Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Day 51, May 18, 2010

I think every writer gets his start as a reader. If you don't enjoy reading, how could you possibly come to be a writer? Anyway, one of the writers whose work I enjoy is the late Stieg Larsson. I'm hoping to borrow an English edition of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest to take with me on my upcoming research trip.The interesting thing about Larsson's stories to me is that I only knew clichés about Sweden: small relatively homogenous population, politically neutral, protested the Vietnam war, stuff like that.

I didn't know they had Nazis, biker gangs, corrupt business bigshots and lots of misogynistic men. The whole panorama of Swedish life as Larsson paints it is an eye opener. Familiar in some ways as a Western culture but full of surprises.

Makes me hope that the story I'm writing will be a fresh idea to a lot of people. Aside from the joy I take in doing my work, there's also the pleasure of hearing things like, "I read your book all the way from Honolulu to Chicago." Or, "Your book caused me to miss a meeting." Comments like that make a writer's day.

Throw in a reasonable chunk of money and who could ask for more.

Today, I wrote six pages. All the story lines are picking up speed. The protagonist picked up a clue on tracking down the sexual predator from an unexpected source.

Day 51 of writing my new novel is done.

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