Ernest Hemingway
November 23, 2009
- I find myself one week away from talking to an auditorium full of people on "The Pursuit of Truth in Fiction." I was kindly invited by Santa Monica College to talk about and read my work as part of its literary series. I said, "I'd love to," and days later when I was asked "What is the title of your lecture?" I thought to myself, "Lecture?"The first ...
- Continue Reading » 8 Comments
October 31, 2009
- If Hemingway were here today___wrote this last night in my journal while eating a triple choclate donut and drinking black coffee. Hmmmm! Really that line sums it up for me: sport, passion and patience__all can be referenced to the details of Hemingway's life.Think about it. If you don't have a sport to lose yourself in when your not writing, your dead as a writer period. No time now for ...
- Continue Reading » 0 Comments
October 17, 2009
- We seem to have a hunger and an overwhelming need for images of heroes who endure pain and suffering, be they warriors, saints, or artists . . . and we are compelled to turn them into icons. Think of Vincent Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, and Saint Francis of Assisi. Living as I do in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I am reminded of the suffering of Frida Kahlo almost daily. It's impossible to avoid ...
- Continue Reading » 0 Comments
July 29, 2009
- The verdict: I thoroughly enjoyed rereading Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast," which I think is a great book, but the "restored edition" just published doesn't add much of anything to the experience.The changes to the original book are relatively minor, and the additions don't bring much of value. The whole exercise, performed by Hemingway's grandson, seems to be a poor ...
- Continue Reading » 1 Comment
July 27, 2009
- I don't reread books very often. There are so many good and important ones to read that I find it hard to justify rereading something, even if it's really great. I seem to make one exception to this rule, though, and that is Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast." A "restored edition" of the book has just been published, prompting me to take up the book yet again and perhaps ...
- Continue Reading » 1 Comment
July 21, 2009
- I was just chatting by email with my incredibly hilarious and talented friend Sean, who isn’t a huge fan of his first drafts. I totally get that. I, too, hate at least the first five drafts of anything I write. (However, I have to say that Sean’s first drafts are always a lot better than mine, so he really shouldn’t be complaining.)Revision is a necessary evil in the writing process. In ...
- Continue Reading » 0 Comments
May 15, 2009
- Ooh, after the week I've had with babysitter woes, I have really been looking forward to my Friday post where I get to let my hair down, sit back, and ponder the inane, quirky habits of that ecelectic species, writer.This week's spotlight gelled for me in a dream last night. I haven't had the best luck with working things out in the subconscious before, but man, last night, the stars must have ...
- Continue Reading » 0 Comments
May 9, 2009
- In spite of self-publishing gaining more respectability, there are still those who feel it is a waste of money for authors to go that route. Just this week alone I have come across a couple of cynics who believe that struggling writers are foolish and being taken advantage of by this type of publishing. I've stated in past articles that I was once one of these critics, but times have changed ...
- Continue Reading » 2 Comments
April 24, 2009
- Rousseau cautioned in his writings that the way to true happiness was to walk the middle path, virtu, not too much of one or the other. I wonder sometimes if his advice was self-directed. I mean, he was a writer and a philosopher, the double whammy. The likelihood of falling down Alice's rabbithole for forever and ever is pretty big. Did he know that? Is that why he tried to warn all future ...
- Continue Reading » 2 Comments
January 18, 2009
- At a party the other night, I overheard a female book editor talk to a male author. Both are my friends. He told her that he wrote fiction. "What category?" she asked. "Mainstream books," he said. "Chick lit?" she said, astonished."No," he said, "Just good stories, general reading.""Literary, you mean?" she ...
- Continue Reading » 4 Comments
