The Writing Guide

Here's a cool blog from Craig Gaines, a freelance editor and writer in LA with more than 10 years' experience in the business of making words do what they're intended to do, i.e. convey meaning. He doesn't post all that regularly* but when he does the subjects he tackles are always interesting and informative.

You can check out the blog here.


*Compared to me, at least.

Word of the Day!

diaphanous [dy-af-uh-nuhs]
-adjective
1. Of such fine texture as to allow light to pass through; translucent or transparent.
2. Vague; insubstantial.

Song of the Moment: Girl From the North Country

Bob Dylan is one of the most prolific songwriters in the history of modern popular music and so it is easy to lapse into superlatives when trying to describe any of the hundreds of great songs he’s written through the years but, all reservations aside, none of his songs have affected me quite so fundamentally as “The Girl From the North Country.” Written in 1962 during Dylan’s first trip to England the song is classic Dylan, sad, world-weary, and irrepressibly gorgeous.

Featured on Dylan’s second studio album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, “Girl From the North Country” has lingered for years as a sort of peripheral track, never widely praised on its own yet used often to buoy the reputation of Dylan’s dynamic repertoire. While nowhere near as famous as it’s Freewheelin’ set-mates (“Blowin in the Wind”, “A Hard Rain’s A’Gonna Fall”, etc.) “Girl” resides in the twilit nether region of album cuts which rather than drag down the overall composition instead become part of the milieu that makes a good album great.

Word of the Day!

embonpoint [ahn-bohn-pwan]
-noun
Plumpness of person; stoutness.

What a relaxing holiday!

Hey everybody, I hope you had a wonderful holiday and are rested and relaxed. I used the time to catch up with my rapidly increasing family and spend some well-deserved time with my baby. Now it's time to get back to the grindstone.

Care to join me for a Shelfari?

I was recently turned onto a totally awesome website for book readers*. It's called Shelfari and it is totally free and easy to join. Once you're signed up you can catalog just about every book you've ever read, tell when you read it, what you thought of it, and network with other book readers who share your tastes. Plus every book has its own site, which is open for members to post their favorite lines, parts, and various arcanum. Basically the site is the ultimate in Book Nerddom. Finally the Readers get their due.

To check out the site click here.

You can visit my personal page on Shelfari here**. Sign up and become my friend. I don't bite.


*Thanks very much due to my lovely wife.
**I haven't even scratched the tip of the iceberg w/r/t logging all the books I've read, but I've got my All-Time Favs (House of Leaves, Infinite Jest, Lord of the Rings, Stephen King's It), Hemingway, and Stephen King in there for starters.

Pocket Book Review: A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces
By John Kennedy Toole

In 1969 after going on a two-month whirlwind trip across the country, and nearly 6 years after finishing his masterwork, John Kennedy Toole stopped in Biloxi, Mississippi and killed himself, leaving his only two novels, A Confederacy of Dunces and The Neon Bible, unpublished. Several years later his mother, Thelma Toole, discovered the manuscript for Dunces and put it in the hands of author Walker Percy who was so blown away by the novel that he personally guided the manuscript to publication. A Confederacy of Dunces was published in 1980; over 10 years after Toole’s death, and the following year it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The machinations that went into the publishing, and ensuing canonization, of A Confederacy of Dunces is important because it is one of the few modern examples of a literary genius being posthumously recognized. Similar to Emily Dickenson’s poetry, John Kennedy Toole’s comedic masterpiece was misunderstood and subsequently rejected during its own time*, only to be resurrected in the most unlikely manner. Furthermore there is a certain inherent irony in A Confederacy of Dunces, which is predominantly concerned with a man and his domineering mother, only being brought to fruition because of the actions of the deceased author’s supposedly domineering mother.