Tag Archives: Hunter S. Thompson

A Definition of Voice (Wrenched from My Guts and Served on a Platter For You) – Day 538

Why is it that we writers are always looking for absolutes? In the presence of a Published Author, we want – nay, demand – answers to questions like: “How many hours do you write a day?” “What kind of word … Continue reading

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OTF: Why New Journalism Works

Just read Paul Jun’s guest post at Men with Pens the other day (http://menwithpens.ca/hunter-thompson/) about emulating Hunter S. Thompson. In the process of writing a reply, I realized suddenly why New Journalism works. A bit of back story first about … Continue reading

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OTF: I Don’t Get It, Johnny Depp, and My Third Novel…

The joke’s on… One of the fears I’ve always had about my novel is that people won’t get it. I’ve been thinking about that lately. I’ve tried to keep a loose style, especially in the character dialogue. The two main … Continue reading

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Sympathy for the Pigeonholes – Day 274

All the trendy rockers will tell you the same thing: don’t pigeonhole me or my music. (Actually, writers do this too – you just don’t hear about it as much on MTV…) They’ll rant and they’ll rave and they’ll throw … Continue reading

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Valley of Ashes, a Scene to Behold – Day 201

As I mentioned yesterday, things are not going well on the writing front. This whole week actually, in both the novel and the day job, I have been a little sluggish creatively. Perhaps it is just a blip — I … Continue reading

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Breakthrough – Day 194

Had a huge breakthrough this morning. It’s hard to describe how the writing has been going. Generally, I’m happy with it, but the Voice does tend to change from scene to scene. I’m not doing it on purpose — I … Continue reading

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What Should You Be Studying While Writing a Novel? – Day 181

There’s an interesting story about U2 I heard. While they were writing/making one of their albums, a collection of Beatles songs came out – lost songs, remastered titles, I can’t remember. The point is that Bono talked about the fact … Continue reading

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Day 13 – Cannonball

I got my hour in early today – well, relatively early. Before evening. I’m feeling great — I actually want to keep writing, even after the buzzer has gone. I take that to be a good sign.

I’m still trying to play with the style a bit — I’m leaning towards a bit of a more journalistic style, kind of like The New Journalism style in Tom Wolfe’s book that Duncan Weller was telling me about. I haven’t actually read the book yet, but I feel that I have a sense of that style already, having read some of Wolfe’s stuff as well as Hunter S. Thompson. The Great Gatsby, I think, could be put into that genre as well, at least as a forerunner. After all, who is Nick Carraway but a narrator reporting on someone else’s story? I’m certain it wasn’t Fitzgerald’s intention to invent The New Journalism, but echoes are there nonetheless. Continue reading

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