Renewed Zest
Dan,
I read your book, A Good Talk last night – I’m a fast reader – and I have to tell you that I loved it! I found myself thinking that what I was having was a good conversation with an intelligent, insightful and revealing friend. Way to go – good writing at its best as far as I’m concerned.
Here are the parts I liked best – the CHI – I loved how you identified these three attributes – Curiosity, humor and impudence as being what creates a lively and interesting conversation. I totally agree but don’t often find this – many people have one or two but seldom all three, at least here in Denver, not the most intellectually stimulating place on earth, what with all the faux cowboys and ski bums.
I liked how you revealed yourself too and didn’t hide behind your credentials as a celebrity writer from the New Yorker but showed your self to be a flawed human being like the rest of us.
I also liked what you said to Ginger when you told her she would need to be aggressive and annoying in order to get herself heard and responded to as a writer – that was really good advice for an up and coming writer or one who wants to be.
Anyway, it was a great book and I loved your style – I’m a writer too and this little book inspired me to make some changes in my own approach – not that I will be copying you – we all have our own voice, as they say, but I shifted in my perspective when I woke up this morning and now I feel a renewed zest for getting back to my project. So thank you and keep writing.
Lorraine
Dear Lorraine Banfield,
Thank you for the extraordinarily kind note. Being a writer, the best kind of writer, is indeed to be in a conversation with the reader, even though the reader is silent. The job of a writer is not only to tell a story or report on events or suggest ideas but to remember that there is a reader involved as well, and that he or she is actually talking to the reader, and anticpating questions and asnwering them at just the right time, and varying sentence length and tone, and expanding a point of view–providing surprises that have been earned. When you read a really good book or magazine piece, you are drawn in not only by the content but because the writer knows that he or she must hold your attention and think of what questions you might want to ask at which points and figuratively take your hand and guide you through the material in an entertaining and disciplined way. If you think I did one-quarter of that, I’m flattered.
I wish you luck with your own work and hope to see your name on the bestseller lists someday. It’s a hard road, and, these days, more than ever an unpredictable one. But contributing to our culture of letters, in a major or even minor way, remains a worthy goal.
Sincerely,
Dan Menaker
Want to get in touch? Have a conversation question?
Ask Dan here!
