Jonathan Ball's Blog, page 77
July 12, 2011
Slave Lake Library
Donated some books to Slave Lake Library today — you should too, they need books or money, and if books then new/recently published books. More info here. Slave Lake lost about 40% of the town due to fire.
July 11, 2011
July 10, 2011
Rewriting and rewriting
Trying to move through a draft of this manuscript, rewriting and rewriting: over the last little while I've rewritten 50 pages (the 50 which needed the most work) and in the rewriting the manuscript has swelled 30 pages. Have a nice momentum going, and the difficulty will be sustaining this as I begin teaching tomorrow [...]
July 6, 2011
Robert Kroetsch (1927 – 2011)
I have been meaning to write something here about Robert Kroetsch, but I don't know what I could write that would matter to anyone. If you don't know who Kroetsch is, then nothing I say will make any difference to you. And if you do know who Kroetsch is, then anything I say is superfluous. [...]
June 30, 2011
Deleting…
I've slacked a little bit on this writing journal, because I doubt anybody wants to read it daily and also because I've been deleting words. You don't get much of a word count when you delete words. about 3000 words written between two days, more than that given that I've deleted a bunch. Writers are [...]
June 28, 2011
Household Distractions
A somewhat inactive writing day. On a day like this it's worth taking a few minutes to wonder why. I think the problem today was one of focus: when one works from home, it's easy to get distracted. Today, the distractions were all keyed to housework: the kitchen was a disaster so I did the [...]
June 27, 2011
Nicky Minaj and Why I Will Never Be Successful
I listened to "Super Bass" by Nicky Minaj today (below) and thought to myself: "What a waste. She's so talented." That's why I will never be successful.
Clockfires in Geist
Today I read more essays from the book PLACE: 13 essays 13 filmmakers 1 city, the essays on Clive Holden, Paula Kelly, John Kozak, and Guy Maddin. That completes the book, making it the 67th book I've read this year. My reading goal, as in previous years, is 95, and today GoodReads puts me 21 books [...]
The Writing Journal Begins
I've often tried to keep a writing journal, recording my thoughts and notes, etc., while working on projects. They often fail/falter for a variety of reasons, but one is simply that I'm the only audience and so they seem somewhat pointless, since I often don't go back and look at them. However, I recognize the [...]
Diddy – Last Train to Paris
Although Kanye West's album was all the rage not long ago, garnering hyperbolic praise as a "masterpiece," a much more solid and even riskier album in moments was Diddy's Last Train to Paris. Although at his best Kanye blows Diddy out of the water, and although historically Diddy's output has been middling at best, Last [...]
