Ask the Author: Eric K. Goodman
Answered Questions (6)
Eric K. Goodman
CUPPY AND STEW: THE BOMBING OF FLIGHT 629, A LOVE STORY, is narrated by a character who shares the name and much of the early life experience of my wife, the literary critic Susan Morgan. Cuppy and Stew were her parents, and they perished on United Flight 629, when a young man put a bomb on that doomed flight to kill his mother, murdering all 44 people on the plane.
Cuppy and Stew's doomed romantic life, and the struggles of their two young orphaned daughters to survive their deaths was, for many years, the most dramatic untold story I knew. Finally, after years of research in Vancouver BC and interviewing my wife, I was ready to write it
Cuppy and Stew's doomed romantic life, and the struggles of their two young orphaned daughters to survive their deaths was, for many years, the most dramatic untold story I knew. Finally, after years of research in Vancouver BC and interviewing my wife, I was ready to write it
Eric K. Goodman
I try to write most days, whether I feel inspired or not. If I had to wait to feel "inspired" I'd play a lot more golf and write a lot less.
Eric K. Goodman
I am working on a novel manuscript titled CURVEBALL. It is a sequel to my third novel, IN DAYS OF AWE, a literary baseball novel published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1991. In CURVEBALL, I am writing about the same characters 25 years later, which has been an interesting experience: to imagine characters across time. Jewish Joe Singer and his wife-to-be, Frannie, were in their 30's in my first book. In CURVEBALL, they are in their 50's, and their son, Jess Singer, a left-handed pitcher with a great curveball and a deep secret, is on the cusp of the major leagues. I've discovered that to imagine characters across time has given them great density, by which I mean they seem completely three-dimensional, old friends I know very well.
Eric K. Goodman
My advice for aspiring writers is to read, read and read some more. Read writers you admire and those you don't. Sometimes reading bad writing, especially from good writers, is empowering. Hey, you might think, that's a published author, and I can do better than that.
And of course, to be a writer, you need to write. Try to carve out some time every day: your writing time. And be ruthless and jealous of that time, or it will slip away.
And of course, to be a writer, you need to write. Try to carve out some time every day: your writing time. And be ruthless and jealous of that time, or it will slip away.
Eric K. Goodman
The best thing about being a writer is the feeling, when it's really working, that you have tapped into something outside yourself. That for a brief moment you are a magician, breathing life and meaning into dusty words.
Eric K. Goodman
I re-read and edit what I've written in previous days, and tell myself that as long as I write a few sentences, and they don't have to be good sentences, that I'll be satisfied. I also sometimes lie face-down on the floor of my study for a ten or fifteen minute nap, then jump up and go straight to where I've been stuck.
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