Creativity / Productivity Posts

Interview with Terry Pratchett by Aida Edemariam of The Guardian. He talks about his newest book, writing with Alzheimer’s, and the politics of assisted suicide, amongst other interesting things.

I Shall Wear Midnight, a young adult novel, was launched in central London at midnight on Tuesday, but, as has been the way throughout a career that has so far produced 50 novels (38 of them set on Discworld) and generated more than 65m book sales – Pratchett is already 60,000 words into the next book.

And for the last two and a half years, ever since he was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s, and lost the physical ability to write, he has dictated those words into voice-recognition software. At first, in fact, he talks to me about the machine as if I am a machine (which is not entirely unwarranted: there is a tape recorder sitting on the table between us). “… And the nice thing is, contrary to what you might initially expect, comma” – we both burst out laughing – “yes, sorry about this, full stop.”

Links

Terry Pratchett: ‘I’m open to joy. But I’m also more cynical’

Lots of good stuff is going up over at storyfix.com lately that’s right in line with what I’m trying to figure out and get better at.

I really like this sample critique that Larry Brooks did for a writer. This is a service that Brooks provides, and I’d say that it’s a valuable one, especially if you don’t have anyone who your letting really dig into your work for you. And I think it’s rare that you’d find someone willing to go this far into your stuff in your own backyard.

Read the critique and analysis. Imagine how hard it must have been for that writer to endure the tearing down of his work. The repeated “you have potential” just wouldn’t be enough of a warm fuzzy to offset the systematic dissection of his story. But I guess the lesson is that you need to be able to get kicked in the face, smile, and really try to see how that kick was actually helpful in some way.

And I think that the writer being analyzed would agree that this document is very helpful.

LINKS

An Intimate Look at One Writer’s Feedback