All kinds of wild internet experimentation going on here at Condalmo. Twitter? Sure, I'll give it a try. "Follow me" as I "Twitter" ("tweet"?) and "probably use terminology incorrectly thus betraying my increasingly out-of-touch-with-youth status"!
She is starting a blog.
Not to be snarky. Just wondering. Am I effective? Hmmm. Well, here's an article about the web habits of highly effective people, including Maud Newton, AL Kennedy, and some other people. via Maud.
Ed Park, a man of many parts, divides again this week at Five Chapters with "The Oblivion Arms." He also blogs this week at Powell's, while also editing The Believer, crafting The New York Ghost, and sharing his Personal Days with you.
I've been working on a search tool that is limited to searching only sites related to books, reading, and such - book blogs, lit-blogs, book sites. Right now it's limited to some of the sites that popped into my head when I thought "sites about books" - a lot of familiar names - but of course I'd like to expand it in the future, so e-mail me any sites you go to a lot for smart, considered book discussion, book reviews, news, interviews, etc. The search bar can be found in the left column, a short way down.
I know, I know: blogging about blogging about blogging. Still:
I have set an end-date on my blog: one year after its first post, thus ending on August 27, 2008. This logic flies in the face of blog analysts who note that most blogs do not last more than a year, as if that mattered. I do not think the end-date has to be iron-clad. It is just a target. Why do I think an end-date is important for a blog? How does it contribute to slow blogging?
- It gives your blog focus. You have one year to say what you have to say. You will be less likely to dawdle on about silly topics (like “blogging about blogging”; eek, that’s what I’m doing).
- You can let go of worries about building your readership or career based on your blog. Who cares about the size of your readership when you know you are going to politely bid farewell at the end of the year.
- Things without limits tend to be dangerous: cancer, GDP, greed. Good things have a natural end: fun days, stories, lives.
- You can shake off the baggage from your old blog when it ends, and start fresh with new ideas on your new blog.
Have you set an end-date for your blog?
I wasn't aware of this until today, but you can apparently follow along with my Roundup sidebar via feed reader. It's probably the most updated area of this site, so here's the link if you're interested.
From deep within the roiling dark clouds, a glimmer: StupidFilter.
The concept behind the StupidFilter Project originated during a conversation between Gabriel Ortiz and Paul Starr. StupidFilter was conceived out of necessity. Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy. In the beginning, the internet was a place where one could communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people. Then, Eternal September hit and we were lost in the noise. The advent of user-driven web content has compounded the matter yet further, straining our tolerance to the breaking point.
It's time to fight back.
The solution we're creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we're collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.
Eventually, once the research is completed, we plan to release core engine source code for incorporation into content management systems, blogs, wikis and the like. Additionally, we plan to develop a fully implemented Firefox plugin and a Wordpress plugin.
I think the LongPen is a big fat ridiculous scam.
Here's your LongPen.
What's that? The LongPen puts the "signature" right in the book, plus I get to see what the author looks like on television, no doubt a connection replete with technical difficulties? Oh, well, in that case, never mind. Great idea.
I would never in a hundred years line up for a photocopy of a signature from any author. For an author to agree to participation in such a "author appearance" or "book signing" ("event", "reading", "respectful interaction with readers") makes me much less likely to feel any interest in that author's writing.
I've been tagged. First time, I think. If I'm wrong, consider this post a rerun. I won't pass this on to anyone else; some people, they get snarly about these things, and that's okay. Eight things about me you may not know:
If you have a blog and you aren't sure that your blog provider will always have a backup in case of a crash, head over to BlogBackupOnline pronto. The site is straightforward: Log in, enter information about your blog, and the site diligently backs it up every day (provided that you use one of the 11 supported blogging services--Blogger, Friendster, LiveJournal, Movable Type, Multiply, Serendipity, Terapad, TypePad, Vox, Windows Live Space, or WordPress). The site is also a great tool if you ever decide to move your blog from one platform to another. After you've backed up your blog, BlogBackupOnline can bring all of your old entries into the new service. (via Yahoo)
Or, at least, allowed.
