Tangled Rope

• I've spent two hours working out some rhymes. Now hoping that I didn't waste my times. #
• Not much rhymes with "duologue", and it's still two hours before I can take a skate break. #
• Yes, ABE Books, you /can/ have $55 for 4 1st/1st copies I've had on my list for a year… #
• Early skate break to AF to learn to carve that bowl. #
• Logged another 2 hours on couplet rhymes. Rewrote half of 1st stanza. Still need half of the 3rd. Ignoring the 4th and final. #amwriting #
• I wrestle with meter and rhyme not in hopes of winning the match, but in gaining from the strengths and weaknesses of my opponents. #
• @poetrynews You misled me. in reply to poetrynews #
• Finished a short story that's turned out a bit Chandler-esque. Pure fiction that sounds dangerously like autobiography. #
• Too enamored by the act of literary creation; quite different from the practice of writing. #

• “No satire, violence, hatred, drugs, or whoring— / Transgression must be decorous, and boring.” — J. Salemi, "Respectably Transgressive" #
• 8&c3 #
• The cannister can no longer withhold this black tar. #
• 8&c2 #
• Found P Slade's page on British broadsides via @bryanalexander's post on Victorian hoaxes (http://bit.ly/cWtTUo) Love this internet thing… #

• Watched French film "Tell No One" this morning. A pretty good, if generally derivative, modern thriller entry. #
• Great little description of conveniently lost revolver in Greene's "Dream of a Strange Land": "The dark object made a pocket in the snow." #
• That reading Hamlet aloud can still provoke tears is my best testimony to it's enduring power. #

• OnFiction: The Solitary Reader, by Sonia Zyngier http://bit.ly/b9MFap #

I thought it bizarre when friend Chris Lott dropped a sample of his writing into I Write Like… and was pegged as his (presumably) favorite author, David Foster Wallace. I gave it a go on my lunch break, and was surprised to see myself aligned with my favorite writer based on a short story I drafted this summer:

I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Re-testing of the system with other short stories confirmed the Nabokov link, and added 2x Jane Austen, 2x James Joyce, and 1x Dan Brown. I’ll just comment that, Dan Brown aside, I’ve read significant amounts of each Nabokov, Austen, and Joyce in the past 2 years that these stories were drafted.

• Family
• Friends
• Independence
• Individualism
• Self-reliance
• Beauty
• Talent
• Wisdom
• Intellect
• Generosity
• Service

• 8&c5 #
• 8&c1 #

• Taking some inspiration from Peter Gabriel tonight as I revise character traits in Holiday novel: "Be authentic about who you are…" #
• Skated the driveway with cousin David. Lots of tail stalls and nose picks on the curb. One kick-flip = big fail, resprained sprained wrist. #

I finished reading James Joyce’s “Dubliners” for the Feb/March Motley Read early this week, and am sending out what I’ve told myself is the last postcard this morning, to an overseas stranger.

I’ve enjoyed the Motley Read, and owe much to Chris for organizing it. The extended pace was a little stretched, but my winter has been busy enough that it has allowed me to actually kept pace, and over the weeks I’ve returned to more than one story to review, reflect, or even re-read entirely.

My own productive/creative activity has been limited blog posts and a total of ten roughly-illustrated postcards sent through out mailing list. Though I haven’t drawn anything seriously in over a decade, this practice has been liberating and enjoyable, as it’s freed me from the intellectual pressure of trying to write cogently on these muti-layered stories while allowing me to focus on key scenes as I visualized them, and even interpret or infer nuances from the story through my compositions.

I’ve been delighted with responses from the handful of fellow Motley Readers who have taken the time to digitize and publish these postcards on their blogs. Unfortunately, at least half of the postcards have been either lost or neglected, and I’ll probably never see those again except in my memory. If I had been more ambitious I would have made prints; maybe for some other work in some lesser season!

I never intended to produce one postcard per story, but now that I’m just 5 shy of a “set”, so to speak, I’m now considering illustrating “An Encounter”, “Araby”, “Eveline”, “Clay”, and “The Dead”, if only to keep or mail to myself.

Earlier this month I received three postcards from fellow motley readers re. our Feb/March reading of James Joyce’s “Dubliners”. I can’t explain how it pleased me to find these in my mailbox, visuals and words from 3 folks who range from friend to stranger–but all of whom I wish I knew more!

I apologize to the other motley readers–and especially the postcard-writers–for not posting these up sooner; February has been a looong month!