From Demian by Hermann Hesse.
"I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so difficult?"
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Great book. I absolutely loved reading it. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a fantastic tale of split brains, multi-dimensional realities, treacherous underworlds, myth, imagination and the immense gravity of love.
It also struck me that the entire book is also a meditation on the world of the Platonic shadow, the daemon, the eidolon, the Underworld and the battle for soul (not in the Christian sense, but more Jungian and Archetypally. Think Partick Harpur’s books instead).
More on that later.
In Search of the Elusive Murakami
This a wonderful documentary on brilliant Japanse writer Haruki Murakami.
If you are to write well you must come to terms with the enormous and powerful part of your nature which lies behind the threshold of immediate knowledge.
- Dorothea Brande, Becoming A Writer, pg. 151
10 Rules For Writing Fiction
Inspired by Elmore’s Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, The Guardian asked noted authors about their rules for writing fiction, which include these indispensable tips:
Get an accountant, abstain from sex and similes, cut, rewrite, then cut and rewrite again – if all else fails, pray.
There are two parts, both are fantastic.
Literature As Art
Novel Poster has taken classic world literature and used the text to create negative space art.
Brilliant idea.
Gorgeous product. I want one (Actually, several all of them).
The Storyverse Comes Alive
Small Demons, who’s tagline is Welcome to the Storyverse, is a vast expanse of possibility for the curious. It contains, “The people, places and things from books, and everywhere they can take you.” According to the site, which is in Beta test mode,
It all begins here. Suppose someone took every meaningful detail from all the books you love. Every song mentioned, every person, every food or place or movie title. And what if they did that for all the books everyone else loves, too. The ones you’ve never heard of. Suddenly you’ve got a whole world of seemingly random people, places and things, all gathered in one place.
Together they create something vast, wonderful and entirely new. A Storyverse. A place where details touch, overlap and lead you further. To new music to listen to. New movies to watch. Places to visit. People to know. And of course, new books to read. Getting started is simple. Just choose a book. See where it takes you.
Sign me up. I can’t wait to dive into this.
Vonnegut’s Creative Writing 101
A great set of a writing rules from one of our finest writers.
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possible.
- Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
- Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
- Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
From Bagombo Snuff Box
Oddly, I’ve never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut.
I’ve always suspected I’d like his writing.
So, I’ve finally picked up a copy of Slaughterhouse Five.
So it goes.
I enjoyed Zone One quite a bit, but for literary horror, The Last Werewolf had more bite.