Reading What is the What and it didn't occur to me to see if Valentino Achak Deng has a website, but doesn't everyone now? Some valuable stuff there, including pictures (like the one above) taken by Deng/Eggers on a recent trip back to Marial Bal, Deng's hometown; ten things you can do for the situation in Sudan; and a forthcoming blog, among other things. (via.)
I wade in and get the updates so you don't have to; via Penguin:
Let's kick off with some statistics - since we launched on February 1st, 60,000 individuals have visited the wiki and more than 1200 have created an account. At launch there was a single line on the page - 'There was no possibility of taking a walk that day' and since then there have been 600 pages created and more than 7000 edits.
I had trouble locating anything resembling the chapter one I posted earlier; no surprise there, but it seems to have grown in such a way as to not really have a first chapter. It seems to be getting less finished as it goes, if that makes sense - more spread out, less structured. In lieu of ch.1, an excerpt:
Murderers and Millionaires
Sean liked to call himself the 'Tango Poisoner.' He wasn't sure why - his hobbies included fishing and eating - but the name seemed to make sense in a strange way. His current victim, Amberdale, he had met on a fishing trip. She had recently broken her ankle and was having some difficulty staying on her feet at all, let alone eating fish with her would-be killer.
Amberdale tried to scream several times but Sean kept turning the music up to drown her out or leaning in to kiss her. His breath smelled of fish (and not in a good way). From the smell, she thought it had probably been kippers that he last ate - which she remembered where a good the English liked to eat for breakfast.
Why she was remembering this useless information when her life should be flashing before her eyes was beyond her comprehension. Maybe what they say about that sort of thing never really happened. Or maybe her life was not really worth having a flashback for; she was after all only 23 and a half.
The climax of the dance arrived and Sean was sweating as he led her gracefully across the room and back again before the final dip to signify the end of the dance. Sean leaned in and kissed her full on the mouth, tongue and all. Amberdale felt her body retch as the taste of kippers overwhelmed her.
He then released her and watched. She started to feel extremely weak, and her body's convulsions intensified. Poison. She did not have the time to wonder how, only collapsed.
Sean was pleased with his latest work. Pity that she was unable to dance as well as she could have but what can one do? He took the dress off his victim as a keepsake, so that he can relive the dance they shared. He had forced her to wear it and watched as she took off her clothes but that did not matter and she seemed rather confused by the whole ordeal. It made no difference though as now she lay there dead, wearing only a white slip and a mismatched fuschia lace bra.
It was time to flee the scene. He was sure the neighbours would have called the police to complain about the noise and he did not want them to find him here when they found the body. But before he left, he placed a fish scale on the woman's cheek, so that it looked like she was crying.
He slid out the back window and through the side gate into his Austin Mini. A fish fell out of his glove-box. Life was, in a way, quite fishy.
Lieutenant Gearson surveyed the scene of the crime as various scientist types took pictures and samples of various things in Amberdale's room. He already knew that it was the Tango Poisoner and it was most likely that he left nothing behind except that stupid fish scale on the victim's cheek. And always the same title. It was too hard to determine the origin of one paperback since it could come from anywhere including some stuffy second hand store.
Much to his annoyance one of the police officers called him from outside.
"We haven't found much evidence but witnesses say that the noise coming from this house were rather loud and that they heard screams just before the sound muted them," stated the policeman.
"Did they see anything else?"
"One of them saw a car drive off. They thought the licence may have spelt out a type of fungus - but they can't remember which one"
"Ergot, Fly Agaric, Truffle?"
"Well, at least we got the type of car. Any bets this guy ditches the car like all the others?"
"Yeah well, we already know all this. We know that he has a pattern and that he has a lot of resources. Plus the fact he can tango. Did I miss anything officer?"
"Bang on. Maybe there's a pattern with the victims. This has only been the third murder maybe we should see if there's a pattern in all this madness."
"Smart idea. Get right on it and see if you can discover the name of the poison this guy uses."
The officer salutes Gearson and calls back to HQ to relay the instructions to his inferiors. Meanwhile he had other stuff to do.
