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Genre Blab – The Genre Traveler podcast

Carma Spence runs a very cool blog and site called The Genre Traveler (www.thegenretraveler.com) where, among other things, she posts podcasts with writers who till the fields of genre of all sorts.  She looked me up and the result is a wide-ranging conversation about fear in literature, the excitement of initial ideas, and the inadequacy of “good writing” as the distinction between so-called genre and literary fiction.

Carma did some expert editing, too, as I sound more coherent than I recall.  And we must have done the interview after my afternoon coffee:  I can hear the caffeine in my voice.

Genre Traveler Podcast – Pyper

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First Draft

I submitted a first draft of my new novel to my agents this week.  They haven’t read it yet – nobody has, aside from me – so I have spent the last few days floating around, buoyed by a sense of accomplishment (another one!) but still tethered by the usual authorial anxieties (am I nuts?).  It’s a strange netherworld, this state of having a finished story but without response, without the animation that comes with the engagement of another’s consciousness.  It’s like the hour before the guests arrive for a party.  Or telling a joke to yourself.

I have never been one of those writers who is indifferent to the concept of audience, a storyteller who is “only writing for myself.”  I’ve always felt this view was either a) disingenuous, or b) sad, or c) weird.  Even if one never seeks publication, even if the work is meant to be private, the most intimate journal or confession, the notion of engagement is alive during its composition.  There is (it seems to me) always an “other” sitting over your shoulder in the writerly exercise, even if this reader is only some fractured aspect of yourself, or someone who will never actually read it, or an ever-observing God.

That’s not really the point I started out wanting to make here.  So what is that point?  Something along the lines of This never gets old.

This new novel will be my sixth.  Sixth! It is a number even more surprising than the reminder of one’s age (particularly when a 4 or higher is the first digit).  You might think there’d be an Auto Pilot kicking in by now, a professional coolness that diminishes the virginal excitements that came with finishing a big project back in the Early Days.  But here I am, giddy as a teenager with a beer buzz.  I’m a little terrified, a little exhausted, a little sentimental at soon having to say farewell to the characters who came to me this time around.

Though of course I’ll be seeing them all again soon enough in the Second Draft.  And the Third.  And the Fourth…

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Outlines: The Smackdown

Over at the CBC Books website (an excellent – and sometimes even edifying – time-waster) there’s a debate between my friend and fellow writer Sheila Heti and myself about the matter of outlines.  I’m in favour, Sheila against.

As both Sheila and I agree, however, there’s no right or wrong way to write a book.  Whatever works for you…works.  There’s nothing to debate really.  But in the spirit of offering advice that’s worked for me (advice intended for fellow toilers looking for advice) I wanted to make the case for spending more time on the pre-writing phase.  Spitballing.  What if-ing.  Testing.  Pitching.

Not only because it helps (which I believe it does), but because it’s such a creatively exciting step in the long walk.

CBC Books – Literary Smackdown

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Is There a Right Book for the Right Season?

The publishing industry is informed, in large part, by long-established truisms.  People only buy hardcovers at Christmas.  Summer reading means fluff.  Nobody buys books in January.  Only men like scary stories.

Some of these are verifiably true, of course.  Others not remotely so.  In particular, I have always doubted the “right book for the right season” approach to reading (and publishing, and bookselling).  Are we really hard-wired to crave sombre literary doorstoppers from November 1 to December 24?  Are low-brow thrillers best consumed on a beach in July?  Do we want romance in the two weeks leading up to the fourteenth day of February any more than we want romance any other time?  For me, it’s a no to all of these self-fulfilling “facts” of readerly habits.  All of them…except one.

If you live in a geography where there are pronounced seasons that include autumn you know the shivery magic of October.  There’s something about the coolness of the evenings, the leaves scraping down the street, the solitary walks home with the branches chattering your name overhead…

Ghosts didn’t invent the autumn.  But it may well be that the autumn invented ghosts.

This year, I’m currently curled up with a work of non-fiction that, while a serious work of scholarship, conveys its fair share of brainy chills:  Satan:  A Biography, by Henry Ansgar Kelly (University of Cambridge Press).  It’s research.  But utterly fascinating research (I feel another blog coming on, but will resist for now).

Naturally, this being an author’s website, I would recommend my own books for an October read.  (Didn’t you notice?  The Guardians is out in paperback in North America!)  But I would personally be interested to hear of any of your own scary recommendations.  I’m looking for a new Halloween read.  Something I’ve never heard of before.  Ideas?

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THE GUARDIANS paperback…out now!

