Andrew Klavan has a short story on his blog, which can be obtained in print by ordering from the Mysterious Bookshop in New York. It begins:
A certain portion of my misspent youth was misspent in the profession of journalism. I’m not proud of it, but a man has to make a living and there it is. And, in fact, I learned a great many things working as a reporter. Most importantly, I learned how to be painstakingly honest and lie at the same time. That’s how the news business works. It’s not that anyone goes around making up facts or anything – not on a regular basis anyway. No, most of the time, newspeople simply learn how to pick and choose which facts to tell, which will heighten your sense that their gormless opinions are reality or at least delay your discovery that everything they believe is provably false. If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from hearing the truth, you may assume he’s a fool, but if he puts his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you are dealing with a journalist.
On this date, December 17, 1997, Jorn Barger gave us the word “weblog,” spawning countless articles explaining what the word means for readers who could still live without computers. Imagine that. Wired.com has a short list of thoughts Jorn has on blogging now.
He writes, “A true weblog is a log of all the URLs you want to save or share. (So del.icio.us is actually better for blogging than blogger.com.)”
Sure it is. I’d much rather link out to someone’s work instead of creating something of my own. It’s easier and less fulfilling. Sigh. [via Books, Inq]
Editor and writer Anna Broadway has blogged herself into a book with Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity. I don’t think the blog is the book, but maybe it is.
Contest: The Rap Sheet will “give a copy of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing to the person who can send us the cleverest Leonard-related five-line limerick.” See The Rap Sheet for details.
This book is “meant to capture this moment … a book blog keepsake, when book blogs are exploding across the web … in it we talk about the ones who are good, who should be sought out, communicated with and encouraged.” [via Books, Inq.]
I’m a terrible blogger. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to be a good blogger, but every time I sit down at my computer thinking, “I must write something to post on Peachpit’s blog today,” I get up hours later having had a fine time Web-browsing and cyber-slacking; having learned many fun and interesting things; having discovered interesting connections between people I know; and having done no writing, editing, or even responding to email. Even just the thought of blogging is unproductive for me.
