I like the feeling when I finish writing a giant paragraph that actually flows well. I feel like Marquez or Roth or [any other literary badass].
Post with 4 notes
Spent the whole afternoon color-coding the Benjy chapter of The Sound and the Fury. Love that book.
Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
Post with 2 notes
Vonnegut’s 8 Basics of Creative Writing
I’m reading ‘Cat’s Cradle’ now, which I think is the fourth or fifth novel of Vonnegut’s I’ve read. Either way, I think ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ is one of the best novels ever. But more than that, Vonnegut was a wonderful, free-thinking person, and someone I respect immensely for both his character and his writing ability. Sadly, he passed away on April 11, 2007 at the age of 84. So in a small tribute to him, here is a brief quote from him on the 8 rules he has for creative writing (and also a shout-out to one of my other favorites, Miss Flannery O’Connor).
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possible.
- Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
- Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
- Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.
A Few Updates
Firstly, the cover for the second novel should be out soon. Which is pretty exciting! I’ll be releasing more info as it comes, and the novel should be available by the end of the month (fingers crossed).
Secondly, I just finished a new short story that I quite like. I think what I may do, as all authors do at some point, is compile a short story collection. I’ll also probably be sending this one out to literary magazines, old school style, and see if it can get published that way. Then, down the road, it will of course be in my collection that I will probably release to Kindle. Right now I have two completed short stories (obviously I have dozens of older ones that are best left buried deep in my hard drive) and a foreword that I really like. I also have the collective theme worked out and know what I want to do for the final story, so I’m feeling good. Only, you know, maybe ten more to go.
Looking for an apartment is a real pain in the ass.
So is packing.
I’m ready for it to be a month from now when I’m all set up in Orlando.
Photo with 8 notes
I’m not normally one for actors (over writers and directors), but this is one of my favorite performances in one of my favorite films (that I just re-watched for the dozenth time). So wonderful.
Happy birthday Anthony Perkins.
Photo reblogged from you got a fast car with 17,950 notes
![thebaobabs:
i should probably be ashamed of this, but i’m not…[edit] this pretty much sums up my reaction to logging into tumblr for the first time after I posted this. this is a nice reminder people actually appreciate my stuff. thank you!!!
I love it!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1u33ovPGL1qbp6s0o1_1280.jpg)
i should probably be ashamed of this, but i’m not…
[edit] this pretty much sums up my reaction to logging into tumblr for the first time after I posted this.
this is a nice reminder people actually appreciate my stuff. thank you!!!
I love it!
Source: thebaobabs
Soooo, I know I’ve been slacking. Part of it is because I’m prepping for grad school, and once that starts I’m sure I’ll be a bit busier than I am now. However, I’ve been reading a bit more these days and found some inspiration for some short stories, which are coming along nicely.
The problem, I guess, is that with this newfound inspiration, I want to work on the new stories and I neglect proofreading the old ones. Time to focus! That second novel should be out by now, I put the last word on it months ago!
And just because, here is a picture of capybara-san, which is on the cover of the notebook next to me:
There’s so much in every novel that can never be explained. You live a life of secrecy and if you’re a good writer you surprise everything out in the open. It’s like going hunting and firing off a gun and a bush that’s in front of you doesn’t look like it’s inhabited, and suddenly all kinds of birds fly out in the open. And that’s what writing is. You don’t wanna know what you’re doing. You must never know what you’re doing. And then the surprise is the good stuff. So all the scientific speculation, the machineries I invented, they were all things that flew out of the bushes when I fired off a gun.
Page 1 of 9
