David Foster Wallace

Why I Wrote a Novel by a Girl: When a Dude Figures Out the Power of Emotion in Literature

~ davidbiddle ~ 1 Comment

I just finished revising the second draft of my next novel, which means I now have Draft #3 to print out. I’m doing that as I write this post. The whole process started back in October of 2013. Draft #1 clocked in at about 160,000 words (630 pages). Revisions for Draft #2 in December of last year shrank the book to 140,000 words. I was surprised at how many unnecessary sentences I’d written and how many extended metaphors showed up that a reader didn’t really need.

Draft #3 was an extraordinary process. My goal was essentially to lop 60,000 words off the beast. I’d gotten a fair amount of input from a few First Readers. In particular, several poet colleagues were concerned about the number of sub-plots I was offering up. They wanted focus and brevity. Poets!

I took a few weeks to think through their advice. I also got an interesting letter from a prospective agent saying, in essence, “I can’t take a look at a coming-of-age novel that is 140,000 words long.” Agents!

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More on the Price of Books in America: addendum to a Talking Writing op-ed

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various e-book readers. From right to left iPa...

The Apple vs. Department of Justice anti-trust, book pricing case came to an end this past week. It offered a rare and important glimpse of the private nether regions of both the publishing world and the new corporate media industry controlled in large part by Apple and Amazon.

I co-authored an op-ed piece on this case at Talking Writing magazine with TW’s editor in chief, Martha Nichols. It’s called “Thank You, Apple, for Going to Court Over E-Books.” Unlike most of the pundits in the publishing and high-tech worlds, Martha and I took the long-term perspective of authors — not corporate publishers and consumers. Apple and the big publishers were trying to change the business model of retail book sales. Rather than allow retailers control of pricing, Apple and the Continue reading →

The Bone and the Flower: New Frontiers of Literature or Sexual Fantasy?

~ David Biddle ~ 1 Comment

Guernica, which is one of the best online culture magazines out there today, just posted their November 1 edition, and it’s quite a compendium of stories, interviews, essays, art, and poetry. They offer a pretty insightful interview with Junot Diaz that gets old JD to let his hair down quite a lot about his alter ego Yunior de la Casa.

I can also very strongly recommend reading Frank Cassese’s essay, “It Doesn’t Mean We’re Wasting Our Time,” a poignant and quite insightful story about the meaning of a postcard he received from the late, great, and beloved writer, David Foster Wallace. For every writer out there on all levels, this essay is a must. And, to be honest, I think people who just love to read books as well as people who love writers (that is, sleep with them and commit loving but, hopefully, sweetly salacious acts with them) should also read this piece. Cassese gets at the heart of the question: Why the hell do we do this to ourselves? It’s a great essay. Guernica should be proud of themselves for getting this out to the rest of us. Continue reading →