Harry Groome's Blog: A WRITER'S NOTES

Here's IndieReader's recent review of The Best of Families. Please check it out through the link below.

https://indiereader.com/2017/06/the-b...

William Faulkner once said it, so it must be true: “You always write the next novel in order to get at what you failed to get at in the last one.”
It’s certainly true for me.

Here's how E. L. Doctorow describes writing a novel: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Anne Lamott, author of the brilliant book Bird by Bird, on writer’s block: “I no longer think of it as block. I think that is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. If your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door. The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you’re empty.”
Sad but true.

Here’s a juicy debate! In the July edition of VANITY AFFAIR there's an article “It’s Tartt—But Is It Art?” On one side, rave reviews for THE GOLDFINCH in the NY Times, plus a Pulitzer Prize, and comments like those of Stephen King: “a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind.”
On the other hand…The New Yorker said “Its tone, language and story belong in children’s literature.” And, get this, the London Times called it “a turkey” while Francine Prose of The New York Review of Books asked, “Doesn’t anyone care how something is written anymore?”
Any thoughts?