Denial
Page 28
JP: What about you, John? Do you have a routine for when you’re writing?
JG: Much like the judge—and I think it’s true for those of us who had demanding careers before we were able to write full-time—we had to do it early in the morning, and that’s how I wrote my first two books. Now, I start at seven and write till about eleven or twelve every day. I start writing a book on January 1st of every year. I give myself six months to finish it—so by July 1—and that’s the writing season for me. Once I write for four straight hours, my brain is pretty well mush. Some days are very productive—a good day for me is 1,000 words. A slow day, if I’m researching, is 502 words. I don’t give a lot of advice to aspiring writers, but I have said several times, you gotta find your time of day. It’s best if you go to one place and have one routine and one spot. Scott Turow wrote Presumed Innocent while riding the train into Chicago every day. I have a buddy, Greg Iles, in Natchez, Mississippi, who starts writing at midnight every night. Whatever it takes. Find your one spot and your one hour.
JP: So, do the two of you watch TV thrillers or crime shows and has that impacted your thinking of the crime and mystery genre?
BM: No. I don’t watch them.
JG: I don’t watch much television. I’ve seen CSI and Law and Order, but the legal stuff is not always plausible and I get really frustrated when I see something that’s not right. It shows a lot about our culture that the most popular shows on television are about police and crime and lawyers and courts. We have an insatiable appetite for those types of stories. And thank God for that, because it spills over into fiction, and that’s where the market is.
More from this Series
Full Disclosure
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Truth Be Told
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photograph © Jean-Marc Carisse
BEVERLEY McLACHLIN’s debut novel, Full Disclosure, which introduced readers to Jilly Truitt, was a #1 national bestseller and short-listed for the Arthur Ellis Best First Crime Novel Award. Her memoir, Truth Be Told, was an instant bestseller and won the prestigious Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize and the Ottawa Book Award for Non-Fiction. From 2000 to 2017, McLachlin was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She is the first woman to hold that position and the longest-serving Chief Justice in Canadian history. In 2018, McLachlin became a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest honour within the Order.
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Copyright © 2021 by Beverley McLachlin
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Denial / Beverley McLachlin.
Names: McLachlin, Beverley, 1943- author.
Description: Simon & Schuster Canada edition.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020030755X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200307630 | ISBN 9781982104993 (softcover) | ISBN 9781982105006 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS8625.L33 D46 2021 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
ISBN 978-1-9821-0499-3
ISBN 978-1-9821-0500-6 (ebook)