Laura's comments
(member since Apr 28, 2009)
Laura's comments from the Wild Things: YA Grown-Up group.
(showing 1-20 of 828)
Welcome to Wild Things K.A. Sounds like two interesting career choices! We're glad you joined us.
YAY Good to see you Debbie! :)
Welcome Jamie! Glad you found us.
Bethany - your next mission, should you choose to accept it - I Am the Messenger.....also by the great MZ.
Welcome Mukesh! Thanks for joining, and I hope you're finding everything you need here. We are a friendly bunch as Fiona said, and from the yellow feathers around I can see she's already given you the grand tour. Enjoy!
Hi Pollyanna, we love librarians! So glad you found us!
He really does, and many authors don't, so one more feather in his cap!
I just got this from waitlist at the library today. Looking forward to it.
He.Is.The.Best!
He is way talented and way humble and that is an awesome combination.
*resisting the urge to jump up and down with glee*
Me too, Lydia! I'm excited that you're excited!
:)
For your entertainment in the meanwhile, here are some Q&A's about Markus and his work that are available on his website:
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How did you become a writer?
When I was growing up, I wanted to be a house painter like my father, but I was always screwing up when I went to work with him. I had a talent for knocking over paint and painting myself into corners. I also realized fairly quickly that painting bored me. When I was a teenager, I read some books that brought me totally into their worlds. One was The Old Man and the Sea and another was What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. When I read those books, I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ It took seven years to get published and there were countless daily failures, but I’m glad those failures and rejections happened. They made me realise that what I was writing just wasn’t good enough – so I made myself improve.
Do you follow a set routine when you write?
I basically have two routines. The first one is the non-lazy routine, where I get up and work from about 7am and aim to finish by 11:30. That usually sees me through till noon or twelve-thirty (with some time-wasting in between). Then I’ll take a long break and do a few more hours in the afternoon. The lazy routine usually starts at 10am and I’ll write longer into the afternoon.
The only time these routines really change is at the start or end of a book, when I’m more likely to work at night. I can’t face starting a book early in the morning purely because self-belief levels are at their lowest for me when I wake up. When I’m finishing a book, I will stay up longer and work through the night, mainly out of desperation to finally get it done.
What was your inspiration for writing The Book Thief?
The Book Thief was supposed to be a small book - only a hundred pages or so. When I was growing up, I heard stories at home about Munich and Vienna in war-time, when my parents were children. Two stories my mother told me affected me a lot. The first was about Munich being bombed, and how the sky was on fire, how everything was red. The second was about something else she saw...
One day, there was a terrible noise coming from the main street of town, and when she ran to see it, she saw that Jewish people were being marched to Dachau, the concentration camp. At the back of the line, there was an old man, totally emaciated, who couldn't keep up. When a teenage boy saw this, he ran inside and brought the man a piece of bread. The man fell to his knees and kissed the boy's ankles and thanked him . . . Soon, a soldier noticed and walked over. He tore the bread from the man's hands and whipped him for taking it. Then he chased the boy and whipped him for giving him the bread in the first place. In one moment, there was great kindness and great cruelty, and I saw it as the perfect story of how humans are.
When I remembered those stories, I wanted to build them into a small book, like I said. The result was The Book Thief, and it came to mean much more to me than I could have imagined. No matter what anyone ever says about that book, whether good or bad, I know it was the best I could do, and I don't think a writer can ask for more of himself than that.
How did you come to write I Am The Messenger?
I was sitting in a park one night eating fish and chips and saw a bank with a fifteen minute parking zone out the front, and I thought, ‘Fifteen minutes, that’s not very long — every time I go the bank it takes a lot longer than that.’ I then thought, ‘What if you were in that bank when it was being robbed and your car was out in the fifteen minute parking zone? How would you get out to move your car to avoid getting a fine?’ That gave me the bungled bank robbery scene that led to everything else in the book.
What do you do to get away from writing?
Living in Sydney, I’ve taken the chance to start surfing again. One of my best memories of growing up is catching my first proper wave and surfing across it and my brother cheering at me from the shore. Many years later, I’ve started up again and I’m really loving it – as long as the waves are small enough…I also watch a lot of movies, especially when I’m struggling with a story I’m working on. I like watching the same ones over and over again, so I half watch and half think about the story.
Lastly, where do you get your ideas from?
I used to lie about this, but now I actually know –
I started writing when I was sixteen. I’m thirty now. I get my ideas from fourteen years of thinking about it.
Hi everyone! I've been in touch with Markus Zusak. At the moment he's trying to finish up his new book, which you can read more about here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/mark...
At any rate, although he's busy right now, he may be open to a chat at some future time. He lives in Sydney, Australia, which is 14 hours ahead of me in the Eastern time zone of the US, and 9 hours ahead of Fiona in England.
So....not sure how an "online" chat would work due to the time difference. I'm thinking it might work better if we post our questions, and assuming Markus is amenable, perhaps he could come online at his leisure and answer them.
What does everyone think of this?
Needless to say, I'm over the top excited that he's been in touch. He is such a humble, but yet awesomely talented guy, and it would be thrilling if he stopped by, at any time, and for any length of time.
Hi Madeleine, thanks for joining! Glad you're finding some great reads here. I've heard so many things about The Hunger Games, I have got to read that sometime soon.
Let us know what you think of Graceling too - I keep hearing about that one also...!
Mamma Mia
Here we go again
Mamma how can I resist you?
Beth wrote: "Laura, I never thought of sniffing people who work in coffee shops. I wish I knew someone who worked in Starbucks, LOL. I guess it would have to be someone very close to me though because I doubt..."
Well you didn't have to be close to her to sniff her, lol....Ashley is the UN-me, doesn't really like hugs, etc. so she'd never tolerate that anyway. But the coffee smell would just radiate from her. She'd always change her clothes as soon as she got home, but it'd be in her hair and everything.
Malcolm wrote: "Laura wrote: "Malcolm wrote: "Imagine if you worked at a brook printers ... you'd be permanently high. Got to admit to being a bit of a closet sniffer myself ... perhaps we should start a separate,..."
Sorry IMO is in my opinion.
I used to sniff Ashley when she came back from Starbucks, she hated how she smelled but I loved it.
Malcolm wrote: "Imagine if you worked at a brook printers ... you'd be permanently high. Got to admit to being a bit of a closet sniffer myself ... perhaps we should start a separate, breakaway group called goodsn..."
Love it Malcolm!
Beth - I don't drink coffee either, but to sniff is to be in a divine presence. And the grounds are much better sniffing than brewed coffee IMO.
Wild Things: YA Grown-Up
