A New Addition to the Family + Fireside Chat + Philippines Press + Churchill from my Mom

Although our ancestors are fructuous Italians, it's not every day that a new Vizzini is added to the mix. I'm proud to introduce Felix, born on May 27, 2011. His mother is my wife Sabra Embury and his father is me. There are pictures of him on my Facebook. I promise to stop posting him when he stops being cute!


Photogenic Felix, 5-31-11

His mom is doing extraordinarily well. Felix is not just perceptive but strong. He tried to do a push-up at his first ever doctor's appointment before deliberately gumming his mom. So basically he's Popeye.





"YouTube - Ned Vizzini: Hungry for Reality"



Thanks Savanna & Adam. I discuss my essay "Reality Hunger", included in the nonfiction collection The Girl Who Was on Fire , on Hunger Games Fireside Chat, their #1 podcast. Recorded 5/23/11.

"℞ for Depression « Miji: Spell It Right"

From the Philippines, where Labo(u)r Day is celebrated May 1, Miji Gonzales posts about It's Kind of a Funny Story :

'Depression, like most mental health issues, is often ignored by Philippine society and may even be taboo for some... "The currency of the human being is relational and depression makes you dysfunctional in the very thing that makes you human . . ." [more]

Today's Reader Email

Today's reader mail comes from Arianna of Penfield High School in Penfield, NY, which I visited in May 2011.

I was wondering what your stance was on fan fiction? Writing fan fiction is my main practice in writing, and I'm interested in writing movie scripts; becoming a screen writer when I am older. I am currently working on a massive 30k word fan fiction. I find it is easier to practice my writing that way, with characters and their personalities already made and free for me to manipulate while I continue to hone my writing skills. What do you think of it?

When characters are well defined, it is very fun to write in their voices without having to invent those voices yourself. This is what people who write for established television shows do. I have read very little fan fiction (I read some Catcher in the Rye fanfic last year to understand how people related to Holden Caulfield), but you should do whatever it takes to get your creative tap sprung if you want to be a screenwriter.

Writing a 30K-word fanfic might be a slight waste of your time compared to a 1200-word original story (which, since the short story is the literary form that most resembles a movie, is better practice for screenwriting), but it's better than writing a 100K-word book! Just understand that what you're doing is practice and don't get so caught up in it that it keeps you from pursuing your original ideas. And don't forget to read screenplays if you want to be a screenwriter. Adaptation comes to mind.

A Word from my Mom

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy, then an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public."
—Winston Churchill, Grosvenor House, London, November 2, 1949. From Churchill By Himself, edited by Richard Langworth, p. 49.


Photogenic Winston