Looking for one or two especially good Lovecraft stories. Need to impress a chick who likes him.



How's it going?

RUN


been swamped most evenings lately, so slow. here’s to catching up while america grills hotdogs this weekend.

I like Color Out of Space the best. Not really well written, but it has one of the most interesting stories among them, IMO

for a really impressive associated novel try Mind Parasites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_Parasites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson

BTW, Lovecraft and Woodrow Wilson are real doppelgangers

PDF of all Lovecraft stories https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...98717601,d.cGU

Great choice.

Just restarted Tom Wolfe's (rip) Back to Blood. I started it when it originally came out but got sidetracked. I know some people are down on his novels but I'm a fan of everything he did, fiction and non-fiction.

Woo hoo! Thanks everyone.



If his books weren't so friggin' long, I'd read more. Back to Blood is 720 pages? Can't do it, man. Lemme know how it goes though.

His fiction is far too long. I love his social observations, his attention to detail, his tone, but (with the possible exception of Bonfire) he didn't have the storytelling skills to make their length anything other than prohibitive. Beyond that he always seemed to pick interesting topics at interesting times. That's obviously the journalist in him and I don't think there's any argument that, while I do like all his fiction, he was a far better journalist than he was a novelist.

re: moby’s dick, im loving the kindle this afternoon since there are so many nautical terms and usages of common words plus some archaic stuff as well, it makes for looking up the definitions in a very efficient way. especially good since every paragraph holds a little surprise and chuckle. im not skipping a single thing

I need something to read. Got goddamn nothing right now. Nothing interesting to me anyway. I feel like whenever I’m in a reading rut my impulse is to grab Lovecraft or Dickens or something and burn through it for the twentieth time. Something safe. Which just perpetuates the rut.

Need something new.

you could try a couple of these histories, I recco them pretty highly

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/06...api_taft_p1_i2

https://www.amazon.com/Distant-Mirro...arbara+tuchman

demonyo was just panning this. i think she was great. i also think she’s commonly misread, and especially was, in her day, by censors.



you want different? this one is.

1) not a dude
2) not following the rules
3) not ever repeated
4) smarter and better read that most
5) crazy, probably, but in a great way

now if you wanna gtfo of america for a bit, try this:



why is it different to what you’re accustomed to?

1) written by a chinese-cuban gay
2) who was in france, in the 60s (it is a very 60s book in its cultural references and some theories that inform it, but 60s europe not hippy-america)
3) in the cuban neobaroque style, which owes so much to the spanish golden age, but actually survives decently in english translation
4) and was highly praised by his buddy roland barthes, who did not dish out compliments gratuitously
5) and it’s a wild, rollicking, ecstatic prose

last one (promise)



at the very root of the western canon, and yet, like in academia, where people skip the readings and discuss the criticism instead, nobody reads this anymore, they just pretend.

bloodier and more violent than any pussy-ass tarantino movie, likely an inspiration for the wild bunch, which started it all, this book brings you back to the bronze age where we all come from, when we were guided by the gods but also had the same petty cares we have today. only difference was instead of sending the poors to do their killing for them, the rich manned the front lines and whacked each other to pieces, striving to be excellent in battle.

something out of this world really. not a flash in the pan, reads great after 3000 years.

I was gonna say you don’t have to sell me on Homer, but you’re right. I’ve never actually read The Iliad from start to finish... just talked about it a fuckload in various classes eons ago.
The last one you posted looks interesting.

Not reading yet, but purchased Jurassic Park by Crichton and "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson.

yeah. most people are, as holden caulfield would put it, phonies

did you know that kathy acker studied classics?

she was a very promising scholar by all accounts— all the while working as a stripper and porno actress ha ha ha

anyway there are some hilarious greek hymn parodies in blood & guts in high school

or maybe it’s sappho, or a mishmash of many things

Currently reading The Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh.

Obviously many of us are readers, and I've been actively increasing my reading output in 2018.


How many of y'all are writers? Whether creative fiction, essays, journalism, or whatever you fancy?


I have brief stints as creative fiction, meaning i have less than 10 stories I'll be able to discuss since 2005, but am looking into expanding and becoming more active in writing as well.


