Conversations

If you've been to the Welcome section, then you'll see that we like to promote relationships here at the Writers' Common.

A while back a few of us read Oryx & Crake, a novel by Margaret Atwood. Each of us read it at different times over a period of about six months. As we would finish different sections of the book we would bring it up in conversation. It wasn't a monthly book club meeting, like Oprah's little thing (which by the way, she's been knocking it out of the park on her selections lately) with a curriculum and prescribed critical thinking questions, it was just that we couldn't help talking about Ms. Atwood's book. It was a deeply affecting book, and since we knew that several other people had read it around the same time we would bring up different sections to be discussed while they were still fresh on everyone's mind. It kind of surprised us that it was that enjoyable to recall the work. There were lots of, "Oh yeah. I forgot about that part. What a great book."

Now, before you say, "I thought this was a Writers' Common, not a book club. If I had wanted to get together with my girlfriends, drink Swiss Mocha, and talk about the latest Francine Rivers' book, I would have done that. But I wanted to write." Just hold on, we're getting there. We're going to launch a few "official" books that some of us are going to read for kicks. Right now, we're thinking some Hemingway (we're currently involved in a debate about which novel). As soon as we decide, then we'll post the selection and open the Common to peoples' responses to the work. We'll leave the section open for further responses for six months. We want from you, the writers, thorough responses to the book. It doesn't have to be a critical analysis of the entire novel, in fact, please don't do that. But we would like you to write about scenes, themes, motifs etc. Also, if you have a question, feel free to post that. Somebody will probably have an answer. We find that this sort of conversation helps us digest the work. Kind of like how certain fats in butter help you to digest vitamins that are naturally found in vegetables better than if you just ate the vegetables alone.

This first novel will be a bit of an experiment to see if this blog can handle something like this. But if it works out, then we'll continue to post new books for conversation. Just look on the right side of the blog for new books. If you have a suggestion for a book, you can submit it to the editors, but don't get your hopes up.

We'll link each conversation together by book title, and you will be able to read all of the responses as they come in. We think this will inspire some good reading, and eventually good writing.