The short story: alive, but not well.

The short story is alive! But not well. At least according to Stephen King, who offers his frank opinion on the matter in today’s New York Times.
It is a rousing kind of piece. You go Stephen King! is what I thought while I was reading it. For example, he throws in a dig at the [...]

I am out of practice.

This morning I got up an hour early, in order to write my two pages.
Ok, so I pressed snooze once. I was 12 minutes late getting up. Then I had to check on the bird and move him somewhere where Howie wouldn’t be able to reach him. Then I had to make some coffee, and [...]

I found a bird.

On the way home from the dog park. I almost walked right past it. Howie and I were strolling along, and on my left, on a fencepost, was a green and yellow parakeet. It took a moment for my brain to understand. I thought, oh, look, there’s a parakeet. Then I thought, Oh! There’s a [...]

Two pages = sanity, progress, and maybe even books.

I was out with my friend and co-worker the other night, and we spent a fair amount of time airing our frustrations about our lack of time for writing.
Things that are in the way:
-sleeping!
-the need to exercise
-a dog that needs walking (in my case)
-a young child (in her case)
-some hope of spending a few moments [...]

Take that, Oprah.

The WSJ has an interesting article about how Harper Collins will publish James Frey’s next book in 2008.
The scandal-plagued guy that had a run-in with Oprah on national TV? Yep, he can still get stuff published.

a cappuccino-soaked, meticulously-crafted list

I’m not usually much for memes, but this one felt like a challenge, and  I’m up for that. (via Litlove)
List some of your favorite words:
ineluctable, luminescent, snarky, meticulous, snarl, cartography, nefarious, hibachi, discombobulated, moxie, savvy, aardvark.
I tend to like the rhythm of hyphenated adjectives, too: cappuccino-soaked, travel-related, half-baked, mind-numbing.
What’s your favorite maxim or proverb?
I get [...]

lit classes for the people

I was browsing iTunes the other night and noticed that they are now offering “iTunes U” — podcasts of lectures, events, speeches and so on. You can “take” literature courses at various schools, and there are some universities that have recorded author readings. You can listen to a course on the nature of creativity at [...]

Someday, maybe I’ll have a bench named after me.

The other night my friend asked me if I get nervous before doing interviews.
It is possible that there’s no understatement that’s more understated than this one: I get nervous before interviews.* My anxiety before meeting someone I don’t know spikes beyond the clouds, the sun, beyond nebulae in distant galaxies. Um, yeah. It spikes. Stratospherically. [...]

Grad school? What grad school?

One of my friends from grad school just moved here from Boston. Last night we went out for drinks…I had not seen her for nearly a year. We each caught up on what the other was up to, people we both knew from school and … then we both said something to the effect of [...]

No more Word

This writing software looks really helpful. I kind of wish I had it when I was working on my thesis.