Maeve Binchy (1940-2012)

We all have people in our lives who speak to us in one way or another, help us to reach for our goals and work to make our dreams come true. As a writer, there were two women who inspired me, and Maeve Binchy, who is one of them, died this past week. I am thinking of her and her work and how she has impacted me.

Ms. Binchy is an Irish writer. I was introduced to her back in the late 1980s when my best friend told me about her and gave me a copy of one of her books. “It make me think of us,” my friend told me. It was us. Binchy had so completely captured the feel, the reality of women and their friendships that I fell in love with her. She knows women, how they feel, how they relate, fight, support and love each other. My friend and I always kept each other up to date with her books. Once, when it was only available in the U.K., her husband bought us each a copy when he was there on business, and I remember thinking I was so lucky to have such a treasure!

Maeve Binchy wrote what she loved. She often said in interviews there were certain things she didn’t like to write about and so she didn’t. She wrote those things that she was familiar with, the people and lives she knew because she’d lived them herself. Full of humor, love and optimism, Maeve Binchy’s books make you feel as if these are not characters in books but real people. Men and women you might run into at the local cafe or store; who might be sitting next to you in church or the library. They’re real.

When I started writing my books I longed to tell women’s stories the same as she did. In my women’s fiction novel, In the Company of Women, I followed her example and wrote of a group of women telling their stories, weaving them together and following their individual trails as well.

As a tribute to her, I named the main character in my cozy mystery series after her. And while the Maeve and Kate Mysteries are about solving crimes, at their heart they are about a friendship between two women that will survive anything.

There will be one more book from Maeve Binchy: A Week in Winter will come out this fall sometime. I cannot believe she is gone so soon, and there will be no more short stories on her website, no books to wait excitedly for. I will read again and revisit that marvelous country and people she loved to write about.

On her website where they posted news of her passing, they also posted this quote that I would like to share with you here. It’s pure Maeve Binchy ....

"The happiest moments of my life are connected with family and friends. There is a great comfort about being with people who knew you way back when. There is a mental shorthand, an easy-going feeling that life doesn't have to be explained or defined; we are all in more or less the same boat. To have a community around you in a changing and unstable world is invaluable and nothing can beat the feeling that there will always be people out for our good."

It feels like I have lost a friend. I will miss her.

Writers Helping Writers

What made you decide to be a writer? Was your head bursting with ideas for plots, characters, situations that you just had to put down? Did you have a message you wanted to put out there for others to read? Or was it something else? For instance, were there no books out that made you ache to read them; books that were in your heart? Did you read something and think “I would have said it this way” or “I would have described it thus”? Or maybe you just need to tell stories.

Whatever your reason for becoming a writer, my hat is off to you! I think writing, story telling, is a noble and wonderful calling. Most of us love to crawl inside a story and be lifted away from our cares into a world different from our own--even if it’s a book about people just like us, maybe especially then; to escape our own situation and delve into someone else’s.

As a writer it is important to remember that other authors are not in competition with you.  On average it takes eight months to write a novel, sometimes more, sometimes less.  And on average it takes three to seven days to read a book, sometimes more, sometimes less.  It would be ridiculous to think that if you write, say, detective mysteries, that another writer comes along who writes a detective mystery is trying to “steal” away your readers.

Not so! There is most assuredly room for all of us on the bookshelves out there. I would love to encourage other writers to come and let me interview them for this blog, or to give them the opportunity to guest here and would hope they’d do the same for me. Read my book and I’ll read yours and review it. I think competition/cooperation is good for us as writers as well as readers.

I have learned so much from writers who are further down this path than I am, and hope they will continue to share their knowledge and experience with me, and hopefully I will be able to do the same for others coming up behind me. If we work together, we can all succeed.

So to those authors on social networking sites who tell me not to bother them if I want to promote my own writing as they’re not interested, I ask, what are you afraid of? Open up! We can all help each other and benefit from the experience. It’s a big world out there and there’s room, more than enough room, for all of us.

Who's Your Biggest Influence?

I often get asked if there is an author that inspired me to become a writer.  I'm not sure it works that way.  You're either a writer or you're not.  It's something you feel, something you are.  You can read an author and think "I want to be that good" or "I want to write stories like that" but I'm not sure that reading someone will make you suddenly say that you want to be an author too.

I don't have one writer that has influenced me the most.  I have read such a variety throughout my life and so many different genres and they have all had an affect on me.  Jane Austin, John Steinbeck, Marcia Muller, Dick Francis, Harper Lee, Nora Roberts, Victoria Holt, James Patterson, Lynn Johnston, Mark Twain, Edmond Rostand, Miguel de Cervantes, Agatha Christie ....  You get the idea.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the authors that has, obviously, been of major importance in my life.  Carolyn Keene, a pen name for a variety of authors, awakened in me the idea that reading could be so much more fun that the stories I'd been reading up until I'd discovered the girl detective (mostly books like Black Beauty) and showed me that girls were pretty cool too! 

So which book/writer influenced you to be a writer, or to follow whatever path you're on?

Authors Helping Authors

Recently Joe Konrath had a post on his blog about authors supporting each other.  His main point, and one with which I whole heartedly agree is that this isn't a competition.  Amen, Mr. Konrath.

One of the things that is so marvelous about the world we live in is diversity.  I love that we all have different tastes, different ideas, different interests.  Nowhere is that more evident than in literature.  Look at the varieties of genres we have out there!  Romance, historical fiction, suspense, horror, memoir, picture books, fantasy, chick lit, and on and on and on.  There is room for us all.

On top of that consider how long it takes to write a book versus reading one.  If a reader only read one author they wouldn't read much. 

So why shouldn't we support each other in our efforts?  I know some authors think they'll hurt their chances of being successful if they promote someone other than themselves, but that isn't true.  I've met some amazing people through the social networking I've been doing for my writing, and I love to see them achieve their goals too.  It's exciting!

I did my first author interview on my blog this week.  It was one of the best experiences I've had getting to know her, and as an added bonus I have a new author that I like!  I intend to do more interviews, and hopefully I'll get better at asking more pertinent questions and exposing some of these writers to others.  I click the "share" button on facebook to allow those I'm connecting with to learn about the writers I'm meeting, and I "tweet" about them when I find something to share that I think will get them noticed. 

I would like to think that other writers would do the same for me, but I'm not that naive.  Hopefully it'll happen.  We can all support and help each other.  Because, really, there's more than enough room for us all.