Andy's recent posts

Recent public posts (showing 161-180 of 277).

I'm now reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and Aimee Bender stories. These make strange bed mates.

Hey Joy,

I guess I was noticing your comment from #5: "It (the drone) didn't intrude on my thoughts the way a melody might."

I figure if a melody is what hooks us into a song, a plot is what hooks us into a story?

I wonder if we could associate the melody of a song with the plot of a story?

If so, I wonder what kind of story would have no melody? Mood literature? Poetry?

Aw, thanks Candy. The story that's up now is actually an earlier version of the story I initially posted (I don't know why I posted the initial story that was in the present tense, I think the past tense version is stronger though some people actually preferred the present tense version.)

Anyway, thanks for reading it and for your kind comments!

Wow, Joy, I liked your son's music. It's very expressive. That bean is the closest thing to a bird (or a whale song, or a cross between the two). It's funny how different kinds of music come along and make us consider how it resonates with our own experiences. Music can be very mysterious I suppose that way.

Wow, that looks interesting, Joy. I wonder what they do? (I'll probably have to dig more in the web site to find out.)

I posted a short story in the writing section. It's a light bit of entertainment. Give it a read if you have a few minutes!

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3099...

Thanks,

andy

Hi Joy,
I'd like to inform the members of the Glens Falls group that I posted a short story in the writing section of Goodreads. I think the members of the group who like Vonnegut and Cussler might also like this story. My question is, where should I put my post? (Over at constant reader I posted in the short story category.)

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3099...

I'm looking for a writing partner to try out a few ideas. Here's some things we could do:

1. I'm interested in writing loose drafts of short stories. This would be through email. Say five emails each, no more than 100 words each. So we'd be trying to write a short story in less than 1000 words, taking turns.

2. Each of us create a character. Send it to the other. Try to build a story from there.

3. Start with a fragment or an image and try to build a story from there.

4. Take turns writing a 12-chapter mystery. I'm not interested in writing a novel, so I would try to do this one with each chapter being about 100 words (so the "finished" story would be about 1200 words rather than 60,000). I can send you a link to the twelve chapter mystery formula.

5. Find a short story plot we like and try to re-create it in our own way.

6. Metaphorizing. One of us sends a fragment or a series of fragments to the other. Then, the one who receives it tries to build metaphors for the fragments.

7. Series and set pieces. Together we write brief episodes featuring the same characters. Like Looney Tunes. Only different.

8. Do you have anything you'd like to try with a partner?

I think any of these could be valuable exercises in idea generation, characterization, plotting. I'm not looking to take the publishing world by storm with these, I'm mostly interested in process and exercises. And picking your brain.

I'm NOT interested in doing any hard fantasy or sci-fi.... In other words, I'm not interested in undead, were creatures, vampires, elves, etc. That's not my thing. I'm not interested in aliens.

I AM interested in surrealism, magical realism. I'm NOT into strict literary realism.

Here's a link to a story I posted. It's not representative of everything I do, but it will give you an idea of what I'm up to. http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3099...


I'm not interested in having my writing or ideas criticized, and I'm not interested in criticizing anybody else's writing. I think it would be possible, though, to have a separate discussion of where ideas, characters, plots went right or went wrong if we ever get around to creating a story together.

Send me an email if you are interested in playing around with these ideas.

Thanks

andy

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3099...

It's a brief piece of light entertainment. Hopefully. The title is Middle.

Feel free to read it if you have a few minutes. Thanks.

andy

The ex-girlfriend had a startling collection of books about murders, serial killers, and psychotics. Yikes.

She did like to go to sleep to the sound of me reading to her, that was kind of cute. And since I do so like to hear the sound of my own voice, I was always up for it.

The last book we were reading was "For the Thrill of It" which happens to be about a murder that took place in Chicago in the 1920s or so.

Righto. I HAVE been hoping for a "pre-discussion", I will admit. I suppose I can wait until the fifteenth.

haplessness or pomposity or gall...

Robinson sure is fond of those triads separated by "and's" and "or's".

I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm curious as to why the narrator would hope the son doesn't have that appetite for things human. Maybe the better question is what does the author mean by "appetite for things human?"

I'm still recovering from the Roth discussion. Plus I had to bring my copy of the anthology back to the library.

Ah, the quote file again, eh, Joy? I think I need to start my own, it's a great idea.

I agree with Joy, Matt. I think you did a good job of articulating Harris' points in a thoughtful manner.

Religion is always a tricky topic to bring up.

I agree with Harris that extremism can be dangerous. I think, though, that extremism is quite rare in all the world's religions.

Maybe the new administration will be able to create an honest dialog with all the citizens of the world that will ultimately lessen the dangers of all types of extremists?

I would disagree with Harris' assertion that Christian traditions have not grown or evolved through critique. I have been around a couple churches that have progressive, thoughtful, elevated ideals and approaches to spirituality. I don't think they always have. I think they've grown into them along with the changing tides of social thought in this country.

Well I ate up the first fifty pages last night and this morning. I'm really liking this one, like I thought I would. Those first sentences are just so spooky to me. Kind of unsettling. This is a good one to read in a quiet place, it seems to me.

I think the narrator mentions that he was born in 1880 and that he is now in his seventies, so I think you're right that he is writing from the 1950s.

I've noticed some books, literary fiction titles generally, sometimes have a note on the typeface in the back of the book. Sometimes it seems the artist or editor or author involved may find a new or unique font that somehow relates thematically to the story. Either that or one of the people involved knows a person who designs typefaces and wants to give that person some business. In these cases, the time and conversations that go into choosing the typeface theoretically add value to the book, like an author spending a great deal of time on the story itself.

There are many books that are a part of a series, the advantage there is that the publishing company only has to make visual decisions once for the whole series. The design of the book, the font, maybe even the number of pages are already predetermined so no extra time (money) has to go into making those decisions for every individual title.

At the company where I worked, many of our books were not really parts of a formal series, but they were parts of the imprint, which I guess could be considered a kind of informal series. The books in the imprint (essentially a brand) were all created with a particular audience in mind, they were all structurally very similar, topically very similar, etc. In general, the designers would create a few different mock-ups of the book's design, then would sit down with editors and discuss things like readability, esthetic appeal, thematic cohesiveness, etc. Sometimes the designers would feel inspired or have some extra time on their hands and try to angle for a really out-there font, especially if there was something unique about the author's presentational style, the designer might try to come up with a font that complemented the content, but of course all those decisions had to be approved by the department's managing editor, and then there would be an awkward dance with the author about the font and design, etc.

As far as the title typeface, where I worked, the front and back covers were actually owned by the marketing department. Meaning the editors and designers had plenty of input and did essentially all the legwork (giving input on rough ideas, arranging photography, designing mock ups) but the marketing department ultimately signed off on what the cover would be. And that includes the font for the title. It was always a goal to try to get the cover to cohere esthetically to the inside of the book, but that doesn't always happen. And since the marketing department had final approval of the covers, the awkwardness between editorial and author got especially dicey around covers, because the author would inevitably hate the cover (and even the title itself, which was also signed off by marketing) but there was all kinds of bureaucracy and politics involved in making changes, etc. All was further complicated by the fact that the covers had to be created at least six months ahead of the rest of the book in order for the catalogs to be printed and the marketing materials prepared and postings to go up on amazon for pre-orders etc.

I'm going to start Gilead as soon as I'm done here.

I'm also two stories into the short story collection of Aimee Bender. I liked the first two and I think I will like the rest. Should be interesting to read them in counterpoint to Gilead.