Paige Hawthorne: Blog

You know how rare it is for a writer to be included in the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year. Take fiction. Half of the Notable list is fiction and poetry. So fewer than 50 non-poetry fiction books. Per year.

Obviously 99.9% of the world's authors won't have even a dream of breathing that rarified Times oxygen. A few, Joyce Carol Oates comes to mind, have made the list more than once.

But here's a guy - - Daniel Woodrell - - whose spare novels have graced the Notable index five times.

Excuse me? Five times?

Mr. Woodrell writes country noir. Sort of like the esteemed Joe R. Lansdale. And, like Mr. Lansdale, some of his work has made it to the screen. Winter's Bone, for example.

Five times?

Who are your hidden gems?

Paige

Which authors do you guys revisit the most?

Here's a (probably partial) list of the ones I reread regularly:

> Robert B. Parker
> Robert Crais
> Thomas Perry
> Lee Child
> Michael Connelly (especially the Lincoln Lawyer)
> Lawrence Sanders (especially Archy McNally)
> Lawrence Block
> Elmore Leonard
> Thomas Harris
> Ross Thomas
> Donald Westlake
> P. G. Wodehouse (mostly Jeeves)
> Geoffrey Norman
> T. Jefferson Parker (although the latest ones got mystical)
> Don Winslow

Mostly mysteries. Nothing intellectual. All for fun.

Paige

I'm a rapid, rabid typist. Never have been tested competitively, but I bet I top out at close to 100 words a minute. Unfortunately, this includes dozens of errors which would lower my score considerably.

But in here I'm not looking to win a gold medal. If there's such a term, I type phonetically. Example: 1, 2, 3, might come out won, two, three.

'Write' might appear as 'right.'

What are your writing quirks?

Oh, here's another one. When I write certain Walker (Winter's son) passages, I sometimes include a certain coded signal to my real-life son. Who gets such a kick out of reading about his fictional counterpoint.

Paige

A reader sent me a copy of those famous tips from the extraordinary Elmore Leonard:

1 Never open a book with weather.
2 Avoid prologues.
3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4 Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
5 Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6 Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7 Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8 Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9 Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Mr. Leonard, "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

My favorite, and I imagine it's so for a number of other would-be writers, is # 10. Numbers 8 and 9 are interesting - - avoid details. Hmm, I'll have to think on that one.

The problem with any list of writing rules is, of course, that a talented writer can ignore them and still produce a remarkable piece of work. The flip side can apply too. An untalented hack can follow Mr.Leonard's tips devotedly and end up with dreck.

Paige

I devour each new Reacher book, each year. Though there was one thing I had completely missed. I recently read an article that pointed out some of Mr. Child's books are written in the first person. Others in the third.

My take on not noticing this isn't because I'm under-observant. One is allowed to self-determine such traits, no?

I believe the reason I missed such an obvious style change is that Lee Child is just such a damn good writer that he gets me hooked from the start.

For some unknown reason, I prefer his books that are set in America more than the European ones. Even though he is British, he surely nails down the scene here.

Paige