Did you read this far? Hi, brave soul!
In conclusion, this from Penguin:
I've started thinking of the site as a giant, ever-expanding sandbox - anyone can build there, but there is always the possibility of getting your sandcastle kicked over or incorporated into someone else's project. Whether one huge, ornate and architecturally coherent sandcastle will ever take shape I don't know, but there are some fine and interesting smaller constructions going on,
Out here in the country, you need to be careful with sandboxes; you never know when a barn cat will leave a small present for you in the sandbox. I'm just saying, is all.
Cynical today, no?
So a couple of months ago I mentioned in this post a secret project, and now launch day is finally here! Penguin is launching its first wiki and in a project called A Million Penguins we've created a space where anyone can contribute to the writing of a novel and anyone can edit anyone else's writing.
Our story thus far:
It had snowed, and was now raining. The pavement was covered with gritty slush, while sharp crystals of snow decorated the grass. There was definitely no possibility of taking a walk.
Carlo stared out at the deserted street for a few more seconds, arms hanging like string, fingers vibrating.
He looked down at Liz and Dean. This was not what he had intended to happen. He started laughing. The little dog, Inu, peered up at him, tongue lolling in pink good humour.
What little hopes and dreams remained were shattered in an instant, as Carlo's own face reflected back to him in the marble gloss of Inu's eyes. He stared at his image for what felt like several long, slippery minutes. He was looking at a mad man. Had it come to this? All the voices in his head told him yes. For once they seemed strangely in agreement and mocked him for his weakness. He shrieked loudly to try and mask their cries. He had to silence them if he was to hold on to the last remaining fragments of his sanity. He was teetering on the edge and he could feel himself falling, compelled by the vertigo of his growing madness. He knew he had to find a way to cling on.
Klingons? One day in, and we're already into that?
I call dibs on the cover.
While not busy writing your own letter to someone (I'd love one, thanks!), put this in your Bloglines/Google Reader and smoke it: Today in Letters, with writers' correspondence. Thoreau, William Carlos Williams, and so on. Nice stuff. Vast potential for site coolness. (via)
God bless the internets. A while back I was listening to This American Life and thinking about all the old radio programs that used to be on, how great it would be if NPR or somebody got the rights to them and started playing them again. Then I had the brainstorm that somebody should just start collecting them - surely, they must be in the public domain at this point - and get them on the internet.
Apparently, someone else had the same idea. What a great resource. (via.)
Matt Cheney calls attention to some interesting ideas on "uncreative writing" via Kenneth Goldsmith. Read Cheney's piece and then click through.
Small Spiral Notebook has had their fourth issue held up at the printer. I've contributed reviews to the online version in the past; the print version has a lot to offer.
Right now, they're offering a free e-book edition of Vol 3, issue 2. Have a look to see what you'll be getting for your money.
Free Kelly Link; free Small Spiral Notebook. At this rate, I'm going to have to start offering the content at this site for free. Oh, wait.
Excerpted from a post about Infinite Jest:
However, I do wonder what my reading experience would have been like had I not consumed so much extra information before, during, and after my reading of the book. What would it have been like had I just plucked the paperback off the shelf and began on my own, unencumbered either by the massive hype that still surrounds the book or the copious exegetical efforts that exist online in their more lovable and amateur forms or in the more codified, professionally respectable versions available through either your seriously stocked research library or a good handy access to Jstor or Academic Search Elite or whathaveyou. In short, what if I’d simply read the book and not read all the chatter growing over it? This question quickly spreads to other books. Like (I’d harbor to guess) most other semi-serious readers of contemporary literature who have access to high-speed internet, I’ve read way more about various works of literature than works of literature themselves. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I will. It seems a consequence of routine curiosity, this deluge of information. (And I recognize the fact that I’m adding to the chatter here and that coming out and admitting to the fact that I’m adding to the chatter doesn’t in fact make any of it better for those drowning in chatter.) I guess my sub-point here is that it’s awfully hard to live without the chatter, to read books in what would even approach a vacuum, to read in slightly more pared down, review-less, blogless, silent, meditative state. What would it be like to read Eggers’s What is the What without any memory of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and all of the hype and back-lash hype (and on and on) that exists?
