I've just started reading Charles Dickens' last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend. You've heard of Charles Dickens. I didn’t know when I decided to read this book that it's so long. It's really long. 800 pages (not including introduction and notes). That's longer than Moby-Dick. That's longer than The Iliad. That's longer then The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
I'm also reading a novella called Scales, written by Michelle Davidson-Argyle. You've heard of her. Scales is pretty short, which is a shame because so far it's perfectly lovely.
Also on my list of readings/writings to do are edits and brief(!) editorial letters to the 20 authors of the stories which will be included in our Variations on a Theme contest. I was telling Mighty Reader just last night that I'm enjoying reading through all the winning stories again; they're so very good, kids. Very good indeed. The editing bit is also fun for me; I hope it's not horrific for the authors in question. Rick Daley, I'm going easy on folks; I swear I am.
This is all work in addition to the novel of my own I'm writing. This weekend I finished Chapter 8 and I'm sitting at a little over 40,000 words. I tell myself that means I'm at about the halfway point. I tend to draft short, which means that if the rough is 80K words, the finished novel will likely be around 90K, which will make it the longest thing I've written so far. The book I have planned for after this one will be even longer, if my calculations are correct. I have a few thick, heavy books of research material I need to finish reading while I'm drafting the work-in-progress.
That's a lot of reading, I think. No wonder I'm so tired. Tell me what you're reading, and what you're writing. Also, Happy Fat Tuesday! Mighty Reader and I are giving up meat for Lent. We briefly discussed giving up alcohol; you could hear our laughter from miles away.
I'm about a week into reading David Copperfield, which also is much longer (850 pages without notes, introduction, etc.) than I expected when I bought it for my Nook. I suppose that's a problem with buying e-books; I don't always pay attention to length. But it's pretty good.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I finished my third draft of Chapter 2 of my novel. On to Chapter 3!
I've just started On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. I'm also reading "This is not your city" by Caitlin Horrocks. Regarding my own writing, I am polishing a collection of ten short stories for a contest.
DeleteI just had the thought: what if Kerouac had written The Road and McCarthy had written On The Road? That could be fun.
DeleteGreat list of reading, Scott! I just finished THE SECRET YEAR by Jennifer Hubbard, a rather charming, but dark literary contemporary young adult novel - and I say charming because it has some really fantastic literary overtones that made me fall in love with it. I want to read her next book now. Now I'm reading CINDER by Marissa Meyer. I got to meet her at a signing, and she's very nice. Cyborg Cinderella. Fun concept! Next on my list is a little book called ANNA KERENINA. My reading list is quite eclectic. I'd like to put Davin's book on my list soon. If he sends it to me when he's ready...
ReplyDeleteDavin's writing a book? Really? What's it about? How long has this been going on?
DeleteMighty Reader and I watched a DVD of "Anna Karenina" this weekend. It was a 1948 film starring Vivien Leigh which made a total hash of Tolstoy's story. It was incomprehensible, which is a real shame because it had a good cast and the sets and costumes were carefully done. But the story was butchered; I couldn't make any sense of it.
Do you know about the cyborg Karenina version coming out? ANDROID KARENINA. I'm not kidding.
What if Jack Kerouac had written Moby-Dick?
"Starbuck, we gotta go after that whale and never stop going till we get there."
"Where we going to find him, Ahab-man?"
"I don't know but we gotta go after him."
I need to get some sleep.
I loved Anna Karenina! And all of Jack Kerouac. I think I just like all books in general. I just finished The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis, and now I'm reading Beijing Coma by Ma Jian.
DeleteI'm about a third of way (planned anyway) of the first draft of a literary fiction novel, but I have a ton of little projects that have a higher priority, so not much writing is actually getting done at the moment...
I recently made another stab at Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I think it may be my 9th or 10th attempt at it. I really love his prose, sometimes it's so wonderful that I get misty-eyed, but I can't take all the carnage in the story.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I have it in my head that I should finish it, that I'm somehow deficient if I don't. This is all very dumb, of course, and I've decided to just abandon the damned thing once and for all.
