OK, so choosing a John Irving novel for our 12 books of Christmas series isn’t exactly going out on a limb—the book was one of the most anticipated releases of the fall and got some serious attention back in November, including our interview. But when Alden Mudge (who has been conducting interviews with literary luminaries for BookPage since long before my tenure here) writes that Last Night in Twisted River contains “some of the most entertaining and intellectually playful storytelling of Irving’s career,” I sit up and take notice. Though it didn’t make our Top 10 list for 2009, this novel would make a great gift for the guy (especially a dad) in your life who likes to read.

Read more in our 12 books of Christmas series.

Read more about John Irving on BookPage.com.

When writers get rejections, we just get back up on that ol’ keyboard, and start pounding away again, right?

Maybe you do, but not me, at least not today.  Today I’m attending to my blog, which has been neglected recently.

Here is a quote from John Irving that I liked so much I scribbled it into my black book (which is not addresses of lovers past, present, and future (hah!), but is my catch-all writing log and diary).  

I do like Irving’s attitude, and more importantly, his stressing that writing, to be compelling, must involve drama–subtle, over the top, unexpected, common, whatever:  good story requires conflict, and that means drama, and, pain.

The quote:

“Writing a novel is actually searching for victims.  As I write I keep looking for casualties.  The stories uncover the casualties.”

            –interview with author John Irving, The Paris Review, 1986

Keep on searching…

Keep on…

Keep…

In Episode 22 of BookBanter you will hear my third interview live from the World Fantasy Convention with author Jeff VanderMeer. VanderMeer writes his own books, edits anthologies, and even does writer workshops. His books include City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword, while some of the anthologies he has edited include Fast Ships Black Sails and The New Weird. He has two new books out: Finch, a work of fiction, and Booklife, a fantastic book on writing and how to become a successful writer no matter what level you are.

Featured in the episode are my reviews for Booklife, Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving, The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins; to purchase any of these books, click on the covers below :

This episode of BookBanter is brought to you by Angie’s List. At Angie’s List you’ll find thousands of unbiased ratings on services for home improvements, car repairs, and even doctors. Gain access to thousands of reviews on local service providers for Home improvement Auto Repair, Accounting, Animal Care, Health Care and even Weddings.  Let Angie’s List take away the guesswork. Find the service provider your neighbors gave the highest rating.  Join Angie’s List and use promo code “book” for 25% off your membership!  Just go to Angieslist.com.

I would once again like to thank Cheryl Morgan for getting me all set up at the World Fantasy Convention.

After enjoying this episode, why not check out the new BookBanter Blog, where you can find out about everything related to BookBanter, books, writing, and whatever else I feel like writing about .

I’ll see you next time, on January 1st, 2010, where I’ll be interviewing author Guy Gavriel Kay, who’s new book Under Heaven, is due out April 27th.

Until then, keep reading!

Alex C. Telander.

This Firing Squad is absolutely littered with spoilers, so if you’re one of those people who cares a lot about that sort of thing, then you should probably leave this one alone. 

I’ve avoided books that already have critically acclaimed film versions, or film versions that I particularly enjoy. This excludes East of Eden, Lolita, Lord of the Flies, It, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. I’ve also avoided some of my favorite plays, which already have excellent stage productions, and I’d be competing not just with the text but with the entire production history if I were to theoretically make those movies.  That excludes, sadly, anything by Shakespeare, Chekhov, and O’Neill. I also want to put it out there that I have absolutely zero experience with filmmaking.

With all that said:

• A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. I made this list deliberately avoiding a lot of books that have decent film adaptations. However, this book has a pretty fair movie adaptation in Simon Birch. Unfortunately, as we can tell from the title of the movie when compared to the title of the book, we were unable to really make it into a film a lot like the book. (Wikipedia tells me that John Irving actually requested they not use the name “Owen Meany” because he didn’t want people being misled into thinking it was really similar to the book. He’s also said that he’s not sure it can be made into a movie, and honestly, he’s probably right. He’s the writer, after all. I could go into a serious John Irving rant right now, but I’ll hold off.) Simon Birch completely cuts out the Vietnam subplot and, to be perfectly frank, cuts the legs out of the God’s instrument parts of the book. Suffice it to say, my version would be really faithful to the book, take about three hours, and would get Oscar nominations in about seventy-five percent of the categories.  I promised to keep these relatively short. Moving on.
• But seriously, if I were to describe John Irving novels in five words, they would be, “prostitution,” “Vienna,” “wrestling,” “feel-g00d,” and “identical.” Moving on!
•  Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. There have been a couple of made-for-TV Brave New Worlds, and IMDb suggests that there will be a Brave New World in 2011. But this one is a goldmine of Oscar bait. The book is short enough that you could probably fit the whole plot into the movie (and take out the DHC if you really wanted to, so you can save more time). The characters of Helmholtz and Mustapha Mond are the stuff that Supporting Actor Oscars are made of. I think there’s a lot that can be done to make it a “metaphor for the Googleization of the current world, and what we could become in the future.” In other words, it’s Clockwork Lite. Be ready to bring the droogs to the movie.
• Just for a second, can we talk about how easy a droog costume is? How intelligent a droog costume is? How not enough people dress up as droogs for Halloween? How much I am in love with Kubrick? (If you don’t know me, that’s going to be a major theme of, well, every post I make.)
• The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. While Midnight’s Children is probably source material for a movie, and probably a better work of art, I haven’t read it. This one will get people to the theaters, bring immense publicity, become a hallmark of artistic freedom, violate the Qu’ran by portraying the Prophet, and bring a fatwa down on my little Christian-Agnostic head. That’d be interesting. I see a, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, they both oh yes, they both oh yes, reached for the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun!” developing, you know what I’m saying?
• Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth. Let’s put it this way. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 6.2 on IMDb. The movie I usually cite as being the worst one I’ve ever seen, Elizabethtown, comes in at a 6.4.  Goodburger, for the love of God, is a 4.9. Portnoy’s Complaint is a 4.7. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and definitely the funniest. Definitely the funniest. I have almost rolled out of my bed laughing reading it. For it to be made into a movie rated worse than Star Trek: TMS, Elizabethtown, and Goodburger on IMDb is a crime worse than all of the sexual immorality that Alexander Portnoy so gleefully/shamefully embarks on. Give me Robert Downey Jr. as Portnoy and Evan Rachel Wood or Eliza Dushku as The Monkey, and this thing wins Best Picture.
• Where’s Waldo?, by Martin Hanford. Take your pick. This becomes a psychological thriller about an oddly dressed serial killer, or it becomes  a drama about a man who feels totally alone in a crowd, completely unseen, looking for someone to find him. Please, let someone with an imagination make one of these two.
• The last entry in Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl is timeless and absolutely beautiful. Let’s say Scorsese makes this movie. You see everyone in the Secret Annex found while that entry is voiced over. Concentration camps. Death. Writing it out. The book closes as she says the last line. There’s not a dry eye in the house. I can see it all in my head. No, I’m not taking the Holocaust too lightly. Maybe that’s a future post.
• Does anybody else remember Grindhouse? First R-rated movie I ever saw in theaters. My brother bought me a ticket, because I was sixteen when we went to see it. Turns out he didn’t need to. I accidentally managed to get past the guy who checked the tickets. I’m still not sure how that happened. At any rate, I really enjoyed Grindhouse. It also happened to be the first Tarantino flick I’d ever seen…and the only Robert Rodriguez movie I’d ever seen that wasn’t Spy Kids. (By the way, Spy Kids 2, which is up there with Hostel and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story on my list of “Movies that I don’t plan on watching unless my life or the life of a cat is at stake,” is a 5.3 on IMDb. Come on, Portnoy’s Complaint! It’s based on a book by a future Nobel laureate and it’s hilarious. “They’re cool, available…and ADDICTIVE. People, the job is almost done for us.”) You’re probably wondering why I’m still on this. My idea is to put together “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” with pretty much anything else by Edgar Allan Poe in a similar double feature. I’m rooting for “The Pit and the Pendulum” or “Hop-frog,” but that’s just me. Everyone artsy and everyone who saw Saving Private Ryan because it was full of gore (which, in all fairness, is probably somewhere between the number of people who saw Tarzan, The Ape Man for the lush jungle scenery and the number of people who saw Brokeback Mountain for the cultural signficance) would see that double feature. Just think: the unforgettable tag team of Steven Spielberg and Rob Zombie.
• Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis. This one could totally get Simon Birched (and just like the Buddhist vision of the world and/or a Dane Cook joke, we have come full circle) and still be a good movie. Read it some time. You’ll go back and watch the footage of Obama/McCain/Palin talking about the comparison between “Wall Street” and “Main Street” with a completely new, wiser, more cynical eye.

