novel debris

This is a part of my "novel-writing" "process"

Follow your own curiosity and say the most interesting stuff first. There is this weird idea of a “general reader,” who reads the New York Times and is equally interested in about 200 things (politics, peace in the middle east, pie, &c). I don’t think such people exist. And if they do, they are too busy reading the New York Times to read whatever you’re writing.

So forget that hypothetical reader and write about the things that are most interesting to you. Then, make it your mission to explain to readers why they should care about this thing you find interesting.

At the base of it, I guess I don’t believe in other people’s hierarchies about what’s important in the world. … And — this is one reason I love the web — all the analytics I’ve ever seen on my stories indicate that my own interest level and effort dictate what does well, *not* the subject matter.

—

“Forget your generalized audience,” John Steinbeck advised in his six timeless tips on writing, and The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal echoes him with even more depth and dimension in his own advice on writing.

Pair with famous writers’ collected wisdom on the craft.

(via explore-blog)

(Source: , via theonlymagicleftisart)

Young Wonder // To You (by Young Wonder)

I find this video real comforting. The idea of such an elaborate funeral for a small cat is more reassuring than comic. Maybe we won’t all die alone!

100 Favorites (In No Particular Order)

  1. Ice Cream Bars involving crispy chocolate and some kind of cookie crumble. 
  2. Beating a 10 minute mile.
  3. GChat windows.
  4. When everyone gets the joke. 
  5. Splitting a bottle of wine. 
  6. The first time you hear a piece of music and it does that thing that makes you know you are totally going to love that piece of music. 
  7. When a 

    bit of reading stops you cold. 

  8. Montreal Bagels with Hungarian Cream Cheese.
  9. Karaoke nights.
  10. Girls of a certain height. 
  11. Beautiful shoes.
  12. Rolling the car windows down for the first time after a long winter.
  13. Bill Fucking Murray.
  14. Traveling with just one other person.
  15. Okonomiyaki from the guy down the street.
  16. Coffee shop chairs by the window.
  17. Fingers in my hair. 
  18. Cats with personality.
  19. Prague.
  20. Kyoto.
  21. Facebook likes.
  22. The picture comes out better than expected. 
  23. The boop sound of the doors opening on the JR trains. 
  24. Christmas in Japan. 
  25. Invitations. 
  26. The electric smell of the air just before a thunderstorm.
  27. Unexpected class cancellations. True when I was 12, true today. 
  28. Hearing a yes. 
  29. Falling back to sleep. 
  30. Homemade salsa.
  31. Being drunk enough to dance. 
  32. Korean Magpies.
  33. Dew in the sunlight.
  34. Not feeling tired after 8k and still running.
  35. Clever children. 
  36. Plinking noises, as in music boxes, pizzicato violins, and harps. 
  37. Shiso leaves. 
  38. Sewing paper together (in the bookmaking process).
  39. The quiet echoes in art museums and galleries.
  40. Art Museum Gift and Book Shops.
  41. Pumpkin Spice anything.
  42. Girls on bicycles.
  43. The mere fact that Ghost Riding the Whip was a “thing.” 
  44. Aggressive editing. 
  45. The usually fleeting sense that I am no longer scatteredly grasping at straws but am fully present and aware of who I am and what I’m doing.
  46. The sound of rain as it breaks just after waking up on a Saturday morning.
  47. Trampolines. 
  48. Chai and clove.
  49. Asked on a date. 
  50. Effective and reliable public transportation. 
  51. The Final Speech from “The Great Dictator.” 
  52. Peacoats. 
  53. Pens that write smoothly.
  54. Requests to publish. 
  55. Buying a smaller pant size. 
  56. Sunsets. 
  57. Sunrises with friends.
  58. Drunk without drinking.
  59. Conversationalists.
  60. Cherry blossoms.
  61. Workday-at-noon text messages. 
  62. Community (the TV series).
  63. Funny girls.
  64. Warm baths.
  65. Proper Pizza.
  66. Dinner plans. 
  67. Thrift stores.
  68. Cheap cameras.
  69. Going to places based solely on their names. 
  70. Shrines and temples.
  71. Accents and dialects.
  72. The Haiku of Issa.
  73. Rilke’s “The Duino Elegies.” 
  74. That one page in Brothers Karamazov. 
  75. Hookahs.
  76. Kissing her.
  77. Warm salt water and sand and going in.
  78. A decent back massage, given or received. 
  79. Freckles.
  80. The New York Times.
  81. Wes Anderson films.
  82. Hummingbirds.
  83. Red hair. 
  84. Hand-written letters. 
  85. Barack Obama.
  86. Well-designed maps and charts. 
  87. Discovering your friend’s secret talent.
  88. Wings of Desire, the film. At least in theory.
  89. Late night ramen. 
  90. One cigarette.
  91. Dry humor. 
  92. Gin and Tonics.
  93. “Art projects.”
  94. Flying Kites.
  95. Falling asleep to podcasts.
  96. LCD Soundsystem, “Someone Great.” 
  97. Ira Glass. 
  98. Well-fitting clothes.
  99. Weekend plans. 
  100. Pesto Turkey Sandwich.

