length | length

Jun.03.2012 Are Shakespeare, Dickens, Goethe And Authors Of The Past Worthless? Or is everything old, new again? Attention spans, and the willingness to read text which offers depth, seem to shorten and lessen. I sometimes think members of our culture are reverting to pre- printed word ways. Do we become more visual and aural? Then I think about FaceBook, Twitter and texting....	Nov.07.2011 Novels With Hundreds Of Pages And Readers Galore I gotta say that my novels end when the ending appears. I have not created a one thousand page-turner and I don't see it in the cards. Maybe a trilogy counts (I've written one and a half of them), but I doubt it. I have written more than one book about the same set of characters, but they are still...
Oct.16.2011 Author Readings - The Horror / The Horror A point came when a friend of mine (and a good number of years my senior) declared she would no longer sit with (or near) me during author readings. I made comments. Particularly when the hour mark had been passed. It was not argued that my comments were not accurate. And I did not dispute...	Sep.04.2011 Are You Afraid To Read These Novels? I might be afraid to finish MOBY DICK, as I have started it about half a dozen times and have yet to make p. 100. I suppose one can be afraid of being bored to death. Plus I have been tempted for years to read FINNEGAN'S WAKE, but don't have the gumption for that block of time. It isn't length...
Apr.19.2011 Is The Novella To Be Saved By The Internet? Mira GrantOrbit Books is Getting into Short Digital FictionBy Nate Hoffelder Orbit Books, a UK based SF publisher, has just started publishing its first digital shorts. Short fiction is the term given to stories that aren’t long enough for a novel, and normally would not have been printed as a...	Mar.27.2011 Aren't Stories Just A Short Novel? I once spent two complete years writing nothing but short stories. It is still the most enjoyable, sustained period of writing in my life. I don't know why the writing gods deemed this a positive expenditure of time, and such a desire has never returned (though I do write the occasional short story...
Nov.30.2010 What Could Dr. Suess Have Done On Twitter? Dr. Seuss wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” after his editor bet him that he couldn’t write a book using 50 words or less. Not long after publishing “The Cat in the Hat” at...	Mar.19.2010 Writing and Place: Wena Poon - everywhere! This is the first time I have done an interview for my Writing&Place series with someone I have actually met in the real world! I met Wena Poon, who was born in Singapore and now lives in the US, at the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival in 2008 - what a great week that...
Oct.01.2009 A Question on Word-Count. Probably shouldn't be concerned about it. I was reading somewhere recently that Publishers like to see a minimum of Eighty thousand words.....is that really necessary? I believe I read it in one of those "how to write a query letter" sites. "Troubled Memories" is only about...	Mar.24.2009 THE LONGER THE BETTER This appeals to me, though I'm not sure why. It is exactly the opposite of my 'parse until you drop' attitude to writing. But then - perhaps that the reason. ********************************** Growing Sentences with David Foster WallaceA Primer for Kicking AssBeing the Result of One...