“Get out. Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.” Thanks for coming to Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. You’ll have things you’ll want to talk about: I. Will. Too.

Here’s a friendly update to let you know that reviews for the following books will be featured on the upcoming Episode 22 of BookBanter, as well as featuring the exclusive interview with Jeff VanderMeer, going up December 15th:

- UConn is 6-1 with Ws over college powerhouses William & Mary, Colgate, Hofstra, Harvard (a 79-73 struggle, most recently), and two 25-30 point wins over LSU and Boston University. Their only loss comes against Duke, 68-59, so if we beat the Huskies by more than nine we can irrationally say that we are technically better than Duke.

- The Huskies are led by seniors Jerome Dyson, a guard averaging 20 points a game, and forward Stanley Robinson, averaging 15 points. Dyson also averages 5 assists per game, while Robinson contributes 9 rebounds. They are probably two of the most athletic players in the country. UConn survived a second half surge by Harvard pretty much by their contributions alone: Robinson had 18 points and 12 rebounds; Dyson came up one assist short of a triple-double on top of 24 points and 14 rebounds. Obviously, UConn’s success rests on the shoulders of these guys.

Stanley Robinson has at least one sick dunk highlight per game.

- Most of us heard Calipari speak highly of Daniel Orton in Saturday’s game, but he also had high praise for Perry Stevenson, whose name we haven’t heard much this season. Of Orton and Stevenson Calipari stated, “I thought those two won the game for us…their effort and energy was unbelievable.” I admit I failed to notice the difference Stevenson’s presence made, so I’ll be on the lookout for that tonight, and also another intense performance from Orton.

- It will be interesting to see if the win over Carolina translates into not only team confidence, but individual confidence for some players as well. I speak primarily of Darius Miller and Eric Bledsoe. I just keep waiting for Miller to break it open one game–watch out if UConn lets him drive into the lane too uncontested and get his mid-range jumper off. Regarding Bledsoe, I wonder if he might be trying to do too much because Wall’s dominance is bringing out his competitiveness (a good thing); but maybe he’s trying too hard to be John Wall when John Wall is not in the game. He’ll come around, he just needs to relax play his own game, not feel threatened by Wall’s.

- On Around the Horn, J.A. Adande said that after the Carolina game on Saturday, he went through and DVRed all of UK’s games just so he could watch John Wall. Resident goofball Woody Paige picked Kentucky to win tonight. Not that it matters.

- Calipari was just interviewed on PTI. Here are some things he said:
**still maintains we’re really 4-4 not 8-0
**John Wall is farther along at this point than Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans, but still turns the ball over like they were doing; said Wall brings it, that he’s yet to miss a class or a tutorial, and Wall told Cal that even if he leaves he wants to come back every summer to complete his degree.
**Kornheiser asked him if he had attended any booster meetings with Ashley Judd. Cal laughed and said that she read his book and did a blurb for it, and he’s looking forward to her attendance at games this year.
**for some reason Kornheiser and Wilbon kept making a big deal that Cal was wearing a Kentucky shirt; it was obvious Cal was proud to be displaying “KENTUCKY” across his chest.
**I’m not sure the game tonight was mentioned once.

I wonder if Ashley Judd would do a blurb for Lexpatriates?

- We’re in for a great game tonight. These are two athletic teams and there are some great individual match-ups. Jim Calhoun is obviously going to make it a priority to try and contain Wall, so other UK players must step up. It’ll be interesting to see who that is if UConn is successful with that gameplan. I say if they are, Wall finds a way to get other players involved (which he does anyway); either way I say UK wins by 3.