Well, who hasn’t woken up thinking, “God, nothing good has come to me in a while,” right? When I feel like I’m stuck, I do something — not like I’m Mother Teresa or anything, but there’s someone that’s forgotten about in your life, all the time. Someone that could use an “Attaboy” or a “How you doin’ out there.” It’s that sort of scene, that remembering that we die alone. We’re born alone. We do need each other. It’s lonely to really effectively live your life, and anyone you can get help from or give help to, that’s part of your obligation.

Super Karamazov Bros.

I believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love. Don’t be frightened overmuch even at your evil actions.

I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it — at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of that which has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. 

Brothers Karamazov

——

I’ve been trying to properly memorize this. 

The Hipster, 1957

Whereas if you goof (the ugliest word in Hip), if you lapse back into being a frightened stupid child, or if you slip, if you lose your control, reveal the buried weaker more feminine part of your nature, then it is more difficult to swing the next time, your ear is less alive, your bad and energy-wasting habits are further confirmed, you are farther away from being with it. But to be with it is to have grace, is to be closer to the secrets of that inner unconscious life which will nourish you if you can hear it, for you are then nearer to that God which every hipster believes is located in the senses of his body, that trapped, mutilated and nonetheless megalomaniacal God who is It.

To which a cool cat might reply, “Crazy, man!”

- Norman Mailer on the Hipster, circa 1957

Been thinking a lot about this essay. A lot of really brilliant bits, a lot of unfortunate dropping of the word “Negro,” despite Mailer’s progressive tendencies, but kind of amazing shit nonetheless.

“Therefore, men are not seen as good or bad (that they are good-and-bad is taken for granted) but rather each man is glimpsed as a collection of possibilities, some more possible than others (the view of character implicit in Hip) and some humans are considered more capable than others of reaching more possibilities within themselves in less time, provided, and this is the dynamic, provided the particular character can swing at the right time.” 

But my favorite has to be this one: 

“The unstated essence of Hip, its psychopathic brilliance, quivers with the knowledge that new kinds of victories increase one’s power for new kinds of perception; and defeats, the wrong kind of defeats, attack the body and imprison one’s energy until one is jailed in the prison air of other people’s habits, other people’s defeats, boredom, quiet desperation, and muted icy self-destroying rage.”

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days…Lightly, lightly—it’s the best advice ever given me. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling.

— Island, Aldous Huxley (via fabula)

(Source: sol-psych, via yokoinyourcocoa)

What would it take to overcome the cultural pull of irony? Moving away from the ironic involves saying what you mean, meaning what you say and considering seriousness and forthrightness as expressive possibilities, despite the inherent risks.

The next suitable person you’re in a light conversation with, stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned and say, “How did you know?” He doesn’t realize something’s always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn’t know everybody’s always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it.

—The Pale King, David Foster Wallace (via creatingaquietmind)

(Source: alighthouseofwords, via creatingaquietmind)

All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life—where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.

—Miranda July, It Chooses You (via creatingaquietmind)

(Source: larmoyante, via creatingaquietmind)