Friends! Hello. Happy New Year! I had a lovely, low-key Christmas with my family and honestly the most glorious week afterward, doing absolutely nothing. I read, I knitted, I listened to records and did a thousand-piece puzzle, I took afternoon cat naps with my actual cat, I watched a movie every night. I needed a break and it was so good to get one.
State of Wonder was so good! Ann Patchett is one of my favourite authors; her entire backlist is a delight.
Liz Gilbert shares the most wonderful story about State of Wonder in her book, Big Magic.
From Maclean's magazine:
Gilbert frames the creative process as a relationship: “I’ve had a visitation by something that wants me to work on a project, and I’m going to engage in a relationship with this idea and, together, we are going to make something out of nothing,” she says. Ideas are like molecules floating about, waiting for someone to seize upon them, she writes— they’re “disembodied energetic life forms” with “consciousness” and “will.” In the book, she shares the story of working on a novel set in Brazil about an American middle-aged woman, but being distracted by other things. She believes she transmitted the idea to novelist Ann Patchett, whom she met at a book event, via a friendly kiss; later, she learned Patchett was working on a eerily similar plotline that became her 2011 novel State of Wonder. They had never discussed Gilbert’s half-finished novel. “My idea had grown tired of waiting, and had left me,” Gilbert writes.
State of Wonder was so good! Ann Patchett is one of my favourite authors; her entire backlist is a delight.
Liz Gilbert shares the most wonderful story about State of Wonder in her book, Big Magic.
From Maclean's magazine:
Gilbert frames the creative process as a relationship: “I’ve had a visitation by something that wants me to work on a project, and I’m going to engage in a relationship with this idea and, together, we are going to make something out of nothing,” she says. Ideas are like molecules floating about, waiting for someone to seize upon them, she writes— they’re “disembodied energetic life forms” with “consciousness” and “will.” In the book, she shares the story of working on a novel set in Brazil about an American middle-aged woman, but being distracted by other things. She believes she transmitted the idea to novelist Ann Patchett, whom she met at a book event, via a friendly kiss; later, she learned Patchett was working on a eerily similar plotline that became her 2011 novel State of Wonder. They had never discussed Gilbert’s half-finished novel. “My idea had grown tired of waiting, and had left me,” Gilbert writes.
Happy New Year, Liz! I have a book for you if you are interested. You do get a shout out in the credits. ;) Email me at the Smart Factory.