This week on Five Chapters is J. Robert Lennon, he of Ward Six and other, real world endeavors. Chapter one is online now.
For an interview with him, along with a nifty picture of Lennon inside his own brain, click here.
Ha Jin is interviewed at Guernica. Excerpt:
Guernica: One of the places where the historical past does come into your fiction is in terms of literary tradition. The title of The Crazed refers to the narrator’s professor and father-in-law to-be, who has just suffered a stroke. How seriously are we meant to take Professor Yang’s thesis about the function of poetry in expressing and preserving the self? In its simplest form it’s that Chinese poets speak as themselves whereas in Western cultures the poet adopts the artifice of a persona to shield and enrich the self.
Ha Jin: We have to take him as a madman, but there’s always a glimpse of truth in his drivel. In fact this was my first book, but I didn’t have the skill to really pull through. Not until I published The Bridegroom, my sixth book, did I feel confident to finish this one. It’s based upon a real event. When I was a graduate student, a professor who specialized in existentialism, a very kind, rational person, suddenly collapsed; he had a stroke. I was assigned to attend to him for two afternoons. He began to talk all kinds of nonsense, and he smiled and grinned. I could see the madness, really the suffering of the real person. I remembered at the time some words written by Balzac: “Our heart is a treasury in which a lot of things are stored. But if you spend them all, then you’ll be broken, you’ll be broke, and nobody will forgive you.” So I think this was a case where all the treasures, in the mind, in the heart, suddenly were scattered everywhere. As a result, he was basically bankrupt.
Shelley Jackson fiction at Guernica. Excerpt:
The upshot was that I said, “Feels like yesterday.”
“Correction,” said my 11-year old daughter—her new expression. “Feels like tomorrow.”
“Same diff,” I said. Yesterday it felt like tomorrow, that is, today. But today was today all over again, the today that was tomorrow yesterday—the future, but a future passed right on up out of the bad old days, made-to-measure from tar and papyrus by an early human ancestor in Gawis, Ethiopia. As if we had never made any headway. As if all we could do was repeat ourselves, repeat ourselves.
*OK, December.
Wizard of the Crow is your pick for the cold months ahead. Read more about the upcoming goodness at the LitBlog Co-Op here.
Everyone and their uncle has linked to this piece already, and excerpts abound; here's my pick, sans comment:
A novel is a two-way street, in which the labour required on either side is, in the end, equal. Reading, done properly, is every bit as tough as writing - I really believe that. As for those people who align reading with the essentially passive experience of watching television, they only wish to debase reading and readers. The more accurate analogy is that of the amateur musician placing her sheet music on the stand and preparing to play. She must use her own, hard-won, skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift she gives the composer and the composer gives her.
This is a conception of "reading" we rarely hear now. And yet, when you practise reading, when you spend time with a book, the old moral of effort and reward is undeniable. Reading is a skill and an art and readers should take pride in their abilities and have no shame in cultivating them if for no other reason than the fact that writers need you. To respond to the ideal writer takes an ideal reader, the type of reader who is open enough to allow into their own mind a picture of human consciousness so radically different from their own as to be almost offensive to reason. The ideal reader steps up to the plate of the writer's style so that together writer and reader might hit the ball out of the park.
Borders wants a piece of the Internet community. Ex:
Borders and Gather.com have announced a joint project in which shoppers at the superstore chain can click on to the social media Web site and share their thoughts on books, music and other entertainment, the Associated Press reports. Under the new program, Borders customers who receive informational e-mails from the chain will be offered links to a Borders.Gather.com chat room that will also feature author interviews and information on author readings.
Does this essentially mean that Amazon is in with Gather?
