"In the making of character, I feel completely happy. [...] I get two innocent people into a Hitchcockian muddle and make them fight their way out. But from scene to scene, they have to lead me. [...] To me, that is the whole of life. I can’t put it differently." Today's
Democracy Now! features
an extended interview with John le Carré on topics from Tony Blair, geopolitics, and money laundering to the novelist's life and work.
posted by RogerB
on Oct 11, 2010 -
10 comments
Metafilter's Own Charlie Stross asks the question; " You, and a quarter of a million other folks, have embarked on a 1000-year voyage aboard a hollowed-out asteroid. What sort of governance and society do you think would be most comfortable, not to mention likely to survive the trip without civil war, famine, and reigns of terror?"
engrossing commentary follows. (
via)
posted by The Whelk
on Dec 11, 2009 -
156 comments
You have a great idea for a novel and
it's almost November, so you think now is the time to get cracking. You've decided that
hiring a ghostwriter is too easy, but you don't have
100 days to write your novel and
the snowflake method seems too frilly. Snowflakes, those delicate little monsters that papered your car when you were stranded on the road in Minnesota. A single snowflake is beautiful, but millions make an avalanche. You were cold, so cold, yet you survived. You're not sure if you have time to
read a book on what not to do (
UK edition), and
the search results are daunting. Forget all that, because you already know how to write, right? Embrace your awesome, magnificent, spellbinding abilities, go forward but never back, ever spinning, shake the rain off your bedspread, and now that you have brewed a delicious pot of steamy, hot, life-giving coffee, you can learn
how to write badly well. [via
mefi projects]
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Oct 22, 2009 -
35 comments
"This is a novel born out of the intersection of two eras. The first is a story of the Cultural Revolution, a time of fanaticism, repressed instincts, and tragic fates, similar to the European Middle Ages. The second is a story of today, a time of subverted ethics, fickle sensuality, and every kind of phenomena, even more like the Europe of today. A westerner would have to live four hundred years to experience the vast differences of the two eras, but a Chinese would only need forty years for the experience." Yu Hua's
Brothers, a sprawling, foul-mouthed, comic-historical epic, and the best-selling novel in China's history, is available in English.
[more inside]
posted by escabeche
on Oct 18, 2009 -
25 comments
Marguerite Young - whom Kurt Vonnegut called "unquestionably a genius" - first achieved success with a study of the utopian commune at
New Harmony, Indiana called
Angel in the Forest. She then spent 18 years writing
Miss Macintosh, My Darling - a
1,198 page novel that William Goyen praised in
The New York Times Book Review as "a masterwork". She spent the last 30 years of her life writing an unfinished biography of
Eugene V. Debs that was posthumously published, in heavily edited form, as
Harp Song for a Radical.
[more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on May 22, 2009 -
4 comments
"To make off with hubby's fortune, yea, I think I heard of that happenin' once or twice around L.A. And… you want me to do what exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did. Thomas Pynchon's next novel, the 416-page
Inherent Vice, is
described by Penguin Press as "part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog." While we wait for its August 4 publication, we can read
an essay on the dystopian musical he co-wrote at Cornell or watch
a clip of that movie they made of Gravity's Rainbow.
[more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 6, 2009 -
76 comments
It's that time of the year again! NaNoWriMo, previously seen on MeFi
here, has kicked off again. If you're stuck, try
these tips to lift yourself out of the rut, or feel free to run over to the
MeTa thread to grumble about it to fellow NaNo-ers. For the more OCD among us, popular applets to organize your thoughts include
bubble.us, seen
here previously, to create mindmaps and plot diagrams, or
yWriter to organize your prose into chapters and scenes. Other
online communities are joining in the fun. Livejournal is
donating $1 to the
Young Writer's Program for every completed novel. So
ignore the deterrents, whip out your thinking hat, and let the logorrhoea start!
posted by Phire
on Nov 3, 2008 -
44 comments
The Iron Heel, published a century ago this year, is a novel by Jack London about socialist revolution in the United States. It is set mostly between 1912 and 1932, with a foreword and numerous footnotes written from the point of view of a historian who has just discovered the manuscript some 700 years later. Here is an excerpt (which is printed on the back cover of some editions) from chapter five:
"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I
read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."
