Charlie Brooker on Writing Advice

Forget those creative writing workshops. If you want to write, get threatened. And don't ask me for advice. I'd prefer you to never achieve anything. Ever.

The Red Pyramid ***

*** The Red Pyramid, Rick Riordan, 2010

It's unusual for me to read a book in the year it was released. I usually put off buying them to assuage my guilt for buying yet another book when there are 20+ unread books on my To Be Read shelf. I got this in the year it was published because The Woman brought it home from somewhere.

As you can note here, here, here and here, I'm a big Riordan fan, mainly of his Tres Navarre detective stories, but also of his YA novels. The Red Pyramid is basically Percy Jackson, but using Egyptian gods instead of Greek gods. But even when Riordan is doing a "second verse same as the first" gig, the writing remains top notch.

Sh*t My Dad Says ***

*** Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern, 2010

As Head Trickster, I feel compelled to mention that StupidInternetTricks.com was one of the early followers of Halpern's Twitter feed about his dad's aphorism, getting in during the first month at around follower number 219,473. He's now up to 1.5+ million followers, a #1 NYT Bestseller book (released four months ago), and an upcoming TV show on CBS staring William Shatner as the senior Halpern. Not sure how they're going to keep it authentic and within FCC guidelines at the same time.

Regarding the book, it's funny as hell and well worth the $9 at Costco. I read it in one afternoon. Lasted three times as long as a movie at the same price. Halpern senior may have a potty mouth (actually, there's no question, he definitely has a potty mouth, the book is marbled with profanity like a good steak) but is also a font of practical wisdom and human decency.

Here's an interesting site, songs the senior Halpern likes and the reasons why.

Revision & Self-Editing ***

*** Revision & Self-Editing, James Scott Bell, 2008

I've been stockpiling books on writing for a while and now I'm working through them. Bell knows about writing. Not only does he have a couple of dozen books out, but he took over Lawrence Block's column in Writer's Digest and has done three books on writing for Writer's Digest. I've already read The Art of War for Writers and am currently working on Plot & Structure.

This book is a great tool. It has two sections, self-editing and revisions. Last month I used the last chapter - The Ultimate Revision Checklist - as I worked on draft three of my current project, Endless Vacation. Very helpful.

This is sort of what it's like

Writing a Novel: A love story by Libba Bray.

Out Stealing Horses ***

*** Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson, 2003

I received three novels in the mail from The Learned One for my edification. They went into the (alarmingly) growing To Be Read shelf. I started this one since it was a slim volume at 238 pages. It was on the New York Times Book Review Best 10 Books of the Year list.

It is decidedly literary, meaning very well written, heavy on character, voice and sense of place and light on plot. The Learned One said the feel was reminiscent of the Fred Books. That's quite a compliment and I'll take his word for it.

Speaking of the Fred Books, they are officially out of print, but signed copies are still available through SignedByTheAuthor.com.

Kanye tweets as New Yorker cartoon captions

Not sure who thought of this, but it's PDF (pretty dang funny).

A taste of Bradbury

Here's a tasty snippet of an interview with Ray Bradbury, one of my seminal influences.

Passage **

** Passage, Connie Willis, 2001

It is with a heavy heart that I give this book two stars, having been so taken with To Say Nothing of the Dog. I was prepared to like this book, expected to like it. But pretty much all it had going for it was a very clever premise. At 780 pages, it is at least 400 pages too long, if not 500.

It's kind of like this. What if someone wrote a book in which:

The first 250 pages describe someone trying to remember where she put her car keys, and then when she finally figures it out, the next 300 pages describe her trying to remember why she wanted the car keys. Mixed in with all this are hundreds of trivial details irrelvant to the stakes of the story, many of which are cyclical or maddeningly repetitious events.

Then 20 pages of frantic attempts to locate a person to tell him why she wanted the keys, with a rehash of all the distractions and dead ends that have been going on for 550 pages, culminating in a shocking event that seems like it should end the book, but on a completely unsatisfying note. But it doesn't end. There are still 220 pages to go, enough to make a decent, if small, novel.

And what happens in the last 220 pages? The second person tries to reconstruct the movements/ideas the first person did/thought during the middle 300 pages in an effort to figure out why she wanted the car keys.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Exactly.

Writing on the Air

Occasionally I am a guest on a program called Writing on the Air on local radio station, KOOP. (Listen at 91.7 FM or koop.org.) I'll be on tomorrow, Wed 7/28/2010 from 6-7pm CDT, reading excerpts from some works in progress and talking about writing stuff, in general.

I also discovered they have my last appearance in the archives. Also, I sat in on Daniel's appearance on Jul 7.