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Posts tagged ‘Michael Ondaatje’

Jan 31

Book-Endings-_1
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Beginning with the Ending

I have this pile of books by my side. The dog is nearby, sleeping on another pile. I am reading to catch up. I look through the books. First one, I toss aside. No names, please. Names cause strife. The blurb is enticing enough, but when I steal a glance at the ending, something didn’t feel right. The words, I think. The next book, the ending I liked. No, not how it ended, but how the words came together to say something sensible, beautiful even. It held my attention. I began reading. Like a good beginning, endings also matter. Have you done the same with writing? Have you ever written the other way around, beginning with the ending first?

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Dec 18

PersonReadingBook
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Honestly, how much can you read in a year

Here I am. It’s three in the afternoon. Already it grows cold. My toes are numb in the slight chill. The sun peer weakly over the fronds of the coconut tree across the road, its light weaving cobwebs in my sight as the weak light pricks my eyes. I have a book on my lap, my last of this year. Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat Table. There are so many more of them cluttered around the house in small piles that will have to wait their turn. And I have failed yet again.

Last year, I set myself a target to read a book every week. Correction – I said I’d finish a book every week. I failed. Badly. I ended up reading about half of that. I bought twice as much, about ten books a month. I am asking myself now, so late in the year…

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Apr 30

Mad Writer
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Odd Writing Habits that Worked

The literary world is dotted with figures, each with its unique, and in a way, eccentric writing habits. Some were fastidious, some methodical, a few wrote with a drink by their side, some wrote standing up, some walked while they wrote, while others liked to write lying down.

Writing standing up was an oddly common method. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up as did Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita. Nabokov used index cards for his writing. He wrote the scenes non-sequentially so that he could re-arrange the cards as he wished. His longest novel Ada(1969) took up more than 2,000 cards…

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