Carolyn's Blog

Friday, April 27, 2007

Apologies to Michael Chabon, but this made my day

From Pub lunch. I adore Chabon's writing. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was a fantastic book. So, if he struggles and overwrites and needs to rework, then by golly, there's hope for me. I should be so talented, but still. I can't help thinking that the real writers, writers like Chabon, never overwrite or mis-assess their work or every go awry. I bet this book when it comes out will totally rock. I can't wait!

Editing Chabon
Today's WSJ looks at the editing process for Michael Chabon's forthcoming YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION. An on-sale date was set by the end of the 2005 until "his editor slammed on the brakes." Chabon says, "I shudder now when I think that I would have published the old draft." With guidance from Harper's Courtney Hodell, Chabon "spent about eight months reworking the entire book." She tells the Journal, "He's a writer of terrific extravagance in the language but great subtlety on the emotional side. A lot of what I was doing was coaxing him to come a little closer to the reader." Chabon admits, "I do overwrite. And this book needed a lot of chopping."

Labels: craft, Writers, writing

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Just a Moment

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Ezra Pound

It's still National Poetry Month. And yeah, the more I read about Ezra Pound the more I disliked him as a person. His personal politics were distasteful to say the least. But, boy, could he write poetry. I love this poem. But I like H.D. better just on principle.

In non-poetic news, today has been a wash. I had to meet with my prof and didn't get home from that until 5:30. It was also my son's open house, so we left for that at 6:30 after I made him get his own soup for dinner while I answered an email from a high school student who's got some questions about writing and writers. Got home from the open house about 7:45. Get the kid to bed etc, and I'm only now sitting down to write. Or not. Because, of course, I'm doing this instead.

Tomorrow is Friday (yay!) and the beginning of my week off to finish the Master's degree project.

Labels: Poetry, Writers

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Saturday, January 20, 2007

The 800 Club

This is my 800th post. I haven't been as prolific a blogger as some considering I started this in 2001, but gosh! It's fun.

This is a post worth reading: Elmore Leonard's blog. I wish he posted more about himself, but this is quite poignant. Sounds like his sister was a major influence in his life, and it sounds like he was a lucky man, too.

I've solved the bookmark request entry. Indeed, I showed up on some freebie websites, two of which are in Italy. That explains all the requests from Italy.

In other news, I fixed my form mail problem. Hopefully the spam doesn't start up again. I shouldn't have left it broken for so long. I still have a headache, darn it, so I caught up on my favorite blogs, fixed my webmail form, and checkout out my site statistics. Sharply up, as I figured would be the case since I have a release. And, it means that the rash of newsletter sign ups are not so coincidental to the bookmark thing, which is nice to know.

Labels: futzing around, Writers

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