Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady is a Canadian novelist and journalist...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 January 1970
CountryCanada
catch concept scent
You can catch a scent in the wind - an idea, or a concept - and follow it. You can delve into your subconscious and see what happens, in a way you just can't when you're writing a novel.
advantages allow home human ourselves truly
We allow ourselves to unclench when we're home with our families, which is one of the truly wonderful advantages of human intimacy.
outside physical time women
Here's the thing about lingerie: The only time we see it outside our own bedrooms, it is on women who are gloriously freakish in their physical perfection.
felt guys liked men realize relevant took view women
I even felt like I liked guys better than women - that men were relevant and women weren't. It took me a while to realize I'd been socialized to have a slighting view of my own gender.
characters dogs ensure happen
Never use dogs to symbolize anything. That is ridiculous. Always ensure that any dogs are just dogs; i.e., characters in the story who happen to be dogs.
atheism atheist consider desire organized people religion sunday
One does not become an atheist out of a desire for hassle-free Sunday mornings. People come to atheism because they have a problem with organized religion - usually a problem they consider to be of moral urgency.
chewing evasive imagining letter scenarios series slap
Occasionally, chewing over some random letter writer's dilemma, I'll find myself imagining scenarios where the problem could be sidestepped by an innocent fib or series of evasive manoeuvres. Then, I slap myself on the wrist.
attentive dad masculine meant small town
My dad was a real man's man, and so were my brothers, in a small town where hockey is king. It's a masculine culture. It made me really attentive to what it meant to be a guy.
genuinely hard love people
There are people out there who genuinely love literature, who genuinely love to read and read widely, who will never like, or even necessarily get, my books. That was a hard one to swallow, to not feel slighted by.
across deeper
I'm always writing across the same themes. But with short stories, I'm doing something different than with novels. In some ways, they're coming from a much deeper place.
What I've learned is that you get better at writing by writing, and that 'youthful energy' will only get you so far.
buy pleasure spent time
To buy dinner transmits that you feel time spent in your date's company has been a pleasure and a privilege.
add consider family immediate member offend whether written
When revising, consider whether you have written anything that will hurt or offend a member of your immediate family. If the answer is no, go back and add something.
believe contempt counter cut intended meal might perhaps provides reasonable shared surface
While Person A might believe the kitchen counter provides a reasonable surface on which to place one's balled-up sweatsocks post-gym, Person B - about to cut up some vegetables on that same counter, perhaps for a meal intended to be shared with Person A - can only read the sockball as a message that says, 'Hi! I have contempt for you!'