Callie is running an appreciation/discussion of poetry at her site this week for those of us who go through periodic big-on-poetry phases, only to then turn away from it for months at a time before returning. Time allowing, I'll contribute something as the week goes on; I had my reservations about lending my ill-informed, poorly-read voice, but Callie was a step ahead:
Instead, I'm afraid (and I believe you are as well) it might appear as if I've invited you all to provide some sort of academic treatise on poetry. There seems to be, among most of the writers I've spoken to in the last 24 hours, a real hesitancy to comment on anything related to poetry because there is an inherent "academia" angle that none of us wants to touch with an 80 foot pole. We aren't poetry scholars after all and so what could we possibly contribute that would add value? Shed light?
But that is exactly my point.
Dan Green - he of The Reading Experience - has a fiction blog. I'll likely link to it regularly in my "Updates from other sites" column on the right.
A lot of folks are lifting the curtain on site redesigns. I thought about doing the same, but A) haven't really been with this look long enough to warrant a redesign, and B) my current pay level - incoming and outgoing - don't allow for a lot of design tweaks. The only change for now is that when you hover over links, you get a preview of the site being linked to; some previews load more slowly than others, which is a bit irritating. It's also not working for me where I am this afternoon, which I can't explain.
I'm not sure what value this will carry here, since it's mostly text I link to, which is far too small to read in the preview, and you don't really need a sneak peak to know that everything I link to is going to be safe for viewing at work. We'll give it a whirl, though; if people find it annoying, let me know and I'll pull the plug.
Funny, when I write it that way, it sounds less logical. Saul Bellow's enterprising son (his layabout son, Eddie, works part time at a Texaco in Florida, and will kick your ass at Mortal Combat. Excuse me, Kombat.) has started a venture in which ideas will be packaged in pint-sized little booklets and sold to you - like One Story, except not stories. Adam Bellow hopes to cull source material from the internets. Not an awful idea, but - well, I can't help but quote sizable swaths of the interview:
My model, the one that I'm hoping to recreate, is an American pamphlet series published in the 1920s, called the "Little Blue Books." They were published by a Jewish, socialist newspaper editor, very eccentric, brilliant guy named Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. He was a very progressive figure and had a little publishing empire going in the Midwest. At some point he decided to put out pamphlets, which he charged a nickel for. It was strictly a mail order business. He sold these things for twenty years. And he managed to sell a hundred million pamphlets in five years. He was very close with the leading polemicists of the day, so some of them had original material. But the pamphlets were also an eclectic mix of history, poetry, proverbs, joke books, sex advice, household tips, occasional pieces of journalism. When I asked my dad, when he was still alive, whether he had ever heard of the "Little Blue Books," he said, "Oh sure, when I used to commute to college from the south side of Chicago, to Northwestern, I'd go down to the IC and there would be a little vending machine. You'd put in a nickel and you'd get out a copy of the poems of Shelley or the stories of Maupassant. You'd read it on the train and then you'd discard it."
You had me at "little vending machine" until I realized that these pamphlets are not available that way - they are mail order. I suspect that finding some way to make a pamphlet so easy to get, like those Little Blue Books, would be key. I don't know that people will want to pay $4 plus S&H for something they could read on their laptop in their underwear. (More on that later.) You do get a PDF of the pamphlet after you order - to tide you over, until the real deal arrives, but by that point you either will have already read it, or will be wishing you hadn't spent your coffee money on something you could have read online a week ago, or any time. There needs to be a faster way, with more original content.
Possibly. Just thinking aloud here.
This makes more sense:
The situation now is different. It's not so much that there is a lack of reading material or higher education like there was then, but rather that people don't have time to take in all the information that is thrown at them. And this in a period when the tone and the level of public intellectual argument in this country has been adversely affected by both the media revolution and by current events. It's been polarized and coarsened by the political climate. It's also been made shallower and more superficial by the media environment.
Not a lot to argue with there, but then Adam takes a bong hit and continues:
So that's on the one hand. On the other hand, I noticed the explosion of activity on the Internet. After 9/11 there was this huge explosion. I think it can best be described cosmologically. First there is a big bang. Thousands and thousands of individual blogs are spewed out. Nobody reads them in particular. They are all just little points sort of flickering in the cosmic gloom. But over time, because the Internet is a kind of pure intellectual democracy, little aggregations form. People are drawn to one another by common interests. And at the same time, certain individuals emerge as large planetary bodies, very often surrounded by circles of other people who share their interests.
