June 04, 2005
Shamelessly blogging
My life slides through the cracks as I traipse around the countryside “shamelessly flogging my book”—as my mystery-writer friends, Kent Krueger, K J Erickson and Erin Hart, like to call it. I’ve had seventeen gigs (I like to call them that because it makes them sound musical) in the last eight weeks, with two to go in June before I have a break. Or before I break. Of course, the trade-off is that I have no time to write. And when I do have it I don’t know where to begin. It’s true that every day away from work requires two more days to get back into it. At this rate, I’ll be ready to finish the last half of my novel around October 5th. Ha! I do still have time to read, though. Just finished a terrific biography of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson called Beautiful Shadow. He does such a fine job of capturing her without making any judgments. Her work has fascinated me ever since I first read The Talented Mr. Ripley. She is one of a kind, as is her anti-hero. Imagine writing five novels about a character who kills people because he simply can’t find another way to deal with them, and yet is thoughtful, worldly, even gallant at times, and eminently likable. It was an amazing feat. Michael Tolkin calls Highsmith "one of the best writers in the world" and adds "I don’t think I could have written The Player without her." Interesting, as I have recently seen the movie based on Tolkin’s book, and Tim Robbins’ character does remind me of Tom Ripley.
There, now. I’ve managed to fritter away an hour "shamelessly blogging." Who says I don’t have any time to waste?
Posted by Judy Guest at 04:46 AM | Comments (0)