Query

James Wynn · 09 Mar 2010, 19:53 · from 2010-March.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:53:51 -0600
Subject: (urth) Query
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> Regarding #2, as
> someone who struggles with time management myself, I wonder where
> he managed to fit what must have been a lot of reading?in between his
> sleeping, writing, working, parenting, and eating (among other things)
> schedule...

That's something else I heard Wolfe say at a panel. He said that
people at cons often gift him with books, but the truth is that as
writer he really doesn't have time to read for pleasure. He shelves
are full of books he knows he will never read. This very much reminds
me of what the fraudlent book maker/novelist said in Peace.

I know he reads books sometimes when he's paid to, but that's not what
I'm talking about. Therefore, I posit that there are probably very few
intentional literary references in Wolfe stories from books written
before the mid-1970s. Actually, I don't recall a lot of literary
references in the Island of Doctor Death collection, Fifth Head, or
Peace. So he might have stopped reading much of fiction well before
then.

However, based on AEG, I think he must have found time to at least
read Cory Doctorow recently, unless they were riffing on the same
reference. And he seems to follow some of Gaiman's work as well.In
Castle of the Otter/Castle of Days I recall him saying that reading is
the most important training for a starting writer: (paraphrasing from
memory) "Before you can serve, you must learn how to please the
master".

Another quote from a panel:
"You can't imagine how difficult it is to write a well-received youth
novel. In order to get one into the hands of its audience, you must
first run a gauntlet through the parents *and* the school librarian.
Yet Neil Gaiman managed to have an award-winning youth novel where the
main character's parents and sister are murdered by a serial killer in
the first few pages. Neil Gaiman is a wizard!"

J.

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