Alex Bledsoe's Blog, page 44
February 3, 2010
"What's the weirdest book you ever read?"
January 25, 2010
The Holy Goof and my own Dean Moriarty(s)
The Holy Goof by the late William Plummer is a biography of one of the greatest literary figures to never write anything substantial--his best-known work is a fragment of a letter. But Sherlock Holmes' words to Watson might also describe Neal Cassady's relationship to Jack Kerouac (On the Road), Allen Ginsberg (Howl), Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and Jerry Garcia (leader of the Grateful Dead): "Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it."
Ca...
January 19, 2010
"The work is play for mortal stakes"*
In 1988, I lived in Huntsville, Alabama working for Olan Mills Portrait Studios as a traveling photographer, a job with slightly less dignity than scraping up road kill. I also wrote novels on big yellow legal pads, that I subsequently typed up when I had the chance (on a typewriter, even). My stuff was terrible; I had no sense of my own style, so I mimicked those of books I read (it's a wonder I survived my Joe Lansdale
Drive-In
period). I had not yet discovered my own voice.
Luckily, than...
Luckily, than...
January 17, 2010
How weird is too weird?
A reader asked me, "How about how you differentiate between an exciting new idea and something that's just plain weird? Have you ever written anything that you loved, but others didn't quite get?"
First I'd like to quote from my favorite rejection letter:
"The majority of our editorial readers thought this story was just too odd for their tastes; it didn't appeal to any of them, although one editor found humor within your manuscript."
When I got the above rejection letter (the summer of 1997), ...
First I'd like to quote from my favorite rejection letter:
"The majority of our editorial readers thought this story was just too odd for their tastes; it didn't appeal to any of them, although one editor found humor within your manuscript."
When I got the above rejection letter (the summer of 1997), ...
January 12, 2010
By request: Fan Fiction
Recently I was asked, "What are your thoughts on fan fiction? If someone wrote fan fiction [based:] on your works, would you be pleased or horrified?"
Before I wade into this, let me define my terms. "Fan fiction" is fiction that makes unauthorized use of characters and concepts that belong to someone else. The actual quality of the writing, in this context, is immaterial. Fan fiction is stealing.
Some fan fiction is written strictly for the authors, or physically shown to their friends (i.e....
January 7, 2010
Giants of West Tennessee: Jesse Hill Ford, part 1
NOTE: This is an occasional series about notable figures from my home region. These are personal reminiscences and opinions; where available, I'll include links so interested readers can find out more.
As I've mentioned before, I grew up in a tiny West Tennessee town that has no school, no library, no newspaper, three churches, is a notorious speed trap and is just generally the kind of place I'd recommend most folks avoid.
What is unusual is that, five miles away, lived an actual honest-to-...
As I've mentioned before, I grew up in a tiny West Tennessee town that has no school, no library, no newspaper, three churches, is a notorious speed trap and is just generally the kind of place I'd recommend most folks avoid.
What is unusual is that, five miles away, lived an actual honest-to-...
December 30, 2009
"Do you fall in love with all of your clients?"
Recently I got an e-mail from a reader that said, in part:
"Eddie LaCrosse with a girlfriend is not the same as Eddie LaCrosse wandering companionless through the world. The lonely but worldwise Eddie LaCrosse seems like a stronger character...Burn Me Deadly starts out great, but as soon as it went to the town scene with his girlfriend it lost something immediately (for me), and I think it was seeing him act like a wuss."
(quoted by permission.)
It got me thinking about why I wanted to give Edd...
"Eddie LaCrosse with a girlfriend is not the same as Eddie LaCrosse wandering companionless through the world. The lonely but worldwise Eddie LaCrosse seems like a stronger character...Burn Me Deadly starts out great, but as soon as it went to the town scene with his girlfriend it lost something immediately (for me), and I think it was seeing him act like a wuss."
(quoted by permission.)
It got me thinking about why I wanted to give Edd...
December 23, 2009
Robin Wood, R.I.P.
Film critic Robin Wood died on Friday, December 18, 2009. You can read the New York Times obituary here to get an idea of his importance in his chosen field. I want to tell you about his influence on me.
To repeat something I seem to say often here, I grew up in a small, isolated west Tennessee town. I loved to read, but books were expensive and hard to come by, since the town had no library (and barely a school). Movies, though, were free on television. And because my dad loved Westerns,...
To repeat something I seem to say often here, I grew up in a small, isolated west Tennessee town. I loved to read, but books were expensive and hard to come by, since the town had no library (and barely a school). Movies, though, were free on television. And because my dad loved Westerns,...
December 20, 2009
Buford Pusser addenda
December 18, 2009
Belatedly, Dracula The Un-Dead
Before we start, a caveat. Sequels to classic novels, written long after the fact by new writers, annoy me. It's one thing to be influenced by the classics, it's quite another to co-opt settings, characters and atmosphere (the heavy lifting of writing) to bring life to your own derivative plot. It's worst of all when capped by the hubris to claim something is "THE sequel to..." as opposed to "A sequel to..."
I'm a huge fan of Bram Stoker's original novel Dracula. Not a scholar: I leave tha...
