Archive for February, 2008
Defiant Gestures From The Top Of The Ice Floe
by Brian Hodge
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This past January 15th, I was glued to the computer screen more than usual. It’s an annual rite. Every mid-January, Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage at the Macworld Expo and yanks the sheets off all the goodies the rest of us [...]
I don’t know, is what I say
What do you think of this? he wants to know.
This is his concept for a horror novel and he is enthusiastic.
Because I have written horror stories, have led workshops on writing horror, have edited a book dealing with horror, he has come to me.
And then, he shares this with me.
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Earlier, on the morning of this [...]
Teacher, my brain is empty.
I am suffering from post-novel ennui. From malaise. From the disease that afflicts writers after the completion of a book, medical doctors after boards, and graduate students after finishing a dissertation.
Basically, my brain has drained. Somebody pulled the plug. There’s nothing between my ears except dustbunnies and crickets.
This turns out to be a bit of [...]
TO THINE OWN NAKED ASS BE TRUE
(ON THE VIRTUES OF BEING YOURSELF, IN PRINT, NO MATTER WHAT)
By John Skipp
Dear class –
Today, I’m gonna open with a recent blog by one of my favorite writer friends, comedian Rachel Arieff. In it, she sets up the central premise of this month’s zesty exercise:
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Losers and Jerkoffs
I’m currently reading Shit Magnet by Jim Goad. [...]
On the Slushiness of Slush
David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, talked about writing songs in a recent television interview, saying (paraphrasing here) that if you want to write about a dock, you don’t start by describing the dock. It may take a while to get there, but in the meantime you do something to spark the imagination.
Ellen Datlow, [...]
The Bed and the Bathroom (revisited)
Like most of you, I write from my home. There’s no ivory tower, or white-padded room, or tobacco-scented study full of shelves and dark wood. Nope, for me it’s a desk within touching distance of my bed and the master bathroom.The bed–well, it’s uses are numerous and mostly pleasant. The other–not so much. And caught [...]
Pre-Fab Paper Footballs and the Impending Death of Childhood Creativity
Some of the best things about my childhood were the unencumbered expanses of time I was able to devote to making stuff and making stuff up.
When I was about 11, my sisters and I created a room-sized map in our basement out of countless pieces of poster board and cardboard taped together. We spent literally [...]
