I'm kind of interested in learning to learn and grow and challenge myself. I think I've been very fortunate in that my books are pretty different from one novel to the next. There's a lot of things that are similar but in terms of tone and the scale and how they interact with history and just the different styles as well.

Joe Meno

Categorized in : Thinking Book Challenges

A book is actually a place, a place where we, as adults, still have the chance to engage in active imagining, translating word to image, connecting these images to memories, dreams, and larger ideas. Television, film, even the stage play, have already been imagined for us, but the book, in whatever form we choose to interact with it, forces us to complete it.

dream memories book

The boy detective thinks, The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. He reasons, But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.

mistake boys fall

What I've learned is that there is nothing in this life that does not fail to disappoint us, even our own deaths.

ive-learned failing doe

[Sex] is really awkward. You know you have expectations and then it's this great moment of connection and it's a surprise. But that's what so exciting about it is that sense of surprise.

awkward expectations sex

I was getting close to thirty and was trying on the idea of becoming more mature. I was reading more. I had gone out and bought a lot of shirts.

reading trying ideas

Maybe it was better to just go on believing everything was OK, ev... by Joe Meno

Maybe it was better to just go on believing everything was OK, even when

goes-on happens believe

Maybe that's why people have friends at all. Not because they like them so much but because they don't make them feel so much worse.

feels people

Being decent is the only thing that matters in a terrible world l... by Joe Meno

Being decent is the only thing that matters in a terrible world like this.

terrible matter world

The more I write, the more I've come to realize that books have a different place in our society than other media. Books are different from television or film because they ask you to finish the project. You have to be actively engaged to read a book. It's more like a blueprint. What it really is, is an opportunity... A book is a place where you're forced to use your imagination. I find it disappointing that you're not being asked to imagine more.

writing opportunity book

It is the strain of walking around the world-down the street, riding city buses and elevators, moving from place to place to place-and not knowing who might want to destroy you, who might like to fill your heart with poison, who might rob you and stab you, who might stand above you in the dark with a tarantula.

dark heart moving

Sex scenes in books are always like first person, from this male perspective and just about how awesome he is. It feels like such a fantasy.

perspective book sex

An act of evil is the death of wonder by Joe Meno

An act of evil is the death of wonder

acts-of-evil evil wonder

When she cries, it is quiet, tearless, almost completely impercep... by Joe Meno

When she cries, it is quiet, tearless, almost completely imperceptible: one more unheard prayer.

cry prayer quiet

The city glitters past us with its sharp edges, reminding us of how tiny, how weak, how totally unimportant we are.

glitter cities past

I always feel super uncomfortable when it's like ah, there probably has to be a sex scene. I feel really bad and then always look around to see if anyone is watching me while I'm writing. I want to apologize to people who have to read those sex scenes, but I feel like it's part of the characters life, it's important.

writing character sex

Above the dirt of an unmarked grave and beneath the shadow of the abandoned refinery, the children would play their own made up games: Wild West Accountants! in which they would calculate the loss of a shipment of gold stolen from an imaginary stagecoach, or Recently Divorced Scientists! in which they would build a super-collider out of garbage to try and win back their recently lost loves.

loss love children

After school the very next day, El Rey's mobile home was gone. I laid in bed and wondered what happens to people when they go, if they become like shadows, if they fade away when they disappear from your life. The only thing I could see was the broken picket fence. The only sound I could hear was the cry of birds being killed in the night.

home night school

Beneath all of her thoughts and worries, beneath the complication of conflicting identities and needs, maybe it's as simple as loving the way some other person looks when they're sleeping.

simple worry sleep

In novels you're able to occupy character's internal thoughts and it's really hard to do in a film or a TV show. When you're reading a character's thoughts or when it's in first person, you're reading kind of their own story, so you have the opportunity to see what makes that character complex or complicated. And to me that's what the whole point of fiction is.

reading opportunity character

And it's exactly what's wrong with the radio. It's like...anything that tries to appeal to everybody always ends up sounding so cheap.

radio ends trying