Veronica Mars movie! My heart soars. (As those of you who remember our old Veronica Mars Talk threads of yore–which can be ferretted out in the TV goodness category–will have guessed already.)
Otherwise, I continue to be working lotslotslots on revision as deadline approacheth. This comes with wild happiness of progress and a project coming together (finally!), leading to goofy behavior like this morning's twitter musings on the army of hotel detectives I would like to have (note: nothing to do with the book), and then swings back to the other end of stress that's just part of being a writer and always waiting on stuff and never quite knowing what comes next. Brain is cooperating on book, and so staying more toward the happy end than the stress end at the moment. Which is nice. Still, to do this job, you have to get okay with uncertainty. It's just a fact.
Also with sometimes falling behind on things like email, because your available energy is directed elsewhere. Sorry about that if I owe you something. It may be next month before I get fully caught up, especially if there's not a hard deadline. But I have collected a few little links in the meantime.
- The Morning News had with me with the headline: "The Private Lives of Cryptozoologists" (by Martin Connelly). Snippet: "The founder of this museum, the chief collector and curator of its holdings, is Loren Coleman. He is the author of an enormous stack of books, including the genre-defining Cryptozoology A to Z (written with Jerome Clark), a frequent speaker on the hidden and obscure, and a go-to interview subject for documentary makers. “I’m humbled by it,” he says of his stature in the field, and tells about a woman who came to the museum and burst into tears, she was so excited to meet him." Someday I will visit the museum, though probably not cry (but, yes, I do have the A to Z book, of course I do).
- Yale historian on Viking myth and truth. Fascinating stuff.
- "When Books Could Change Your Life" by Tim Kreider: "A girl I once caught reading Fahrenheit 451 over my shoulder on the subway confessed: "You know, I'm an English lit major, but I've never loved any books like the ones I loved when I was 12 years old." I fell slightly in love with her when she said that. It was so frank and uncool, and undeniably true." Love this piece.
- Jonathan Lethem talks book covers, an ever-fascinating topic and he's had some great ones.
- Love love this new poem by (sometime) Lexingtonian Ada Limón that was featured on Poets.org yesterday.
- 25 Great Cult TV Shows at EW.
- A must read, candid interview with Neil Pollack about his career and money. Snippet: "I was going to say instead of methodically going about my business, which is probably the smart way to go about doing things—you methodically go about your business and gradually make a little bit of money—I kept looking and waiting for that big score."
- Want to see something beautiful? "…the work of Russian chemist and photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokhudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) is a bit akin to the surprising and wonderful moment in "The Wizard of Oz" when it turns from black and white into vibrant Technicolor."
Someone should tell Tom Kreider that books are still changing people’s lives it’s just that he got old. No diss on him. I got older too and books aren’t as powerful for me now, or rather, aren’t powerful for me in the same way as they were when I was twelve. But gazillions of young readers are having their minds blown by books every single day. If you haven’t already, Gwenda, you’ll be getting letters from them soon. It is the coolest of cool things.
Oh, definitely, agree, that’s what I like about the piece. I think this is an evergreen truth, and that the books are as wonderful and powerful as ever and you’re absolutely right–he just isn’t as close to it, because he doesn’t encounter that audience directly anymore (or doesn’t seem to). It’s insane and a gift to write for those readers, so much agree. I’m sure I hear from a teeny tiny sample compared to you, but it is definitely the coolest of cool things when I do. Seriously. (He loses me a little at the end with the grown-ups bit and the manufactured wisdom stuff, but I forgive him that for the bulk of it.)
I do still get wrapped up in books, of course, but it’s not quite the same. The more I love something, the more I wish I’d read it at 14. Which proves the point, I suppose.