I had the chance to talk about writing with my old friend Jim Fusilli, celebrated author and onetime rock music critic of the Wall Street Journal, for his podcast Writers at Work.
You can listen to our musings below. It’s well worth browsing Jim’s backlist of previous interviews too. There are some fascinating figures in there, among them the musician Graham Nash. You can find them all here.
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with apologies for the familiar forename reference Mr Hewson. This published on linkedin this morning. thank you:
Here today, gone tomorrow:
I just listened to a podcast with one of my favourite writers, David Hewson. a magnificent teller of tales, mostly set in Italy. The books are engrossing, tantalising and they stay long in the memory.
in this podcast, David makes a really important statement of fact: Trying to capture the current fad as a writer doesn’t work. This is simply because, by the time the book is written, edited and published – well over a year – that zeitgeist has moved on.
I encountered this false logic often in my career as a record producer. When I handed in the roughs of the first couple of Sade and Everything But The Girl tracks, due for release a year hence, I was chastised for not following the then trend for synth and drum machines. Depeche Mode and Duran Duran.
The artists resisted. I resisted. Each record label had a key exec who resisted.
the rest is history.
Now I’m finishing my first novel. I’ve referred to David Hewson’s Craft Notes often. They basically say ‘there are no rules’. The book is at least a year from publication. Fortunately, it’s set in the past. But the book is doomed. apparently, according to David, the current publishers’ craze is for serial killer books. There is only one unnatural death in my book. Oh dear.
That was the craze this week, Robin. Next week… who knows?😁 Good luck with the book.
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