Your parent dies. You hurt. You weep. You mourn. You do and say the necessary things even as your daemon’s disciplined askesis has you (against your will) coldly taking notes on what the emotion feels like, how others around you react to the death, what the corpse of your parent looks like, how you feel while looking down at it, what voids there are in that feeling, what pretenses, what posturings. It's all part of
finding your daemon that dwells perpetually in the Condition of Fire. Other entries in
Dan Simmons' series
On Writing Well.
posted by shivohum
on Jun 11, 2013 -
29 comments
Finnegans Wake, Joyce's famously unreadable masterpiece (read it online
here), was considerably
more readable
in one of its earlier drafts. Watch Joyce cross out decipherable words and replace them with less decipherable ones! Watch him end, not with a whimper, but with a
slightly less impressive whimper! Sadly,
Shem's schoolbook, which in the finished version is a
House of Leaves-esque compendium of side columns and footnotes,
was not written until much later (according to the footnotes of that section). The introduction to this draft by David Hayman, who assembled it, is
worth a read.
posted by Rory Marinich
on May 20, 2013 -
54 comments
With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else. December 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of
Invisible Cities -- the sublime metaphysical travelogue by author-journalist
Italo Calvino. In a series of pensive dialogues with jaded emperor
Kublai Khan, the explorer
Marco Polo describes a meandering litany of visionary and impossible places,
dozens of surreal, fantastical cities, each poetically reifying ideas vital to language, philosophy, and the human spirit. This gracefully written love letter to urban life has inspired
countless tributes, but it's just the most accessible of Calvino's fascinating literary catalogue. Look inside for a closer look at his most remarkable works, links to English translations of his magical prose, and collections of artistic interpretations from around the web -- including
this treasure trove of essays, excerpts, articles, and recommended reading.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 30, 2012 -
26 comments
[Joseph] McElroy's sense of original and authentic contemporaneity makes him the most important novelist now writing in America, the artist who has most consistently combined the mastering capabilities of systems perspectives and an art of excess. Women and Men is the capstone of his career and, I believe, the most significant American novel published since Gravity's Rainbow. -
Tom LeClair [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen
on Dec 4, 2012 -
18 comments
Decompressed is a podcast in which comics writer and former Rock Paper Shotgun journalist Kieron Gillen (X-Men, Thor,
Phonogram) talks to artists and writers about the process involved in writing a single issue of a comic.
Decompressed 6 broke format and is instead a discussion with
Mark Waid and
Matt Fraction about scripting comics using the
"Marvel Method", or "plot first" - in which the artist draws the comic from a story outline and dialogue is added later, rather than the writer supplying a panel by panel script. For a while out of favour even at Marvel, the method is seeing a resurgance. The podcast page contains visual aids, and embedded version of the podcast, the script of DEFENDERS #9 complete with B&W art and additional links, including links to Warren Ellis’ 3-part tutorial on writing comics (
1,
2,
3).
Jamie McKelvie and a vultue put in guest appearances. Further example comicbook scripts are available at the
Comic Book Script Archive (
previously).
posted by Artw
on Aug 26, 2012 -
29 comments
For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion. But despite the work of such dedicated cultists as Edmund Wilson and Matthew Josephson, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, Dawn Powell never became the popular writer that she ought to have been. In those days, with a bit of luck, a good writer eventually attracted voluntary readers and became popular. Today, of course, "popular" means bad writing that is widely read while good writing is that which is taught to involuntary readers. Powell failed on both counts. She needs no interpretation and in her lifetime she should have been as widely read as, say, Hemingway or the early Fitzgerald or the mid O'Hara or even the late, far too late, Katherine Anne Porter. But Powell was that unthinkable monster, a witty woman who felt no obligation to make a single, much less a final, down payment on Love or The Family; she saw life with a bright Petronian neutrality, and every host at life's feast was a potential Trimalchio to be sent up. - Gore Vidal
posted by Trurl
on Nov 12, 2011 -
38 comments
Joseph Mitchell was a reporter. It's tempting to say his beat was the waterfront, but though he's certainly the poet laureate of the Fulton Fish Market, this would be too literal-minded and geographically limiting. His beat was the margins, including the metaphysical margin of life itself. Mitchell invented a temporal dimension for his stories, a strange and twilit place—Mitchell Time—where a density of historical fact and the feeling of whole eras fading from view are sharply juxtaposed with scenes of cinematic immediacy related in the present tense. A cozy aura of death pervades his work, which often features oldsters experiencing the chilling fear of its approach while gleefully playing hide-and-seek with the reaper. -
The Village Voice [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Jul 10, 2011 -
6 comments
As much as any book I know, Crippled Detectives transcribes the dream state, not just in its flights of fancy and logic-jumping juxtapositions, but in the mutating narrative tactics, the topsy-turvy focus (the climax is over in a flash, whereas digressions distend to marvelous effect), and especially the inconsistent point of view... I forgot to mention that Lee Tandy Schwartzman was all of seven years old when she wrote it.
