Fishers, Jack Ryan, Inspiration, Rejection and Revision

 Off to church and then back. An hour watching Jack Ryan, and sorting through email. I took a two-hour nap that was to last only an hour. I meant to get back to a short story tonight, but that does not seem likely. This will be all the writing I may get done today. I made a trip to the convenience store; otherwise, I have strayed far from my chair.

Some insight into the creativity of Orhan Pamuk: Itineraries of Affect (LARB).

As we see and read the sequence of text-images, we learn that the apparent artistic focus reflected on the notebook page can actually be ancillary to, or a vehicle for, attaining the creative engagement of writing. For example, the bifold image of an iconic white Istanbul ferry (one of many) is both rendered against the meditative hues of a blue-green sea and accompanied by text, again broken into poetic lines. The Istanbul ferry, a leitmotif in Pamuk’s writing, waits as if to transport the author. On the right-hand side, the horizon line is marked by the phrase “distant mountains,” a mnemonic of sorts for Pamuk’s process of writing/illustrating.

What else I have published about Orhan Pamuk. 

Some fun things from Antigone: Living Descendants of Mark Antony and Shakespeare’s Latin and Greek

Another rejection for "Problem Solving":

Thank you for your submission to Two Hawks Quarterly. We enjoyed the opportunity to read your work, but unfortunately we will not be able to use it in our forthcoming issue.

Thank you for considering us, and we welcome the opportunity to see more of your work.

Sincerely,

Michel

Editor

Two Hawks Quarterly

The last item read today was Lincoln Michel's Adjusting the Levels in Revision.

This level-adjusting method can be useful in revision, but as supplement and not replacement to other revision techniques. You still need to carefully plot your story and polish your prose. You still want a sound structure, memorable characters, lovely sentences, and so on and so forth. Hey, no one said writing was easy. And once you are done? Well, you start all over again.

I have decided to just delete what has not been read in my email. Preparation cuts into action; procrastination can come in different ways. Work needs to be done. My lungs ache.

sch