Monday, April 28
Three days
On the road for three days starting in the morning, and of course I have big plans and ambitious hopes for plotting out the next big section of my future-based novel on the airplane, holed up in the hotel room. Thanks to Krell for point me to this artifact "found from the future," to which I'll direct you for a taste of what I'm working on. Behave yourselves.
Saturday, April 26
50 cult books
England's Daily Telegraph lists its top 50 "cult books" -- an odd, eclectic, Brit-skewed list of crap and classics, "the sort of book that people wear like a leather jacket or carry around like a totem. The book that rewires your head... makes you a pacifist." I'd say I've read about 20 of them, but I might only admit to 10. So enjoy, I guess.
Thursday, April 24
At work
So, an update I guess is in order, since that's the nominal point of this whole blog. I continue to work on the novel, at a turtle's pace. An hour or two a week is not very fast. But, it is progress. I've got about 55 pages that I finished editing last night, and I'd like to get all those changes made to the e-copy in the next few weeks. I also have to travel for a few days next week for my daytime job, so I'm looking forward to using airplane time and the silence of the hotel room at night to start plotting out the next big section. Might even start typing on it. You never know. Thus ends the update.
Wednesday, April 23
Sweded!
My son has discovered my new all-time favorite YouTube video: Jurassic Park Sweded (as in Be Kind, Rewind). It's a perfect, fast-paced, cleverly edited and costumed piece of cinematic fun. It moves ahead of those Weird Al vids I posted a few months back.
Wednesday, April 2
Back to nonfiction
I finished reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," and it's a very good book in many ways. Tight. Brutal and powerful. And yet in the end, hopeful too. Now I'm on to some related nonfiction, Jared Diamond's two books about how societies collapse and the short history of everyone. The Pulitzer-winning first one is "Guns, Germs and Steel" and the second, seemingly more environmentally-related one, is "Collapse." I've had my eyes on them for a few years and, justifying them as research for my current project, got them on the buy-one-get-half-price-free table at Borders tonight (where I'm also happy to report I worked for 75 minutes on the novel).
Speaking of writers, word to my nephew Nick for getting his first piece published in The Village Voice. Straight to the big-time for the kid. I'm proud. Go read it: it's a good story.
Speaking of writers, word to my nephew Nick for getting his first piece published in The Village Voice. Straight to the big-time for the kid. I'm proud. Go read it: it's a good story.
