George R.R. Martin's Rolling Stone interview
I was just reading the Rolling Stone interview of George R.R. Martin, "The Hand Behind the Throne", from the May 24, 2012 issue of the magazine, and I was much taken with a lot of what Martin had to say. (You will note that I opted to put the cover photo up here, instead of a photo of Martin, but that is because I think Peter Dinklage is smokin' hot, and - no offense intended - I prefer him to a photo of George R.R. Martin. But I digress.)
Here's a bit of what Martin had to say in the interview:
Q: Some authors carefully plot out every page, while others improvise the whole thing. Where to you fall in that spectrum?
A: I have names for those types of writers: I call them architects and gardeners. The architect, before he drives a nail into a plank, has all the blueprints and knows what the house is going to be like and where the pipes are going to run. Then there are the gardeners, who dig a hole in the ground and plant a seed and water it -- with their blood sometimes -- and something comes up. They know what they planted, but there's still lots of surprises. Now, you seldom get a writer who is purely a gardener[.]
Definitely worth getting your hands on this issue in order to read the article. I especially liked what he had to say about how some people will tolerate the graphic description of an ax into a skull without blinking, but cannot bear any details involving a penis into a vagina, about how he works slowly, about nervousness that each check might be his last (still), and his closing comments about how books are in some ways more vivid in his memory than parts of his actual life.
Plus, if you get this issue, there's a nice interview with Peter Dinklage. With photos. Rrawr.
