Friday, May 17, 2013
by Neil Fein
Editors make the text flow well, we chop out inconsistencies. When you hand a manuscript to an editor, the process can seem like a bit of a black box: Words go in, slightly smoothed-over words come out. When you send a manuscript to a freelance editor, it may seem like you’re throwing your book into the void.
The reality is a bit dull. We sit there and read the words. We think about them, and make suggestions. We do this for hours and hours and hours until we’re immersed in the world of your book. The rest is just details. Do we read the book once through slowly, or make multiple passes on the text? Do we want the book in one giant Word file, or a bunch of little ones? read more »
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Wednesday, May 15, 2013
by kathronan1
This column was written by Kathleen Ronan, and is a response to a post in the New York Times’ Opinionater blog.
It didn’t take me more than the first two paragraphs of I Am Not This Body for me to feel both repelled by and compelled. Its title in the New York Times’ Opinionator blog had intrigued me, and I clicked it open anticipating musing on the philosophical, the existential, the spiritual. Instead, I read on compelled by that sense of horrified fascination one feels at a traffic accident. By the time I reached the midpoint of Brian J. Stanley’s popular essay, I felt a feminist rant coming on strong. To me, this was blatantly the writing of a man in a man’s world. Had I been reading a print newspaper I’d have hurled it down in disgust while preaching loudly to the dog. Tablets are a little too pricey for that. But the dog is female, too–so she can relate. read more »
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Monday, May 13, 2013
by Steven E.A.
My students call me a fashion terrorist, but I’d like to disagree. Open up my wardrobe and you’ll see primarily earth tones. I’m huge fan of navy blue, brown, and gray. I know what I like, and I stick to it. Am I fashionable to others? Probably not. But I’d much rather feel comfortable in what I’ve picked out than what a magazine tells me would properly accent my eye color. The same goes for most other things in my life, too. I like a wide array of music: hip-hop, dubstep, instrumental, folk, indie, and even 90s music if I’m feeling nasty. I love everything Stanley Kubrick touched. Kathleen Graber is my favorite poet. Deadpool is my favorite comic book character. All of these come together to form a rich amalgamation of Steven soup, and, since I’m an aspiring writer, these influences come out in my writing. And just like everything else, I know what I like when it comes to my writing, but in this instance, it definitely matters what others think. Writing can’t be just what its author likes. It has to be more. read more »
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Friday, May 10, 2013
by Julie Goldberg
I began reading when I was four years old and haven’t stopped since.
Immersive reading was my drug through an unhappy childhood and adolescence, with all the desperate need and avoidance of unpleasant reality that addiction entails. Books damaged my eyes rather than my liver, but they gave far more than they took. I lived more in books than in my hometown. I mainlined stories and characters and other lands, other realities.
There are worse ways to shut out the world. read more »
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Wednesday, May 8, 2013
by lexiconia
Let me tell you a story from two years ago, a story that few people outside my family know.It’s probably two or three in the morning–I’m not sure, and I don’t really care at this point. It’s my turn for bedside duty while the rest of the family gets some much-needed rest. I’m watching the monitors above the hospital bed as they peak with each heartbeat. They cast a faint glow over the mostly-darkened Intensive Care Unit, where my dad lies sleeping after emergency surgery. It’s a restless sleep, one where he awakens every ten minutes or so to shift position. Except that he’s so weak, I need to physically roll him from side to side. Feeling his arms and legs cold and limp under my hands, there’s no doubt that he’s a long way from the dad who was lifting weights and cycling intensively just a day or two ago.
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Monday, May 6, 2013
by Steven E.A.
I’ve not often considered myself a fan of Hemingway, but a few years ago I decided to give The Old Man and the Sea a try. It wasn’t especially exciting, but it did evoke nostalgic memories from my childhood of fishing on lazy summer afternoons with my father. Shortly after finishing, I sat down at my computer to write a short story that harkened to those memories, but fast forward about two years and a 117,000 word novel has now sprouted from my fingertips. It’s the novel I’ve wanted to write for years. As I look over some of my old work, I see influences rooted throughout. But now that I have finished a readable draft, I’m plagued by the question, Is it any good at all? read more »
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Friday, May 3, 2013
by Neil Fein
Whether the narrator is the voice of the author or a character telling us the tale in first-person, your narrator is a character in your story. And omniscient, all-knowing narrators shouldn’t be all-knowing; it makes them bland. Limiting what the narrator knows is an effective way to make a book seem more relatable and realistic.
Viewpoint is a slippery thing. When you’re using first person–as I’m doing right now–what the narrator should know is easy to figure out: The narrator knows exactly what the main character does. But when you’re using third-person, that narrator can know anything at all, and things get a little trickier. read more »
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Wednesday, May 1, 2013
by lexiconia
Growing up in a first world country, I had the usual collection of Polly Pockets and Barbie dolls that most little girls are given at one point or another in their childhood. The Polly Pockets came with little clamshell worlds, while the Barbies had a large wardrobe for the (non-)discerning fashionista-to-be.
But despite these toys, my favourite way of passing the time was playing with the magnets on the fridge. read more »
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Monday, April 29, 2013
by Steven E.A.
I sat crouched over Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, so enveloped by the story that I could hear the sounds of the jungle. The story became real and visceral to me, so much so that to this day I’m still haunted by the images I read. I was in sixth grade and back then it took only a few sentences for a novel to hook me. After that, the world materialized in my mind and reading was almost like a film being projected in my brain. Just as the dilophosaurus was about to attack, my study hall teacher made a rather loud announcement that caught me so off guard I jumped out of my chair and nearly fell to the ground. She looked at me and said, “Are we okay, Mr. Athay?” I nodded to stave off further embarrassment. In middle school I devoured books. I read nearly all of Crichton’s novels, then moved on to Mary Higgins Clark, Christopher Pike, Dixon’s Hardy Boys books, as well as R.L. Stine’s high-school-centric Fear Street series. My love of books followed me into college and I declared myself an English major, but here’s where the story takes an unexpected turn. Throughout high school, my recreational reading slowed and by the time I’d gotten into college, it was essentially nonexistent. Further, and perhaps my most grievous literary crime according to my wife, after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in literature, I’ve read nearly no classics. read more »
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Friday, April 26, 2013
by Neil Fein
Ambiguity can be the enemy of comprehension, but artistry can override this. The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey is a great example of this. Depending on who you ask, 2001 is either an ambitious piece of cinema or a dull, incomprehensible film. Critical analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s space-age epic will often come up with creative solutions to fill in missing data. Theories abound as to what this briefest sketch of a story is actually about. What is the monolith, exactly? Is the glowing star-child in the final scene meant to be the next step in humanity’s evolution? Why did HAL murder the astronauts? read more »
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