Category: writing

  • Beautiful Sentences: Nafkote Tamirat

    He hadn’t meant to create them. He simply spoke to them as he had to others before, looking directly into their eyes, giving utterance to what he believed to be right, unflinching, beautiful. Nafkote Tamirat, The Parking Lot Attendant.

  • Beautiful Sentences: R. O. Kwon

    If I was sick of Christ, it was because I hadn’t been able to stop loving Him, this made-up ghost I still grived as though He’d been real. R. O. Kwon, The Incendiaries.

  • Writerly Resolutions: October Status

    October was the month I (mostly) finished chapter 16 of the novel. I still have draft 3 edits to do and I’d like to get some feedback on that and do some more edits after that. It’s not as good as I’d hoped, but nothing ever is. I’ve also ended up getting a bunch of older…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Roberto Bolaño

    Desde la ventana Amalfitano los observaba mordiéndose los labios, aunque ese gesto en él, y en ese preciso instante, no era un gesto de desesperación o de impotencia sino de profunda, inabarcable tristeza. Roberto Bolaño, 2666.

  • Beautiful Sentences: R. O. Kwon

    I spilled time into the piano as I’d have put cash in a bank. R. O. Kwon, The Incendiaries.

  • Beautiful Sentences: Roberto Bolaño

    Y luego Espinoza oyó que alguien, el mismo estudiante, susurraba Morini… Morini… Morini, con una voz que no parecía la suya sino más bien la voz de un mago, o más concretamente, la voz de una maga, una adivina de la época del Imperio Romano, una voz que llegaba como el goteo de una fuente…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Kathy Fish

    The naked women and men and teenagers and toddlers and babies glowed like rich people’s teeth as they threw themselves upon the piles of their worldly belongings. Kathy Fish, “Collection Day.”

  • Beautiful Sentences: Megan Giddings

    What is the point of dating a self-proclaimed spirit of joy if she also tracks misery into your life? Megan Giddings, “Vacations”

  • Writerly Resolutions: September Status

    September was a harsh month. I had hoped to have chapter 16 of the novel finished this month, but, as the curve at the right shows, I had a lot of not so productive days.  I did have the wonderfully good fortune of having Goodreads suggest Masuji Ibuse’s Black Rain to me which covers similar material as…