A writer's cure for writer's block

There's a little thing I do when I can't write: When I'm feeling sleepy, when my head is in a fog, I reach across my desk, digging under the piles of unanswered mail, to unearth my copy of Herzog by Saul Bellow. And then I open the book — anywhere— and read a paragraph.

From Jeffrey Eugenides on NPR 

hey, so anyway...

this is going on this week:
pilcrow lit fest (the calendar!)

Justifying the life of fiction writers...

From novels to storytelling to television, fiction has a place in everyone's lives. For those of us who read and write for pleasure, we argue that we are educated, entertained and connected through works of fiction. But "The Evolutionary Argument for Dr. Seuss" on Salon highlights how important fiction is. 

From the article: The latest and most intriguing effort to understand fiction is often called Darwinian literary criticism, although Brian Boyd, an English professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and the author of "On the Origin of Stories," a new book offering an overview and defense of the field, prefers the term "evocriticism."

I have a hard time tying evolutionary biology into enjoyment of fiction. But part of me loves the idea that there's a scientific way to prove that writing, reading, watching tv, enjoying movies, etc. is good for us as individuals, good for society and good for the human race. It's a nice thought.  

Oprah's apology

Does James Frey deserve an apology? If Oprah says so, it must be true. 

 

 

(e)Book review

I keep asking about that damn Kindle, and somebody over at NewPages went and did a nice little review. Yes, I've read some of the other reviews, but I felt like this one was a good representation from a true reader's standpoint (not just a recap of its features and flaws). 

  

Need some feedback on...

Summer plans? MFA programs? Online workshops? There are lots of good discussions about all these topics over at the Creative Writing MFA Handbook Blog. 

Ditch work, come home early

... That's the title of this poem on Juked. It does make me want to go home early, bake bread and, well, go read it yourself. 

Thief! Thief!

I'm a bit late to this piece written in 2007, but my brother just tipped me off to a great article in Harper's: The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism. A great meditation on the ways that plagiarism is pervasive in creative works (music, poetry, literature). 

And if you're intrigued by the intro--in which we learn that the original story Lolita was written in 1918, and not by Nabokov--I've found a translation online here. 

Miscellany.

Relatively new blog I like: Schott's Vocab: A Miscellany of Modern Words and Phrases. 

I <3 short stories

Now I know that I'm not the only one in America who likes to read short stories. It turns out AO Scott (film critic at the New York Times) is pulling for a return to the form. See: In Praise of the American Short Story. To me, there are few things more satisfying to read than a bit of Flannery O'Connor, Roald Dahl or some short Hemingway. They show just how powerful a few pages can be. 

Some of my faves:

A Good Man Is Hard To Find (O'Connor) 

Royal Jelly (Dahl) 

Hills Like White Elephants (Hemingway)

BONUS PICKS: 

Big Blonde (Dorothy Parker)

Welcome to the Monkeyhouse (Kurt Vonnegut)

I'm taking recommendations, if you want to drop anything in the comments.