posted by finite
on Oct 10, 2008 -
30 comments
After an abysmal, embarrasing
attempt at collaborative fiction by Penguin Books, a new site takes a stab at the
Wikinovel, this time, it appears, with a little better organization and planning. Though, still no users.
posted by nospecialfx
on May 30, 2007 -
31 comments
Nude Marathon! Psychotherapy traveled down
a lot of strange paths in the 60s and early 70s, but perhaps none stranger than the naked group therapy sessions, some up to 48 hours long, supervised by
Paul Bindrim. Bindrim's sessions were the subject of a
documentary film and an unflattering, thinly fictionalized novel by Gwen Davis Mitchell. Bindrim sued Mitchell for libel. Can descriptions of a fictional character be libelous of a real person?
Yes.
posted by escabeche
on Mar 23, 2007 -
13 comments
His lips brushed her cheek as he let more of the weight of his arm and hand press against her torso. He spoke softly, “And this evening’s lead story, "No bombings, no robberies, no car accidents, no wars. Just {YOUR NAME HERE} and {YOUR S.O.'s NAME HERE} making love in a hammock on the Outer Banks."
Yep, for $50-120, you and the love of your life can have your very own
customized romance novel. May the bosom-heaving and bodice ripping ensue.
posted by miss lynnster
on Mar 10, 2007 -
46 comments
"Deus is an experimental, serialized online comic about myth, consciousness, death, and tomfoolery. Following a set of quasi-mythical gods and a poor fool named Cam, the styles and themes of Deus are constantly evolving." From the utterly talented Gareth Hinds, whose fully painted interpretation of
Beowulf is about to be issued in hardcover by Candlewick Press.
posted by jbickers
on Feb 6, 2007 -
4 comments
"A Million Penguins is an experiment in creative writing and community. Anyone can join in. Anyone can write. Anyone can edit. Let’s see if the crowds are not only wise, but creative. Or will too many cooks spoil the broth?"
posted by goo
on Feb 1, 2007 -
39 comments
The first issue of the comic book adaptation of Neil Gaiman's
Neverwhere was released yesterday. Mr. Gaiman is credited as a "consultant." So far, the story is fairly intact, but it's the visual element that deviates from the novel--characters look nothing like they were described, and don't even resemble the
old BBC miniseries. And for someone accustomed to the phenomenal artwork seen in most of Gaiman's previous graphic novels (which included several adaptations of his short stories),
Neverwhere seems downright bland. If a feature film follows in the same vein as this adaptation, will Gaiman pull an Alan Moore and
refuse all royalties? (Go easy on me; it's my first post.)
posted by Saellys
on Jun 23, 2005 -
32 comments
"Writing a whodunit may sound like an odd thing to do when you are running an insurgency"... Nevertheless,
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, the mysterious, offbeat leader of the
Zapatistas, and
Paco Ignacio Taibo II, a Mexican crime novelist, are coauthoring a mystery novel live--alternating chapters each week--in the pages of the Mexican newspaper,
La Jornada. So far, they have finished chapters
one,
two and
three (pdf) of
Muertos Incomodos, (The Awkward Dead). Is there a precedent for this experiment? I love this sort of thing but, unfortunately, my Spanish is insufficient. Any Spanish speakers care to review?
posted by boo
on Dec 22, 2004 -
13 comments
"
Stone Reader makes you want to pick up a
great novel and consume it in one long gulp. It’s a love letter to literature and literacy, a bibliophile’s dream film, dedicated to the joys of fiction and the passions of those who need books like they need food, water and air."
(The Dallas Morning News)
posted by rushmc
on Aug 13, 2004 -
17 comments
Mathew Branton, an established author is giving away his latest novel "The Tie and The Crest", for free on the internet,
here he explains why. It's all very noble and I applaud it.
While we are on the subject, has anyone mentioned the
Big Read yet?
posted by Fat Buddha
on Apr 13, 2003 -
11 comments
