Like that one guy said: Good writers borrow, great writers steal. Welcome to the place where all things have been lifted, looted, and otherwise pilfered…Remember, possession is 9/10s of the law.
On the Road is a road trip story. (Any objections?) I’m sure the influence of this experimental novel, with its meandering structure, has been the bane of many a writing teacher’s existance. I’m basing this assumption on the fact that my writing teacher, David Keplinger, took the time during a class to discuss road trip stories and the…
**Be forewarned, adult language/content** Mark Twain once said something like (I don’t have the direct quote in front of me): “the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” Agree or disagree, Twain has a point. To illustrate, I give you two passages from On the Road…
Read more Lightning, the Lightning Bug, and the Price of Some of Kerouac’s Revisions
It’s Tuesday again! And every Tuesday you will be subjected to regaled by the writing progress I have made over the last week. But! I insist that I not be the only one exposing myself sounding off. Let your comments reflect what kind of suffering butt-kicking you have done too! Stuff I have accomplished this…
Many academic articles have been written on Kerouac and the sense of place and time evoked in On the Road. I’m sure a great part of that reason is that place and time are very integral to the format of the book – so it makes a lot of sense. Even I noticed that place…
Last night, I read my little girl three books. The night before that, her father read her two. Every night my son reads whatever Star Wars/Jacob Wonderbar/space book he can get a hold of – and just Friday he was reading to us about mosquitoes. I can’t imagine what their lives would be like without…
“Gravitas” is one of my husband’s million dollar words when he’s offering a critique. It’s a tricky word to digest when it’s thrown at you like: “This needs more gravitas.” He’s much more eloquent but, I mean, what can you do with that? Generally I take it to mean that the stakes aren’t sufficiently high…
On the Road by Jack Kerouac My rating: 4 of 5 stars Having been on many, many, many road trips with my military family — I have to say that some of this story can be tedious. After all, spend enough time on the road, and you get dizzy with the monotony of the landscape.…
Read more Thursday Reviews! On the Road by Jack Kerouac (A Mentor Review!)
“New Criticism locates meaning in the internal qualities of literary works, specifically the unity of their multiple verbal structures. as much as it values unity and convergence, New Criticism eschews authorial intent and historical context as bases for interpretation, although it allows that they might supplement understanding.” ~Joshua Kupetz, “The Straight Line Will Take You…
It’s Tuesday again! And every Tuesday you will be subjected to regaled by the writing progress I have made over the last week. But! I insist that I not be the only one exposing myself sounding off. Let your comments reflect what kind of suffering butt-kicking you have done too! Stuff I have accomplished this…
Read more Tuesday Post of Accountability: Some Hands-on Kerouac Learning
In honor of Kerouac, and in attempting to learn what I can about writing from him, I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon trying to create my own scroll-of-fiction. First, I gathered my paper (10 sheets…my thought process being that ten sheets of single-spaced typewritten paper made a more-than-decent length short story): Then I…
