A hole in my memory September 29, 2008

As I noted in a recent post, the hard drive in my laptop failed last week. The computer is less than a year old — it’s a MacBook, and I can’t imagine how anyone could write in a Windows environment, but that’s a discussion for a different day — and it is under warranty. The [...]

Telling, not showing September 26, 2008

Regarding the opening passage in the short story “Dulse” by Alice Munro, in which we are introduced to Lydia, who is the protagonist, Francine Prose writes the following:
Finally, the passage contradicts a form of bad advice often given young writers–namely, that the job of the author is to show, not tell. Needless to say, many [...]

Explorers of the New Century September 24, 2008

I first learned of this novel by Magnus Mills on David Long’s website. It was included in Long’s too-short list of novels about worlds skewed just a little bit from our own. I love these kinds of stories, so I was eager to give Explorers of the New Century a careful reading.
The plot (and this [...]

Troubled Sleep September 21, 2008

I’ve had a hard drive crash, and most of my novel, The Sleep of Reason, is currently trapped within it. I continue to make notes and work on the synopsis of the next chapter, but the last back up I did was — shamefully — about two chapters ago.
The computer is currently in the hospital, [...]

Plato’s cave September 20, 2008

Or Plato’s Multiplex. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is about how we can know the world around us, and, if you buy into Plato’s metaphysics, how we can know the ideal world of forms that is not around us. Essentially, Plato believed that all that we see in the real world is nothing more than [...]

Death of a Mystery Writer September 16, 2008

Someone told me I just had to read this short murder mystery novel by Robert Barnard. I’m always nervous with recommendations like this because as readers we all have different tastes, different goals for reading. What captivates one won’t necessarily make sense to another. And if someone is so strongly captivated by some quality in [...]

Pencil work September 15, 2008

I am pleased with my progress on my novel The Sleep of Reason. (The title, by the way, is a reference to Francisco de Goya’s famous etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. This work will actually play a role late in the story.)
I believe I am at the halfway point of the story (though [...]

Chapter 7 put to bed September 14, 2008

Finally, after much longer than I had expected, I have finished Chapter Seven of The Sleep of Reason. It is an important chapter, a sort of linchpin for the whole story. It explains a lot of back story and does a huge amount of foreshadowing (which I hope I have done subtly), so it was [...]

Reading Like a Writer September 13, 2008

A lawyer friend once confessed to me that she indulges in reading historical romances but feels guilty about it. She had been taught as a lawyer that if she has any free time (apparently a foreign concept in the profession), she is supposed to be “reading the law.” She is supposed to be as fully [...]

Sleep creeps September 8, 2008

I continue to make progress on Chapter Seven of The Sleep of Reason, though it is coming at a much slower pace than the frenzied composition of earlier chapters. I’m not much bothered by this. Not only is this an important chapter that collects all that came before and then casts it forward into the [...]