Babel Clash

Have you heard about a little book called The Passage?  If you haven’t, you should immediately check out Lev’s Grossman’s excellent review of this book.  Waste no time!  Read the review!  You have just enough time to read what Lev has to say before picking up your own copy of The Passage when it goes on sale tomorrow, June 8.

If you have heard of The Passage, you’ll understand why I’m so excited about the post Justin Cronin wrote for Babel Clash. 

“A confession: I have never blogged before.  I’ve Facebooked, I’ve tweeted, but never have I blogged.  In a recent Facebook status update, I wrote: ‘Justin Cronin is blog free since 1962.’”

My first two books ‘happened’ before the ascendancy of social networking, back when the Internet was slower and crankier and didn’t shoot information into your cell phone like water from a fire-hose.  There were no book trailers or Iphone apps, no Goodreads or Librarything.  When you interacted with a reader, you did it the old fashioned way: you wrote a book, and they read it.  If you were lucky, you might get to visit some bookstores and read it to them, and afterwards sign some copies, and exchange a few words.  But that was pretty much it.

Obviously, times have changed, and for the better.  I’m somebody for whom the solitary life of writing suits me perfectly well, but not always.  Once I’ve written a book, and stumble out of my office like a bear from his cave, blinking in the sunlight, I’m pretty desperate for company.  A book only truly exists when it moves through the mind of a reader.  Writing a book without hearing what people think o fit is like dancing by yourself to music nobody else can hear.

The months leading up to the publication of THE PASSAGE have shown me how different the world of readers and writers has become while I was locked away.  Already I’ve seen hundreds of reviews on various sites.  Most have been terrific, which, believe me, is exactly what any writer wants to hear; but all have been encouraging in some fundamental way.  The book is out there!  People read it!  They have opinions, questions, something to say!  It may seem obvious, but when you’re writing a book, it really isn’t: you’re not alone.  The book isn’t just something in your private little head, like a crazy dream you try to explain but never quite can.  Hearing from readers, and better still, meeting them, makes the book something much larger, no longer in your control, if it ever actually was.  I’m writing volume two now, so the dream of THE PASSAGE isn’t over; but how great it is to wake up, if only for a little while.”

Thank you, Justin, for sending your first blog post ever to Babel Clash!