Writer Wednesday - Harlan Coben

There are only fifteen minutes left in this day, but better late than never, right? For this week's "Writer Wednesday," I haven't had a lot of time to think about who I wanted to research. Hell, I haven't had a lot of time to research much of anything. Excuses, excuses, but I had three paid projects to finish this last week, and well, Comcast and Georgia Power probably won't accept, "You see, I'm trying to enlighten myself as a writer and I have this blog..." as a good excuse for not paying the bills. But I digress.

I have been trying to keep my chosen writer related to whatever book(s) I read that week (assuming it was a good book), and this week, I read Just One Look by Harlan Coben. It's only the second book by Coben I've read. One day last summer, my aunt sent me home from her house with one of his Myron Bolitar novels. After listening to her talk about them for years, I decided to give a try. I loved the book, but I didn't rush right out and buy the rest of them. I think it has something to do with my aversion to starting a series in the middle. Be it a TV show or a book series, I all but break out in hives when I can't start from the beginning. There's a reason every episode of "Modern Family" is sitting on my DVR and has been for about a year. I did, however, go out and buy some of Coben's stand-alone books.

Anyway, I did do a little research tonight and I couldn't really find many writing tips from Coben, but I did find this quote from an interview that I could really relate to. It's actually about reading,

"I know a lot of authors who don’t read in their fields of work, and especially when writing a novel, because they feel that they might somehow be influenced by what they’re reading. At this stage of my career, I feel my writing voice is my own, which may not have been the case when I started. I’ve just finished Philip Roth’s Everyman and I loved it because it so depressing, but so beautifully written, but I don’t so much get influenced by other writers as inspired. In the past a book might have touched me enough so I might have just curled up into a ball and cried. Now I find that if I’ve read something that great, I want to up my own game. It’s not just with novels either; a new Springsteen CD, a movie or a work of art might do it, too. I especially like the books of emergence. The ones you take on holiday that beg you to stay in your hotel room to finish."

There have been authors whose books I have been afraid to read because I was afraid I'd feel like I was copying them. Eventually, I gave in to temptation and I totally understand the whole inspiration vs. influence issue. Reading does inspire me to write better and seek different ideas.

Another great quote from the article is about writing what you want to write as opposed to what you think will sell.

"...write from the heart and don’t try to follow the current trend. Nobody is going to want to read The Da Vinci Dog simply because dog books are selling well and Da Vinci books are selling well. Besides, they won’t be by the time your book’s finished anyway. I don’t know of any successful author who writes what he or she thinks might sell well, but instead they all write what they know is a good book regardless of trends. Thirdly, my favorite quote on writing comes from Elmore Leonard who said: 'I try to cut out all the parts I would normally skip.'"

This is yet another dilemma I've faced in my lifetime, even up until last night. As I've mentioned, I'm working on a novel right now. It's not the first novel I've ever started in my lifetime and it's certainly not the first idea for one I've had - I'd actually been working on another one when the idea for this one hit me.

Something that happened to me almost three years to the date inspired the general idea for this story, but the pieces didn't fall into place until a couple of months ago. I don't want to go into too much detail but a series of very small, random events helped me round out the rest and sort of got my creative juices flowing or something else cliche like that. I've struggled with trying to make this story fit into a specific genre, to make it something I thought other people would love, but it wasn't until about 2AM this morning, while I was banging away on my laptop, that I decided to just write what I think is a good story and hope other people love it as much as I do. Then I'll go from there. I'd much rather read something that comes from the writer's heart.

And with that, I need to get back to my writing. But check out Harlan Coben if you haven't already and one day, maybe I'll finish the Myron Bolitar series without having a panic attack, because I already know what happens in the eighth book.