A Quote by Chris Crutcher
'Whale Talk' is a tough book, but it is also a compassionate book about telling the truth and about redemption. I didn't draw the tough parts out of thin air; they are stories handed to me by people in pain.
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In my experience, growing up in Brooklyn and all that, the real tough guys didn't act tough. They didn't talk tough. They were tough, you know? I think about these politicians who try to pose as tough guys - it makes me laugh.
I had an idea in the beginning to do a book about some of the events that I had covered, just various stories that I've covered. Reporters spend a lot of time telling each other tales about how they covered stories, and that's what this book started out to be.
I've published one book before, and now I'm writing a book of essays and stories about life in Tokyo. And I have one book coming out in May in Germany, about fitness.
Of course I am tough, but I am smart, too. I'm more smart than tough. People watching my record and say that this guy is tough. This is not about tough; this is about mind. You think when you fight. This is about everything.
There's nothing small or inconsequential about our stories. There is, in fact, nothing bigger. And when we tell the truth about our lives - the broken parts, the secret parts, the beautiful parts - then the gospel comes to life, an actual story about redemption, instead of abstraction and theory and things you learn in Sunday School.
I write a little bit about what it's like to be a female boss in my book [ Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?] and the things I've noticed about that, but by and large, it's just a tough job in general.
In my case, I made the decision early on that I was going to be very open about the book and claim upfront that each of the stories was based on my life experience. I think my reasoning goes back to what I was saying earlier, about wanting the book to be "more than a book," that I wanted the reader to feel a little unsettled about what they were reading: there's a core of factual truth here.
I love seeing my book on shelves and getting letters from people who liked the book. I love telling stories and having other people tell stories to me.
A wonderful quality about America is that we love redemption stories. We're quick to lash out and assign blame, but we also draw from deep reservoirs of forgiveness.
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.
'Tough' meant it was an uncompromising image, something that came from your gut, out of instinct, raw, of the moment, something that couldn't be described in any other way. So it was tough. Tough to like, tough to see, tough to make, tough to understand. The tougher they were the more beautiful they became.
Really, I have to laugh because there was a whole set of stories that made me sound like the Dragon Lady, you know, 'tough this and tough that.' Then there is this business about 'gooey.' The bottom line is I am a pragmatic idealist.
The process for writing a picture book is completely different from the process of writing a chapter book or novel. For one thing, most of my picture books rhyme. Also, when I write a picture book I'm always thinking about the role the pictures will play in the telling of the story. It can take me several months to write a picture book, but it takes me several years to write a novel.
I usually have about four books on the go - a bedside book, a lavatory book, a downstairs book, and the book in my study that I read sneakily while I should be writing. Short stories for the lavatory, obviously.
It was tough for me not to play, but it was cool. But it was tough because I'm a competitor, and I like to be out there with my guys. That's all it's about for me.
No one really knows the value of book tours. Whether or not they're good ideas, or if they improve book sales. I happen to think the author is the last person you'd want to talk to about a book. They hate it by that point; they've already moved on to a new lover. Besides, the author never knows what the book is about anyway.
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