Della
asked
P.J. MacNamara:
I can see why you didn't put the contents of this book in chronological order, but I'm thinking if you had included approximate dates of composition that might have been of some interest to your readers? It can be interesting to see how a writer's style develops over time. Mixing your "old chestnuts" up with your new material must have been very difficult for you. Are you embarrassed by your earlier work at all?
P.J. MacNamara
Like most writers, YES, I definitely am embarrassed about some of my early work, but, unless I forget to burn it all before I die, nobody is ever going to see any of that. I certainly won't be looking to have it published.
I think I've said elsewhere that YES, again, it is difficult mixing the old with the new because - even if you thought something was brilliant when you wrote it - 20 years later, when you've read it and rewritten it 100 times over, it seems trite, obvious, unsubtle, boring, derivative and all the rest of it. You have to have a lot of faith. If you thought it was good in the first place and you've spent 20 years improving it, logic dictates that what you have is likely to be better than it was originally, not worse. Someone who has never read a particular piece before will see it in a completely different way to me. If you look at it that way, everything in every book is on a level playing field.
I did toy with the idea of including the year of composition of each piece, if not on the individual title pages, then on the contents page, but in the end I decided against it because I think this work needs to be approached in a certain way, and to add those dates was contrary to my ideas about that. The dates are not a secret though. A 30 year period is covered in Book 1, from 1988 to 2018. In subsequent books I include a few things from 1987, and I was still writing new stuff for Books 3, 4 and 5 in the January and February of 2021.
If there are any particular dates you are interested in, just ask.
I think I've said elsewhere that YES, again, it is difficult mixing the old with the new because - even if you thought something was brilliant when you wrote it - 20 years later, when you've read it and rewritten it 100 times over, it seems trite, obvious, unsubtle, boring, derivative and all the rest of it. You have to have a lot of faith. If you thought it was good in the first place and you've spent 20 years improving it, logic dictates that what you have is likely to be better than it was originally, not worse. Someone who has never read a particular piece before will see it in a completely different way to me. If you look at it that way, everything in every book is on a level playing field.
I did toy with the idea of including the year of composition of each piece, if not on the individual title pages, then on the contents page, but in the end I decided against it because I think this work needs to be approached in a certain way, and to add those dates was contrary to my ideas about that. The dates are not a secret though. A 30 year period is covered in Book 1, from 1988 to 2018. In subsequent books I include a few things from 1987, and I was still writing new stuff for Books 3, 4 and 5 in the January and February of 2021.
If there are any particular dates you are interested in, just ask.
More Answered Questions
A Goodreads user
asked
P.J. MacNamara:
Does your mysterious pop star friend know you're going public about your involvement with her, and if so, how does she feel about it?
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more