Condalmo: the thousandth point of light. Adam, you had me at little vending machines. Stop already with the internets-is-a-universe stuff.
But back to laptops and underwear:
And my audience is really twofold. First there is the universe of blogs itself, which is a narrow market but a global one. But beyond that I find that there are many, many people who have become aware that the blogosphere exists and that it is powerful and influential but being busy people with a lot of demands on their time, they haven't got the faintest idea of how to get acquainted with it and find the stuff that would interest them. I had a conversation with Sam Tanenhaus [editor of the New York Times Book Review] and I asked him what blogs he reads, and he is a serious intellectual and a highly energetic guy. And he said to me, "I don't have time, I haven't the slightest idea." That tells you something. For someone like him the pamphlets would offer him the best of the blogosphere.
However, in all seriousness, the idea has merit and Adam seems quite serious, so do check out the interview and his website.
A holiday reminder that it's easy to put free books in the hands of kids. I'd share my heartwarming grandmother-in-the-bookstore story, but we'd both be better off if you'd just click here. (Daily.) (After Christmas, too.)
Now online at Syntax of Things is the 2006 Underrated Writers list. I was pleased to contribute to this year's list - I studied last year's list like a treasure map. Highly recommended.
Scott checks in today with a good post about Walker Percy's The Moviegoer. Excerpt:
In a way, Binx and his aunt are the same. They both want to believe themselves above other people. Binx has some vague idea that he's part of a lost tribe cast out from society (at one point he compares his plight to that of the Jews), and his aunt sees herself as part of a more genteel, mannered class, something that the "common people" can't touch. Binx's commoners aren't the working class, but rather those 50,000 motorists driving along the Gulf Coast. I think Binx and his aunt have a lot more in common than either seem to realize.
Yet there's also a fundamental divide. Binx's aunt can't understand why he never absorbed her way of life, and Binx can't understand what his aunt is trying to tell him. When his aunt finishes her rant, Binx doesn't stop to think about any of it. He just assures his aunt that he's "pondered over it all my life" but "can't express" his own thoughts about what his aunt has tried to teach him.
I have had a post about the book, and how I see it connected with another book I read long ago, percolating for quite a while now. I'm not really sure if I'm full of beans or not, so it's been on the back burner, but Scott got a few synapses firing for me here, so I may come back to it.
My contribution to Max's series on the best books of 2006 appears today at The Millions.
Riches to be found in the December issue.
Egan:
...OK, well, none of the links are working as of this writing, so no excerpts for you. Check back at the main site later - as I will - for what looks to be many goodies.
UPDATE: Links fixed.
The Winter 2006 issue is now online.
The Rake would like to hear from Mr. Eggers about his stance on the whole "introduction brouhaha" and will pay good money to a good cause to make it happen. I'd love to see Eggers stop by and talk about it with us blog folk - look, everyone wins: Infinite Jest gets discussed more, we get good back and forth about the nature of introductions, we can ask him about opportunities lost, maybe we all walk away feeling that we're on the same team. That said, he might as well tie rare cuts of steak to his abdomen and wade out into the Gulf of Mexico. And I suspect that he knows it.
However. The 826 cause is, in fact, a very good one. With that in mind, I'll raise it another $49.
Dig deep, folks. Think of the children.
As various folks are noting, Dave Eggers may have disliked Infinite Jest initially, and in the new introduction, he likes it. (The Rake wants Eggers to be forthcoming about his change of mind, assuming that's what it is - a change of mind, and not trying to be a cool kid.)
I have some concerns.
I have great respect for the lit-blog folks linked to above, as well as others who have engaged in Eggers Smackdown - but I fail to understand why so much attention is paid to finding the Achilles Heel. I'm not anti-snark, but aren't there better targets? Can anyone explain?
