Mary Guterson, appears Saturday, October 10th at 1 P.M. on the Wieden+Kennedy Stage, and then at 4 P.M. the same day as part of the panel discussing “Writing Communities.”
When people ask me what kind of books I write, I never know what to say. I’ve published two novels and they both have female protagonists dealing with life’s problems—including problems in their love lives. So, “chick lit” works as a description, I suppose. So does “women’s fiction.” Then again, I definitely have male readers. For awhile, I called my work “romantic comedy.” Recently, I’ve shortened it. I say: “I write comedies.”
I once read a quote from Nick Hornby, where he said that when he writes he’s always striving for that balance between funny and sad. That’s what I strive for, too—although Nick Hornby is brilliant and accomplished at it and I am only a hopeful beginner. Still, it’s what I work toward and I think it’s the right goal for me. I’m happy to have that goal.
So now I’m back to work on Drizzt Do’Urden, my dark elf character who has been a friend and companion for 22 years and through more than a score of novels. Any thoughts of putting this guy on autopilot were thrashed with the current release, The Ghost King, because I pretty much turned his world upside down. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t just me who did that. I write Drizzt in a shared world, Wizards of the Coast’s “Forgotten Realms,” and as occasionally happens in such a setting, big things change and timelines advance. So, too, must Drizzt.
My writing process is to stretch out on my bed with pillows everywhere, a cat purring on my back, clutching a bowl of snacks (snacks are key) in one hand and a pen in the other. Lying down tricks my subconscious into thinking I’m asleep, which coaxes it to wander the dark hallways of my mind until part of it stumbles out onto the paper. I do this for hours, not even getting up to stretch or answer the phone (woe to anyone who knocks on my door during the voodoo-writing time) and usually rushing late to pick up my kids with a weird glaze to my face, muttering nonsense.