I checked out from the library the other day, Margaret Atwood's Negotiating With The Dead: A Writer on Writing, and liked it so much, I just got a copy on Amazon.
Best thing I've read of hers in some time. I liked the Canadian references very much. I also like the memoir-ish nature of the book. Not a huge amount of writing advice, but definitely a time-stamp on Canada's writing scene in the late 50's and 60's. She sets the table well in this, giving a pretty complete view of what it might feel like to be writing. Certainly many things I've considered before about writing.
Fun snarky quote I found the other day in The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present, edited by Peter Constantine.
A quote by someone named Christophoros of Mytiline:
How much better if an ox were to sit on your tongue,
than for your poems to plod like oxen over fields.
I laughed out loud.
When I picked up the book, I assumed from the cover that it was only the older Greek poets but was pleasantly surprised when I realized it went to the present day. Great stuff there. I wonder what it would be like to feel that sort of history behind you. The poetry hearkens back very often as one would expect. Hell, I would. It was also cool to feel the landscape change as the centuries passed. One thing I like about long views in collections, you can get that feeling and you do in this book.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Library finds
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11:31 AM
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Labels: Atwood, Greeks, inspiration, poetry
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
back in the saddle, or office chair as the case may be. Do people ever put saddles on their chairs?
I think that would be funny. (I'm also curious as to how long a Subject Line could be here on Blogger.)
Napo always wipes me out, and I haven't written anything since. I tried figuring Word out for chapters this morning and that is a lost cause. So I reopened yWriter and am going to read my 39168 word story, and then begin anew. Anew and anew, because that word is used often in regards to this story.
I wonder what Trapper has been up to since I saw him last. This could be interesting.
I do have an idea for the book in the story, literally back story for the story.
Now I'm closing said internet and getting to work. ::wishes really hard::
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12:53 PM
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Labels: hopefulness, inspiration, Trapper, writing