I finally got around to starting Shy by Max porter, and by page three I had to pause so I could revel in the moment where you just know.
This is going to be a great fucking story.
You know—you really do—when you’ve got a great story in your hands. You feel it; you sense it. Your mind and your body are just intuitively aware that this thing is going to change you.
Isn’t that a great feeling?
I love that feeling.
A rare feeling.
Great stories move you. They make you smile and sigh and gasp and cry and burst out laughing on the 55 bus from Clapton to Shoreditch (or the subway From Utica to Clinton-Washington, the BART from Rockridge to Montgomery). They make you feel things.
Sometimes a single word can do it: “fuckinell.”
A misspelt word spelled exactly right.
A word that takes you back.
I live in California where no one says it that way, but I was born in England where everyone does. Fuckinell, I was right there.
I had to stop reading to write because it made me want to write, which all of the best stories do. Now I’m going back to read.
To read the rest of the story.
A great fucking story.