- Speaking of New England, only one good thing has come from that part of the country: author John Irving. (Okay, I’ll throw in fellow Lexpatriates blogger Reverselexpat too.) And speaking of New England clam chowder (chowdA, whatever), I’ve got a funny story. Once when I was younger I was eating at that indisputable restaurant of gourmet sizzlin’, Shoney’s, with my mom. It’s important to note that my mom abhors seafood of all kinds. She asked me if I’d get her a cup of potato soup if they had it at the buffet; they did, or so I thought, so I brought a bowl of the chunky off-white goodness back to her. She was apparently really craving potato soup because she took a big spoonful and shucked it into her mouth. Immediately, she upchucked it back into her bowl. It was, of course, clam chowder. We have a good laugh about that occasionally.

Go Cats!

What better way to ease out of a holiday weekend and into the work week than with some early morning links:

• A recently rediscovered document dissolved Thomas Paine’s marriage and gave him the money to travel to America.  The East Sussex records office, located in Lewes where Paine worked before emigrating to the colonies, purchased the item for nearly £13,500.
• Upon the release of the film adaptation of The Road, Scott Timberg traces Cormac McCarthy’s rise from obscurity.
• A private collector in Kansas City has amassed an impressive number of artifacts related to George Washington and the American Revolution.  As long as these relics are preserved somewhere, it’s a good thing, but I take exception to his statement that these items are necessarily better cared for in private hands than in institutions.
• The burial of a skull believed to belong to a Revolutionary War soldier demonstrates the importance of symbols in historical commemoration.
• Many in Spain believe Francisco Franco’s body should be removed from the publicly funded Valley of the Fallen and returned to his family.  As with any clash over history and memory, there are a lot of factors at work here.  I link; you decide.
• Cynthia Crossen suggests works of fiction that represent the “American character.”    I’m not sure she’s right about  the representativeness of Rabbit Angstrom and TS Garp, but I’m not sure she’s wrong either.
• Fletcher Christian and the other HMS Bounty mutineers settled on Pitcairn Island and went undiscovered by the British navy for 25 years.  The logbook of the ship that found the island and the last Bounty survivor recently sold at auction for over £40,000.
• And, unfortunately, this is too late to be the soundtrack to your Thanksgiving dinner, but the complete, unedited Last Waltz concert is streaming at Wolfgang’s Vault.  If you have four hours to kill (or 3 hours and 45 minutes if you do the right thing and skip the Joni Mitchell tracks), give it a listen.

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to see John Irving speak at the Unity Temple on the Plaza in Kansas City. It was my first event there and the auditorium proved to be very comfortable and very packed. Thanks to Rainy Day Books who often sponsor these events. They are well known for bringing in writers of all genres. If you would like to check out their calendar go to www.RainyDayBooks.com.

Mr. Irving was promoting his latest novel “Last Night In Twisted River.” This particular novel has taken more than 20 years to come full circle. He stated he can’t finish a novel until he knows the ending. He needs to be able to feel the emotion of the last sentence and the punctuation. He is best known for his works “The World According to Garp and Cider House Rules.” These books were not best sellers but when turned into movies that changed everything for Mr. Irving. It was very interesting to hear that he wasn’t on the set of either of those films and let the director do what he wanted.

Mr. Irving gave a lot of insight in regards to his writing journey. As an inspiring writer I took it all in and found that he is just like me and every other writer that I know. He maps out his books before he writes them. He creates each character one at a time until he feels he knows every aspect of them. He plots the journey of each character and how they will interact with each other. He doesn’t type his novels but writes them on ruled paper. One reason for this is that he is plagued with arthritis.

Some of Mr. Irving’s favorite authors are Dickens, Melville and Hardy. He stated that no one writes like that anymore. He likes that they, write about what they know. If a character in his book is a cook or chef, he learns everything he can about cooking with an expert. Generally that means spending time with someone who lives that lifestyle everyday. What a fun way to do research.

For him writing is a labor of love. He feels a novel should be written as if it were done in one breath. What that means is, that there will be plenty of rough drafts and re-writes. He wants his stories to decieve the reader, he wants to be able to create twists and turns until the very end. He loves details in his novels. If a character represents and alcoholic he wants to be able to describe it in such a way that the reader can almost smell the alcohol on the characters breath. Mr. Irving feels that the vivid writing of the 19th century is just as important now as it was then.

This was a great experience for me and I look forward to reading his latest works. He read a few passages and we were all hooked.

“Ich schreibe das an die Jünglinge, die noch nicht verdorben sind wie ich, der ich morgen wieder schreibe, weil ich diesem Laster verfallen bin, das abgefeimter und blutsaugerischer ist als der Morphinismus…”   (Bertolt Brecht in einem Aufsatz 1920)

“Schreiben macht besessen”   (Leena Lander in einem Interview mit Stefan Teplan 1998)

Ausriss aus der Erstveröffentlichung im Magazin WELTBILD Nr. 10, 1999

Reich und berühmt. Gutaussehend. Auflagenkönig: Erfolgreichster US-Schriftsteller. Zigfacher Millionär. Was will man mehr? John Irving ist ein, ist das gefundene Fressen nicht nur für Literaturkritiker, die in seltener Einmütigkeit sein sprachliches Genie in die höchsten Höhen des literarischen Himmels heben. Mehr noch vielleicht für Klatschreporter und Biographen, die so gerne eindeutig zweideutig schreiben, wenn sie in die tiefsten Niederungen des Privatlebens von Prominenten hinabstoßen. Wer es sich dann noch angetan hat, seine auch sprichwörtlich großen Romane – unter acht- bis neunhundert Seiten tu’s Irving meist nicht – zu lesen, dem ist wohl endgültig klar: Bei Irving muss man fündig werden. Wimmelt es doch in seinen Büchern von Exzessen und Exzentrikern, Irrungen und Wirrungen, erotischen Eskapaden und exotischen Welten, virtuos in Szene gesetzt innerhalb eines labyrinthartigen Handlungsgeflechts, so prall, so bunt, so komisch, so traurig wie das Leben selbst. Und weiß man doch, dass bei guten Schriftstellern fast alles autobiographisch ist.

