After my brief detour through Charles Bukowski‘s Pulp
In science news, Jupiter’s moon Europa is believed to have shallow subsurface lakes that connect to the deeper moon-wide ocean. Hard sci-fi writers … On your mark! Get set!
On the writing front: Continue reading
BEST LINE OF THE DAY (from The Rejectionist’s review of Anonymous): “I find complaining about scholarly inaccuracy in a Roland Emmerich film to be analogous to expressing displeasure that Transformers does not correctly represent the mechanics of the internal combustion engine.”
“Spanish Blood,” a short story from The Simple Art Of Murder anthology by Raymond Chandler.
“Habeas corpus,” an ironically titled essay on the non-necessity of murder in crime fiction, by Lynne Patrick at Hey There’s a Dead Guy In The Living Room. And, in the same vein, I’m catching up on the shenanigans at Slushpile Hell.
A science piece at the New York Times about how causing senescent cells to self-destruct could prevent many of the symptoms of aging. Sounds like forced retirement for the microscopic set!
Despite a few persistent voices decrying NaNoWriMo as an insincere stunt that overwhelming results in unreadable dreck, the yearly binge-writing contests inspires armies of cheerleaders who vociferously chant out its virtues … and drown out its critics.
But, I am skeptical of how sincere (or, at least, how well-thought-through) these paeans to the month really are.
Tin House publishing has kicked off a mini-controversy with their plan to accept manuscript submissions from writers who can prove they’ve recently bought a book.
As Anne Trubek of Good puts it: “What we have is a glut of people who want to be writers, who do not buy the consumer products of the industry they are seeking to join.” Continue reading
I realize this is not going to be a popular sentiment on the eve of National Novel Writing Month, but I find the entire enterprise misguided and detrimental to both the art and business of fiction writing.