posted by Trurl
on Jun 27, 2011 -
14 comments
Zombie Baby, Fucking Jane Austen, The Last Witch Hunter, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, American Bullshit, Better Living Through Chemistry... just some of the titles that made this year's
Black List, a list of the best unproduced screenplays of the year as voted on by industry insiders.
LA Times and
Deadline Hollywood have pieces on it and here's an October
audio interview with Franklin Leonard, creator of the Black List. In past years, aspiring screenwriters could find PDFs of the scripts online. It's gonna be
a lot harder
now.
posted by dobbs
on Dec 13, 2010 -
42 comments
Platt Rogers Spencer was born in 1800 near the Hudson River. His family was too poor to afford paper so Spencer practiced on whatever was handy – leaves, bark, snow and sand – everything was a canvas for handwriting.
[more inside]
posted by Sara C.
on Jul 20, 2010 -
7 comments
The usual summary of comic book artist Will Eisner’s career follows the formula that he drew the Spirit all through the 1940s except for the war years and a bunch of ‘graphic novels’ from 1978 till the end of his life in 2005. There’s a long missing period between 1951 and 1978 during which he packaged and adapted cartoon art to commercial purposes, which has not been readily available for our scrutiny or pleasure. It is sometimes summarily dismissed as being of little interest. - Artist
Eddie Campbell reappraises
Will Eisner's missing years.
posted by Artw
on Aug 31, 2009 -
13 comments
The
Warrior Writers Project brings together recent veterans and current service members to be in creative community and utilize art-making processes to express themselves. There is a deep necessity for veterans to create when so much has been shattered and stolen. A profound sense of hope comes from the ability to rebuild and transform.
posted by netbros
on Aug 29, 2009 -
3 comments
Make your handwriting into a font with
Yourfonts. Download the PDF, draw your alphabet, scan and upload, then download the finished result.
Examples. Via
Drawn!
posted by Rinku
on Feb 2, 2009 -
31 comments
"We do not think our way to right action. We act our way to right thinking." David Milch talks to students in USC class
Religion, Media and Hollywood. Not for everyone but I find pretty much anything this guy says fascinating. Parts
1 2 3 4 5 6.
posted by Manhasset
on Dec 27, 2008 -
19 comments
The New York Moon is an internet-based publication adhered to the lunar phases. It is a collection of experimental, reflective, and imaginative projects produced with every other month’s full moon. In the current issue visit the
6th Borough interactive map to discover imaginary precincts, find ephemeral street sculptures on
The Trash Map, browse sketches of the moments in between
Waiting, or redesign your neighborhood in
Blueprints.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jun 29, 2008 -
7 comments
Speaking of speeches, David Eggers
delivers one at TED on grassroots community tutoring for kids who need help with their English homework: "There's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one on one, getting all this attention. They finish their homework, they go home -- they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play and that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world, right? So, the key to it all is homework." Love him or hate him (
mefi consensus) it's a great example of
nervous energy microphilanthropy,
social entrepreneurship and, if I may make the connection,
machines of
loving grace. [
previously]
posted by kliuless
on Mar 23, 2008 -
26 comments
