- Some interesting objections to Scalzi’s post directed to teenagers who write here and here. See also: Justine’s thoughts (and don’t miss Jenny D’s comment) and Madeleine Robins. I tend to think we should just let teenagers be teenagers–y’know, I never believed anything an adult told me when I was younger, certainly not just because they said so. It seems to me that thinking your work is better than it is may be one of the necessary steps toward becoming a "real" writer later on, when you will switch to always believing it’s complete crap. Anyway, there are many, many things that you can only learn by figuring them out for yourself. I think this is one of them. Mailing stuff off and getting it rejected when you’re a teenager (or, perhaps worse, accepted) is really just another part of that process.
- Ed Park on Kim Stanley Robinson’s trio of novels about climate change.
- An apparently amazing speech (haven’t had a chance to listen yet) given by David Levithan at Reading Matters is available as a podcast. (Via Justine.)
- The Literary Review of Canada considers a new book about Canadian comic books. (Via Bookninja.)
- Maureen writes about food again; this time it’s Thai.
- Ruth Marcus says that girls today don’t need Nancy Drew. I’m unconvinced.
3 thoughts on “Wednesday Hangovers”
Comments are closed.
I really miss writing as a teenager – I used to race home from school every day, so excited to get to spend an hour or two just writing, loving it, and believing with all my heart that what I wrote was brilliant. I wouldn’t give up that part of my history for anything – it’s the kind of free-flowing, joyful writing mindset that I really strive to find nowadays when I’m writing first drafts (and it’s almost impossible to re-capture now that I have been through a zillion useful crit groups, reviews, etc). I think that time of my life was really good for my overall development as a writer, even though maybe I could have gotten published a few years earlier if I’d been more ruthless and less in love with what I was writing.
What you said re: Nancy Drew. Unconvinced.
I tend to agree, BondGirl. Scalzi is a good writer, but he is not a good midwife for beginning writers.