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This is just coming to the end, but I've really enjoyed it, and recognised many of the things he said as being so true for me, and I know many of you too.
I liked the fact that he doesn't know the ending when he starts, and he doesn't know if he will kill Rebus off or not, just depends how he feels when he writes it.
It will probably be repeated, so look out for it, I would definitely recommend it.
I didn't see the programme but I'll look out for it Carol, thanks for the tip. I love his books. I was lucky enough to attend a discussion with Ian Rankin at the Guardian Newsroom last autumn. He was in conversation about his book "Fleshmarket Close", but he spoke a lot about the process of writing as well and was very funny, very down to earth. At the time, he said that he planned to write one more Rebus book after the one that is due out this year. His reasoning behind it was that he'd allowed Rebus to age in 'real time' in his books and as such Rebus was already just about at Police retirement age!
Apparently they are going to have a competition (the publishers)to get readers to guess the title of the last book. Don't know what the prize is, but it seems it has something to do with Rankin's record collection.
I'm not into crime fiction, but was very impressed by his down to earth attitude, and candidness. He has a child with Special Needs, and I could identify with much of what he said about how it reflected in his writing.
There is often nothing more frustrating than the medical profession- they don't truly understand these things because they don't personally live with the situations.So it can be reflected in your writing.
I happened to see it when I came in from work and was so glad I did. What I liked was when the interviewer asked Ian Rankin if he could kill Rebus off and his answer was along the lines of 'well, it's only ink on paper'. A refreshing lack of preciousness there, I thought. He also said how he'd struggled in the earlier part of his career when his books weren't making big sales. When a writer achieves his sort of fame, it's hard to imagine that they've ever struggled, isn't it. He had interesting things to say about genre fiction too. Yes, definitely worth watching. I hope it's on again.
Did anybody see 'Reichenbach Falls' on Thursday 1 March? It was based on a short story by Ian Rankin and the theme was 'killing off' a popular character - without giving too much away! Very enjoyable. Ian Rankin was in it himself as a person at a publisher's party - shades of Hitchcock and Colin Dexter. The name of the writer in the story was Jack Harvey which was, of course, the name Rankin used to write his early novels. Worth watching if it's repeated.
In an article back in July Ian Rankin said that he was giving up writing crime fiction to write childrens books, based on the stories he tells his son.
Comments
I liked the fact that he doesn't know the ending when he starts, and he doesn't know if he will kill Rebus off or not, just depends how he feels when he writes it.
It will probably be repeated, so look out for it, I would definitely recommend it.
I'm not into crime fiction, but was very impressed by his down to earth attitude, and candidness. He has a child with Special Needs, and I could identify with much of what he said about how it reflected in his writing.
There is often nothing more frustrating than the medical profession- they don't truly understand these things because they don't personally live with the situations.So it can be reflected in your writing.