So I'm curious about others here.

i used to write but i killed myself :(

So you're a literal embodiment of the walking dead? Cool :D

only half zombie. it gives me a limp.

Walking Dead suuuuuuuuucks no offense

whoooosh!

the zombie writer metaphor is apt however for posting shit all day on the internet

No denial the show came to mind when I typed my original reply, but my comment itself has zero connection or connotation to the show/comic itself.

anyway, yes

so where were we?

ah yes

when was everyone’s last vacation?

i dont mean going away necessarily. staycations count.

In terms of writing, I have 3 publicly posted, less than 1000word short stories located at the awesome domain of https://achooandthesneezes.com/


I want/hope/desire to have more stuff posted soon-ish, as all posted stuff is from like 2011 or earlier. Just waiting/trying to find inspiration. Hoping this site plus some other action items will spur me on.

i used to have my lines stolen by award winning poets. well, i’d actually lend them, but way too cheaply.

now i’m sitting here

i’ll check out your page post-work

Just finished Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined" http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/0...g-else-is.html

Years and years ago. Like... 200...9?

you haven't had a break and have worked continuously since 2009?

not even a couple of weeks off for the holidays or something?

so..... i had a superlong day yesterday reconciling accounts till my eyes hurt and i spaced this

sorry!

i wont make any more promises, but right now i intend to look when i a) get a chance, and b) remember, which should not take overly long, but my life being what it is,not 100% predictable

I have zero urgency for this or need to have it read. That said, it's a cumulative 6-8min read among all 3 stories posted :D

ha ha

i read them

some funny ideas there

why not write more—i mean take them farther

I just may. "Lust" was born of the idea of a series of short stories all based on one of the 7 deadly sins, and each would have a (hopefully) unexpected twist in them.



I know i have some characters from others from over 10 years ago that I may expand on as a series of adventures.

oh right kinda like kieszlowski’s 10 commandments

i thought the coders in the coffee shop could get into some shenanigans trying to get rid of the patrons. maybe even become serial killers lololol.

a small note on style, i’d get rid of all the exclaims and quippeds. trust me on that—it’s either “said” or nothing at all if it’s evident who is speaking. try it and see how it works. also when possible nuke the adverbs.

So take "Dead Poet's Society" literally in certain spots:

ha ha i didnt think you were being lazy but it is a bit like that, choosing the more potent words.

poetry is different in that poetry is about words themselves.

but in fiction it’s more like you want the effect in the mind of the reader to take precedence over words.you want your reader to get into the story not look from outside.

in the case of dialogue, it’s more important for the reader to hear the characters talking than it is to hear the writer talking about the characters talking. the beauty of “said” is that it’s almost invisible, so it clarifies who said what without getting in the way. it’s what the characters say that is important.

as for the adverbs, aside from yes it’s better to choose the right verb instead of modifying it, again for me they get in the way of the mental picture, i think because they provide the data in 2 separate pieces so you have to take another look and correct or complete the image you constructed with the first piece. you want as much as possible to keep the flow of mental images unbroken so the reader can stay in the story.

tldr; the job of language is to get out of the way of the story, unless the story is about language itself, which it can be sometimes, like, say, in ulysses, which to me is a prose poem more than a novel.

^ tw2113, he ain't lying

I'd drop the exclamation points. Use maybe two in your entire life's output.

Promising stuff. I'd highly recommend joining a writer's group or possibly take a class or two to eliminate a few of the glaring amateur mistakes I spotted. (Not a slam. It happens. "Becoming a good writer" is, obviously, a process.)

I'm definitely not disregarding any of the advice, so I hope I don't sound dismissive.


That said, everything except the coffee shop satire/onion-style piece was written back in like 2011 or earlier, so definitely a lot of amateur mistakes made that would hopefully be evolved from since. Now to just start something new. /me kicks himself in the butt

:confused:

oh, i just added my explanation because it needed explaining. sometimes people do give arbitrary rules of writing. im not a hipster though and just wanted to clarify why i made those suggestions. style is functional.



i found humor in every piece so i’d say get to work yeah