Okay, call me neurotic. It’s a badge I wear proudly. So, for the record, mesmerize means “to subject to mesmerism,” or to “spellbind” or “fascinate.” And mesmerism means–oh, wait, I like this even better–“hypnotic induction held to involve animal magnetism.” To see the review, go to: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-307-40884-6 Alternately, skip this page entirely, shut off your . . .
I’m often asked whether I write using a computer or some more traditional implement. In fact, I use both. The best thing about my computer is that it lets me write quickly. I can trowel words onto a page with abandon, and remove them just as blithely; I can start the same paragraph over and . . .
I’ve been asked several times now in questions sent to me here whether I’d ever think about doing a novel. Yes. In fact, I have four unpublished novels to my credit—five if you include the one I wrote when I was 13 years old, a lovely little mystery of 75 typed, double-spaced pages about a . . .
Recently I signed up to join GoodReads.com. I have to say–and nobody’s paying me a penny to say it–I find the site really rather satisfying and, as an author, deeply reassuring, because it puts the lie to statements by doomsayers that THE BOOK IS DEAD. Members list their favorite books and reveal what they’re reading . . .
I was recently proofreading the source notes section of my forthcoming book, In the Garden of Beasts, when it occurred to me that bits of random poetry might be embedded within. I don’t use conventional footnotes of the kind we all learned in high school because they’re too distracting. Instead of littering the text with . . .
Anyone who writes a book and is fortunate enough to get it published knows that the period between the last bit of editing and the day the book goes on sale is a roller coaster of emotion. We look for signs that our books will fly off the shelves and be loved by readers everywhere. . . .
I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been chosen to be May’s “Man of the Moment” at Allthingsgirl.com, which tickles me no end–it’s one more of those positive little signs that a writer needs as the launch of his book approaches. (For more on this particular neurosis, please see my new blog post, On the Roller . . .
As many of you know, I, Erik Larson, was unable to acquire my own name for my website, because some unnamed soul bought the domain and ‘parked’ it, obviously hoping that one day I would want to buy it back. Since then my domain has changed hands a number of times in the great domain-marketing . . .
Every book I write brings strange moments of serendipity, when the past seems to call out to me to affirm that I’m on the right track. Undoubtedly such moments can be explained simply by the fact that if you immerse yourself in a subject deeply enough and long enough, peculiar coincidences and confluences will occur. . . .
Coming up with ideas is, for me, the toughest phase of writing a book. Roughly a year typically passes between the moment I make the final correction in the page proofs of one book, and the start of research on the next. During that period I do everything I possibly can to spark a new idea. I always tell my writing students (on those rare occasions when I do teach) to read voraciously and promiscuously.
I’ll go to my favorite library, the Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington here in Seattle, and wander the 900 levels of the Dewey Decimal System, pulling books at random in search of some forgotten but spectacular event from the past. I’ll go to the periodicals department and begin at the A’s and over a series of visits read, or try to read, an issue of every magazine on the shelves, no matter how obscure. In fact, the more obscure, the better. It helps that the Suzzallo Library is quite possibly the best library I’ve ever worked in, with the exception of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.—though the Suzzallo has infinitely better views. I’ll read newspaper obits and whenever I’m in another city doing a talk I’ll try to go to a local museum and read the local newspapers. I’m always surprised at the things I learn. For example, I discovered in the pages of an aerospace magazine that the way jet-engine manufacturers test their engines for their ability to withstand birdstrikes is by throwing birds of various sizes into the whirling blades of an actual engine. This, apparently, is a messy process.
