Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
Upon recent acquaintance and saddened at the news I’m only a writer, more than one Filipina lady has suggested I could make a living in Manila as a Kenny Rogers impersonator. Now an American woman from Tennessee who looks like a diminutive Cormac McCarthy with longer hair and dyspepsia tells me there’s hope for me in America as an Orsen Welles clone.
I grow giddy at this ever-expanding horizon of opportunity, where age and gray-beardedness are instead generally supposed to … Read more
Jack Shackaway here.
I’m free. A freelance writer. A free spirit. You name it. Currently a bachelor.
So why don’t I feel better? Where’s the lift of adventure, the sense of new horizons?
In my experience, the advantages of living alone are generally clearer when you’re living with somebody. (And vice versa.) Meanwhile I recognise another unfortunate fact of nature: Money serves in much the same way a shiny new Johnson Weedless Silver Spoon does when you’re fixin’ to catch … Read more
Jack Shackaway here. I’m worried about Collin. Take a look at this e-mail:
… Read moreYo, Jack.
One of the UK publishers I most respect has just declined my 180,000-word science fiction novel, saying how much they like the writing and world-building, and how they understand and admire the structure, but for some indefinable reason they haven’t “fallen in love” with it. So we turn to other ways of generating an income from writing.
I’m thinking I’ll run this classified ad in
This is the longest I’ve neglected my blog since I started it about three years ago.
And right now I should be working on a novel, rather than poking at this post. Except I’ve lost the plot. The structure of my narrative escapes me just now.
Call it writer’s block, or simple lack of sleep. Or maybe this book is really a classic hobologoistic project that should be presented to the jury now, with a view to burning the ms. … Read more
I’ve suggested some typical hazards that writers face, aside from the traditional death from starvation, and more lurk here in my files. But the following wheeze is easier than writing one of these up just now.
I’m supplying links to those that have gone before, and invite ideas from you—“you” being that mythical creature, the real, live visitor to Collin’s blogsite—for other occupational hazards that afflict writers. Contributions from writers, writers-to-be, readers and the general public welcome.
The demise of the novel? This has been predicted again and again over the decades, if not the centuries, yet people keep reading novels. Here’s a recent vote of confidence in their persistence:
… Read more“The book-length text is coded in our DNA and will never go away; it is the written version of the oral myths and histories told on consecutive nights around campfires for 80,000 years. In each new generation, roughly the same percentage of people is born with
Insights into the hobologoist mindset.
Money corrupts.
Impecuniousness rools, OK!
Artists must suffer.
I have my principles.
Solipsism means never having to say you’re being corrupted by money and prizes.
I like semi-colons; commercial editors can go screw themselves.
I like [literary practice of your choice]; commercial editors can go screw themselves.
Hobologoists don’t write query letters.
Nobody ever read Antoine Blorschacterforth either.
Save the trees, save the bytes, save having to explain to critics why … Read more
Writers look for budget accommodation (Bangkok, 2027)
Here are some things that didn’t fit on the graph in my “Things fall apart redux” post.
The price of fish in Villa Supermarket is soaring, the Gulf of Thailand is getting fished out, China is behaving more aggressively as the superpower-in-waiting, I’ve lost my mother’s copy of Ben’s secret recipe for Montreal smoked meat and I now learn Ben’s deli closed two years ago. It’s as likely I’ll get to … Read more
The future of the book
“Meet Nelson, Coupland, and Alice — the faces of tomorrow’s book. Watch global design and innovation consultancy IDEO’s vision for the future of the book. What new experiences might be created by linking diverse discussions, what additional value could be created by connected readers to one another, and what innovative ways we might use to tell our favorite stories and build community around books?”
1. Alice. To say I resemble a Ludditic old fart is … Read more
Chicken Little epidemic
Our streets appear increasingly aswarm with Chicken Little financial savants.
All around the world, it seems, a hard rain is about to fall. The sky is gravid with precipitate disaster, and quite a few people are reviewing plans to build financial arks, many of these latter-day Noahs figuring they’ll build their boats of gold.
And good luck to them. One advantage of being a starving writer in a state of perennial penury—blessed with a principled resistance to … Read more