Writing About Writing About Writing 31

Part 31 of an intermittent series where I read or re-read the writing books on my shelf to see if they’re worth keeping. See previous part here and Index of all books here.

October was, as ever, a busy month, holding both FantasyCon and BristolCon which I attended, participated in and enjoyed. I grabbed some books – including some writing books, so that doesn’t help the burgeoning TBR! Especially as I seem to have slowed down on the reading of such books…

I literally started reading Still Writing by Dani Shapiro the morning of my first panel at FantasyCon – which was all about Creative Burnout.

This is a beautifully and honestly written memoir of one writer’s life but with some meditations on the art and craft of writing. I finished it today – so it took me several weeks to read, but only because my reading has become so fragmentary. Each short chapter is one musing or remembering and I usually read three in one shot at a time. Hence its taken me a while.

I used to be a ‘one book on the go only’ sort of guy but these days I think social media and especially the pandemic took a hammer to my brain and it now looks like a particle collision map

Anyway, back to the book – I really enjoyed it and got something from it. I’m not sure it’ll bear a re-read though. But am willing to hang onto it for a while to find out. If, like me, you struggle to remember that it’s possible to even have a writing life with chronic illness and a day job and and… it may not be your thing. She and her husband make a living from writing. Which feels pretty privileged.

The other book I read last month was Cybertext by Espen Aarseth.

This was super-chewy and I have struggled to read it in the past. I have a number of ‘electronic’ literature books on the shelf for ‘reasons’ (i.e. I will probably dip my toes in this pond at some point.)

The reason this was on my shelf goes back to a throwaway comment Neil Gaiman made when he was interviewed by Hannah Berry at Edinburgh Book Fest. One of the ushers informed the tent that what Neil was talking about was called ‘Ergodic Literature’ – with the most famous (?) example being House of Leaves. I like this sort of thing (YMMV) and so upon a Google I came across this book as the first use of the concept and snapped it up. And it’s languished on the shelf ever since. But I’ve finally finished it. And find that like many seminal works it’s notable mainly for being the first – others have done it better. Perhaps? It’s very academic and set in a particular time of digital evolution where textual MUDs were the big thing and so is very out of date. However I did get some useful stuff out of it and it got the old brain ticking.

Slight swerve here – it appears Gaiman is, at best, a complete douche and probably an abuser so I no longer feel proud to have published a previously unpublished story by him!

Anyway, Cybertext, unless you’re very into academic lit theory about early electronic literature or ergodic literature you don’t need to read this. I have started my next read on the same subject, so that’ll pop up in the next WAWAW (number 32!) I guess.

Following on from Still Writing I’m going to cover off the final few books on Writers Block I have on the shelf before moving on.

Talking of Writers Block I have finally written and submitted something new last month, as well as polished and submitted something I wrote a couple of years ago. Green shoots, baby steps and other such cliches, but hopefully that marks the return of my motivation to write – or at least the first small glimmerings thereof.

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!