October 2008
82 posts
I am going off-grid
Or whatever one says when one renounces blogging. But just temporarily! Only until my book is finished. I am going to be strict, however. But in the meantime, why not read a copy of the new issue of Bad Idea? It’s verrrrrry good. You can order it on the website, or if you are in the UK you can buy it at Borders or your local bookshop for people who wear dark, thick-framed plastic eyeglasses....
This American Life # 367: Ground Game →
Now, of course you all know already that listening to This American Life is pretty much my favourite activity. But if you have not yet become a convert, you must listen to this week’s episode from the campaign in Pennsylvania. It made me cry, but it also made me felt more hopeful than I have yet, and it made me realise why I’ve recently been thinking more about the possibility of...
“Any little girl who has actually gone out and smooched a frog, as Dawkins seems...”
– There’s nothing irrational about fiction | Books | guardian.co.uk
I am sitting in my usual coffee shop...
…being distracted/infuriated/amused by three loudly-chatting first-year undergrad students who are sitting in an awkward row on a sofa (the two girls both obviously love the boy, who is a handsome little Serbian, and thus I suspect that they are desperately willing each other to leave) and having the kind of totally asinine conversation about their lives that college freshmen have been...
“Rest assured that, should he win, Mr Obama is bound to disappoint. How could he...”
– FT.com / Comment & analysis / Editorial comment - Obama is the better choice
Thoughtful endorsement from Britain’s Financial Times.
Cantankery
Today I am having one of my four-times-yearly days of absolute, abject, crankiness. Here are some of the things that have filled me with inchoate rage so far today:
- 20 Danish kroner
- Charlie Brooker
- Sunshine
Harumph.
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I didn't write nearly enough today, but I did...
“…like going around to someone’s house for dinner and being served a ramekin of lumpy, inedible homemade custard with an impenetrable sugared crust. Out of a fear of hurting feelings, most of us respond to this kind of scenario by lavishing the chef with the kind of false praise that can only guarantee that we will be on the receiving end of many future unpalatable custards. While this...
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The Gambia!
So! Lauren and I are going on our Christmas trip to The Gambia. Here’s why:
1. Last year we agreed that spending £500 to go back to our respective hometowns in North America when it’s really cold wasn’t that much fun. This planted the seed for Christmas Exile 2008: Christmas By The Equator.
2. We needed to find somewhere near the Equator that cost less than £500 to get to,...
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“But some election watchdogs said no number of precautionary measures will...”
– www.baltimoreexaminer.com » Local News
And let me tell you, people of Maryland, when Dadelstein says something is ‘big trouble’, it is.
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I just took Attitude for my first ride-with-purpose, as opposed to fake commute, and it was hideously frightening. My face was twisted the whole time into the kind of grimace you do when you anticipate a collision and I felt like I wanted to cry. Hopefully I will become more confident with practice. Do people give cycling lessons? I think I need some.
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Excellent Book-Writing Tip #9: EMBRACE YOUR...
Also an excellent life tip, I suppose. Anyway, today I have decided to embrace the fact that I totally fail (but not FAIL, because I’m not like that) at writing in the morning. Until I finish the book, then, I’m going to stay in bed until noon and then get up, don my indoor scarf, and work until three in the morning. It makes much more sense, even though it is on the borderline of...
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We booked tickets for our Christmas trip
Lauren: Even if the crocodiles chased you, you could run faster than them.
Jean: I don't want to have to run faster than them!
“Only an arched eyebrow would convey disapproval. Queenlike, grand and generous,...”
– Obituary: Pat Kavanagh | Books | The Guardian
This is a beautifully-written obituary of the literary agent Pat Kavanagh, who very sadly died this week. I worked at PFD, the agency where she spent most of her career, for two years as an assistant. I was very junior, and our paths didn’t cross...
Excellent book-writing tip #8: FAKE COMMUTE
Working from home is so unpleasantly sedentary! Fortunately, however, I have now learned about the fake commute: utilised by writers everywhere, you get up, get dressed, and then travel in a circle so you feel like you’ve somewhere even though your destination is still your homebound desk. As Attitude (the bike) and I have reconciled post head-injury, I went for a lovely 45-minute cycle...
I am going off to mail my absentee ballot now
Even though I know it is not going to get counted at all, and that there are probably lots of other things I could do with the couple of quid it is going to cost me to send it there securely. But I am doing it anyway, by gum. Is this kind of what it is like to be religious?
I am covered in frozen peas
Recuperating today, still, from my very first bike crash. Sadly it happened exactly seventeen seconds after I took possession of the bike, which Sebastian sold to me. ‘I’ll show you how to get on,’ he said. ‘I know how to get on a bike!’ I said, disgusted with his patronising attitude. And then I promptly fell off. As we had not even left the foyer of his building, I...
This American Life: Monogamy →
Act One in this episode is really extraordinary and crazy and moving.
Excellent book-writing tip #7: CELEBRATORY...
It is important to be very well-prepared ahead of time for the celebration of your book’s completion, so it really doesn’t count as procrastination to spend time assembling your celebratory book-finishing dance mix two weeks before your deadline. Indeed, you deserve kudos for being such a plan-ahead kind of writer. [Recommendations of suitably ecstatic music welcome, of course.]
Excellent book-writing tip # 6: WEARING A SCARF...
