Friday, March 5, 2010

How-To Round-Up

For your edification, Laura is here from Combreviations to round up the week:

Hello, reader types, and welcome to the week. Given Eric's post yesterday about the things you need to do to be a writer, I thought I would run you through my writerly process for putting together posts. It is very complicated. But first, stand up—sitting all day is bad for your health. Step one is collect links, and step two is to split them into categories, because otherwise it gets boring to keep scrolling around. This week the categories were "adorable lit," "the joys and pains of reading," and "history is effed."

Step three is to find some almost natural but pretty awkward way to string it all together. And you know what's almost natural? Collections of mini books! They are adorable. If you like to make choices instead of being told what's adorable, you can pick between these UK and US covers. Also attractive are these hand models, who show us everything from the Kindle to the Twilight apple.

Yes, there are adorable joys, but there are also book pains (did you see that segue there? This is why topic headings are important to my craft. Such a serious craft). Some find joy in unconcluded series. I am not one of those people. Some might be conflicted about lying, while others might find joy or pain (or both) in taking Tina Brown's book suggestions. And seriously—dead and dying protagonists? Can be so good and so bad.

To deal with these conflicting emotions, we need to look to history. And seriously: history is effed. Apparently Nietzsche wasn't just a philosopher who may have died of syphillis—he was also a composer. He may have lied to himself about his talent, but at least he didn't lie about the happenings of Hiroshima, which is, in a word, awkward. And if you thought you knew Eva Braun? You should think again (dum dum duummm). Also, Hilary Mantel thinks 14 year old girls are fit parents, and archaeologists think that vampires might be real.

Please, hold your applause at the brilliance of my methodology (and you can sit down now, if you haven't already). And remember to take web-reading-while-standing breaks today!

5 comments:

  1. *exuberant applause*
    Sorry. I couldn't hold it back. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I often like the UK covers better. On Braun, you had to be a piece of work to fall in love with Hitler. Hilary Mantel - Mother Nature agrees with her. Who else do we need?

    An amazing work ethic; I do love your categories.

    And matching the faces to hands in the ads. How do you manage to find these things? It's a rare talent. What can I say? What better way to fritter away a Friday afternoon, before I bug out of work early! Thanks:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, those were interesting. I don't know about 14 year old moms. Nature may have equiped them with the ability but society certainly hasn't equipped them psychologically.

    And if National Geographic said it, it must be true: right?


    ..........dhole

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for telling me to stand up! I stretched and, wow, it just felt so good.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You methodology is similar to the one I applied to most of my research for university essays. An HD student I was not, but damn I had some great arguments.

    ReplyDelete