Several links today from articles on writing and publishing that I’ve stumbled upon over the past few weeks:
- Damon Runyon, who wrote “Guys & Dolls”, would sit in New York City restaurants and absorb the speech rhythms of the local gangsters and hoods. This great article examines his dual-layered narrative, and his key insight that “American slang is double: first, that street speech tends to be more, not less, complicated grammatically than “standard” speech; but, second, that slang speakers, when they’re cornered to write, write not just fancy but stiff.”
- An article on Ian McEwan’s life, process and style from the New Yorker:
McEwan said that he never rushes from notebook to novel. “You’ve got to feel that it’s not just some conceit,” he said. “It’s got to be inside you. I’m very cautious about starting anything without letting time go, and feeling it’s got to come out. I’m quite good at not writing. Some people are tied to five hundred words a day, six days a week. I’m a hesitater.”
- The Book Cover Archive – where authors can review thumbnails and closeups of published book covers and research details on the artists, designers and publishers who created them.
- A series of brief interviews with authors about the Sisyphean occupation of writing.
WHAT TO DO NOW?