If you had asked my friends in high school what I was destined to be they wouldn’t have hesitated to anoint me the next Spielberg, the next Lucas. In the late 1970’s there could probably be no greater honor, akin to calling a young golfer today the next Tiger Woods, or tapping a teen hacker [...]
Archive for March, 2008
why i am not a filmmaker
Posted in (not) writing, diversions, dreams, movies, music, the man behind the curtain, tagged bands, film, filmmaking, forty-something, hollywood, late bloomer, midlife crisis, music, music industry, REM, slow learner on March 30, 2008 | 3 Comments »
lame claim to fame
Posted in (not) writing, diversions, the man behind the curtain, tagged alison morris, anniversary, bookstore, children's, fame, party, peter sis, PW, shelftalker on March 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Not that I needed any reminders, but you know you’re nobody when you take up nearly one third of a photo and the only people named are the people on either side of you.
What am I talking about? The Children’s Book Shop’s 30th Anniversary bash a little over a week and a half back, as [...]
the artifice of YA: a crisis of faith
Posted in (not) writing, YA, fiction, genre vs. literature, opinion, process, teen, writing, tagged books, genre, literature, marketing, reading, teens, YA on March 20, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Semesters are like manuscripts for me: the middle is the toughest part to get through. Up to my eyeballs in reading, writing, and revision, I haven’t had as much time as I would like to actually enjoy any of it.
Earlier this week I read two books for review, back to back, that sent crazy [...]
the social experiment
Posted in (not) writing, boys v. girls, essay, opinion, reading, school days, teen, tagged back to basics, boys, experiment, reading, reagan, shop class, teens, tinkering on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Let’s say I was in a position to run a social experiment that involved two groups of boys ages 14 to 16. The experiment would run for five consecutive days. Each of the boys would be placed in a comfortable room that contained an overstuffed chair, a nap-worthy couch, a bean bag chair, [...]
denial is more than a river in egypt
Posted in boys v. girls, fiction, grad skool, middle grade, process, school days, writing, tagged boys, denial, grad school, revision, rewrite, VT, writing on March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today while hunkered down at the library, working over an essay on character definition through omission in a book by Richard Peck, it finally hit me:
I need to start over on my middle grade novel.
Actually, a part of me has known this for a good part of the week. Each day that I sat down [...]
the essence of a story is a joke
Posted in fun, process, writing, tagged aliens, children, joke, kids, mankind, short stoy, stardust memories, storytelling, woddy allen, writing on March 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’m not saying “the essence of a story” is a joke, but that at it’s core, everything necessary to writing a story is contained within a joke. It has a setting, characters, action, dialog, and it ends with a perfect (if unexpected) conclusion and doesn’t linger a moment longer than necessary. It gets in, does [...]
explaining nocturnal emissions & oral copulation
Posted in boys v. girls, dreams, middle grade, observations, teen, tagged Alex Haley's Roots, boys, dances, dating, family, girls, junior high, nocturnal emissions, oral sex, parental hell, random, sex, teens, thoughts, wet dreams on March 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
To my daughters, age nearly 10 and 11.5, because the topic came up over how to deal with boys at school dances who might experience erections while grinding on the dance floor.
This is what the world has come to, so to speak.
I’m remembering how dances were when I was in junior high, when I dared [...]
rebus: books on the craft (-ft) +p of writing
Posted in essay, opinion, process, writing, tagged 10 rules for writers, craft, elmore leonard, john gardner, rust hills, TWI, writing on March 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Update to those finding me via ElmoreLeonard.com: it should be noted that my comment of E.L. being “some genre writer” should have been in quote, or clarified in some way to explain that I was referring to the previous paragraph where I mentioned John Gardner’s elitist view on genre. Just to be clear, Leonard is [...]
of maus and pen
Posted in grad skool, observations, process, writing, tagged drafts, editing, line edits, maus, process, spiegelman, writing on March 1, 2008 | 2 Comments »
My brain likes to worry things, to mull, to take it’s time sorting through the vast card catalogs to find just the right references, sources, ideas. In this instantaneous age the card catalog image is totally appropriate as sometimes things get lodged there for a long time before the right bi-sociative moment comes along. [...]
tweet tweet
- not that i tweet all that much, but i'm going dark for the next few weeks or so. too much to focus on, need to cut the feed... 2 weeks ago
- changing passwords all over the place as my twitter account has been compromised. warning: links may contain very clever phishing sites 2 weeks ago
- who knows a new poetry form? zenos! http://tinyurl.com/yg6rhyw over at julie larios' blog #poetry #poetry friday 2 weeks ago
- what do teens want (in books)? http://tinyurl.com/yls4wb3 interesting: no mention of gender differences. i'd be curious to know @ the boys 2 weeks ago
- suddenly the birds / flock to the lone tree with leaves / storms squelch enmity // #haiku #twitku 2 weeks ago
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