Waiting

For a blog post - well, it is the season of Advent, so can I use that as an excuse?

Truthfully, life ramped up recently with me taking on a half-time job as a grpahic designer. Yeah, a real job, like a go to work and leave the house and everything.

The good news is I quite like the work, and the people are great. The not-so-good news is the hit that writing fiction took (evident by the preceding horrible sentence).

Things are simmering down, though. And I find myself on the cusp of diving back into a rewrite of the current novel.

Felt like I should post something, anything, a thing - while I am waiting. Looking at Feb. (optimistically) for a rewrite.

Reading King's new book on time travel (11-22-63), and just finished A Canticle for Leibowitz. Going to attack the bedside stack over the holidaze.

Yet another war book

A recent bookclub read was Generals Die in Bed. We've done a few on WW1 (I don't think we've ever read one on WW2), and it is interesting to compare this book to the others.

GDIB was written shortly after the war ended, and the author was in the trenches - so this makes the graphic violence all the more visceral. Towards the end I had to skim a few sections as my stomach was doing flips. I am squeamish about those sorts of things (one of the reasons I don't read much Chuck Pahalinuk). Now, you'd think this being written in the late 20's early 30's, the prose would be restrained, you know fade to black, some gunshots off stage and a few "arrgs" - but damn, this stuff is direct. I've read that it was released as a YA (young adult) book about ten years ago. The anti-war message is strong - hard to believe some of it wasn't censored during its time - but I do wonder what teenagers raised with the background of Iraq, and even Viet Nam, think of the storytelling.

Comparing it to books like Three Day Road, or Birds Without Wings, the writing is much plainer - and somehow that increases the impact.

A confirmation - as we approach Remembrance Day - that war was, and still is, hell.

19th Wife

Great book.

Reading it now.

You should do the same.

Re-writting... um, righting,... uh, writing.

Okay, probably left old Bob and Neil up there too long - though you know, Dylan was in the running for the nobel (!)

Starting re-write mode again. Someone asked me today, sheesh, how many times do you need to rewrite things?

Well, I guess until you get ir right - or more importantly, when someone else thinks you got it right. I don't think I rewrite as much as some writers, my first drafts are usually fairly well formed (but that doesn't mean they can't be crappy at the same time). But I do wonder when writers talk about the absolute shite of their first draft, and how much work it took to get it into any sort of shape. Maybe I am breaking the writer's code (is there one of those? There probably should be) - but I am thinking if your first draft is that bad, maybe you need to do some more thinking, or at least write slower.

Just saying.

Bob Dylan and Neil revisited

I have learned, through the wonder of Squarespace stats, that I get more hits for my post about Bob Dylan coming to Winnipeg and paying a visit to Neil Young's childhood home than any other post... ever.

This gets me thinking (Bob), if maybe I should just keep (Dylan) mentioning those names (Neil) in other posts (Bob Young) and see if the traffic (Young Bob) increases (Dylyoung).

Nah, probably not, right?

(Dylan)

(oh, better add a picture, too).

Um, and while you are here, Dylan-Young fan, take a look around.