One thing about him that's NOT East Coast, though, is his attitude. It could be that he wouldn't behave this way on a regular day out in public, but... what a friendly guy. While it did seem like just a little bit of a gimmick to shake each and every person's hand before the class started, he still did it. He didn't have to do that. Even if it was designed entirely to win our favor (probably not, certainly in his line of work he just has to be generally good at meeting people), it still goes a long way.
I was impressed that he could talk so long without really any prompting. I've met a lot of writers, and a good number of them are writers for a reason (by which I mean, they're just... better at writing than the talking part). Drape was engaging without being tiresome, and I was perfectly happy for him to spend the first 49 minutes of the class (which he did) just talking about himself and his journey. I seriously doubt I could spend 49 minutes being interesting about anything, let alone myself. But some people have the knack for it.
The Q&A was actually slightly less interesting for me, just because it's now been quite a few weeks since we read the book (and I didn't LOVE the book to begin with), but, still, I really enjoyed hearing the tidbits that gave us a look into how he decided to shape the arc(s) of the book, and how he made the decisions to leave some things in and ignore others. That sort of thing has to be fascinating to anyone interested in writing (or storytelling in general, regardless of medium)-- how do we filter all of that information? How do we make it into a compelling narrative? I appreciated that.
Also, I want to track down that book he wrote about the jockey. How have I never heard of that guy before?
No comments:
Post a Comment