Friday, June 13, 2003

First of all . . . on Wednesday I wrote an entire short story. I feel very good about it, although I'm not sure how I feel about the story. I read it aloud to Trisa, and she said she loved it. I suppose I should have faith in that. Reading it over again, it looks sort of like I was trying to do an HP Lovecraft meets Weird Science sort of thing. Even though I wasn't.

I wrote the story whilst hanging out at Trisa's Starbucks. I chose to do it instead of working on my novel because there're still a few details I want before proceeding with part eight--and I need to finish the outline.

That same day I did design some uniforms for part eight, so it was a very productive day.

Thursday was not nearly as productive because, ironically, I had to go to work. I did finish reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which was good. The guy obviously loves Dostoevsky, which, if nothing else, is certainly a sign of good character in my book.

Now I'm reading CS Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, a far more profound and interesting work than Tropic of Cancer which, don't get me wrong, was good, but didn't come close to living up to the blurb on the back about it being the greatest novel of the century.

Henry Miller, I think, really ought to have had a go at writing straight philosophy books. That's what Tropic of Cancer really felt like it wanted to be, as its best moments are when, in poetic language, it goes off on a riff about the nature of existence and how a fellow ought to approach it. His soap operatic tales of he, his friends, and a variety of prostitutes, doing things and living places in Paris would be more interesting if he were actually a friend of mine writing to me about his experiences abroad.

As it is, the book reads like a collection of mildly interesting anecdotes interspersed almost totally anachronistically with grandiose speculations about reality.

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