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”We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. When your writing blooms out of the back of this garbage compost, it is very stable. You are not running from anything. You can have a sense of artistic security. If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
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Obama Depressed, Distant Since 'Battlestar Galactica' Series Finale
The Onion, of course. This is absolutely perfect. (via epippen)
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”And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.
Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
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Trailer for Puzmi, from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival
A dystopia with shades of THX-1138 and Moon. Looks very cool. (via Wired’s Underwire blog)
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UnknownUnknown15playsAll Along the Watchtower — Battlestar Galactica Season 3 Soundtrack
I am a colossal dork. Regardless, this song is awesome and the perfect thing for a Monday morning.
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”Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.
Ray Bradbury (via booklover)
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”Honestly, I think the barriers are imaginary, the walls have already been breached and the key to literature in the early 21st century is one of confluence. There’s not much high and low culture any more: there’s just mingling streams of art and what matters is whether it’s good art or bad art. But then, I come from comics, and miss the days when it was a gutter art-form in which nobody was expected to make art; and think that SF was much more vibrant and relevant before they taught it in universities.
Neil Gaiman in The New Yorker’s Ask the Author. As Robin Sloan says, the most interesting part is the “confluence” of art in the 21st century: the breaking down of barriers between high and low.
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”To this I say, find me anything at all dumbed down about Ursula K. LeGuin. Show me oafishness in Phil K. Dick. Show me how E. Annie Proulx understands human nature better than Ray Bradbury does.
Jason Henninger, writing a rant about literary vs. speculative fiction on Tor.com.
Henninger’s post rehashes an old argument: “genre” fiction isn’t good literature, and any time a literary critic likes a piece of genre fiction it’s often explained as not really being genre fiction at all. (See, for example, The Road, Slaughterhouse Five, etc.)
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Robin Sloan (author of Annabel Scheme) has a new multimedia short story up on his web site. The Truth About the East Wind involves words, sounds, and images, and is thoroughly awesome.
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January reading list
I received many books for Christmas, plus I already had a bunch sitting on my bedside table. Here’s where I am so far.
Fiction
- Annabel Scheme — finished!
- Tainaron — in progress
- The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
- What is the What
- Best Stories from the Indian Classics
- And You Shall Know Our Velocity!
- Love in the Ruins
Nonfiction
- The Portable MFA in Creative Writing — finished!
- Sickness Unto Death — in progress
- Writing Down the Bones
- The Artful Edit
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”As another high school English teacher, here’s my take: Unlike ‘awesome’, ‘epic’ isn’t a particularly useful word in its main sense. (And it never meant “truly amazing.”) When did anyone describe anything as epic besides the Odyssey and the occasional really long movie? As an English teacher, this slang redefinition is a boon. Since ‘epic’ now means “really cool in a beyond-other-things sort of way”, when you do teach a REAL epic, it will automatically be cool, because it is, by definition, epic. And when the kids read it, and realize that what happens to the main character is even more epic than anything they’ve ever called epic, the book will be even better to them.
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Previously on Lost : What?
Lost returns Feb. 2. Cannot wait. (via johnaugust, via chriszabriskie)
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Finch: A Primer on Novel Openings (Please Chime In)
Jeff VanderMeer gives a master class in writing the beginning of a novel. This is a fascinating look at how real writers write, and very educational. It’s particularly encouraging to see some of his early, discarded openings and compare them to the finished product. It’s a reminder that first drafts don’t need to be perfect, just finished.
Likes
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this is how I want to camp.
sweethomestyle:Camping (via redmann)
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“These Machines Kill Fascists” designed by You and Me, The Royal We
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ADA ad designed by Jeseok Yi
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where do I get trunks like that??
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Just saw a foursquare check-in to a church. I’m not sure God appreciates other people trying to...
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