CarrollBlog

It always makes me smile when reading a review of one of my books, a reviewer will say "the problem is you could see that event/relationship/conclusion coming miles away," or something to that effect. It's amusing because whatever I'm writing, I have no idea what is going to happen from page to page, literally. The fact Joe kills Shmo at the end of the story is as much a surprise to me as hopefully it is to the reader. The irony of course being the critic could see "it" coming ten miles away whereas in all honesty I promise I didn't. The critic could argue that because such and such happened, then Z was the logical outcome of those events, therefore they could predict it would happen. That's fine if you're thinking logically, but I believe most artists don't think as logically when they are creating as people would like to believe. They "think" more with their hearts than with their heads and as we know, emotion is notoriously illogical. That is why the art we like is often new and compelling-- because it's showing us a view of life, the world, or humanity that we haven't seen before (in our logical view of things) although the elements that comprise it are very much a part of our every day.