I wrote my first novel, "Improved Lies" for a lot of reasons, none well articulated when I sat down to pen the first lines. My wife and I left busy lives in Michigan and ran off to Jamaica to build a home. Great idea as it turns out.
To assuage Protestant guilt about idleness after 26 years as a sixty hour a week lawyer, I needed a project and a discipline. Jamaica has a way of undermining discipline with temptations and the book which was going to take a year took five instead.
The characters and plot became constant mental companions steeping on the back burner of my brain They evolved in paroxysms of activity when the muse and guilt moved me forward. I learned that I wrote for the pleasure of their company.
Never very gifted at art or athletics, my career as a trial lawyer rested on my ability to weave words together and create a tableau which would interest and persuade judge and jury. So, l wanted to see if I could put that talent to another purpose, entertaining and amusing strangers. The jury is still out on that.
As I sit here shortly after the book's launch, I realize the main motivation for writing is to join with the authors who have given me such great pleasure over the years. I confess to an insatiable appetite for page turner fiction. I love being transported into other lives and seeing the world through the eyes of another. My life is richer for it.
So in the final analysis I wrote to return the favor.
To assuage Protestant guilt about idleness after 26 years as a sixty hour a week lawyer, I needed a project and a discipline. Jamaica has a way of undermining discipline with temptations and the book which was going to take a year took five instead.
The characters and plot became constant mental companions steeping on the back burner of my brain They evolved in paroxysms of activity when the muse and guilt moved me forward. I learned that I wrote for the pleasure of their company.
Never very gifted at art or athletics, my career as a trial lawyer rested on my ability to weave words together and create a tableau which would interest and persuade judge and jury. So, l wanted to see if I could put that talent to another purpose, entertaining and amusing strangers. The jury is still out on that.
As I sit here shortly after the book's launch, I realize the main motivation for writing is to join with the authors who have given me such great pleasure over the years. I confess to an insatiable appetite for page turner fiction. I love being transported into other lives and seeing the world through the eyes of another. My life is richer for it.
So in the final analysis I wrote to return the favor.
Brian Kennedy