Another pass

Today I got through another pass on my next novel. I guess that makes six or more. Hard to say. I will do another 2-3, and one speed read as I find the quick pass most revealing. On finishing this pass, and reading about writing (other author's take on what it is we/they do), I realized a few things. As I have aged, written more, read more, thought about what we do as writers more, I have come to think that dead-on attacks on subjects are less interesting to me than indirect ones; i.e., I prefer Dashiell Hammett to Jane Austin or the Brontes or Franzen or Eggers or Wallace. Not that I don't think they are brilliant and talented, just that I enjoy a more oblique approach to "getting your point across." I find joy in the details, not the sledgehammer approach. For me (and I realize this is a sacrilege), I love an involving story about anything other than the subject in which the human condition is hinted at rather than driven home. Sappy, over-sentimental or precious stories that go right at the characters and their situations do much less for me than a tense thriller with no pretension that reveals subtle truths about who we are as people. But hey, that's just me. It's what I do, so I like it! Sue me.