sponge-ing: paula hawkins

i bought this book a few days before i heard paula hawkins speak at the nashville library on behalf of parnassus books in nashville, so i am not at a point in the story to even begin to spoil it. however, i want to share my experience of hearing her speak and read in person. it was divine. i don't use that word often, but it is the word that comes to mind. 

paula hawkins has the most divine voice. as is with most british accents, i could have listened to her for hours. 

here are the notes i took: 

-she was born and raised for a good while in zimbabwe.

-the original seedling of the idea of the train came when she was seventeen, commuting to university i believe into london. the train she road on was an underground, but it went above ground in a few spots, one being next to trackside houses in which she could see the inhabitants on a daily basis and seem to know them after a while. 

-later on (like years later), she randomly asked herself a question: what would i do if i witnessed a crime happening from a train? would i even be a helpful witness? would i even be able to identify the house? she called this the "germ" that really started the story.

-and then, the final piece: she had written another story (never published) with a character much like the main character rachel in The Girl On The Train and decided to give rachel to the story that is currently the #1 new york times bestseller. GOOD MOVE, girl. 

-it took ms. hawkins 12-13 months to write and edit the novel, and it has to be said, that it's her FIRST one! holy cow. 

-there were some word changes made for the US version. apparently she used UK-specific words that we wouldn't recognize like "fly-tipping", which means dumping rubbish on the side of a road or train track or something. 

-she was a journalist for 15 years covering finance and real estate, which she said obviously didn't help her too much in terms of writing. however, she said being a journalist did help her with the mechanics of deadlines and the economics of words (i.e. fewer adverbs and getting to the point). 

-the reason she didn't write fiction sooner was based on confidence. she always wanted to, but it was only when she was commissioned to write a novel for someone else (their idea, their name), that she even attempted it. after a few more of those, she had enough confidence to try...and i, for one, am so glad she did.

-the story is told from 3 different narrators. but ms. hawkins said she had originally intended on just one voice: rachel's. this was interesting to me because i always wonder about the original plans of writers. from experience in writing just two novels of my own, i am no stranger to changing plans along the way and developing new beginnings and bringing new characters into the story sooner, etc. but i am always curious if that's normal for other writers or if it's just my being an amateur. 

-she also said that the most challenging part of the story was getting the other two narrators right in terms of their voices. rachel was easy, the "loudest" in her head, but the other two took a little more work to establish. i think she did a fabulous job. 

-the book is in its 7th printing here in the US. again, holy cow. 

-another of my favorite questions asked was about her writing regiment. she said she gets up quite early and writes from the morning until mid-afternoon, when she then reads or does admin. she isn't a stickler on word count, but under a deadline, she sets loose weekly goals.

-her best ideas come when she is immersed in water in her bathtub with nothing to write with. i loved that she said that because my best ideas come during hot yoga when i have to wait for the class to be over to write it down. talk about discipline! :) 

-my favorite quote from her talk: 

"virtues aren't that interesting, are they? i'm much more interested in vices."