Aber da befindet man sich bei John Irving schon auf dem Holzweg. Literaturkritiker stößt er vor den Kopf, weil er offen bekennt, dass er auf das Geschwätz von „Rezensenten, die sich anmaßen, Autoren unqualifiziert abzukanzeln“, nichts gibt. Da bezeichnet er schon einmal ganz eindeutig Marcel Reich-Ranicki als „kulturloses Arschloch“. Bei Reportern und Biographen, die gierig die Feder spitzen, um in glühenden Farben das aufregende Leben des Multimillionärs zu schildern, macht er’s kurz: „Mein Leben ist langweilig“. Arroganz? Understatement? Koketterie? Nichts von alledem: die nackte Wahrheit, sieht man seinen Tagesablauf an. Frank und frei enthüllt er sein aufregendes Privatleben: „Ich schreibe sieben Tage die Woche sieben Stunden pro Tag. Wenn Sie das tun, wie interessant kann dann noch der Rest Ihres Lebens sein? Nicht besonders. Wenn ich anschließend zwei Stunden in meinen Fitnessraum gehe, ist der Tag vorbei. Viel kann nicht mehr passieren; ich gehe dann ins Bett. Das tue ich gewöhnlich sehr früh.“ Sehr früh, das heißt: neun Uhr abends. Gewöhnlich, das heißt: immer wenn er nicht auf Lese- oder Promotiontouren ist, wo er häufig auch abends zur Verfügung stehen muss, „Das“, klagt er, „ist das eigentlich Schwere an dieser Arbeit, weil ich normalerweise so früh ins Bett gehe.“ Da schreibt er schon lieber Romane. „Ich habe das große Glück, eine Arbeit zu haben, die ich genieße. Ich liebe meine Arbeit. Ich brauche sonst nichts.“ Kein Wunder, dass ein US-Journalist, der eine Biographie über Irving schreiben wollte, verzweifelt aufgab: „Alle erzählen das gleiche: John Irving steht morgens auf, schreibt, treibt Sport und geht wieder schlafen. Ich habe meinem Verleger den Vorschuss zurückgegeben. Es tut mir leid, Mr. Irving, aber Ihr Leben ist mir zu langweilig.“

Stefan Teplan über John Iriving - Ausriss aus WELTBILD Nr. 10, 1999

Gönnt Irving sich überhaupt Urlaub? Oder wenigstens seiner Frau Janet und ihrem siebenjährigen Sohn Everett (Irving hat noch einen 30- und einen 34jährigen Sohn aus erster Ehe). As, gesteht er, tut er schon. „Aber ich muss Ihnen sagen: Ich hasse es. Wir gehen einmal im Jahr zum Skifahren nach Colorado. Gut, ich genieße es dabei zwar, mit meinen Kindern zusammen zu sein. Aber ich würde lieber zu Hause sitzen und schreiben und mich abends mit den Kindern abgeben und morgens mit ihnen frühstücken.“ Eigentlich lebt er nur noch für zwei Dinge: Familie und Literatur. Das Ringen, das er einst – als Aktivkämpfer, später als Trainer und Schiedsrichter – betrieb, hat er vor zehn Jahren aufgegeben. Jetzt ringt er nur noch mit Worten.

Jeden Morgen sitzt er – in seinem Landhaus in Vermont oder seiner Stadtwohnung in Toronto – Punkt halb acht diszipliniert an seinem Schreibtisch, schreibt mit der Hand und tippt seine Texte später auf einer elektrischen Schreibmaschine. Beim Schreiben gilt für ihn dasselbe wie beim Ringen: „Ein Achtel ist Talent und sieben Achtel sind Disziplin“

Langweiliges Leben? Die größten Abenteuer finden im Kopf statt

Und mit beiden Leidenschaften hat er als Teenager angefangen, weil „meine Kindheit sehr langweilig war. Ich hatte eine glückliche Kindheit, aber das kann auch sehr langweilig sein. Deswegen ging ich nach der Schule heim und schrieb Geschichten in mein Notizheft.“ John Irving war als Kind und Jugendlicher introvertiert, der ewig Unterlegene, ein schlechter Schüler. So selbstkritisch beurteilt er sich selbst in seiner Autobiographie „Die imaginäre Freundin“ – die manche als langweilig empfinden, weil es darin fast nur um Ringen und Schreiben geht. Der spätere Star-Autor war Legastheniker. „Als sich herausstellte, dass mir die wiederholten Sprachtherapie-Kurse auch nicht halfen, den Unterschied zwischen ,Allegorie‘ und ,Allergie‘ zu erkennen, wurde ich dem Schulpsychiater übergeben“ der konnte ihm nur wenig helfen. Irving kämpfte sich, mit sieben Achtel eiserner Disziplin, allein nach oben – zum gefürchteten Turnier-Ringer und geachteten Romanautor. Zwischen 1968 und 1974 erschienen seine ersten drei Romane, doch erst mit dem vierten, „Garp und wie er die Welt sah“, gelang ihm 1978 der Durchbruch. Von da an wurde jeder seiner folgenden Romane (unter anderem „Das Hotel New Hampshire“, „Owen Meany“, „Zirkuskind“) ein Welterfolg.

Und dem schreiben verschrieben hat er sich mit Haut und Haar, seit er davon leben kann. Jetzt schreibt er sogar über das schreiben: „Witwe für ein Jahr“ ist ein mit zahllosen komplizierten Handlungs- und Nebenhandlungssträngen durchsetzter Roman über Schriftsteller, über Literatur, über die Wirklichkeit und die Verwicklungen, die sich ergeben, wenn sie miteinander vermischt werden. Natürlich redet Irving am liebsten auch über das schreiben. „Am glücklichsten bin ich, wenn ich gerade wieder ein Buch entwerfe“, erzählt er. Eineinhalb bis zwei Jahre arbeitet er allein an der Planung eines Buches, entwirft akribisch die „Architektur eines Romans wie die Architektur eines großen Hauses“, mit allen Handlungsfäden und detailliert ausgearbeiteten Psychogrammen der Romanfiguren und ihrer Beziehungen zueinander. „Erst wenn ich alles im Kopf habe, beginne ich zu schreiben, und zwar zuerst den Schluss. Das dauert mindestens ein Jahr. Dann schreibe ich alles nochmal ein Jahr lang um.“ Schreiben ist für ihn das größte Abenteuer. Die wahren Abenteuer finden im Kopf statt.

