Because all writers get a smidge desperate at times…
Literary interviews are inevitably packed with the nuts and bolts of how writers do their work, and there’s very little that aspiring writers do more readily than fling other people’s nuts and bolts into their toolboxes.
Of course I knew that writing was terrifically hard work, and that there was no secret code, as in a video game, that would unlock Tolstoy-mode, enabling me to crank out canon-worthy novellas before lunch. But I persisted in believing that I might one day come upon some technique, some set of tricks, that would vault me irreversibly onto the professional plane.
Writing is a sufficiently lonely and mysterious pastime that I don’t begrudge myself a talisman or two, so long as they don’t become ways of distracting myself from the glum inescapability of actual work.
- The work is missing a plot catalyst to really start the story (so there is a lot going on action-wise but no actual story unfolding).
- There is nothing at stake for the main character.
Have a think about this before licking the envelope.
Flannery O’Connor
This is my religion.
via Matt Bell (The House Upon The Dirt Between The Lake)
(via kellyjford)
A selection from, “The Fascinating Self-Portraits of 20 Famous Authors.”
NOTE: In the comments for this post-link, it’s stated that the Poe self-portrait is a forgery…
[sigh].
Rosenblatt believes that a digital resale marketplace wouldn’t ultimately make Amazon a lot more money on books or music, at least not at first. But he thinks it would move much more of Amazon’s digital content business beyond the interference of publishers, just as publishers can’t dictate the terms of, for example, the sale of used physical books on Amazon. Just as with physical books, publishers would only have a say — or get a cut — the first time a customer buys a copy of an e-book. The second, third and fourth sales of that “same” e-book would be purely under Amazon’s control.
“If Amazon is allowed to get away with doing resale transactions without compensating publishers, then what they can do is say, ‘hey authors, sign with us and we’ll give you a piece of the resale,’” he says. “That could attract authors who might otherwise sign with traditional publishers.”
… Amazon could easily seek to justify refusing to pay writers for secondhand transactions. That’s what worries John Scalzi, the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
“I’m awfully suspicious that it means nothing good for writers who want to get paid for their work using the current compensation model,” he writes on his blog. Scalzi foresees writer-led class action lawsuits aplenty should Amazon ever try to cut out author royalties on ebook resales. And Scalzi agrees that it’s trouble for the traditional publishing industry, too: “if I were a publisher I really wouldn’t have any doubt Amazon wants me dead,” he writes.
Selections from, “Literary Graffiti From All Over the World.”
Whether you believe in this mythical constipational infliction, we all at one point or too many get our boots stuck in the mud… leave ‘em behind.
Tips from Fran Lebowitz, Joss Whedon, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Orlean, Adrian Tomine, Julie Klausner, Vanessa Davis, Jenny Zhang, Etgar Keret, and Ayelet Waldman, in three parts:
- Symptoms
- Helpful Tips and Sympathy
- Tough Love
(From left to right) Tad Friend; Jennifer Egan; Michele Filgate (events manager at Community Bookstore); Kurt Andersen; Roxana Robinson; Philip Gourevitch; Ryan Britt; John Burnham Schwartz; Rich Benjamin.
From, “How Do You Get 43 New York City Authors to a Coffee Shop at Six in the Morning?”
The ten grumpiest authors in literary history—and a great shot of Vladimir Nabokov (via Flavorwire).
For more of our morning’s roundup, click here.
I have a new goal in life.
Salman Rushdie and John le Carré reconcile after 15 year feud. The British writers regret their verbal battle, which began in 1997.
Writers, take note and clip those roots on your backside. Maybe put that printer across the room…
Every single hour of television watched after the age of 25 reduces the viewer’s life expectancy by 21.8 minutes.
By comparison, smoking a single cigarette reduces life expectancy by about 11 minutes, the authors said.
Looking more broadly, they concluded that an adult who spends an average of six hours a day watching TV over the course of a lifetime can expect to live 4.8 years fewer than a person who does not watch TV.
Those results hold true, the authors point out, even for people who exercise regularly. It appears, Dr. Veerman says, that “a person who does a lot of exercise but watches six hours of TV” every night “might have a similar mortality risk as someone who does not exercise and watches no TV.”
Michael Bourne regarding Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Let’s say that you hold some passionate, but obscure belief. Maybe you believe God will fling a meteor at the earth and all the good people will be sucked up into heaven. Maybe you favor a return to the gold standard. Or perhaps you think Roseanne Barr should be elected president this fall on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. Whatever it is, this belief animates your life, gives your daily existence shape and meaning, but no one you know really understands why you care so much about it. Then one day you drive to a mountaintop in the Vermont woods and spend 10 days in splendid isolation with several hundred other people who fervently believe the same things you do.
That’s what a week and a half at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference feels like.