I hear there's a Blood Meridian movie in development. I won't be going to see that either. ;)
What if Cormac McCarthy had written Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?
DeleteThat night they apparated into a region electric and wild where strange shapes of soft blue fire ran over the metal of the tent pegs and the protection charms rolled away from Hermione's fingetips in hoops of fire and little shapes of pale blue light came to perch in the ears of the girl and in the beards of the men. All night death's head of lightning quaked sourceless to the west beyond the midnight thunderclouds, making a bluish day of the distant heath, the mountains on the sudden skyline stark and black and livid like a land of some other order out there whose true geology was not stone but fear. The thunder moved up from the southwest and lightning lit the heath all about them, blue and barren, great clanging reaches ordered out of the absolute night like some demon kingdom summoned up or changeling land that come the day would leave them neither trace nor smoke nor ruin more than any troubling dream.
In other words, totally awesome.
Oh hells yeah...
DeleteCynthia, I'm on my fourth attempt at Blood Meridian, and I feel just like you do. I'm trying to push forward, but really I'm already looking around for another book to read instead.
DeleteHaha! I'm glad I'm not alone. :)
DeleteI made it all the way through Blood Meridian my first try, but at times it was a struggle. It wasn't the violence that got me, I can deal with graphic violence; there were parts of the narrative that made me question what the heck was going on. Perhaps it was the density of the prose, or I may have been tired or a little stupid, as I am liable to be from time to time. I've considered re-reading it, but I think I'd rather re-read Suttree, which was much more enjoyable.
DeleteI don't think they will be able to make a serviceable movie out of Blood Meridian. Now that McCarthy's turned in an original screenplay ("The Counselor" will be a movie about a lawyer who turns to drug dealing on the side. Little else is known about the story, but my guess it that it The Counselor will find redemption, hope and happiness in true McCarthy style, i.e. via bloodshed and mayhem) I think any film options for Blood Meridian will have to ride it out a few more years.
Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise...man, that's one eclectic resume) is set to direct.
I am very interested in seeing who he'll cast as the Judge.
DeleteHappy Tuesday! I'm ready to start writing a new book, and I'm ready to start reading a new book. I'm not doing either at the moment, and I'm excited by the possibilities!
ReplyDeleteI'm about halfway through Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A quick calculation says I have 1,100 pages left, and I'm looking forward to it. This series is just plain fun to read.
ReplyDeleteOn my writing side, I've approved draft illustrations for my kids' book, RUDY TOOT-TOOT, which I should be able to publish this spring. Once i get the color illustrations in I'll work on the interior design, that should be a fun task.
I'm 45,000 words (approximately halfway) into the first draft of my next novel EARTH'S END, an end of the world satire where God has decided the Earth's time is up, but can't decide how to end the world so he comes down and hires a consultant. Satan is none too pleased, as the contracts he has out on nearly half a billion living souls will go void if there is an apocalyptic event, so he's trying to collect as many souls as he can before the big event. This one is definitely not a kids' book.
I mean 1,100 pages in the series, just to clarify...
DeleteThat's called job security Scott. O wait; you're not getting paid. Well, at least you're not bored . .
ReplyDeleteI'm reading and writing too many things at once right now.
........dhole
I'm reading "Island Years" (c.1940) by F.Fraser Darling, about several years he (and his plucky wife and lucky young son) spent on remote, uninhabited isles off Scotland where he studied birds. They lived in tents in the Spring/Summer, and in crude huts in Autumn/Winter. No plumbing. No electricity. Boat travel to/from the mainland to get supplies was often treacherous. They kept goats and chickens. They had no way to contact anyone in the event of an emergency. It rained a lot. According to F.Fraser, they had a wonderful time.
ReplyDeleteI'm not writing. I'm painting, though!
-Alex MacKenzie
I think we should throw random titles and authors at Scott and make him come up with a paragraph.