From the Penguin Blog (excerpt):
Penguin editor Jon and I were roundly accused of taking a far too 'linear' approach to fiction, meaning that we should be thinking about how we use the technology available to create new forms of literature. Lines of text printed in ink on paper (or even downloaded as an ebook) miss the opportunity to create new and immersive forms of narrative which might stimulate readers trained in the non-linear world of myspace, youtube and del.ico.us.
From my comment on that post:
Dan writes on Gold Medal books:
It is also true, at least in my opinion, that most of the Gold Medal fiction was indeed "reliable, disposable entertainment." The serious writers (and also filmmakers such as David Lynch) who were subsequently "inspired" by this fiction have not settled for the disposable and the sensationalized. They have in some ways transcended the original limitations of the pulp fiction form by filtering the conventions and images of this fiction through a more developed aesthetic sensibility.
Two out of three are authors I've wanted to read but haven't gotten around to checking out; I haven't heard of the other. Let's see what they've got for us.
Now we're talking: authors writing about their writing, the hard facts. There is no better way to avoid actual writing than reading about how others do it. (A close second is writing about reading about writing how others do it.)
It's like a storm swept in and tied up all my recent posts in one nifty package of electrical wires and police tape, or something.
I think today has Myla Goldberg.
An idea whose time has come? Or democracy run wild? (probably the former.)
I don't have time for the thought this post will require right this minute, but plan one for later. In the meantime, I strongly encourage you to read this post, particularly if you frequent lit-blogs and/or operate them.
UPDATE: Ed has some strong thoughts on the matter.
Five Chapters is becoming required reading at Condalmo. Last week's Jennifer Egan story was great stuff. Dave Daley sez:
I'm really excited about our story this week on www.fivechapters.com, "Baby Boris" by Lawrence Douglas. Lawrence's first novel, "The Catastrophist," was one of the smartest and funniest novels I read this year, and this new story is just as sharp. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
We're also giving away several copies of "The Catastrophist" later this week, so stay tuned to the site for details.
Our first four stories are in the archives -- fiction by Arthur Phillips, Jess Walter, Patrick Somerville and Jennifer Egan.
Coming soon: new fiction by Lauren Grodstein, Joshua Furst, Josh Emmons, and Vendela Vida.
Took a look at the interesting writeup for The Catastrophist:
The narrator of this morbidly comic debut novel is Daniel Wellington, a 30-something art historian recounting the arc of his own self-destruction. Married, tenured, a rising star at Massachusetts's fictional Franklin College, Daniel falls apart piece by piece, beginning with the onset of "prepartum dread" when his wife "R." gets pregnant. He briefly recovers when she loses the baby, but the damage to their marriage is already done. The hapless Daniel proceeds to make a series of personal and professional misjudgments, including several unconsummated affairs. An expert on war memorials (he's at work on a manuscript titled Art and Atrocity), Daniel is appointed to the commission for a Berlin Holocaust Memorial, a position he jeopardizes by impulsively and falsely claiming to be the child of Holocaust survivors.
Love the cover. Anyone read this book, drop me a line and tell me what you think.
In The Washington Post, NaNoWriMo gets the light touch. In honor of The A.V. Club, I go with six instead of ten.
The A.V. Club swings for the pitcher's mound, and again comes up short. I had high hopes for this one - few topics trip my trigger like books (fiction) about writing. Figured I'd see some nice comments about a favorite or two, and get some tasty treats to add to my TBR list.
Nope. The A.V. Club dips one small toe into the waters - six books? Between three writers of this article, that was the most they could think of? Not even a "top ten"? We get a lot of obviousness - Misery by Stephen King, Pale Fire by Nabokov, something by the Fight Club guy (might as well pick this one up while you're there), a couple of other fairly obvious choices, a great picture of a typewriter, and Wonder Boys. Wonder Boys, by Genius Michael Chabon. A decent book, a fine movie, and the only interest-inspiring pick on the list. Disappointing - so many books out there. I'd love to hear from readers (e-mail me) about books they'd like to see on the list; if I get enough, I'll do another post, or maybe just add them onto this post as updates. I have to post one now, though.
