Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
Well, maybe just a few.
A writer should find a good chair, e.g. Install it right there in front of computer, pencil & pad, whatever, and then sit in it for extended periods, writing stuff.
Here’s a real lode of good advice from The Guardian—10 rules for writing fiction from each of a bunch of prominent writers.
And here are five tips of my own, something I recently added to advice emerging from a Clarion Science Fiction and … Read more
Come meet the authors (seven of them, at least).
Bangkok Noir
Book launch, open to the public
8pm: FCCT (Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand)
Maneeya Building, Penthouse Floor; enter the building from the Chidlom BTS Station, southwest exit.
Official book launch
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT)
8.00pm, 17 March 2011
Book signing
Kinokuniya, Siam Paragon Branch
3.00pm–6.00pm, 2 April 2011
For more information, please visit www.bangkoknoir.info.… Read more
In the old days, writers sharpened pencils, checked the mail, experimented with melismatic renditions of “I’m a Lumberjack, and I’m Okay,” polished the piano (the rich writers, I mean) and so on. Classic avoidance behavior, right? Anything’s better than actually getting down to the hard business of writing.
Maybe not. Or at least maybe not entirely. I’m not the first to suggest that all the screwing around may well be a vital part of the creative process. … Read more
Jack here.
The fever’s gone. I’m still sick, though. Never mind I’m sitting here like a fool—more like a two-bit hooker, actually—editing a massive, near-sadistically impenetrable document for money, not enough of it.
But let me tell you about my blissful, antihistamine-enhanced sleep last night. A serial dream—it bridged multiple pee breaks—had me much excited at a book idea. I’d decided the combination of the world’s longest palindrome (several long paragraphs) and a brand-new concept of time I’d come up … Read more
One writer, however much tongue in cheek, has actually expressed admiration for addicts:
I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster, or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He’s taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of death from being a total surprise. ~ Chuck Palahniuk
Overall, though, even Palahniuk would probably concede … Read more
Jack Shackaway not only accuses me of plagiarism, never mind he’s a squatter on this site, he has asked whether I’d post the following item for him.
Thirteen years ago, South Park writers saw clearly into the future
Check out the 20 August 1997 episode where Cartman crosses Emerson’s name off a copy of Walden, substitutes his own, submits it to a “Save Our Fragile Planet” essay contest, and wins. The reactions of everyone from Cartman himself to … Read more
Here’s one more way modern digital technology is making our lives worse.
In times past, I’d never leave the house without a little notebook in my pocket. The plastic jacket provided handy pockets for business cards. More importantly, meanwhile, the front of the diary served as a day planner, where I’d enter appointments and other reminders from front to back as far ahead as the future boded. The back of the book was where notes for posterity went—where in idle … Read more
In my last post, I discussed the mindful appreciation of a novel tequila experience, one that might even be good for you. Who knows? Our test subjects felt better after taking it, at least, and they were all still alive the next morning.
My earlier “Magic potion revealed!” had for months been a leading magnet for visitors to this site; “T. Mockingbird” promises to be an even bigger draw, which leads one to wonder whether the therapeutic … Read more
Consider the following.
Terrestrial umbilicals. Scuba divers, e.g., carry bottled atmosphere underwater, taking a bit of our terrestrial environment with us.
Marine umbilicals. Whether on land or under the sea, meanwhile, we always bring along some of the marine environment from which, about 375 million years ago, we vertebrate land-dwellers first emerged. That’s right. We veteran fish-out-of-water types have internalized the seawater that gave us life in the first place. Our blood now comprises part of what is essentially a … Read more
Hey, that slogan is copyright (mine, eh?).
Have we stumbled across something more potent than red wine, chocolate or green tea? Could it be that we’ve invented something with bigger mojo than all that stuff taken together? Jeff the most excellent NK web designer-cum-giant anthropologist has bestowed his official approval upon my magic potion, but says he shoots it back together with his own shortcut to health, longevity and much lead in the pencil. Long and strong with yaa … Read more