Thoughts
I write a lot. Essays. Articles. Blog posts. All of them sharing what I’m thinking about. Maybe you think about these things, too.
When the Beginning isn’t the Beginning
Even as we tend to identify with the detective in a mystery, there’s also a part of each of us that also understands the fear or need that drove the killer to act, to protect themselves in the only way they saw possible.
When Great Artists do Terrible Things
So at the end of all this I’m still left with a sense of ambiguity. Is there a way to hold both of these truths together? To say of someone that they are both great and awful? Or do we feel that listening to their words, now that we know the truth, becomes somehow tainted?
Is Technology a Writer’s Friend?
I really liked this book. It was fun to write. But it took me rather a long time to write it—this was quite a while before I became a fulltime writer. And something happened between my starting the novel and finishing it.
Is Technology Leaving Readers Behind?
As writers, one of our obligations, I think, is to be the vehicle that enables readers to ask these questions in a safe fictional space. Raising the questions in fiction doesn’t make them any less real, or any less urgent, or any less difficult, but it serves the same function as fairytales and horror stories, the option of experiencing fears without also experiencing immediate and life-threatening danger.