© Stefan Teplan

I’m just about to reach the halfway point of reading Last Night in Twisted River; John Irving’s latest release.  Knowing how Irving works in writing and constructing his novels — starting with the ending, planning out the entire book, then writing the whole thing, and then spending literally years editing it to perfection — I was a little surprised with Last Night in Twisted River.  It begins with a long opening chapter on the history of logging in New England and the different types of people that do it, and the type of work that is done, the sort of accidents that can happen, which would be perfectly fine for any novel, but with John Irving, he has a very specific style and way with his characters, which didn’t show itself until the second chapter, when all of a sudden it was like: “Ahh, here’s the John Irving I know.”

After getting deeper into the book, I can’t help but feel like the first chapter felt like a clear “set-up piece” for the book, which is very common in writing where you begin a story or a book and you need to set the scene and get the ball rolling to start the whole thing off, then you find your place, pace, and rhythm, but once you go to editing, all this early, set-up stuff is usually cut out.  That’s what the first chapter felt like to me: something that should’ve been lost at the editing stages.  And for a writer who spends actual years editing his novels, I was surprised that this first chapter stayed, and apparently there was something in it that I missed, and that made Irving keep it.

As for the rest of the book so far, I’m certainly enjoying it, and it’s definitely better than Until I Find You (which was just too much), and the terrible thing known as The Fourth Hand.  It is feeling a little unoriginal in that Irving is pulling from The World According to Garp with his main writer character writing about his life, and from A Prayer From Owen Meaney in that the main character is going to be a writer, and the omniscient narrator likes to point this out with beating-over-the-head foreshadowing and set up.  I didn’t enjoy this with Owen Meaney, but I know many other readers did and it’s their favorite Irving book.  (Mine’s The Cider House Rules).

But I’m not making any solid and certain decisions about the book yet until I make it to the last page, because there’s still a lot of story and manuscript to be read.

At the moment, it’s a decent Irving novel, but not one of his best.

This year has marked a return to reading for me. I’ve always loved to read, but sometimes life takes over, and it seems there is no time. But this year I found time. It’s been fun. A few books rise to the top when I look back on 2009. I thought I’d choose my top 5 and profile them in the order that I read them.

The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus by Brennan Manning

This book was so good, I read it twice this year. I blogged about it here.

Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott

I’ve read a lot of Anne Lamott’s nonfiction. I love it, because it always reminds me that it is okay to be imperfect – that all human beings are flawed and broken, and that God loves flawed and broken people. It turns out her fiction does the same thing. Crooked Little Heart is filled with flawed and broken characters; Lamott doesn’t hide their failings or shield them from pain, but she tells their story with compassion and grace. To me, this kind of storytelling rings true.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I am becoming more and more of a Neil Gaiman fan. It started with Coraline, which I read three years ago. Since then I’ve recommended it to just about everyone I know. And I will recommend it again now: Read Coraline; it’s excellent. The Graveyard Book, which won the 2008 Newberry Medal, is also very good. Maybe the concept sounds morbid to you: A boy lives in a graveyard and is raised by ghosts. It’s not morbid. It is a scary, funny, and bittersweet story about growing up. It made me feel happy to be alive. And I couldn’t put it down.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

I picked up this book after hearing a lot of good things about it. I wasn’t disappointed. The story is at times tragic and at times bizarre, but author is consistently compassionate toward his characters, and I found myself rooting for them the whole time. I really cared about what happened to Owen Meany. Irving is a great storyteller who ropes you in. For example, this is the book’s first sentence:

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice–not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

One of the best first lines I’ve ever read. Doesn’t it make you want to pick up the book right now?

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers

Lots of artists and writers have recommended this book, and I finally got around to it last month. It was a dense and heady read that required my full attention, but it was also rewarding. Like C.S. Lewis, Sayers has the ability to take a confusing abstract concept and demonstrates that it is, in fact, logical and reasonable. Without explaining away the mystery of the Trinity or the wonder of human creativity, she shines light on these topics and leads the reader to greater understanding. This book affirmed my creativity and faith. I plan to read it again.

So that’s my list. What were your favorite books you read this year? Let me know. I love getting book recommendations.

Ever since I saw the film “The World According to Garp” at age eleven I have wondered to myself what exactly did John Irving survive in his past?  I have waited patiently for nearly thirty years to find out.  I haven’t ever read a single thing about John Irving’s personal life; because figuring out exactly what happened to him to make him the type of writer he is has been a huge puzzle for me that I must figure out on my own.  Being a survivor of a horrific childhood myself, I knew Mr. Irving must have suffered even more than I had, as his stories are so twisted and dark.

With “Last Night in Twisted River: A Novel” I think I have finally figured out the puzzle of Mr. Irving.  While “A Prayer for Owen Meany” will always remain my favorite book of his, Twisted River is a close second. For whatever reason, I’ve convinced myself that this book is the true story of his life, or the true life story of someone very close to him, perhaps his own grandfather.  If it isn’t, then call me a fool, but please realize that whether this novel is a memoir or not, “Last Night in Twisted River” remains a brilliant story of father and son and grandson, and the fifty year long friendship they have with a mysterious logger.  Danny Angel, the protagonist of Twisted River is a writer in this novel and his own writing career mirrors the career of John Irving, and we read about Danny attending the Iowa Writers Workshop during the same time frame as Mr. Irving actually did.  Danny was even taught by John’s own most famous teacher Kurt Vonnegut.  I have always wondered why Mr. Irving writes about the subjects he has always written about, such as widows, Canada, wrestling, motherless and fatherless children, left hands, bears, and even abortion and all of these subjects get a curious mention in his latest book. 

Twisted River is the kind of Charles Dickensesque type of story Mr. Irving has written before, and this time around he manages to capture the small New Hampshire logging town of Twisted River beautifully, beginning with the drowning of a young boy named Angel and the failure of the mysterious Mr. Ketcham to catch him before he was lost under the logs forever.  Dominic and his son Daniel (Danny Angel) are friends with the logger Mr. Ketcham, and certain terrible events cause them to go on the run together over and over again throughout their lives leaving loved ones and good Italian restaurants behind.  What I find most fascinating about this book is that Daniel grows up to be a famous writer and has a long successful career before he settles down to write Twisted River, the very novel we as readers have been reading the entire time.     

