Writers and Readers discussion

Please welcome Jack Remick to our Q & A discussions. Jack as an accomplished author and poet, who has an impressive array of work. He has penned such books as Blood, The Deification, Terminal Weird, The Setle Five Plus One:Poems, Lemon Custard, The stolen house, and Throwback and Other Stories.

Jack's Goodreads Profile:
Jack Remick

Did your writing begin with a visionary framework that shaped all of your work, or was each novel independent of the rest. In other words, are your novels connected by some subtle theme underlying all your work so far?

Not sure whether I'm doing this right. Forgive me for my ignorance.

Daniel wrote: "Not sure whether I'm doing this right. Forgive me for my ignorance."

You're doing fine, Daniel.

A.F. wrote: "Daniel wrote: "Not sure whether I'm doing this right. Forgive me for my ignorance."

You're doing fine, Daniel."

Cool.

Hi, Jack!

All of your books look great, but Blood and Terminal Weird caught my attention right away. The mercenary in Blood...is he based on a news story/real person--or is he completely fictional? Just wondering because, sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction!

By time writing, I assume you mean "tracking a set of characters through time," but I also assume you don't even know what that "time scheme" is before you start writing; it just shapes itself?

Jack wrote: "Nora wrote: "Hi, Jack!

All of your books look great, but Blood and Terminal Weird caught my attention right away. The mercenary in Blood...is he based on a news story/real person--or is he complet..."

Wow...now I'm really intrigued! Okay, this one is going on my TBR list. :) This is going to be a great Q&A!

Of course I want to hear more! But I won't hog up your time here. I see the connections, though; the archetypes. I'm a strange reader. I reserve a whole day, and sometimes two, to read "connected" novels, generally in threes, straight through, but I think I'll do it for all four of your unit. For me reading is an experience so I should have an epic one entering three "story-worlds" connected by an underlying theme and, of course, a "standalone" that may still feel like a part of the whole to me, since you wrote that one as well. Looking forward to it.

Yes. I started writing a story that was simply scenes, moments of experience of a particular character, and they were just a few sentences here and there, and I wasn't even sure how they were connected. I took each scene and worked it for a specific amount of time and they grew piece-by-piece and eventually connected into a whole. Of course, I'll have to read Writing Down the Bones to master that method. And thanks for explaining what you meant by timed writing. I think I understand.

That's what I try to do. It creates a literary world in my mind that becomes real, and tells me a lot about a writer's way of thinking and, of course, writing. The writing it all down is the toughest thing to do if you're still learning to write well, though. Will check out that blog right away.

Jack wrote: "I'm here for the weekend to answer everything you guys throw out. Maybe we can compress a bit--I have a blog with Robert Ray: http://bobandjackswritingblog.com. We decided to use the blog to get ou..."

So much info on Bob and Jack's Writing Blog! Thanks for posting the link. I'll be spending some time there this weekend!

Jack wrote: "Nora: Thank you for following that link. Please feel free to pass it on to other writers and readers."

I sure will. I'll add it to my Blogroll and link to it on my website. I can hardly wait to read those articles.
I'm working on a sequel...so that info will be priceless. So nice of you guys to share all of it!

Hi Jack, can you please talk a little more about structure, Levi-Strauss and myth?

Thanks Jack. I think I understand. It explains why we respond as we do when reading a story.

Certainly some interesting questions so far. I was wondering what types of poetry do you favour, to read and to write?

Jack wrote: "Hello, AF. Thanks for moderating this Q and A. It's a pleasure for me to be here. Poetry. I was a lucky guy to have two powerful mentors in my early poet days--Thom Gunn, at Cal Berkeley, and Jack ..."

I think my question got throughly answered anyway. That's what I love about poetry, all the variety and styles.

Jack wrote: "Hello A.F.: Thanks for having here. It was fun. I only wish I'd been able to draw a wider audience. I'll catch you online for a chat sometime. Jack"

It was a pleasure hosting. As for the audience, you can never tell with these Q&A's; it all depends on the weekend I think.