Category Archives: The Writing Process

In which an obscure novelist writes about the thinking behind his work.

by bonalibro

Foe

J. M. Coetzee's novella, Foe, was suggested to me by an editor at Harper Collins, for reasons I still do not understand, as a model for my own novel, Banana Republican Blues. I just finished reading it for that reason. What I found interesting about it is that it offers a useful reflection on the problem of autobiography in fiction. What was Defoe supposed to make of heroine, Susan Barton's story of a man who spent fifteen years on an island moving a 100,000 stones to form terraces on a hillside? Read more [...]
by bonalibro

Rewriting Again.

One of the issues that prompted my decision to rewrite BRB again was my short story, Karma, which used the characters from the novel. I adapted it for inclusion in the novel, which altered the whole dynamic, by changing the story and revealing the principal characters as more complex beings than they originally were. The blithe spirit, Eddie, whose youthful loss of faith in himself led him to join the family firm and commit all manner of financial crimes on the way to blowing up their hedge fund, Read more [...]
by bonalibro

The Death of Literature – Replying to Lars Iyer’s Manifesto

Nude in your hot tub, facing the abyss (A literary manifesto after the end of Literature and Manifestos) | The White Review. Ever since I was a kid in high school I was interested in cultural and intellectual history. What impressed me was the constant ebb and flow of ideas and of thinkers and artists seeking answers to important questions of the time. Each serious work of art was a critique of what came before and the measure of greatness was always the ability to surpass one's masters and contribute Read more [...]
by bonalibro

Done. But is it Literature?

I feel like I've finally finished my novel, Banana Republican Blues. The aim was always to write a farce that would pass as Literature. I've been working on it intensively the past several months, cutting out lots of stuff, refining and tweeking other stuff, adding more character and plot development, some intellectual substance, a little Tom Robbins here, with lots of playful language, some inspiration from Shakespeare there, with Eddie's financial malfeasance resulting in his parents' Read more [...]
by bonalibro

Comments Please.

Here is a paragraph I recently wrote into my novel. What say you all? Is it a darling that needs to be killed, or kept? In the darkest part of his heart he knew it would tell her nothing necessary and was, in short, the typical screed of a narcissistic VIP. It rationalized his own decisions prior to the crisis and concealed connivance in confidence schemes conceived by his grandfather years before. He portrayed himself as a neophyte, seduced by situation ethics and enthralled with the overall cultural Read more [...]
by bonalibro

To Plot or Not to Plot | The Art & Craft of Writing Creatively

In response to the following post from Terri Giuliano Long, I've always felt I did my best work when either writing in a creative frenzy or writing to discover what I really think. In writing my novel I simply sat down and wrote, sometimes for twelve or more hours at a stretch. I worked without a plot, or even road map. Starting with a guy alone in a car, I thought, what should I have him do? It's a predicament writers of road novels often get themselves into. I thought, he's got to talk to someone, Read more [...]