February 2010
55 posts
Play
“Apparently an H-bomb went off, but everyone survived INCLUDING the woman who detonated it from 1 foot away. There are ghosts. Some ghosts are good, some are bad. A guy named Jake leads a gang of protagonists. The protagonist gang prioritized saving a blonde woman over an Indian man (just sayin’) and both died. A guy named Richard leads a rival gang to the Jake Gang (it’s like Twilight! omgz!). Both those gangs pale in comparison to the pretentious Asian gang by the temple. There is a monster on the island (other than the pretentious asian. ZING!) that is really just the sad raincloud that follows you around on bad days.”
—The Final Season of LOST as Seen by Someone Who Has Never Seen LOST
Play
Play
Play
“
6. Live life and write about life. Of the making of many books there is indeed no end, but there are more than enough books about books.
7. By the same token remember how much time people spend watching TV. If you’re writing a novel with a contemporary setting there need to be long passages where nothing happens save for TV watching: “Later, George watched Grand Designs while eating HobNobs. Later still he watched the shopping channel for a while …”
[…]
10. Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, shouting very loudly to yourself while drinking a bottle of white wine. Then masturbate under the desk. The following day you will feel a deep and cohering sense of embarrassment.
” —Will Self, again from 10 Rules for Writing Fiction. [Note to self: read some books by Will Self]
Play
“
7. Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
8. You can also do all that with whiskey.
Play
Play