Last Night in Twisted River: A Novel is defiantly the best book I’ve read in 2009.  I stayed up until 5:15 am to finish it.  I’ve spent more than evening staying up all night reading this book, as well as many other of Mr. Irving’s books.  I once worked an eight hour shift, drove a twelve hour road trip, visited and drank with a friend all night long, then sat down and finished The Hotel New Hampshire in one sitting after all of this and finished in time for my friend to catch me still awake after having one of the longest thirty days in my life.  John Irving is just that good of a writer.  All I can tell you is that Twisted River is fabulous and you need to go buy this book immediately to find out for yourself just how good it truly is. I promise you will be lost in a world like none other.  If you have already purchased it for yourself, then go buy it for a friend, because books make the best Christmas gifts.  A story like this stays with someone forever, while that sweater may only last two or three seasons.

John Irving’s Work

• Setting Free the Bears – 1968
• The Water-Method Man – 1972
• The 158-Pound Marriage – 1974
• The World According to Garp – 1978
• The Hotel New Hampshire – 1981
• The Cider House Rules – 1985
• A Prayer for Owen Meany – 1989
• Trying to Save Piggy Sneed - 1993
• A Son of the Circus – 1994
• The Imaginary Girlfriend - 1996  
• A Widow for One Year – 1998
• My Movie Business - 1999
• The Cider House Rules: A Screenplay – 1999 (Academy-Award winning screenplay)
• The Fourth Hand – 2001
• A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound – 2004
• Until I Find You – 2005
• Last Night in Twisted River – 2009

John Irving’s website can be found here.   

You can purchase Twisted River here. 

And see John talk about his latest book below.

Do you ever have a week that is so crazy you have to remind yourself to even eat?  That is exactly what I’ve been going through for the past two weeks, and this is why I have been MIA for the past week. 

I have no time to write the fifteen or so separate blog posts I have in my head, so I’m mashing them all up in this ADHD mental purge while talking a much needed break from filing out medical records.  I have been filling out paperwork for four hours.  Not only am I getting ready for my my fourth doctor’s appointment in two weeks tomorrow, but I’m also trying to get into the only clinical trial for connective tissue diseases in the entire U.S.  and the paperwork is killing me.

• Monday morning I finished reading the best book I’ve read all year, John Irving’s latest book Last Night in Twisted River.  I wrote out half of my review this morning then crashed for four hours.  I hope to post it soon.  My goodness, I love it when a book get’s me all crazy in love.  People, go get it in the meantime!
• I have been thinking that with all of the remakes out there in Hollywood, I’d suggest to them to remake Slapshot.  I even spelled out the entire cast and wrote up a fabulous blog post, only to have read on IMDB that they are remaking the film.  What a waste of an hour …  
• My book club was not as successful as I had hoped, and I am wondering why.
• I watched Into The Wild last night and was blown away.  Who has read the book, and how much better is it than the movie?
• I’ve always enjoyed vampire films, but after being over saturated with New Moon, First Blood, and The Vampire Diaries, I’m just done.  I can’t take hearing about one more vampire movie, book or tv show or I’m going to stab myself through the heart with a wooden stake.  Anyone else feel this way?
• My step-daughter doesn’t ever seem to have homework and yet she got all A’s and one B this semester.  She kills me.  She goes to a hard high school and she is also an athlete.  I wonder if she worked to her full potential just what she could accomplish in her life.  This makes me wonder what I could have done if only I applied myself in high school instead of skipping classes daily and getting 25% knocked off all of my grades all four years.  Damn ADHD.  Thank god by college I buckled down.  I had a rare dream (I don’t dream often as I rarely go into REM sleep.  My last sleep study showed three nine minute REM stages, how sad- I miss dreaming.)  this afternoon about high school and how I was so scared to write for the school newspaper, as I was afraid of competing with the other writers, especially the one who was my boyfriend.  So stupid, right?  This is why I have never even submitted one single story for publication, I think I suck and everyone else is way better at writing than I am.  I wish some kind experienced writer would take me under their wing and mentor me, give me the courage and guidance I need.  I have been trying to finish my novel I started in 1991.  Not one page has been written since then.
• I’m reading Stephen King’s book On Writing and I feel foolish never knowing he was an alcoholic and did coke.  I rarely read about my favorite living authors, as I like to get to know them in their books rather than outside of their books, probably since so many actors have ruined their careers for me by turning up in tabloids and news acting all stupid.  I think it is a while mystery thing for me.  But now after getting half way through this book I want to know everything about Mr. King.  I know a girl who lives in Maine and she told me that he goes around Borders Bookstore and signs copies of his books to surprise fans.  Is that not the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?  Feel free to share some Steven King stories with me here.
• I’m trying not to freak out about the many new weird things going on with my body lately.  Now I have PAC’s (Pre-Arthymia) and I’ve been totally exhausted and can’t sleep more than a few hours due to both hyper and hypo thyroid.  And my eye lashes and hair are falling out like crazy … I even have a mini bald spot in my hair line.  Plus my right eye is getting smaller because I may have Graves Disease, not to mention that my Neuropathy pain is so bad that I’m going to ask for pain pills for the first time in my life.  I had a friggin hysterectomy and only took morphine one out of the four days I was in the hospital and barely popped any other pain pills during recovery even though I had eleven staples in my belly and the surgery was difficult as my poor uterus had split in half and slipped into my pelvic bone.  Right now I am in so much pain because my hands and feet are so cold that it feels like I have frost bite, which is another reason I haven’t been blogging.  I hate taking my hands outside of my heating pad or the blanket.
• I finally got a king sized bed, even though I know we shouldn’t have spent the money since I’m unemployed.  My guilt lasted until I laid down in it the first night, and I’m happy to report that is was like I was laying in the womb with my down comforter and high thread count sheets.  (People, you need to go to overstock.com if you ever need bedding.)  I almost texted all my friends “I think I just had a tiny orgasm” from the joy that bed gave me that first night but my phone was too far away.  I am desperate for sleep since I’ve had insomnia since I was five years old, and I’ve tried everything from black out curtains to wedge pillows, lavender scented linen spray, my college anthropology book, Ambian, Lunesta, Tylenol PM, no reading in bed, no tv in my bedroom, fake down bedding, and about sixty other things and nothing else in the past has worked for me.  I’m praying this new bed helps.  While I haven’t slept much since getting it Friday night, I have felt like a fairy princess and this makes me very happy.
• I am still loving V and I finally watched Flash Forward again.  Thank god for sci-fi shows in these rough reality tv and weak comedy tv show times.   And my Glee, love it, love it.  Can’t wait, tomorrow’s show looks fantastic.  I want the soundtrack #1 so bad.  Also, I have been watching Gossip Girl and that threesome was so dumb.  I hate ratings stunts over good writing.  Also, two weeks ago on GG (the debutont ball episode) I am happy to report that a blog friend of mine is the aunt of the hot young actor who Queen Jenny wanted to be her date.  She told me he was going to be on like a few months ago and I was thrilled to hear he was the hottie.  I wonder if he will take off from this?
• I am dying to see a good movie – I’ve seen only two in theatres all year, and it looks like quite a few good ones are coming out within the next month.  I hope I can make it to a theatre soon.  Any of you seen anything good lately?  I’m really looking forward to New York I Love You, It’s Complicated, and Brothers as well as that George Clooney one, especially since it was partially filmed in Detroit at our new fancy airport terminal.
• I think my brother is beating up my mom.  Long story, but I am about 90% sure of it.  She is so scared of him that she refused to even give me his phone number until I screamed and screamed and threatened to never talk to her again.  I know she called him first to get permission, as she called me back with it ten minutes later.  So sick.  She kept repeating “You don’t know how he gets” and I can only imagine this may be the reason she gave him her entire inheritance.

