literature

Anything and Everything: advice on reading and writing, plus desiring intimacy with that special weather person on TV

~ davidbiddle ~ 1 Comment

Near the end of my senior year of high school, I asked my favorite instructor for advice on becoming a writer. Mr. Stawski was an extremely gifted English teacher, a PhD with 30+ years of teaching under his belt, certainly the most respected faculty member at our high school. He’d held a party for our Shakespeare class at his house. I was in a small group of students lingering after because it was so great to be around such a wonderful human being. I also wanted to hear his thoughts on what we should all be thinking about as we graduated and then headed off to college. Asking for advice on writing was also my way of telling him that I might be serious about pursuing a career as an author.

Mr. Stawski’s advice was simple and obvious. He looked me in the eyes and said: “Read as much as you can. People say writers need life experience, and I can’t argue with that, but it’s more important to read anything and everything–especially over the next decade or so as you mature.”

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Making New Meaning: Fiction’s Role in Our New America

~ davidbiddle ~ Leave a comment

I want to add something to the endless discussion about why it’s important to read literary fiction. The discussion is important.

You may have graduated from high school English class and feel like you never want to go back again, but you didn’t graduate from Life. Too many people have stopped reading quality fiction that makes them think about Life these days. That’s why this endless discussion about books and their import continues — taking the time to think about life is essential for all of us. Books assume that’s why you’re reading them — especially literary stories by anyone from James Joyce and Virginia Woolf to Joy Williams and James Salter.

You can find a lot of essays and blog posts out there on the value of novels, short stories, and plays because they teach empathy and help people understand another person’s point of view. Indeed, the written word in general is still the most effective way to express all the nuances of human emotion. These days, it feels in some ways that people are losing touch with emotional reality and concern for how other people feel in any number of social situations. Could it be that fewer people are reading quality fiction these days? Maybe people are spending less time with books and more time with porn and video games.

You can also find arguments on how readers of serious fiction are proven to be more intuitive, better problem solvers, superior communicators, and higher achievers at Continue reading →

“Magical Thinking” Without Defining Writing Talent

~ davidbiddle ~ 1 Comment

JohnGardner Art of Ficion Cover
Not the cover you usually see for this great book.

Over at The Millions Michael Bourne (the writer, not the center fielder) has an essay this week called “Magical Thinking: Talent and the Cult of Craft.” Lots of great comments and thinking come after his pretty thoughtful exploration of the question of success in the writing world: Talent? or Craft?

Bourne makes a good case against this statement in John Gardner’s book The Art of Fiction:

“[T]he truth is that though the ability to write well is partly a gift — like the ability to play basketball well or outguess the stock market — writing ability is mainly a product of good teaching supported by a deep-down love of writing.”

Maybe Bourne lays it on a little thick about the problem of writers leaning a bit too heavily on the idea of studying the mechanics of good writing and storytelling (especially in MFA and college creative writing programs). I didn’t really pay much attention to that side of the equation. The idea of “talent” just really struck me. There’s no question Continue reading →

Swimming Through the Sparkles

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

I’ve published two stories to the Kindle site at Amazon.com in the past week. They can both be found at the following Kindle links:

What Goes Inside

Her Miniature

What Goes Inside is currently listed as #57 on the list of free literary fiction offerings. Her Miniature is listed as #77. I’m hoping folks will download both as much as possible today and tomorrow while they’re free. However, if you really want to make my day, wait until Monday and download them for the Amazon price of $2.99.

Let me know if they’re worth it, too.

I admit that these stories are quite provocative and a bit nasty and even nihilistic. They are part of a larger manuscript, all dealing with the love thing as it affects those of us heading into middle age. Julia Davenport is an amplification of a lot of stuff I’m reading and hearing about these days. Many women are as full of wanderlust as men.

Some of the stories I’ve heard over the past 6-8 years are quite interesting–and heartbreaking. They inform some of Julia Davenport’s life. If anything, she seems to me to represent a very deep and very strong aspect of women that I notice here in the 2000s. I am so amazed by the strength and character of the women I know and see everyday. There is a fearless, strong, warrior queen in these women. They may be moms and wives, ex-wives, girl friends, even grandmoms, but they have that thing in them.

I think of that thing as a piece of Diana. Diana is the Goddess of the Hunt, the Moon, and Birth. If they were to fully tap into their inner Diana, men wouldn’t stand a chance (in many different ways). At the same time, though, the profoundly noble spirit of Diana is right there at the edge of the cliff. The same kind of spirit is in some men (Apollo). Note I say “some” men. The book that best points to that spirit is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Need I say more?

The book cover you see in this post is something just finished yesterday. My third story in what I think of as “The Julia Cycle” is ready to post to Kindle. However, I’m waiting, wondering if anyone might want to read it. Let me know if it’s time to post it.

This will likely be the last post of these in this format. I am shooting to have the full cycle of eight (8) stories compiled into novel format and posted to Amazon sometime in the spring. Keep a look out. Let me know your thoughts on everything Julia Davenport. She’s kind of a mess, but aren’t we all?

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Happy Reading.