Like most people, I find my own experiences - and my emotional responses to those experiences - fascinating and mysterious, even those that are a bit shaming and a little repellent.

Scott Spencer

Categorized in : Own People Emotional My Own

Everything in a novel has to be intentional, even the things that... by Scott Spencer

Everything in a novel has to be intentional, even the things that aren't.

even everything things novel

As a writer, I try to turn my feelings and experiences into a different form entirely, something that gives me mastery over them and also makes them meaningful to other people.

try me feelings people

When I look back at my life and think about what really happened, my memory is obscured by the stories I've created out of those incidents. In stories, as reality melds with art, the result sometimes feels truer than real life.

my-life memory life art

If a book isn't teaching me something, pulling something out of me, then it will be dull for me and the reader.

something will me book

Writers are stewards of the culture. Publishers, librarians, bookstore owners. We're all in this together. To write books that are gripping, important, that people want to have, is to keep publishing alive.

important together culture people

Contempt is a dangerous emotion, luring us into believing that we understand more than we do. Contempt causes us to jeer rather than speak, to poke at rather than touch.

understand dangerous emotion speak

It may be time for serious literary novelists to take back some of the subject matter we abandoned to hack novelists and the movies.

movies serious matter time