From Up to Date’s Twitter page comes this thought from Steve Kraske on today’s interview. Perhaps when he’s done telling you what a “peach” Irving is, Steve will get you a nice glass of sarsaparilla and tell you about that time Babe the Blue Ox came to town. Just another reason we love that guy.

Let’s go crazy about Nabokov!

On the Media talks to Ron Rosenbaum of Slate about his conflicted feelings over the publication of The Original of Laura.

Aleksandar Hemon is sorta against Laura seeing the light of day.

Nabokov specimen covers.

Lit.

• Village Voice on Zadie Smith’s collection of essays, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays.

• Tao Lin will sell you a bunch of his stuff for a really good price.

• John Irving is worried about me?  I was worried about John Irving!  So crazy!

• I’m confused.  If these books were so “unadaptable“, then how come somebody went and adapted them?

• Robert Brinbaum talks abut the The Invention of the Jewish People.

Music

• Four Words: New Magnetic Fields Album!
  

• New Hot Chip announced, and we get excited.  Not as Excited about the Magnetic Fields thing, but excited nonetheless.

• Sasha Frere-Jones gets us excited about young upstarts Metallica.

• The Beets played a museum.  Another reason to love them.

Weird world of sports.

• Well, Sammy Sosa is white now I guess.
  

My new fresh copy of John Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River has finally arrived and I’m very much looking forward to it.  Irving takes him time with his writing, usually about five years for each book, starting with the ending and then working out the complete story, and then spends his years honing and perfecting each sentence until it is a work of art that he’s satisfied with.  Until I Find You, his last novel, was a little too much, so here’s hoping Last Night in Twisted River lives up to some of his greats.

As I’ve made mention in the past couple weeks I have been somewhat struggling with ‘“writer’s block.” It was an issue of struggling to find the story that I wanted to tell. Over the past few months I’ve jotted down various story ideas that just didn’t seem to develop in my mind for one reason or another. I can’t really explain it. I keep those ideas on paper or my computer because I would love to one day pursue those stories.

This got me to thinking about my process of writing and other writers’ processes. Yesterday, through a blog I follow, I discovered the article, “How to Write a Great Novel”, on the Wall Street Journal’s website. As a writer and reader I found this article very interesting. The article describes different writers’ processes or habits when it come to writing a novel. As I read the article I realized that I’m not alone. I have some of the same habits or tendencies when it comes to writing. I’m not as eccentric as some of the writers, but I could relate to many of them.

With my first novel I could see the ending. In fact, somewhat like John Irving, I began with the ending. I knew where I was going. So as I began to think about writing another novel I was trying to figure out the ending. I was trying to go about the process the same way I had with the first novel I wrote. Though this might seem to work with some writers, it wasn’t working for me. It only made me more frustrated. I would start a story, get so far, and then come to a dead stop. I could go no further. Now, after some months of painstaking frustration, I realize that I must start somewhere else.

The change in the process has actually worked to my benefit because it has made writing or creating the story fun for me. With my new idea, which in fact does stem from an earlier post, I began with different situations and ‘themes’ that relate to this one character and represent a chapter. I have started writing down the basic ideas of these chapters and giving them names. For example: “A Fix”, “Post-Coital Revelation”, “Six is Better Than Seven.” The joy is that I finally feel like the story is going somewhere even though I didn’t start with the ending (nor do I have an ending in mind just yet).

Any writers or other artists like to share their process? Feel free to leave a comment.

I read in the last year or so that author Richard Foster said in an interview, “We are always being spiritually formed.” For whatever reason—and although a relatively simple idea—I haven’t been able to put this away nor have I been successful at fully unpacking the reasons why these words and this thinking continue to reverberate for me.

It’s my opinion that in the world of spiritual formation we have entered a time that requires next-level thinking. Although the integrated counseling movement has moved the flywheel, so to speak, we’ve yet to establish a definitive understanding of what it means to be spiritually formed. While not a student of spiritual formation, I nevertheless have been afforded the opportunity to consider what it means, how it happens, and the heart of the matter for the last several years.

I’m convinced that “story”— both the Larger Story that God is revealing, has been revealing, and will to continue to reveal as well as our own stories (that is, where we have come from and what we have experienced and what we have felt and what we have seen and the people that have spoke into our lives both functionally and dysfunctionally) play a crucial role in how we are spiritually formed. In fact, taking Foster’s words into account, I could say that “story” is the absolute means by which we are spiritually formed: at every second of every day we are being spiritually deformed, reformed, and transformed, one upon another like layers of the atmosphere, not really sure where one begins and the other begins until we’re either colder or warmer, breathing easier or heavier.

Its easiest to think of this process as a critical path for demolishing the false selves, (also understood in terms of strongholds quite possibly) we have created. We are born in Saving Private Ryan, as John Eldredge suggests, and as we storm the beaches of our own stories through our adolescence and youth we realize a couple of things: (1) the bullets are live and (2) the stakes are high. So as we make our way from point A to point B we are able to deflect some of enemy’s shots, while unable to avoid others as they hit their mark. We are wounded. And into these wounds the enemy, our antagonist and the villain of our stories, speaks lies. Over time, like a boxer receiving short blows to the body over the course of his bout, we agree with the paralyzing lies of the enemy. These agreements lead to vows, the “I’ll never” vows, that create the false selves that stand in immediate and direct opposition to the person we were created to be.

