Up till now I had relied as an actor on my small store of sophistication and assurance, and had got nowhere. Only now when I was making use of the most vulnerable and naked aspects of myself had I come up with something of real value. I began to see that notwithstanding its occasional triumphs, its conspicuously public success, there was at the heart of an actor's life an aspect of public confession, something perplexed and even grieving.
-Michael Blakemore, Arguments with England: A Memoir (courtesy of Chris Hartman)
Recently, a young aspiring writer I know asked me if I would critique a story he'd written. Now, this is always a little dangerous, because you always run the risk of either giving too much or too little advice to be useful. When does a brilliantly crafted sentence lift the story above the banal, and when does it drag the pace into the mud? Care less about what we write than how we write it. The more you learn, the more choices you have Choices: The way to tell a story
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Start a scene late and end it early
Panic after a first successful novel is perfectly natural, but what if it never passes?
Second-novel syndrome (SNS), the so-called performance anxiety writers undergo after a first-up success, is as old as the novel itself.
Cervantes was so stricken by the miserable prospect of life after Don Quixote that he just kept writing his novel, so that Don Quixote is, in effect, his first, second and third novels (and fourth and diary and commentary and notebook). Keen-eyed literary historians will note that Cervantes had published an earlier book, La Galatea, 20 years before Don Quixote - which only underscores the point. If first novels are the golden children, second novels are the little monsters.
• I would be wrong, of course, wrong, wrong, wrong to write a second book on Parliament ... Lost for words [The Odyssey is the most wonderful fairytale ever written. In its world, you get something for something, rewarded for your love, your faith, your steadfastness I first set foot on the island of Ithaca by swimming ashore ; Henry Green, the last English Modernist]
• · It’s slangy, funny, and packed with life and color. So why is spicy Cantonese losing out to the more mellow, proper speech of Mandarin? Some things are just wrong on every level ; Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed the following scream everywhere this week: Awww... It’s so cute! Beauty can be raw, majestic, hard, and even brutal. Cuteness is common, direct, sweet, and cheap. No wonder advertisers love it... The Cute Factor ; Communism was good for art in East Germany, warding off Joseph Beuys, et al. That New Leipzig School artists can actually paint explains why they are art’s hottest new thing The New Leipzig School
• · · With poetry and literature we deny the economics of cultural value in order to preserve the aesthetics. In so doing, says Louis Menand, we kid ourselves. Shock of recognition ; Will you commit to write a piece (a poem, prayer, article, story, song, or letter) about some aspect of peacemaking, from inner peace to world peace, and share it with others before December 31, 2006? Piece for Peace
• · · · Can a book work "too well"? ; Culture Vulture, the arts-weblog at The Guardian, has launched an admirable bi-weekly literary tour All around the world ; In search of new literary faces; The ultimate lesson of The Producers, as any stand-up confirm will confirm, is that a joke is like milk in tea. Fresh, cold and in the right dollop, it suffuses you with comfort and warmth. Long-life, or a drop too many, and it puckers the lips and sours the mood. Publishers toss Booker winners into the reject pile
• · · · · The Smoking Gun went looking for some mug shots of A MILLION LITTLE PIECES author James Frey, which turned into an extensive examination of his account of his years as a drug addict, alcoholic and criminal A Man Who Conned Oprah: Dirty Little Secret ; Lawyers and Frey
• · · · · · History provides challenging lessons for those comforted by old ideas ... Smart readers believe only half of what they read. Wise readers know which half to believe. Reds weren't the only Cold War criminals ; Get Rich or Die Tryin’ Pssst. Got any hot books ? ; Members of "the gentler sex" may have evolved to cheat on their mates during the most fertile part of their cycle — but only when those mates are less sexually attractive than other men Near Ovulation