An Incredible List of Jobs
“Grocery store sacker, house painter, hay hauler, pulpwood cutter-and-hand loader, fence builder, bricklayer’s helper, carpenter, carpet cleaner man, truck driver, forklift driver, dock worker, firefighter, pine tree planter, timber deadener, surveyor’s helper, plumber, answering service employee.” –Larry Brown This quote was in response to an interview question about the jobs Brown had held over…
continue readingIf We Said This, We’d Just Be Bitter
If you or I said this, we would be considered bitter, frustrated, bitchy aspiring authors. But thanks to this quote, for one brief moment in time, I am actually a Hugh Grant fan. “When I’ve finished it, I’ll send it to an editor, anonymously, in order for it to be judged objectively,” Grant says about…
continue reading14-and-a-Half Pages for the Most Complex Components of Fiction Writing
I’ve been pretty hard on writing/publishing books. Far too many of them are just garbage. And I’ve been pretty vocal about the titles that comprise my Mount Rushmore of writing texts. An interesting new addition to the discussion is Walter Mosley’s This Year You Write Your Novel.
continue readingNYT Coverage of Larry Brown Concert
Back in February, I mentioned plans for a tribute concert for Larry Brown that featured a number of respected musicians playing in the memory of their old friend. The concert was to be part of the Oxford Conference for the Book’s festivities. Yesterday, the New York Times ran this article about the concert and the weekend…
continue readingThe Majesty of the Mundane
In my own fiction, I’ve recently been making a concerted effort to remove absolutely everything that isn’t absolutely necessary. I’ve been looking at my short stories like a race car. Pull out the radio, the air conditioning, the cruise control, the power windows, everything. Get rid of everything that doesn’t contribute to speed. This isn’t…
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