first person. My narrator is also the protagonist. He will undergo a number of transformations and revelations in the story, [...]

Taking the long view June 11, 2008

I read recently that Agatha Christie wrote many of her novels with no clear idea who the culprit was. She introduced many likely perpetrators with just as many likely motives. Then when she got to the end, she looked them over and decided which one to make the killer. She would then go back and [...]

Going to Sleep June 4, 2008

My mind has shifted itself to the next novel I will write: The Sleep of Reason. I noted in at least one other post that this story is unlike the Finnegan novels, which is probably a good reason to take it up now. If I’m not going to market those novels as mysteries, maybe it [...]