Comments for Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

Comment on A few words about SUCKER PUNCH by TrueTransparent

TrueTransparent — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:54:56 +0000

Your review is spot on. The viewer is first placed in a world where a murderer is paying off some guy, head of a insane asylum, to take imprison the witness and perform lobotomy on her. Lobotomy.. to cut someone off from their brain.. then right before they actually do it the world changes w/ cutscenes of a third world that attempts to explain what should have just been going on in the first world, but maybe it needed random spice.. idk.

If you just take the third world, though, and made a movie just like that – epic, but how this played – brainwashing

Comment on When someone decides it’s his job to make people happy by robin

robin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:32:32 +0000

So glad you enjoyed it, Elizabeth!

Comment on When someone decides it’s his job to make people happy by Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:40:37 +0000

Robin, I’m playing catch up with blogs today, and this was so much fun! Thanks for the smile!

Comment on Show of hands: Who colors? by robin

robin — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:36:50 +0000

Rebecca, thanks for writing to me! I’m so happy you loved DOGGIRL and PARALLELOGRAM! By the way, I just today stuck into the mail three copies of Book 2 of PARALLELOGRAM for your school’s library. So make sure you’re on the checkout list!

As for DOGGIRL, I don’t have any plans to write a sequel right now, but I have thought about what more I’d like to say about Riley and Nate and dogs, so who knows? Maybe after I finish the current series and then the one after that.

Again, Rebecca, thanks for your comments! Really put a smile on my face!

Comment on Show of hands: Who colors? by Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:44:56 +0000

Robin, just a quick question, I was curious as to whether or not you’re going to write a sequel for Doggirl. I really loved it and I can kind of relate to Riley. Sometimes I feel like “That girl with all the books….” but anyhow, your writing is amazing and you should never EVER stop!!

Comment on Show of hands: Who colors? by Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:29:32 +0000

I’m so glad that you enjoyed Austin! The writer’s workshop was amazing and a LOT more fun than Gordon Korman’s workshop; all he had us do was write in silence. Blech. I love the Parallelogram series and Doggirl was breathtaking. Now, time to go color!!

Comment on Show of hands: Who colors? by robin

robin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:27:09 +0000

I’m trying to get the second book out before you all go on winter break! We’ll see . . .

Comment on Show of hands: Who colors? by Tahrima

Tahrima — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:22:29 +0000

wow. this thing has a lot of comments.
it actually might have the most of them all. that’s probably just Austin people
and stuff, but i just wanted to check on your post.yes i’m an Austin people.
anyway, with school i don’t get the time, but cool. im waiting for the second book to come out!! (yeah, i have time for that)

Comment on “Learning makes us uncomfortable” by Linda

Linda — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:05:26 +0000

Robin,
(Not to fill up your In box but…) Yes! Yes! Yes! That’s it EXACTLY. I think I will be more literary, and that I will be taken more seriously as a writer if I’m serious!
I started a novel several years ago I never finished based on a village in Guatemala, the individuals of which I have a 10 year history. I love these people and so I tried to write an imagined history of their war. But it was so dark I could not go on and my one reader said, it had no life to it(interesting, isn’t it?)
On the other hand I love telling funny stories and making jokes when I’m in the village and my Spanish, while enthusiastic, is a great source of humor there. But I just assume if I wrote about a character who was funny or enjoyed fun in that context, no one would take the story/me/this village seriously!
The correllary to this is that I can’t be meaning-full without being serious. But Mena and Casey both have serious things to work through, even while they use humor to navigate life.
And it’s true I thought I knew what your novel was going to do–I kept waiting for the nitty gritty depressing details of the young man’s suicide attempt and the harassment and I kept being surprised and PULLED ALONG by the fact that you kept it as the Back Story. I really was intrigued by and respected that. And it was less trite in a good/evil clear cut way and more honest to see Mena deal with her ambivalence about her own actions and their consequences.
Anyway, enough. I am full of new ideas for stories as a result of your response and your sharing your experience with Evolution. Thank you again! I’m all fired up! Back to the library (where I write before I go to work in the morning).
Good writing!

Comment on “Learning makes us uncomfortable” by robin

robin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:21:26 +0000

Okay, I have one more thing to say about that: You talk about how one of your internal rules seems to be “serious, serious, serious.”

Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature is the second attempt I made at this same subject. The first version was completely serious and depressing–I won’t even bore you with the details, but trust me when I say it got harder and harder every day to wake up and keep working on such a downer of a book.

But I thought that making it serious would also make it more “literary.” So I kept trying. Because up until then I had written a few manuscripts, and none of them had been picked up by a publisher yet.

But at some point while I was working on that first version, I realized I wasn’t writing like myself. The truth is, I like funny books. I like romantic comedies. I enjoy laughing. And I’m kind of a funny person in real life. So why was was I writing like someone I wasn’t, just to try to impress people?

So I started over, and wrote the book you see. And the amazing thing is, my agent sent it out on a Friday, and by the following Monday, we had four competing offers from publishers.

Lesson for me, and maybe for you: forget the rules you’ve made up about how to write books the “right way.” Just write like yourself. Write FOR yourself. You are always your own first reader, so why not give yourself a fun time reading? If you’d like to read a happy book, then write it. And trust that other people will enjoy reading a happy book, too.

Okay, today’s blog seminar is over! But I really enjoy talking about writing, so thanks for all your thoughtful comments that prompted this discussion!

And my final words to you are: Go, Linda, go! Write your books, one after another after another. Any of us can do it. And have a great time with it, please! If we can’t enjoy our lives as writers, then there’s something seriously wrong with how we’re going about it.

Take care, and good luck!