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“X,” A Conversation with Sue Grafton

August 27, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Sue Grafton (c) Laurie Roberts PorterSue Grafton is best known for her alphabet mystery series (A is for Alibi, etc.), with her feisty protagonist Kinsey Millhone. NPR’s Maureen Corrigan said the forthcoming conclusion of the alphabet series “makes me wish there were more than twenty-six letters at her disposal.”

Sue has won nearly every award in the crime-mystery lexicon, and her bestselling novels are published in 28 countries and in 26 languages.

Breaking with the tradition of summing up each novel’s storyline by use of a letter and accompanying word, in Sue’s latest release, X represents the “unknown.” Within its pages are three separate mysteries: an art theft; an elderly couple involved in graft; and a sociopathic serial killer on the loose who is zeroing in on Kinsey as she struggles to unravel and resolve these cases without becoming the next victim of this ruthless killer.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: advice to beginners, closed mystery, column, Hollywood, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, open mystery, Writer's Block, writing, writing from the soul

The Nightmare of a New Novel

November 26, 2013 by Mark Rubinstein

A sense of incipient dread spreads though me when I first sit down to begin a new novel. No matter how many times I’ve done it before, the initial reaction is the same: where will this go? Will the attempt lead me to a dead end from which I can’t be extricated?

Perhaps it’s a crisis in confidence, but it’s far more than just a case of writer’s block. In fact, I’m not sure “writer’s block” is a valid name for this state of mind.

A novel is an organic thing. In a very real sense, it lives, breathes and takes on a life of its own, independent of my initial outline or plot summary. The outline never ensures full-blooded characters, not does it guarantee a rich plot, with compelling narrative drive. Hopefully, the story will grow or even change direction from the first plot summary, and the end result will be something I’d never anticipated. I never truly know the outcome — even as I’m traveling the novel’s trajectory — which can be part of the pleasure and nightmare of writing. In fact, whenever I look at the final product — the published novel — I find myself wondering where it all came from.

Once I barge past that initial feeling of immobilization, the writing assumes its own energy. Many things emerge. They seem to come from some deep mental recess. The experience can seem like a mystifying, dreamlike process, or even a strange form of magic.

But it’s not magic. Rather, mine is the writer’s oneiric landscape over which the quest occurs to capture in words, the thoughts and feelings of my characters in their turbulent stories.

I wonder if every writer experiences this when beginning a new work. I don’t know. I can only speak for myself.

Some people claim to experience this peculiar form of paralysis they call “writer’s block.” It seems to me, they just can’t get past the nightmarish fear of not knowing where it will all go, and beginning the hard work a novel demands — the brutal and beautiful slog of writing fiction.

Mark Rubinstein
Author of Mad Dog House and Love Gone Mad

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Filed Under: Huffington Post Column, Mark Rubinstein, novel, On Writing Tagged With: Books news, fiction, How to Start Writing a Novel, Writer's Block, writing, writing a novel

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