"
The Rap Sheet" has started what I hope will be a long tradition of hosting authors as guest bloggers. James Ellroy and Megan Abbott led the way; now occupy
ing the seat of honor:
British author Roger Morris, or “R.N. Morris,” as his byline appears on A Gentle Axe, his new novel, set in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1866 and starring none other than detective Porfiry Petrovich from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic novel Crime and Punishment.
Today's post from Morris, "
I Have Always Been a Victim of My Ideas," opens:
I went through a phase of my life where almost everywhere I went, or everything that happened to me, provoked an idea for a book.
Actually, thinking about it, I don’t believe this was a phase at all. It’s just the way I am, all the time. It’s probably an illness, and can certainly be an inconvenience. You end up with a lot of ideas and not enough time to work on any of them. Then there are the books you dream. Those are the best. But, oh, the sadness upon waking, when you realize that the masterpiece you thought you had written, the book that is the perfect literary expression of your soul, not only doesn’t exist, but never will. You try to hang on to the essence of the book your subconscious mind presented you with, you may even be tempted to go looking for it in that box where you keep all of your discarded dreams (otherwise known as rejected manuscripts), but any attempt to re-create it is bound to result in the bitterest disappointment.
Do
read on.
--Marshal Zeringue
ing the seat of honor:
Posts
