Notable Quotes: On reading, writing, editing, and the publishing industry

booksWe’re all embarking on this grand project (or folly) together, so I thought I’d share a list of quotes on reading, writing, editing, and publishing to get us all into the spirit of things.

As with most of the content I’ll be putting up here before November 1 —Wri-Day, if you will— this list was posted over on my own blog some time ago, and is published here at the gracious invitation of our kind editor and benevolent dictator. A fun fact? This list has generated over 10,000 unique page views on my blog since it was published exactly 364 days ago, thanks in large part to the picture you see here: It seems when people googled an image search for ‘Books’ a link to my blog’s copy of this public domain graphic appeared on the first page of results for a number of months. Google seems to have some mechanism to spread the love around, because I haven’t seen a disproportionate interest in that particular post in months now, but perhaps we’ll get lucky again here at Stranger Than Truth, and this image will draw thousands of readers to our content.

Anyway, without further ado, the quotes.

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I’ve been instructed to say hello

It’s always an interesting decision—what do you say to introduce yourself? Not really knowing the audience makes it a lot harder.

I’m not sure I’d call myself an author. I have a published novel, but I published it with my own publishing company, so I’m not sure it really counts. Publishing my own novel was not the point of starting a publishing company, but we needed a starting place, and that seemed like a good choice. The book I published was my first NaNoWriMo novel, which I wrote back in 2002. This will be my ninth NaNo. I’ve won six times.

This year, I will be attempting to finish while also tending to a two year old and a five week old. I think it’s going to suck, but at least my wife is supportive. I’m going to write a story in which a person dies in each chapter. In the next chapter, the person who killed the person in the last chapter will die. I’m not sure where it’s going to end up, but it’s going to start with a squirrel.

In a Box (The birth of Marcus Carab)

This is a story I wrote in college (and have revised since), and it is the first appearance of the name Marcus Carab. Here Marcus Carab is the name of a character, though I have since adopted it as a pen name for no good reason. It is inspired by a famous thought experiment—I suspect you can guess which one. Enjoy!

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I plan to cheat, if necessary

Every time I run into a literary wall, my main character is going to pull out his weathered copy of Atlas Shrugged and read the giant speech near the end out loud. Doesn’t matter if he is on the subway or in Subway. Ayn Rand. Loud. In full. And, as the man hunched over the keys trying to tell you this character’s story, well, it would only be fitting for me to transcribe the speech as he gives it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing the character justice. I wouldn’t be doing my job. And goddammit, if there is one thing I take serious in life it is writing real life stuff about real life people and if my main character wants to read the giant Atlas Shrugged speech ten times throughout the course of my (huge fake in-the-air finger quotations) novel, well then, it is my right…no, my duty and obligation, to allow you, the reader, the chance to multiply the cheat-factor and just skip it (like everyone in the entire world actually does with said part when encountering it within the confines of said book). And if you, the reader, the general public, don’t like it, tough tittie. Write a chapter about it in your own book.

Hello from the Yukon

Hey Everyone. The winter is here. Maybe not for you guys, but for me it is. There has been snow on the ground for months already and the sun rarely comes out. I’ve been working 7 days a week now since August and its starting to drain on me. However, since the sun is so scarce, we are cutting back on work and it looks like I’ll have some free time and some money to throw around in the next few months.

My job means that I am constantly having adventures. As a kid I used to canoe around my parents cottage and imagine that I lived in the woods. I guess I lost that part of myself at some point and I became a city slicker. Anyway, now I’m back into the bush and I’m loving it. I use my axe all day long for making posts (which are used to identify a land claim) and for chopping down trees. I’ve gotten really good at chopping down a tree because I have to clear so many out for the helicopter to come and pick me up at the end of the day. Often I find myself pushing through thick alder trees or leaping over dead fall. Last week I ran into a bull moose. I waited for him to walk away and then continued my day. He was a big guy.

Anyway, I’m back in town for this month and taking days off and I’m hoping to write some stories. My real life is probably more wild then any story I could write, so I may include some truths as well. I like what I’m reading here and I look forward to reading more of everyone’s work.

— your good buddy Tim

False Starts: Supertanker

I know wasn’t the only one who found it somewhat surreal when pirates suddenly became a daily topic. South Park tackled the subject brilliantly, but long before that episode aired I had an idea for a story about a man who, upon discovering the re-emergence of piracy on the high seas, goes quite mad and attempts to become a pirate in Lake Ontario.

As is often the case with these whim’s of mine, I didn’t get very far. But I think the beginning is quite fun, so I thought I’d share it. Here goes:

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New NaNo Challenge: iPhoning it in

Hello there blogosphere,

After writing my first post about the prospect of writing a lot of my NaNo on my iPhone, I got to thinking….why not write the whole thing on my iPhone?

I conferred with our benevolent editor and we decided, yes, this is too exiting of an idea to pass up. I test drove the WriteRoom app, and after working out a few kinks with the new WordPress app (which I am using to make this post) everything seems to be in order.

The prospect of writing 50,000 words is a daunting enough task on its own, so we’ll how much more of a challenge it will be on a 9cm touch-screen.

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Hello from Elizabeth

Elizabeth Kurz joins the team at Stranger Than Truth with an introduction that cuts straight to the point. Let’s all welcome Liz and her twisted NaNoWriMo 2010 plans!

Current obsessions: misplaced phone calls, elaborate dream sequences, doubles, technology, monsters, underworlds, visions, David Lynch, lost girls, blackouts, white noise, skyscrapers, mirrors, bridges, feral animals, secret lives, lesbians, black cats, creaking houses, miscarriages, secret places, toothless prostitutes. 

I haven’t written anything in ages but I’ve been thinking of some ideas for a while. My biggest inspirations at the moment are Haruki Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Twin Peaks, Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, and Paul Auster’s City of Glass. Essentially I want to write an absolutely terrifying psychological thriller that makes people kill themselves. I also am reading Les Miserables right now and therefore think there should be more toothless prostitutes clawing at suited men in general.

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My Attempt at NaNoWriMo 2009, Part 5

Further we plunge into my failed attempt at NaNoWriMo last year, and we are approaching the halfway point! This chunk is much longer than the last, but I think it’s quite entertaining—Jeromy & Cam, many of whose dialogues are based on real conversations between myself and my good buddy Tim, are without a doubt the characters I fleshed out best.

Don’t forget about parts one, two, three and four.

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