How Old School didn't make the list is beyond me. Tobias Wolff gets every detail right in this prep-school story of writing competitions, the winners given the opportunity to sit down with a famous writer. Everything, from the struggles of finding your own writing voice, to the roller coaster love affair with the writings of an author most dubious - Wolff captures it all. Anyone who recklessly chased The Great American Novel - or short story - as a writer in prep school, or in my case undergraduate school, will find overwhelming nostalgia and a great coming-of-age story - I'd almost go so far as to call it the story of a literary Holden Caufield, if I was given over to fanciful hyperbole.
UPDATE ONE: Rake's Progress jumps in with Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Dixon's Old Friends - the mention of the latter propelling it to the top of the Stephen Dixon section of my TBR list, despite it being one I don't actually own yet. (Powell's, here I come.)
UPDATE TWO: From the mind of DDIII comes the following:
Well, okay, even just glancing at the stacks--Stephen Dixon writes about a writer writing a lot. Though I'd have to double check the books I've read for specific examples. (I. for sure, right?)
Also I wonder if you want to get into the whole first person narratives that are "actual" written documents. That sort of thing fascinates me but I dunno if that's just me. I'm thinking like, Jeff Noon's "Falling Out of Cars," which is written as a journal by an unreliable narrator who deals a lot with what writing is to her in terms of what she's going through. "House of Leaves" is a written document on top of a written document about a video document. But yeah, this might be a different sort of list.Oh yeah! "The Facts of Winter" by Paul Poissel as "translated" by Paul la Farge. That book kicks ass. Works in both the ways I mentioned in my other email. It's about what a writer wrote but also about the translator translating the writer's writing. Quote unquote. Yeah.
Oh, and the narrator of Carol Shield's "Unless" is a writer, talks a lot about writing. Not sure if that's too obvious a pick or not. (Well, I guess not, since the Onion left it out.)
Was going to put up a couple of posts this morning, but Dan makes it easy to do it in one:
The Litblog Co-op has announced the Autumn 2006 Read This! Selection - Firmin by Sam Savage (Coffee House Press, 2006). You can read much more about it here:I enjoyed the trio of books this quarter and hope to see some of you over at the LBC commenting on the discussions coming up over the next month - www.lbc.typepad.com.I also just learned about a great new online arena for fiction - Five Chapters - read more about it here:
Annie's got a great post up at Maud's site.
Yes, Virginia, that is me on today's Powell's Daily Dose e-mail, recommending The Exquisite. Powell's agreed. It's excellent. Have you bought a copy yet?
Yes, it is also correct that the e-mail states that I have won $0 for having my recommendation picked for the daily dose. I have not yet decided what to spend my $0 on. Any suggestions?
Google celebrates its revolutionary Google Book Search by releasing the top ten searched for/in books. Chomsky, OK, I can see that; tropical flowers, hmm, pretty cool...
Looking for an interesting site, those of you who like the wacky adventures of On The Road, one that uses Google Maps to trace the route, provides commentary by the site author, and quotes from the book in relation to the map and each stop?
Dah you go, man - dah you go!
Trying out a new look for this site, as today marks the end of my thirty day free trial and the first day of "should I really be paying to do this?" You'll note (eyes glaze over here) that the Updates section is now immediately at the top on the right side (commence drooling; hope co-workers are distracted elsewhere) so that, on days when I can't get away from life's other responsibilities ever-so-briefly, there will be something good to look at from any number of other fine sites. (Come awake with snort like horse in heat; wipe chin; wonder about Bruins, leave Condalmo)
I'll add in some other crap later.
p.s. finished Brockmeier.
Keep your snake oil in the family, kids. I read "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as an impressionable young man and marveled. Then I grew up.
More commenting to follow at the Penguin Blog.
SNARKY P.S. However, despite my feelings, there is clearly interest among the youth. I would like the opportunity to present my Original Idea For Profit. Like reading, but interactive. All I can share with you (as I must guard my innovative secret idea carefully, lest someone else steal it and profit) is the name: ZORK. Please contact me at the address listed for details and profit-sharing opportunities, delivered straight to your mailbox, directly outside your white house. (From there, it's up to you.)