A Quote by Robin Wasserman
I try not to think too much about an audience when Im writing the first draft of a book - at that stage, the prospect of anyone reading what Ive written would be enough to scare me into setting my laptop on fire.
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I try not to think too much about an audience when I'm writing the first draft of a book - at that stage, the prospect of anyone reading what I've written would be enough to scare me into setting my laptop on fire.
I've never talked to anyone writing a book on me. I've had so much written about me that is made up, usually something that seems silly enough or weird enough to get remarked upon, and it's pretty much all fiction.
I didn't write with a target audience in mind. What excited me was how much I would enjoy writing about Harry. I never thought about writing for children - children's books chose me. I think if it is a good book anyone will read it.
I'd sit at my kitchen table and start scanning help-wanted ads on my laptop, but then a browser tab would blink and I'd get distracted and follow a link to a long magazine article about genetically modified wine grapes. Too long, actually, so I'd add it to my reading list. Then I'd follow another link to a book review. I'd add the review to my reading list, too, then download the first chapter of the book—third in a series about vampire police. Then, help-wanted ads forgotten, I'd retreat to the living room, put my laptop on my belly, and read all day. I had a lot of free time.
I try not to think too much about what the audience is thinking and what they think I should do. I'd be self-conscious if I did. Anyone becomes mannered if you think too much about what other people think.
I don't think you think of your audience as much as you think, when you're revising, how it holds together. I mean I think the first draft is art, and the second draft, third, fourth draft is craft. Putting it together so that it has a good pattern.
I was a lot dumber when I was writing the novel. I felt like worse of a writer because I wrote many of the short stories in one sitting or over maybe three days, and they didn't change that much. There weren't many, many drafts. That made me feel semi-brilliant and part of a magical process. Writing the novel wasn't like that. I would come home every day from my office and say, "Well, I still really like the story, I just wish it was better written." At that point, I didn't realize I was writing a first draft. And the first draft was the hardest part.
I taught everyone a very bad lesson at my publisher because they actually gave me deadlines this time and I'm now meeting them. I used to say, "Here's my book; it's six years late." I'm so much faster now, and work differently. With all the years of writing, I think I still draft as obsessively, but I think back to writing. On your first story, you start at draft one. On your second story, you start at draft ten. On your third story, you start at draft one hundred. If you need a hundred and eight drafts, you may write eight instead of a hundred and eight.
I tend not to think about audience when I'm writing. Many people who read 'The Giver' now have their own kids who are reading it. Even from the beginning, the book attracted an audience beyond a child audience.
I tend not to think about audience when I'm writing. Many people who read "The Giver" now have their own kids who are reading it. Even from the beginning, the book attracted an audience beyond a child audience.
Reading isn't about managing expectations. In certain ways, writing is. You're trying to send signals early in a book about what might be coming later, but I think worrying about the kind of chatter around a book is something I try and stay as far away from when I'm reading.
I think, oh my god, kids are reading, and they care about a book enough to come over and talk to me about a book that they care about. If I think about it as being a celebrity, it would freak me out. But I just think, lucky me, that I get to be a part of this whole thing.
I try to do a lot of direct contact with the audience, because the audience is part of the concert, too, as much as anyone on stage, and it's a shame not to get to meet them if you get the chance.
When I write a new draft, I don't like to feel I'm tied to any previous version. That's why I don't use a computer to write. The text looks, on the screen, too much like a book. It's not a book - it's a bad first draft of something that could one day be a book.
THE WRITER can get free of his writing only by using it, that is, by reading oneself. As if the aim of writing were to use what is already written as a launching pad for reading the writing to come. Moreover, what he has written is read in the process, hence constantly modified by his reading. The book is an unbearable totality. I write against a background of facets.
You learn so much with each book, but it's what you teach yourself by writing your own books and by reading good books written by other people - that's the key. You don't want to worry too much about other people's responses to your work, not during the writing and not after. You just need to read and write, and keep going.
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