Two weeks left before Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp at the BenCab Museum, Baguio on March 17-18. Book your places now!
Two weeks to go before Writing Boot Camp Weekend! We have several places left for participants. You don’t have to have writing experience, but you have to want to write. Boot Camp focuses on the process of writing, which really begins with hauling your ass in front of that notebook or screen and translating your imaginings into words. We can create universes out of words, but before we can do that, we have to actually finish a paragraph. Then a page. Then pages. Then books! It can be done. Start here.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 14th, 2018 at 05:26
Hi Jessica. What are you reading right now?
Me, I just finished reading:
1. How Fiction Works by James Wood. Most enjoyable book about criticism I’ve read since The War Against Cliche by Martin Amis (I think I got that recommendation from you/your blog).
2. What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell. A short novel set in Bulgaria, a gay American teacher falls in love with a Bulgarian rent boy. I ended up reading this because I got a bit obsessed with James Wood that I started googling his book reviews. He said What Belongs To You is one of his favorite books of 2016. And then I looked for more reviews of this book and some of them said that Greenwell writes like Proust, and I like Proust and indeed Greenwell does write a bit like Proust. Most gay stories are sad (why though?) and this is no exception. I look forward to the day when someone writes a gay novel or screenplay with a happy ending like Pride and Prejudice or The Shape of Water.
3. Proust’s Way by Robert Shattuck. Shattuck has read and reread Proust’s book (both in French and English) for 30 years and this guidebook is the product of his readings. This book assumes that you have read the entire novel, although if you haven’t, you can read up to chapter 2 for helpful tips on how to approach Proust. Some parts can get very technical and boring; I’m not a lit major so some of the things he’s talking about just fly over my head.
I’m now reading Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and I am so grateful to be reading it right now because I’m still unemployed and this book gave me solace. As in Frankl cited being unemployed as being similar to someone in a concentration camp in that both are in a “provisional existence of unknown limit”, i.e. we don’t know when it’s going to be over, it’s hard to bet on the future or to even think about the future, difficult to think about one’s purpose, structure of life has changed, we suffer from a deformity of internal time, etc. Most days I’m fine but some days it just gets to me.
After Frankl maybe I’m going to read Fahrenheit 451 coz I haven’t read it and the TV series is on its way.
Take care, Jessica, and good luck on your writing boot camp. I hope a lot of people sign up and I hope you take plenty of pictures. I wish I could join but, you know, I’m stuck in Scandinavia for now. #ofwproblems :)
/Allan
March 14th, 2018 at 18:15
allanrvj: Yes, must read Fahrenheit 451, not just essential but soon to be a TV series with Michael B. Jordan. Send us a review of the Greenwell. The story of his I read in The New Yorker made me want to go to Bulgaria.