I’ve begun something new: The Typewriter Project. Inspired by the acquisition of a Smith-Cornona Coronamatic 2500, I’ll be writing at least two pages a day on this noisy, strange, glorious machine. The goal: a draft of a book in six months. What kind of book? I have no idea. The premise: One writer. One grand…Continue reading The Typewriter Project
Category: Personal
Fear, Trembling, & Tribulation: Notes from a Raptured Childhood
Before I was a San Franciscan, I was a Southerner, and every reformed Southerner knows a thing or two about the Rapture. As a child in a strict Southern Baptist household in Alabama, I was fed a steady Sunday diet of Revelations and lived in fear of the day that Jesus would return, the graves…Continue reading Fear, Trembling, & Tribulation: Notes from a Raptured Childhood
How to End a Story
Stories are like relationships: the beginning is always so much fun, and the ending is fraught with turmoil. When I sit down to start a story, the first sentence just sort of comes to me. The second sentence too. If I’m lucky, the third swiftly follows. The inimitable short story writer Kate Braverman once told a…Continue reading How to End a Story
On titles
As some of you may already know, the working title for The Year of Fog was Ocean Beach. My publisher made it clear that there was no way the novel was going to come out with the title “Ocean Beach.” For one thing, my editor and the marketing folks found it redundant–as in, well, okay, yes,…Continue reading On titles
Better in French
Why does everything sound better in French? I came across this charming youtube video of a French reader reviewing Le R’eve D’Amanda Ruth, the French translation of Dream of the Blue Room. (I love the French title, which translates as The Dream of Amanda Ruth.) My high school and college English isn’t intact enough for…Continue reading Better in French