I am an unabashed Raymond Carver fan. I will say right out that if I could write like anyone, it would be like Carver. I model my prose after that sort of American Realism minimalist style that he uses. Now as much as I like to credit Carver with this style and voice, a lot of credit also goes to his editor. That type of style usually doesn’t just come out right away. I know, that’s how I write. That’s not to say that the structure isn’t there, but its like you have to take the meat off just to get down to the bare bones of it all, and to do that you need an editor.

All that being said, Carver’s widow wants to publish some of his stories in their original form. I think this is an interesting idea as it’s always kind of cool to see a writer’s progress (there’s a copy of The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald out there that has all his notes on the book in the back - tres cool). The thing is that the widow, one Tess Gallagher, seems to suggest that these unedited originals are more true to Carver’s vision. At least that’s the idea I got from the article. See, I think these originals would be interesting to see as supplements to the edited stories, not as replacements. Like I said, it would be interesting to see the process Carver went through. The drafts. The agonizing reality that a page and a half of his work didn’t really need to be in there. That those extra paragraphs towards the end about the midget playing pinball just didn’t work as metaphor.

Actually, wait, if Carver wrote about a midget playing pinball I definitely want to read that (NOTE: very unlikely this actually happened).

Many of you may have been saddened (or gladdened - real word!) at the news today that Britney Spears lost custody of her children. Personally, I DON’T CARE, but apparently enough people do that it was printed on the front page of the New York Metro. Seriously, it made the front page of a paper. Now I understand that Metro and AM New York are free papers that have essentially replaced the dime rags of centuries past (well, maybe not centuries), but they are also newspapers and I just don’t know how Britney’s custody battles make it on the front page.

And yet, here I am writing about it. It perpetuates down through the magazines and newspapers into every level of writing, infecting it along the way. We can’t escape it. If not the story itself, then the sensationalism of the news, and even if not that, the sensationalism of the writing style. EVERYTHING IS JUST SO DRAMATIC AND WHAT WILL WE DO ABOUT IT!?!?!? This type of news, the glamourfication (not a word!) of life and celebrity and everything; the TMZs of the world; all of that, while it can be entertaining and some would argue informative, it kills writing, not just news.

These magazines, these “stories” replace every other type of publication as the reading of choice. So it then permeates down to other forms. Writers want to be read, want to please the masses, reach the mob, and this is the crap that the mob reads, so… You see where I’m going with this? I’d go further into it, but Stephen King said it better.

My boss pointed this out to me today and I find it very strange, but for some reason Harry Potter is not on the NY Times bestsellers list and that makes zero sense. I wish it were true, but if you look elsewhere on the internets you’ll see that sites are reporting record number of orders. Let the conspiracies begin! Mine involves two very short people and a 1950’s rendition of As You Like It.

With the release of the new Harry Potter, I am once again reminded of a series of books I do not really like. Now, I have not read any of them all the way (I read the first 100 pages of the first book when deathly ill in high school and then never felt the need to pick it up again) through so perhaps my criticism is unwarranted, but my criticism is not so much of the books but the rabid culture surrounding the books. This happened with the Da Vinci Code as well. These books are essentially glorified supermarket fiction. Friends of mine who have read them admit this. They’re not particularly well written or compelling in any structural or narrative sense. The authors employ simple stylistic tools to build suspense and keep you reading. These are quick reads that allow you to slip into a world for however long and I suppose you’re entertained (admittedly the Da Vinci Code had some interesting ideas no matter how much they were taken from other’s non-fiction research). (more…)