African-American Voices

I just started reading Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices by Shelley Fisher Fishkin, and I am already hooked. Fishkin argues that Huck's voice was influenced my two African Americans that Twain met in his lifetime. The author offers a wealth of research and glimpses of entertaining and enlightening articles that have been largely ignored for years. The few pages I have read so far today have made me want to go back and read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn again. Maybe in two years, when graduate school is over. I talk about its finish when, in reality, it has not even begun.

Note: I will add links to this post this evening.

Day-Job Doldrums

I did not write tonight because I was preparing for my yearly review at my day job. Confounded need for income! Like most writers, I dream of a day when I can sit in my underwear in front of my computer for eight hours and hammer away. I hope for a time where I can roll out of bed and into my office. Sometimes, I get a little tired of going full speed at my day job and my dream job at night. And then I am further crushed by the many writing experts who send out gleeful warnings detailing the facts that most professional writers still struggle once they are published. I say: keep your negative energy. I will comfortably sustain myself with writing because that is just what is going to happen. I have no choice as far as I am concerned, if not just to be one more success story to knock those nay-sayers on their asses!

Writing and alcoholism

I was perusing the biography section at my local Barnes and Noble yesterday, and I was surprised to find five or six memoirs by writers who have battled alcoholism. As a recovering alcoholic myself, it made me wonder about the connection between addiction and the writing life. Why do so many writers, and other creative people for that matter, battle alcohol and drugs? Are they above the norm, or are their exploits just more publicized. If I probed say the tailoring profession, would I find just as many addicts, problem drinkers, and junkies? If anyone knows more on this subject, I would love to hear your comments. Tonight or tomorrow, I will post the titles of some of the memoirs I found.

Great Blog!

Hey, check out the blog of Joe Clifford Faust: The Word Foundry. There is a lot of in-depth writing analysis on this site.

Sideline

I did not work on my novel tonight, but chose to work on a few side projects instead. While listinging to a live Sam Cooke album, I thought of a great historical novel idea. That's all for tonight. I am, once again, tired.