Tuesday, June 24, 2008

bus stories

After Vikram Seth laid the 1474 page 'Suitable Boy' out to the public, before he was about to publish his 'Perfect Music', he made a boistrous promise:

I didn't particularly intend to write a shorter novel. However, I did realize that if I were to write another novel equally long, it would take up another decade of my life. I wasn't very keen to do that. I also reckon that publishers aren't intrinsically fond of long novels; they're difficult to convince people to read...or to review for that matter. So I hoped that the inspiration for my next novel could be curbed within reasonable length, 300 to 400 pages. I guess I'm lucky that it has. I did threaten to cut off a digit for every extra 10,000 words above 100,000. All of my fingers are intact


I'm making the same promise: if I ever write anything that takes place on a bus again....

2 comments:

Snotty McSnotterson said...

GOOD LORD. What kind of shit are you reading these days???

Thanks for the unholy mention in your profile--didn't even catch that until today. I'll take credit where credit is due, right after you publish your first novella.

FreNeTic said...

Funny - Other 'n other people's blogs, I've mostly been reading my own shit. For divining, for cadence, for voicing. It's so time consuming, I don't have time to fix anything. I'm lazy like that.