IFOA Notes 8
Now Playing: Rahsaan Patterson
Topic: Writing Outings
More notes and quotes from the International Festival of Authors

Edmund White
- wrote to keep my head above the water - a life saving activity
- no distinction between work and play
- never wanting to give away my freedom as a writer
- began writing to make money.
- staging questions or issues to work your way around it until you figure it out or come up with your opinion on it.
- learned not to be word proud
- when you write for a living you can't afford to have writer's block
- real interest in the world, how things get done.
- writing is a total liberty to create
- archeology of sentiments

Nancy Huston
- people who perform the unthinkable in society
- the story of my life that I would rather have happened - the tragedies
- when paranoia becomes reality

These entries are from other sources like the newspaper or the Writing Life on Bravo.
Philip Marchand
from a review in the Toronto Star, I believe...
Hardy was an author who seemed to love unhappy endings for their own sake. In his novels, he made sure that hings turned out badly for his protagonists. the reason for this, apart from his personal temperament, was his belief that the world was inherently opposed to human beings. we humans, alone among creatures, possessed consciousness and therefore the faculty of hope, which was certain to be thwarted by a blind, indifferent universe.

Jackie Collins
main ingredient - feisty heroine
two men to choose - one good, one bad
exciting story - something that drives the story (stalker, kidnapper etc)
character changes throughout the novel
great sex!

- Live your life and if the great man comes along good. You can do whatever you want to before marriage but once you get married that's it - be faithful.

George P. Pelecanos
my method is simple: to present the world as it is, rather than the way readers want it to be.

Erica Jong
- the act of writing always made me feel centred and whole. It is my meditation, my medicine, my prayer, my solace. If you are relentlessly honest about what you feel and fear, you can become a mouthpiece for something more than your own feelings.

Writers in the News
I don't have the date of this!
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Brazilian Ryoki Inoue had just written his 1,039th novel since he took up the craft 10 years ago. For the benefit of the reported, Inoue started the book around 10p.m., and by 5:30am had put the finishing touches on a 195 page story of drug traffickers and corrupt cops.

Switch Male to Female and Vice Versa
Now Playing: Rahsaan Patterson
Topic: WC - Blogathon
A writer instrcutor once told us that if you really wanted to write about your personal life to take the main person in your story and make him or her the opposite sex.

Then it would be easier to stray from the "real" story and make it fiction. You could still write the essence of the story. The auto biography of emotions, if you will. And people won't sue you...

Music
Now Playing: One of Those Days - Whitney Houston
Topic: WC - Blogathon
It's funny how some songs if you just sample the right song in it I'll jam it until the cows come home. Whitney's One of those Days is one of them. She samples the Isley Brothers - Between the Sheets. Gwen Stefani also samples the same song in her tune Luxurious. It's the only reason I like the song.

The key, sample the right song. It brought up her cool quotient for me. I was like, wow, she picked an Isley Brothers song to sample? How cool and unexpected is that?

Pretty much anything that samples, Not Just Knee Deep passes the test for me. Not Just Knee Deep was a 15 minute song but the Funkadelic, one of George Clinton's bands who had their heydey in the 1970's. There isn't really any of those really big bands anymore either. Like Earth, Wind and Fire, Cameo, Tower of Power.

And Horn sections. I miss horn sections...

Clutter and Dust bunnies
Now Playing: Ordinary People - John Legend
Topic: WC - Blogathon
I'm attempting to attack the clutter and dust bunnies in my apartment. How does a writer not have clutter? I'd like to know. No matter how much I move paper and get new binders, I still seem to have uncontrollable clutter.

And why won't dust bunnies go away once and for all?
The only soothing thing for me right now as I attack is listening to Ordinary People. That song still hasn't gotten dry and I've listened to it at least a hundred times.

I'm wearing down or out on the whole blogathon thing now. I'd like to make it tow 12 hours which would bring me at two more hours to go. We'll see how that goes.

Man Bands vs Boy Bands
Now Playing: Touch me in the morning - Diana Ross
Topic: WC - Blogathon
Whatever happened to man bands? They were always so far superior to boy bands. Boy bands sing of pre-pubescent love. You know they don't really know what they are doing. They don't have the confidence to ensure that they will satisfy. But boy the Dells singing Stay in my Corner or the Temptations singing, well, anything.

Men's voices harmonizing telling you how they're going to satisfy you and you believing. The Manhattans singing I Really Miss You or There's no Me without You. There isn't a boy band on the continent that can make me believe anything the way the Manhattans made me believe. One day I'll have a man that will make me feel that way...

The main important voices to me in a man band - the deep down to the toes that rumbles in your ear to your heart; the falsetto - so few great falsetto's these days, and the tenor in between the two saying/singing what the other two just couldn't sing.

We need some good new man bands...