Harry Crews

Yesterday, 19/03/2013, another case of synchronicity happened to me. I had never heard about the american writer Harry Crews and then I read this quote on Facebook: "You have to go to considerable trouble to live differently from the way the world wants you to live. That's what I've discovered about writing. The world doesn't want you to do a damn thing. If you wait till you got time to write a novel or time to write a story or time to read the hundred thousands of books you should have already read -- if you wait for the time, you'll never do it. Cause there ain't no time; world don't want you to do that. World wants you to go to the zoo and eat cotton candy, preferably seven days a week." -- Harry Crews Later, in bed, I started reading this book that had arrived in the mail on the morning of the same day: "Reading like a writer", by Francine Prose. On page 3 I read another reference to Harry Crews: "Though writers have learned from the masters in a formal, methodical way -- Harry Crews has described taking apart a Graham Green novel to see how many chapters it contained, how much time it covered, how Green handled pacing, tone, and point of view -- the truth is that this sort of education more often involves a kind of osmosis."