Emily on Oz

Since I can't be with you at the Lione's, here's just a few quick thoughts on Rhyming Life and Death:

Earlier this year I took a creative writing class. I thought it would be fun - I didn't realize or anticipate how really hard it would be. After all, I've been a writer for my whole adult life. I'd never written fiction but, after all, I'm pretty good at writing just about anything else....so what would be so hard?

Whew. What a surprise. It's tough.

We spent a bunch of time on character development, and the assignment was to go someplace -- a coffee shop, a book store, a train station, whatever -- and observe people and make up stories about them. We had a long list of characteristics to fill in. Some were expected and easy: age, economic status, clothing, hair, etc. But others were much more difficult, meaning we needed to make up the story behind the person. I confess: my imagination wasn't up to the task.

So reading Rhyming Life and Death I was in awe of Oz's ability to do just this -- and also intrigued by how he wrote a book about writing a book.

I'll be interested in how the conversation goes.

EG