Sure we could be coming up with scintillating original content* (or we could be reading a really cool book…stay tuned!), but we’re taking advantage of the hard work and effort others. Like The Elegant Variation. In the midst of major party preparations, Mark found three minutes to talk to David Francis. We found fun quotes. Talk about your win-win. First, Francis makes an entrance:
Jane [Smiley] stops mid-sentence and decides to introduce me to her audience as I fumble for somewhere to be. She starts talking about my new book and its U.S. release and blahdy blah. Then she asks me what I have in my hand and of course it’s the book. I felt so cheap. So contrived. But I was innocent. So, I’ll stop. I think I’ve dropped all the names I know. At least locally.
Then he takes one of those looks inside that we all regret:
Would I write a novel if I knew there was no possibility it would ever be published?” I’d love to deliver a deinitive yes, that I write because I write, which is almost totally true, but I can hear a part of me that would nonetheless yearn for a chance, however miniscule, to be read. Writing is lonely enough as it is. I’m probably as deperate as the next person scratching away for some scrap of approval or a pretense of same……..
* – Yeah, that was a joke; we’re as original as wheat bread.
