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Almost ready.

Estate sale, the Goodwill bins, ocean creatures that love Obama

Nick Mamatas preaches on what makes a great writer:

You have to stop caring whether you live or die.

This is not just apathy about life, but a more active denial of the social world. You have to get comfortable with the idea of walking around without skin, with not caring at all whether or not your parents ever speak to you again, with not stopping after your lovers all leave in teary huff after teary huff, whether your book sells two thousand copies or two million, whether or not everyone knows exactly what imagery you masturbate to. This doesn't mean merely being confessional, but simply ready. If your imagination -- your imagination -- suggests that the best solution to some problem you have is the insertion of your right arm into a wood chipper, you must eliminate the social, personal, and autonomic buffers that would keep you from doing just that.

This will not make you a great writer -- it will turn on that pilot light though. Only accidents of history make people great writers.

I very much enjoyed reading this even if I didn't agree with everything Nick said. It got me inspired, though, as I start to worm my way through this new book. Kind of like when I watched "Stranger Than Fiction" - with Emma Thompson's character struggling to finish the ending of her book - as I was completing the draft of the last book. Just what I needed, when I needed it.

(07/08/08)