 Red Room Writer Profile
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Caroline Leavitt's Blog
October 28, 2009
- A novelists, we struggle to put the truth on the page. We hope to tunnel so deeply into our characters' lives that what is on the page feels absolutely and complete real-so real that we fully expect the characters to walk past us. But we novelists also deal with some people thinking that what we have written is really about us personally, about our lives, that even though it is fiction, it is ...
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October 21, 2009
- I've been thinking a lot about how writers see the world. Recently on Facebook, a writer I really, really admire (the extraordinary Rhian Ellis, who wrote After Life, which I've written about here before) was telling me how she had been arrested for protesting some white supremacists in her neighborhood. I instantly peppered her with questions. What did it feel like to be in a cop car? Did she ...
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August 30, 2009
- Recently a person approached me to help him with his manuscript. He needed editorial work and wanted to get his book in shape for a publisher. I explained what I do and how I work and how thorough I am, and the success I have had with clients. I love doing this work--love to help other writers, plus it helps me in my own work to figure out what is and isn't working in someone else's work, and ...
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August 13, 2009
- I love writing novels, but I also love editing other writers' novels. I've done this work for agents, for UCLA Writers' program where I teach advanced novel writing, and for private clients, and I love the work with a passion. Part of it is because seeing what does and doesn't work in someone else's manuscript really helps me figure out what isn't working in my own! I love reading a manuscript ...
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May 13, 2009
- I hate writing days when I just seem to sit at my desk staring at the computer and nothing happens. I write one line, "He went inside" and then cross it out and write another. I try to refresh myself by playing on Facebook (doesn't work. I'm more tired.) I tell myself that my subconscious is still working, that one lean day might lead to riches in the following ones. Only today it ...
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April 13, 2009
- I've always been obsessed with one novel at a time, but now, I am writing two, and I can't tell if it is folly or just my process. I feel jet-lagged between two story worlds, never sure where I am or who I am with, and the sense of discombobulation makes me more than a tad anxious. Sometimes I think it is fine to just keep working on both, that sooner or later I will gravitate more to one. ...
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January 3, 2009
- Magic thinking and meAnyone who knows me knows that I believe in ....well everything. I believe in science and rational thought. But I also like to be open about the possibility of ghosts in the closet, (friendly ones, and they are there for scientific reason), teleportation, healing with quantum physics, and the power of thought. I visit psychics and I have a deck of tarot cards, and I ...
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January 1, 2009
- When I had my last book reviewed in the Sunday Times, I got about five congratulatory emails and calls. That was nice! But when an article about resolutions appeared today in the NYT, with two paragraphs about my nail biting, I heard from THIRTY people. So wait, does this mean my fingernails are more important than my books?SIgh, it's enough to make you want to bite your nails.....
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December 19, 2008
- It happened again. A woman I genuinely like, who seems to genuinely like me, asks to read one of my novels. Of course I give her the one with the best reviews, the best cover, the best everything, and I wait, hoping she will love it. But two weeks later, she approaches me, my book in her hand and she gives it back to me! "No, no, the book is for you," I say, but she's shaking her ...
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September 5, 2008
- This is from an email from Amy Tan--Jeff and I just signed our books (I drew a coffee cup with a fork and spoon and stars on mine) and sent them off.Dear Fellow Writers,Below is a plea from Ayelet Waldman for contributions to a fundraiser. No, you don't have to WRITE a book for Barack. We are talking about THIS year's election. But if you are inclined toward voting for Barack/Biden, please be ...
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August 26, 2008
August 14, 2008
- Names are important in novels. They have to have the right fit, sound right, smell right, and be right. Would a Diane kill her husband? Or would a David be more likely to? What about Estelle, would she really fall in love with Damien, or is it more likely that Neal would snag her attention? I almost always initially go through a lot of different names until one seems right--although ...
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August 11, 2008
- I love starting a new novel. There is something so filled with hope, and purpose. You've got the idea, it excites you. You want to know this amazing set of characters on a deeper level, and you haven't yet reached the terrors of the middle of the novel, when everything seems to be sinking in the muck. (It's at that point where I wail to Jeff, my husband, that my so-called- career is over, and ...
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July 10, 2008
- I am sitting here staring in wonder and joy at my book contract from Algonquin for my novel BREATHE. OK, I admit it. I was worried that even though they said they wanted the book, they might change their mind, that something would go wrong, that I would wake up and it would be a dream. But here it is, and I keep staring at it with absolute joy. Why do I do this to myself? This isn't my ...
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June 6, 2008
- Right now, I'm juggling two new novels I've started, a screenplay, and waiting for edits from my editor for my 9th novel, which is now called BREATHE. (It was Traveling Angels.) I keep thinking there is something wrong about this, that I should just settle on one project and lose myself in it, but I somehow can't. The characters from each work keep shouting at me to pay attention, pay ...
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