The Writing Life: March 2006 Archives
My University‘s literary journal, The Cow Creek Review, will be publishing a story I've been working on for about two years now.
I've been writing and rewriting this story in truly bipolar fashion. When I'd get a version I really liked (and thought everyone else would too), I'd parade the poor child around, only to have people give me those "oh, that's nice" looks. I could tell it just didn't click. Then I'd swear off on the story. I'd toss it down and say I'd finally given up on it. That was the last time I'm re-writing it!
This last revision, I dug in with both hands and started slinging mud and blood and made it more personal. I also ratcheted up the tension with some emotionally distancing narrative that I think finally made the difference.
I've started using a new WordPress-friendly (works great with Blogger, too) web browser and blogging client called Flock:
It's still a development beta, but very usable. It's based on Mozilla (no Microshaft Internet Exploder stuff going on here) and has integrated blogging, Flickr photo album integration, and a bunch of other goodies. It has a nice context menu item that automagically quotes the text you have highlighted and throws you into your blogging client.
And it's Free (Open Source).
How people get here from search engines always interests me. Here’s some more search terms that recent vistitors found this site with:
From Yahoo!:
“Did M. Night Shymalan die”
From Google:
“onion of ancient egypt” Huh?
It was asked recently on a writer’s email list I’m on what books we’ve read recently. Since I’ve been woefully inconsistent with my blogging lately, I thought I’d share this list with you folks as well.
First, books I'm reading and haven't had a chance to finish yet:
Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
Some book about this kid named Harry who's got a lightning bolt tattooed to his forehead.
The Phantom Ship – Capt. Frederick Marryat
Paradise Lost – Milton
Books I've read recently (in no particular order):
Light in August
As I Lay Dying
Sound & the Fury
all by William Faulkner (for a class, so not sure if this really counts :-)
Significance: although I can't say he's one of my favorite authors yet, his style and what he wrote about is starting to grow on me.
Salem's Lot – King
Significance: yeah, right :-)
Something Wicked This Way Comes – Bradbury
Significance: his storytelling style is similar in some ways to Faulkner in that it's stream-of-consciousness and emotionally provocative. It makes for an interesting and incredibly unique read.
Dune – Frank Herbert
Significance: world building, world building, world building. There are and have been a lot of great SF authors who can create vivid worlds, but for my money, Herbert's got them all beat if for no other reason than that he was there first. I can still taste the hot sand and smell the spice. If he wasn't so enamored by a strange mixture of Bolshevist and Hindu/Eastern religion in his personal beliefs, I might have enjoyed him more :-)
The first Earthsea book – Ursula LeGuin
War of the Worlds
The Time Machine
The Invisible Man
by H.G. Wells
Significance: Wells is so ingrained in English-speaking culture I doubt he needs any explanation.
Inferno – Dante
What a fantastic tome. 13th century literature at it's best, IMHO. Who else could have gotten away with that? (Sometime look up the significance of hairy palms to a medieval audience…caveat emptor ;-)
Well at the World's End – William Morris (1834-96, no relation to the tobacco company :-)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – Who knows?
Frankenstein – Mary (Mrs. Percy B.) Shelley
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
Significance: The Horace Walpole school of writing:
1) Get fantastically rich on inheirted money.
2) Do all kinds of interesting, but entirely pointless things for the sheer adventure of it.
3) Write a hilariously cheeky book that will be considered by many as the first Gothic novel.
4) Get bored with writing after one book and never do that again.
The Princess Bride – William Goldman…I mean, S. Morganstern :-) Explain to me again why he did that, please?
Beowulf
Planet of the Apes – Pierre Boulle
The Dreamquest of Unknown Kaddath – H.P. Lovecraft
[tags]Name of the Rose,Umberto Eco,The Phantom Ship,Capt. Frederick Marryat,Milton,William Faulkner,Steven King,Ray Bradbury,Frank Herbert,Ursula K. LeGuin,H.G. Wells,Dante,Castle of Otranto,Horace Walpole,The Princess Bride,William Goldman,Planet of the Apes,Pierre Boulle,Dreamquest of Unknown Kaddath,H.P. Lovecraft[/tags]
