Writing, Word Counts, NaNoWriMo and Productivity
First off, I’m not doing NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I have no problems with it, but it’s not for me, or in line with what I’m trying to…
Tape Recorder 2014
My good friend Zeke gave me this a little while ago. I found a power supply in storage and as soon as I can get my hands on some blank tapes…
Music for Writing
I usually listen to some kind of background music while I’m writing. Since I play music myself I have to be somewhat particular about what I listen to or I’ll…
Used book haul
My latest haul from Bookhounds, all between 0.75 and 1.99. Some gifts, some for me, including a back issue of The Paris Review with some interesting short stories and nonfiction.
John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist
I’m generally extremely shy about craft-based books on writing. I have yet to read Stephen King’s On Writing, and ever Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer was picked up rather…
Camus’s “The Stranger” and novels as masks for ideology
Camus’s “The Stranger” is a short and easy read, but there’s plenty to ponder. Considered purely as a novel it’s mediocre at best, but it’s a philosophical text wearing fiction…
Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors: a semi-cantankerous review
I was really disappointed by this book. Granted, I read it immediately following The Pugilist at Rest, and I feel like anything I read next would have seemed a bit…
Milan Kundera’s Testaments Betrayed
This was probably the most intellectually challenging book I’ve read all year. Translated from the French, it's a massive essay on a broad range of topics including but not limited…
Thom Jones’s The Pugilist at Rest
This is my favorite book of the year, bar none. A few authors have left me disturbed after reading (Carver, Tobias Wolfe, John Darnielle) but Thom Jones literally brought tears…
Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”
I love short story collections. Whenever possible, I try to read a story (or a collection) by any given author before I take on one of their novels. The unique…