Reading becomes more complicated when you’re a writer because you gradually discover that you can no longer ‘just’ read. I don’t mean that the pleasure of reading becomes diluted because it doesn’t – if anything it intensifies, because your focus intensifies. It is simply that whatever you read, you read it with judgement aforethought. All the time you’re asking yourself: how do they do that? Or: do I want to do that? Or: why the fuck don’t they stop doing that?? It becomes increasingly rare to be so immersed in a book that your judgement becomes temporarily suspended and you find yourself reading blind, as it were, filled with the exhilaration that comes with the discovery of something new and great.
It’s all the more thrilling therefore when it does happen, and it has happened for me this past week. I first heard about Livia Llewelyn‘s collection Engines of Desire when I read Lila Garrott’s review of it over at Strange Horizons. I was drawn to the book immediately, and finally got around to ordering it last Sunday. I don’t want to say too much here, because I’m intending to do a full write-up for my next month’s Starburst column and I like to keep my powder dry, but what I will offer is a heartfelt recommendation. This is extraordinary writing, horror fiction that redefines the genre and that I am finding profoundly inspirational. Anyone who can write a post-apocalypse story (‘Horses’) that is not only more uncompromising than Cormac McCarthy’s The Road but that comes close to equalling it in power, conviction and originality of voice demands to be read, and I am so very excited to be reading new work of this quality. I see from her blog that Livia Llewellyn is currently working on a novel – I earnestly hope the work is going well and that we can look forward to seeing FrankenNovel soon.
I’ve been working hard on the new book this week, and am feeling quietly excited by its progress. Weird things started happening last Monday, when I realised that the part of the novel I’d been redrafting wasn’t actually the beginning of the book. Since then I’ve started to write what will be the beginning, am now 12,000 words into that section and wondering why (as always) I didn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing with it up until now. The pieces are beginning to slot into place, that edgy, antsy feeling that keeps me awake at night trying to unpick the recalcitrant knots of one of my own ideas has ebbed away, and I can now begin to concentrate on getting the words down.
And to bring things full circle, I should draw your attention to a superb essay by Matthew Cheney over at Weird Fiction Review. I read this and – as with the Livia Llewellyn – felt immediately and keenly inspired. Can’t wait to read that Barry Lopez story! Thanks to Mike Harrison for highlighting this piece at his blog.