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

There was a great interview yesterday in the Wall Street Journal with this Russian author, Grigory Chkhartishvili (trust me, I did not spell that from memory), a.k.a. Boris Akunin, who used to be a translator and now writes Russian literary detective novels. He started out with a 5-year plan not only to build a series, but also to build a genre which didn’t seem to exist before he began. It took 2 1/2 years and 4 books for the series to catch on, and now he’s sold 15 million copies worldwide.

My favorite part of the interview was this:

“Sometimes,” admits the man now known as Boris Akunin, “I am afraid that I’m going to wake up and it’s all going to be a dream, and that I still have to go to the office and do some dull work that I used to do. ” But for the time being, he says: “This, well, it feels like, you know, eternal vacation. I do what I like to do; I don’t do what I do not like to do. And, well, I entertain myself and I get paid for it, and–I’m free. I think I’m in the best profession that exists.”

Aren’t you happy to see a guy like that succeeding? And have you heard a better reason to drop everything and pursue your writing dream TODAY??

Technorati Tags: Writing, Publishing, Books, Reading, Grigory Chkhartishvili, Boris Akunin, Erast Fandorin, Russian literature

Posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 11:56 am under Writing, Reading . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.