I did some video this week. The people at VYou asked me to respond to questions and I did. A lot of them. Perhaps 30. All of this on Monday night. After each video response was posted, I shot it to Twitter. That may have been a mistake. A few peeps wrote me to tell […]
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The Week in Video
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Tagged Columbus, content, content marketing, content marketing world, Guy Maddin, Jack Hanna, Red River College, Rick Springfield, spam, Spinal Tap, Twitter, video, VYou, Winnipeg, YouTube
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How Much is That Book Review in the Window?
A big kerfuffle after the New York Times published a story about a guy doing what every one in the world had to suspect at some point that every one was actually doing all along: he was paid to write reviews for books on Amazon. And some very big writers at Amazon were part of […]
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Tagged Amazon, book reviews, books, Logrolling, New York Times, Spy magazine
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Books Need to Get Bookier
Look at these things. They are gorgeous. I would never have read….no, that’s not true. I would have read them in any form imaginable. A Joseph Conrad novella (that I’d never read, from a series from Melville House that I’d never heard of) and F. Scott on booze! I found them at my neighbourhood bookstore, […]
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Tagged Amazon, books, bookstore, Drawn & Quarterly, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Conrad, Melville House, printing
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Think Before You Press Send
A lot has been written about the state of writing. Or, more specifically, about the state of the business of writing. Meaning the publishing industry. I’m not going to write about that here. I’ve been posting interesting stats and reports and blogs on my Facebook page (which you are free to visit and “like” in […]
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Tagged books, Books in Print, Facebook, Fifty Shades of Gray, noise, Publishing, Self-publishing, Speedo
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Two Weeks of Nothing: Random Thoughts After a Relaxing Vacation
Back from vacation. From possibly the most relaxing vacation of my life. You want to know what made it relaxing? Well, lots of things. But I stayed in a place with no cell reception. No internet. No internet will set you free. There was a television but I hardly watched any of it. I wasn’t […]
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Tagged Albert Camus, America, Douglas Coupland, Existentialism, Facebook, fish, fishing, Gods Without Men, guns, Hari Kunzru, Jersey beef, loons, Mars, Muslims, NBC, Olympics, Pocket Planes, Quebec City, Quebec election, Sikhs, Syria, Usain Bolt, vacation, Vermont
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Vacation Notice
Not that I’ve been posting much recently. Life really does get in the way. And I’ve said it before but I’m not going to post for postings’ sake. I don’t care what that does for my search or “findability” – those people that tell you to post to your blog regularly are giving bad advice. […]
The Story of the (My) Novel So Far
I tried to hit a home run. In that sense, it’s hard to find blame. I perhaps should not have tried to swing for the fences. Maybe I should have settled for a double. A solid single even. But I tried to hit a home run. They’re so much sexier. What am I talking about? […]
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Tagged agent, American, Bibilical, Canada, chapati, fiction, George Orwell, Home Run, literature, Montana, New York, novel, Self-publishing, Sex, Twitter, Wyoming
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Mursi Mursi Me: On Blowback, Self-Interest, Idealism, Long Weekends, Pain. And Bourbon
The world is disappointing. It almost always is. Sure there is beauty but overall, it’s disappointing. (The human world. Let’s make that clear. The world itself is stunning. Most of the time. Except on the drive between Montreal and Toronto. That’s the world’s worst drive.) It’s more disappointing for optimists. Or most disappointing. It’s probably […]
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Tagged Afghanistan, Asia, Boomers, Bourbon, Cairo, Chinese restaurants, Egypt, Existentialists, Happy Valley, idealism, Jerry Sandusky, Magazines, Mursi, Olympics, Print, Putin, Random Thoughts, Robert Altman, serious, weekends
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More Random Thoughts (said with seriousness, and reverb)
1. I’m tired of people telling others what to do. Professionally. There are so many how-to experts. And then you achieve some kind of fame doing something (and that fame is usually completely deserved) and so you translate that success into telling others how to do what you just did. Because it was so easy? […]
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Tagged Adam Carolla, bath salts, books, debt crisis, dim sum, Euro, funny, humidity, life coach, mosquito
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Random Thoughts About Clouds, Dancing Writers, TV, Boomers, Beer and Serena’s Butt
Thoughts generally are random. That’s what makes them magical. Or at least interesting. The random nature of thought, or what some of us might call stream of consciousness, leads to the difficult brilliance of the likes of Joyce and Borges, or the hilarious (but studied) non-sequiturs of Family Guy’s Stewie Griffin. Wait. I think watching […]
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Tagged Amazon, beer, Borges, clouds, Hong Kong, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jennifer Egan, Joyce, Kuala Lumpur, Leopold Bloom, Malaysia, Margaret Atwood, Montreal, Quebec, Spock, Stephen King, Stewie Griffin, Waterstone's, writing
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