ReplyDeleteWhat if James Joyce had written "The Shining"?
ReplyDeleteand tonight they missed the boat at Eternity the cook going about in the kitchen with his lamp and O that awful deepred torrent O and the heart the tiles crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious old sunsets and the balls in the grand ballroom yes and all the queer little guests and pink and blue and yellow dresses and the bad children and the drowned women and the matre d'hotel and knives and Stanhope as her a bad girl where I was a king of the mountain yes when I put the rope in my hand like the master of the girls used or shall I see red yes and how he killed her under the Moorish wallpaper and I thought well as well her as another and then I asked her with my eyes to ask again yes and all work and yes makes Jack a dull boy and then he asked me would I yes to correct them like he did his daughters yes my sharp axe and first I put my hands on her yes and drew her down to me so she could feel my breath all death and vengeance yes and her heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
DeleteBrilliant.
DeleteYES!
DeleteErnest Hemingway writing The Corrections. Or Twilight.
ReplyDeleteThis is just an easy parlor trick, you know. But here' goes, Twilight by Ernest Hemingway:
DeleteShe has a great neck and I must convince her, Cullen thought. I must never let her learn her strength nor what she could do if she made her run. If I were her I would put in everything in my mother's car now and go until something broke. But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.
The old vampire had seen many great necks. He had seen many that were softer than silk and more delicious than pure water and he had caught two of that type in his afterlife, but never alone. Now alone, and out of sight of his family, he was fast to the softest flesh that he had ever seen and dimmer than he had ever heard of, and his sparkling left hand was still as tight as the gripped claws of an eagle.
I wonder why she jumped, the old vampire thought. She jumped almost as though to show me how shy she was. I know now, anyway, Cullen thought. I wish I could show her what sort of creature I am. But then she would see the sparkling hand. Let her think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I was the girl, he thought, with everything she has against only my will and my intelligence. That would be a good time. Video games are harder than they look.
What if Virginia Woolf wrote Old Man and the Sea?
ReplyDeleteWould there be a difference?
DeleteParlor trick or not, it's making my day.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you left the sparkling hand in. And mentioned it twice in case I forget that he sparkles.
What if Davin Malasarn wrote Cocke & Bull! :)
ReplyDeleteFive people on Earth will get this one, but here you are:
DeleteToday Hope wore a blue dress and a pale pink collared blouse and a string necklace with some paste jewel hanging from it. Cocke took one step toward her before stopping. He backed away and watched her climb into a wagon. The wagon was driven away and Cocke followed it down the street until it disappeared. Then he kept walking until he passed the front of her house. She had gone inside. A lamp was lit in the kitchen, but he couldn’t catch sight of anyone there. He passed without stopping and then he circled the block and went home.
Bull was butchering a chicken. He ran his knife along the breastbone and carved out a glistening section of meat. He wore an apron with a knot tied tightly above his tailbone.
"I’m not so hungry today," Cocke said.
"Don’t tell me that, John. I had a surprise for you. It’s fresh. Clockshott brought it over from the farm and I just killed it a moment ago." He turned to John and John saw the blood staining Bull's hands. "Are you feeling sick?"
"Yes, I think maybe."
Bull washed his hands and shook them clean and shuffled over to Cocke. He placed one hand on John's forehead. "You don’t feel hot. Have you been drinking?"
Now I have to stop playing and do some serious work at work.
What a smart answer. What a safe and smart answer.
ReplyDeleteIt's great fun! Thank you, Scott. There is something fascinating about this, and I feel like if I read your paragraphs enough times I'll learn something.
ReplyDeleteGuy on the bus ride home tonight was reading Moby-Dick. The Melville version.
ReplyDeleteDid you share with him what Moby Dick could be had it been written by some other author?
ReplyDeleteHe looked like the kind of guy who's read Kerouac, but he didn't look like he'd think my joke was funny. He had a Very Serious Moustache.
Delete