Write about what you love?

I started reading IQ84 by Haruki Murakami recently, and one of the characters is a struggling writer. I am enjoying it quite a lot more than the previous Murakami novel I read, though it has a lot of similarities also. I wonder, though, how many writers write about writers? How many characters in novels are …

How would you describe it?

As a writing exercise, I often try to describe random objects or scenes that I see in my daily life. I don't type them out--just in my mind. But I try to come up with the words to put exactly what I'm looking at right then into someone else's head. How do I get across …

write six billion stories

If you were an immortal, how many stories could you write before you got bored of the whole idea of stories? I can't imagine ever getting tired of making stuff up... but I suppose there must be a limit. Every thing that has ever happened, never happened, can't happen, or must happen--all are stories. How, with …

The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber

What can I say about this book? It was a journey, an adventure, an endeavor. I loved every page of it and was left aching, (I swear I felt a physical ache) for more at the end. Every time I read one of Faber's novels, I say his characters are what make it. And this is …

Reading vs performing

Jeremy Irons' reading of Lolita is really good. I wish more audiobooks would have actors as the narrator, because he is doing way more than just reading the text. It's a performance. Tone is so important, timing, enunciation--all these things can change the meaning of something so drastically.  I would be very picky about how …