Victoria
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Did you have any idea that you were writing such a colossal novel? and when can we expect more ? LOL <3
Scott Hawkins
Hey Victoria,
The thing is, when you write a book, it's always perfectly vivid to you. I mean, if whatever you wrote wasn't the perfect way to say what you needed to paint the vivid, moving picture of whatever whatever was floating your boat that particular day, you wouldn't have written it in the first place.
The problem is that other people often do not agree.
Mount Char was my first published novel, but I'd written 3 others prior to that. At the time I wrote them, I thought they were perfect. Everyone else...not so much. It really is tough to be objective. Around the time Mount Char came out, I happened to be going through old papers and I stumbled on the manuscript for my first book. I have vague memories of being quite fond of it at the time, but I hadn't looked at it in so long that I barely remembered what it was about.
I still don't know. I couldn't finish. It was baaaaaaaaad. I mean bad-type bad.
Seeing my own work through something other than rose-colored glasses continues to be a problem. I make a real effort to listen to beta readers and so forth, but it's hard to disengage from your own opinion.
Anyway, to answer your question, the first time I had an inkling that someone other than me might like Mount Char was Labor Day 2014 at around 2:30. My wife--who is well-known for her bluntness--was reading it for the first time. I was sitting in the living room marinating in anxiety while I pretended to watch TV. She came out of the back bedroom with this dazed, blinky expression on her face. "It's...it's...pretty good actually."
That was a pleasant surprise.
As far as the next one---I'm almost done with an unrelated followup. I think it will be ready to start showing around in the next few weeks. But that's another one of those things where my own opinion seems to be, ahem, a tad unreliable. (I've been saying that exact same thing for close to a year now). But this time I mean it.
Best,
Scott
The thing is, when you write a book, it's always perfectly vivid to you. I mean, if whatever you wrote wasn't the perfect way to say what you needed to paint the vivid, moving picture of whatever whatever was floating your boat that particular day, you wouldn't have written it in the first place.
The problem is that other people often do not agree.
Mount Char was my first published novel, but I'd written 3 others prior to that. At the time I wrote them, I thought they were perfect. Everyone else...not so much. It really is tough to be objective. Around the time Mount Char came out, I happened to be going through old papers and I stumbled on the manuscript for my first book. I have vague memories of being quite fond of it at the time, but I hadn't looked at it in so long that I barely remembered what it was about.
I still don't know. I couldn't finish. It was baaaaaaaaad. I mean bad-type bad.
Seeing my own work through something other than rose-colored glasses continues to be a problem. I make a real effort to listen to beta readers and so forth, but it's hard to disengage from your own opinion.
Anyway, to answer your question, the first time I had an inkling that someone other than me might like Mount Char was Labor Day 2014 at around 2:30. My wife--who is well-known for her bluntness--was reading it for the first time. I was sitting in the living room marinating in anxiety while I pretended to watch TV. She came out of the back bedroom with this dazed, blinky expression on her face. "It's...it's...pretty good actually."
That was a pleasant surprise.
As far as the next one---I'm almost done with an unrelated followup. I think it will be ready to start showing around in the next few weeks. But that's another one of those things where my own opinion seems to be, ahem, a tad unreliable. (I've been saying that exact same thing for close to a year now). But this time I mean it.
Best,
Scott
More Answered Questions
Amel Lou
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Maupassant said that talented authors should be called illusionists because of how they can write on something unreal and make it feel like real life. Well let me tell you that you're a hell of an illusionist. Your book was extraordinary and I've never ever read something similar in my life. Props for the originality. So, I was wondering how did you come up with the idea of the Palapi language? Thanks!
MLO
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Not so much a question but an observation: I read a ridiculously embarrassing amount of books and, to this day, over a year later, The Library at Mount Char is still at the top of my Favorite Books of All Time list. Obligatory field-verification-question: What, if anything, made you decide to start writing fiction?
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