The title just about says it all.

The trade paperback edition of The Guardians is available in stores and on-line (and everywhere else) in Canada and the U.S. on September 13, and though this announcement comes a day early, you can go to your favourite bookseller and politely hound them to bust open the boxes if they haven’t already (or order the damn thing if they neglected to).  Trust me:  booksellers love being hounded.

I am especially psyched about this edition because it feels so good.  You know that slightly rough, grippy paper they use on paperbacks sometimes?  It’s got that.  And the spooky house on the cover is just right.  And my name – though large – isn’t James Patterson-sized.  And the red foil on the title does a shiny thing when you turn it around in the light.  And…I just like it.

Which is not always the case with a book’s design.  Despite everyone’s best intentions, covers can sometimes turn out a bit turdy.  Not this one, my friends!  So hit the streets or hit the web and check it out.  And if you decide to purchase this thrilling and edifying cultural product, you have my gratitude and undying loyalty.

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The Fall

I’ve been reading Milton’s Paradise Lost a lot these days (it plays an important role in the novel I’m working on) and so, whenever I hear someone say “the fall,” I automatically think of Adam and Eve, the Original Sin, ambitious angels-turned-demons, evil and the like.  Of course, fall also refers to the autumn, which is (sorry!) just around the corner.  It may bring you forbidden fruit, or maybe just soggy leaves in the yard.  I can tell you that it looks like it’s bringing me a busier-than-expected bunch of readings and appearances. (They have a way of sneaking in, even when you’re battening down the hatches).

If you go over to the Readings & Appearances page here, there is now an updated list of things you may want to come out to.  I would, as always, be very happy to meet you, see you again, or just read to your anonymous self in the back row.

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The Guardians in the Mail on Sunday

With the paperback publication of The Guardians set for September 13 in Canada and the US, and with the UK paperback due early in the new year, I’m presently enjoying the my-work-here-is-done process of viewing, tweaking, and signing off on new cover art and text for the reprint editions.  There are haunting new images for both the North American and British covers.  And there are also some reviews that have come to my attention that I missed the first time around.  One of them boosted my spirits enough (and I needed the boosting, as I’m getting deeper into the uncharted waters of my new novel) that I felt I would indulge myself in blurbing it here.  It appeared in the UK’s Mail on Sunday.

“Pyper is the most striking Canadian crime writer to emerge in recent years and The Guardians is a characteristically intelligent move into Stephen King territory.”                    – Mail on Sunday

Once the glow of reading this wore off (and the glow wears off too damn fast for my liking – reality has a way of roughly pushing self-congratulation aside) it provoked a thought.  Will there ever come a time when some other writer will be said to make a move into “Andrew Pyper territory”?  And if they do, should I point a shotgun in their direction and tell them to get off my lawn, or invite them in for drinks?  (I strongly suspect it will be the latter, just so you don’t get too worried…)

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Home from New York

Home from a few days in a cruelly hot New York City, where I had a blast on a number of fronts.  First, I met some new friends at Thriller Fest, including the novelist Sophie Littlefield.  I was planning on writing a summary of the panel I was on, but Sophie has already done so, and with her own well-argued interpretation and questions and critique, so all I’m going to do is link to her blog.  Thanks, Sophie!

Sophie Littlefield – Pens Fatale

On one of my free evenings, I saw a play.  Not just any play, mind you, but the best contemporary play I’ve ever seen.  It’s called Jerusalem, by Jez Butterworth.  I could link to reviews, or provide my own synopsis, but I honestly don’t want to taint the experience if you decide to see it.  And friends, if you have the time and dollars to get yourself to NYC within the next few weeks before it closes, you have to see this thing.  Because it’s not only the best play out there, it features the best stage performance I’ve ever seen.

Mark Rylance:  you are a genius, sir.

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Thriller Fest in New York

I am a Writers Convention virgin, at least when it comes to the US.  No Bouchercon (yet), no Bram Stoker Weekend (definitely curious).  But I’m about to lose it (as it were) in New York this year for Thriller Fest.  There’s an amazing line-up of top-rate writers, and the panels sound actually interesting (hard to make a panel topic sound intriguing, but they’ve managed it).  Though I will be meeting with some of my editors there, and a hardy clutch of Canadians will be in attendance, I’m feeling some first-day-of-school nerves about it all.  Excited, in other words.

If you’re planning on being at Thriller Fest this year, or are in New York July 8th and 9th and are inclined to head over to the Grand Hyatt, love to meet you.  Otherwise, I’ll let you know how it went once I’m home…