Dec
31
2008
When I was ranting about the unwanted responsibilities and expectations that sometimes come with a talent, J. D. Salinger was in the back of my mind. After spectacular success with Catcher in the Rye and a few other books, Salinger disappeared from public view, and as far as anyone knows, stopped writing. As if in answer to my unspoken questions, 3 Quarks Daily posted an excerpt from a New York Times article about Salinger: Still Paging Mr. Salinger .
What the article boils down to is an analysis of Salinger’s various views of one of his characters, and what those views might reveal about the author. Considering that Salinger is now 90 years old, hasn’t published anything since 1965 and hasn’t granted an interview since the 1970s, it’s all guesswork. Continue Reading »
Nov
23
2008
I’ve been struggling through Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, and I’m not sure I’m going to make it all the way through. I bought it on the recommendation of several NaNo forum posters, thinking that it would be a good addition to my small collection of books about writing. It sat next to Stephen King’s On Writing for quite a while, and for some reason I was reluctant to dip into it. A few weeks ago, I read On Writing again, for the third time, and thought it might be a good idea to follow up with Bradbury. If nothing else, the contrast would be interesting. Continue Reading »
Nov
08
2008
I planned to write about the pains and pleasures of National Novel Writing Month, but reality took hold of me, and I dropped out just short of 9,000 words. For the first time out of three tries, I had a plot — a real plot with a beginning, a middle and an end. So what happened?
Just as I was about to reach 9,000 I found myself so bored that I couldn’t force myself to go on. I don’t normally write fiction, and I’m used to rounding off a topic in 700 words or less, but neither of those facts were part of the problem. Suddenly, I realized that the novel I was writing wasn’t the one I wanted to write. But doing the necessary rethinking and restructuring would take weeks, and the research for some of the background would add to that. So everything came to a screeching halt.
I don’t regret it, though. Every time I try something new and either find out that I’ve screwed it up completely, or that it’s the wrong thing for me to be doing, I learn something of value. In my three attempts at NaNo, I’ve discovered that I’m not really cut out to write fiction. I could slog away at it and probably get fairly good at it, but at what cost? A novel consumes time and energy that could be bringing me the smaller but regular rewards that come from essay and article writing.
But there’s an idea and a cast of characters that keeps nagging at me and wants to see the light of day, so maybe it will happen when the time is right. I’d like to think that I have one novel in me and that it could be a really good one. Time will tell.
Oct
26
2008
The real work is in the setting up and eventual transfer of some posts from my writing blog on Blogspot. Other than that, some of what will appear here is my usual sporadic, slightly warped views on writing. The focus, for the next month, will be on the insanity that is NaNoWriMo. No excerpts forthcoming. After that, there’s unlikely to be any focus except the always fresh, exciting, and frustrating subject of writing.
I know there are thousands of blogs about writing, some of them good, some great, and some pretty lousy. We’ll just have to wait and see how this one turns out. Of course, that’s really a matter of taste and it’s impossible to please all of the people all of the time. I’ll settle for pleasing some people some of the time, and I hope those will be the ones who like to explore new pathways, new ideas, and new sources of inspiration.