Makes you look totally literary, and also helps to combat the cold when you’ve burned down to the end of your signature advance and are therefore loath to pay to heat your garret.
Single-lady tax
I have never really been the kind of woman who, when single, finds herself desiring a boyfriend in that boyfriend-as-commodity kind of way: of course I’d like to meet someone lovely, but he would have to be really, really lovely (and like reading and dogs) for me to want to make lots of space for him in my life. I mostly think, meh, it will happen when it happens and I needn’t worry...
Where I'm at today
I am back in the Wellcome Library again today, which makes me feel like I am pretending to be serious and scholarly as I bash out a book chapter that covers a broad range of topics, including: George Clooney, J.R.R. Tolkien, the Yiddish word ‘bashert’, Plato’s Symposium, and hypoallergenic bedding. I hope we’re going to do an index.
Random House Launch Website Toolkit For Authors →
iainbroome:
I had this exact same idea about four years ago, which is when it would have been interesting and useful.
“Authors can then select different types of content to add to their pages, such as profile or biography information, links to favourite sites, audio and video clips, book reviews, bibliographies, photo galleries, blogs and newsletters.”
I’m actually quite excited about...
“Discussing the guest list is a delicate matter for a man who considers himself...”
– Nicky Haslam hosts Mick Jagger, Sting and ‘some royals’ at society party of the year - Telegraph
The building this is in now houses Lauren’s office at the University of Roehampton, where she inspects monkey poo. She reports that she has already seen several faux-fur covered...
"If you like that, you'll love Canada and England"
Actually, John, I love them both - and their civilised universal health care plans - very much.
I'm staying up to watch the debate live tonight
Madness! On that note, I’m going to take a nice pre-debate nap now.
Why writing a book is like being a brand-new...
I stay at home all day on my own. I wear my pajamas until about 4 o’clock, at which point I think, ‘shall I take a shower? Oh, go on then!’ I don’t sleep nearly enough. I am mildly malnourished. When I do go out, I get much too excited about things like riding the bus, but then start to become distracted and fidgety and feel the need to duck out early before adequate...
“Anyone notice the Bonhams ad in the Telegraph today? Methinks maybe they put...”
– BAD IDEA magazine | Diamonds Are Forever
“OK, before we go any further, I have to know something. Tell me the truth: as a...”
– Gossip Girl’s take on literary pre-coital chat. This show is so hilarious! But I worry that the kids in its actual target demographic might take it seriously.
“I am the victim of an extraordinary media phenomenon. Never have so many spoken...”
– Letter: My homage to Tintin and Hergé | Books | The Guardian
Tired of standing by and watching crime happen
When I encountered a mob of people having a big fight just outside the gates of the church, I decided to assert myself and phone the police.
Police: How many people were there?
Jean: About six. Five males and one female.
Police: And were there any weapons?
Jean: Yes...a pan.
Police: A pen?
Jean: No, a pan. Like what you cook things in. Perhaps a large stock pot. They were hitting each other with it.
Police: That's a first! We've had knives, we've had guns, but never a pan.
Jean: Um, yeah. Well, I'm glad to have given you a new experience.
It's election day!
In Canada, my intellectual motherland. This particular election has really underlined the sheer ludicrousness of the politicking that is going on in that country to the south (and the west, in the case of those who live near Alaska): they called the election, they campaigned, they debated, and they are voting in what has only been a tiny pocket of the time devoted to the US campaign.
Anyway! If...
“But if casting a ballot Nov. 4 takes more than six minutes, many people will...”
– Election officials expect long lines at local polls
Yay, Dadelstein! Physicist by day, activist keeping voters enfranchised in Maryland by night. And on weekends.
Today's correspondence
Lauren: so i think i'll officially live in new flat as of today. eep! there won't be internet in new flat until the 27th! shocking. how will i live without internet? HOW?!?!
Jean: yay new house! i like it. think of all the productive things you will do there without internet, like reading books and canning your own preserves and raising sheep. because you will be like an old-fashioned farmer lady.
Lauren: i refuse to make preserves. i will raise sheep, however. i'm sure one of my sheep will invent the internet well before BT figures out how to turn it on at the flat.
“He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked...”
– The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama - NYTimes.com
Sigh. Good reporting, however.
Excellent book-writing tip #5: MOTIVATION THROUGH...
Pretty much like training a two-year-old child to finish her dinner or tidy her room (or, for that matter, house-breaking a puppy), I am now motivating myself to write through the provision of rewards at various word count milestones which I have all mapped out in my imagination like the most delectable spaces on a Candyland board. For example? Today when I finish the first thousand words...
'Free drinks for women' offers may be banned |... →
This phrasing is so unfortunate. Why is the government not just regulating free drinks for anyone? It sounds condescending, like women can’t be allowed to drink, even though of course I realise that they are targeting the convention of ‘Ladies’ Nights’ at bars, because men are rarely offered free booze on similar terms, even if they wear sparkly miniskirts. In any case,...
Wheeze
I was super-asthmatic as a kid: I had to go into the nurse’s office to take Ventolin before gym class every day and then I still often felt like I was dying as I was made to round the soccer field in the interest of running a mile towards the goal of achieving the Presidential Fitness Award. I like to think that my failure to achieve the PFA was at least partly because I was already keen to...