Unfortunately, these disorienting events take place before we have enough experience to place them into their appropriate context. So what we assume to be “normal” as a child, for instance, we begin to understand as something other than normal as adults—or do we? Inherent in this paradigm is the sentiment that, yes, we have fallen as a result of Original Sin and continue to be plagued with all the resulting circumstances, but with our new hearts we are also able to recover, to some degree, Original Glory as God’s image bearers.

The critical path for demolishing the false selves is the same critical path that also lights the dusty roads that point us back toward our Original Glory. And even though we can never completely overcome our depravity on this side of life, we can live out of it less and less, while living out of our glory more and more.

So why all of this now? Oddly enough it’s the result of a novel I’ve recently picked up. Even though spiritual formation continues to be a part of my internal dialog, being exposed to John Irving’s latest novel Last Night on Twisted River at least for me begs a re-imagining of spiritual formation. All his books tend to present childhood as a very dangerous, heavy-handed, and unwieldy place, but Last Night on Twisted River—so far—is chilling in exposing the pitfalls, land mines, and live ammo we all face in the earliest, most formative years.  In so many ways Irving is able to capture this leg of the “story” for all of us in that’s it’s messy, unpredictable, and even offensive. Perhaps his greatest gift, however, is his ability to articulate heartbreak without ever saying it. You’ve just got to be willing to go on the journey with him. (And also willing to suffer the first 100-120 pages. Pretty doggone dry.) And I would add that this—so far—is my favorite Irving novel since The Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp.

John Irving says:

~The reader must be afraid for someone in order for a story to succeed.

~We don’t get to choose our obsessions; obsessions choose us.

~People aren’t fated or logical in “real life” but in a plotted story they have to be composed intentionally. He is “affected by the intentionality of telling a plotted story.”  And whatever he as “puppeteer” is writing affects how he feels about life on any given day.

~A person and/or a character can make a mistake of such magnitude that the story is over before it starts.

He really objects to critics and scholars who look to ferret out autobiography from his fiction. He writes-obsessively-about those things that scare him to death. That, he believes, says more about a person’s real true self than anything else.

This is his third book with a writer as a main character. The other two, Garp and Ruth Cole in Widow for One Year, were an amalgam of writers he knew, satires of those writers. Danny Baciagalupo in Last Night in Twisted River, however, is as faithful an imitation of himself as a writer as he could produce. Danny has Irving’s author biography: his education, mentors, publishing history, and method. Everything that Vonegut says to Danny is word for word (as he remembered it) what Vonegut said to John Irving.

“For as much as Danny resembles me as a writer, everything about his life is never me. It’s everything I’m afraid of.”

I found the lecture, which I enjoyed from the front row of the theater (thanks Jennifer!) inspiring and just completely fab.

The only thing that would have made it better would have been a book signing,  

or-and this would have been really OK- if he had asked me out for a beer afterwards.

Maybe next time.

And he's brilliant.

Novelist John Irving holds forth on Big Think on an array of writing issues in short videos excerpted from a long interview. He discusses his working habits—eight to nine hours a day writing in longhand in lined notebooks, seven days a week—and the deep rifts in America that trouble him. He talks about using post-it notes, the long process of revision, achieving syntactical unity throughout a long work, and the glory of the long, lavishly detailed, plotted, visual nineteenth-century novels of Dickens, Hardy, Melville, and Hawthorne. The tidbits are worth a listen.

In my earliest memory, I am lying on my stomach in the kitchen looking through the square holes in the heat register. I am eighteen months old. My parents and I live in the upstairs apartment of an old house converted into a duplex. Our kitchen lies above the kitchen of the downstairs apartment. Our only heat source is radiant, meaning the heat from downstairs rises into our apartment through open grates in our floor. My mother warns me not to drop anything through the holes, but that was never my intention. The family who lives downstairs is eating dinner, their table is directly below the grate, and I am watching them and listening to their conversation. That’s the extent of that memory, but I now see it as an early indication of my interest in observing people, what they do, what they say, how they act and react.

Yesterday, I followed a link to a video interview with John Irving. In one segment¹, he mentioned an early indication he knew he could be a writer: he desired and needed a lot of alone time. Aha!, I thought. Sometimes, when I look back on my childhood, it seems sort of like those Charlie Brown cartoons where adults are unseen and their voices are muted. I had parents, two sisters, and a fair amount of friends, but I preferred to spend a lot of time alone with my imagination.

At this point, I can’t say if that choice was strictly my nature or if it had been enhanced by circumstance. I was labeled early in my school career as one of the “smart kids.” That designation sets you apart in ways both good and bad. You may be given free time while other students work on a subject that you breezed through. You may also be assigned extra work. In both cases, you’re alone.

If you’re a writer, then you are a reader. And I presume, like me, as a child you gobbled up books like candy. I don’t know about you, but reading time was alone time for me. And then, inspired by what I read, I wanted to act out my own stories in the backyard with my baby dolls in my “covered wagon” or behind the living room sofa where I sat up an “apartment” for my Barbies. Alone. Whole conversations carried on in my head.

Of course, I played games with other children, but I preferred make believe to sports or most physical activity. I would try to act out some of my stories with friends, but it was frustrating for us all. I always wanted to be the star and director—“now you say this and then you do that and then I say …” It was just easier to play alone.

When I got a little older, the ultimate isolator struck—illness. I spent only nine months of my seventh, eighth, and ninth grades actually in school. The rest of that time I was either bedridden, in the hospital, or recovering from surgery. Except for three months with a visiting teacher, I taught myself and took tests by phone. Needless to say, the social skills usually developed during this period of life—didn’t fare well in me. But I can remember only a few times feeling lonely. And never was I bored. I had my imagination.

In light of all this, do I mind that writing requires me to spend a lot of time alone? Of course not. I think I was destined for this life. Only now, I don’t lay on my stomach. I just close my eyes to watch and listen for the story to unfold.

¹ The whole interview is here: http://bigthink.com/johnirving  If you want to hear just the portion I referenced, click the segment titled: How to Tell if You’re a Writer