fortuneandglory:

Everybody likes a bit of gossip to some point, as long as it’s gossip with some point to it. That’s why I like history. History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.

You will be missed, Gore Vidal - a titan of historical and political writing.

1925-2012

I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.

1. The hero is an expert.
2. The villain is an expert. 
3. You must watch all of the villainy over the shoulder of the villain.
4. The hero has a team of experts in various fields behind him, etc.
5. Two or more on the team must fall in love.
6. Two or more on the team must die.
7. The villain must turn his attentions from his initial goal to the team.
8. The villain and the hero must live to do battle again in the sequel.
9. All deaths must proceed from the individual to the group: i.e., never say that the bomb exploded and 15,000 people were killed. Start with “Jamie and Suzy were walking in the park with their grandmother when the earth opened up.”
10. If you get bogged down, just kill somebody.

(Source: The Huffington Post)

• Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections, Freedom)
• Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are)
• Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook)
• Harlan Ellison (Spider Kiss, Web of the City)
• V.S. Naipaul (A House for Mr. Biswas, A Bend in the River)
• Martin Amis (Dead Babies, Success)
• Garrison Keillor (A Prairie Home Companion)
• Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, Less than Zero)
• Khushwant Singh (Delhi: A Novel, The Company of Women)
• Michel Houellebecq (Whatever, The Possibility of an Island)

(Source: flavorwire.com)

fortuneandglory:

theonlybook:

It may have seemed like a long hiatus (because it was), but this project is far from complete. Read the first 30 pages of Tumblr’s very first user-created novel - written by ten different Tumblr users, who each had no idea where the others would be taking the story - by clicking on the link above. Right here is also a story overview of each character in the story so far.

Want to contribute to our project? Read the rules right here. Let’s get this going again!

Hey, remember this? I’m still pretty proud of this project even if it lost steam after a couple of months - but now, I’ve compiled all ten parts together and you can read them by clicking above. In the meantime, feel free to contribute and continue on the story.

fortuneandglory:

As a writer:

Would you rather live out the rest of your life in total obscurity, poverty, and despair, only to have the significance of your work discovered posthumously, thus rendering your relative immortality and importance in literature?

OR

Would you rather live out the rest of your life with international fame and fortune and no worries, but have your writing crumble to complete irrelevance after your death?

Think it over. Imagine if the opportunity to choose really presented itself in a simple red or blue pill manner. Discuss.

fortuneandglory:

misterpeace:

libraryland:

Neil Gaiman’s advice to young writers

Darn, Neil is the one guy I was hoping WOULD believe in worker elves!  Kidding aside, this is, of course, brilliant advice, the obvious truths being the easiest to overlook.

“Every now and then I will run into really good writers who have nothing to say - and at that point you just want to say, ‘Well, stop writing and go get a job somewhere. Go around the world. Do stuff. Go get your heart broken. And then come back and write some more.’ But normally, what you want to tell people is: write. Because most people who want to be writers, it never occurs to them the only way you actually do it is by writing.”

Is there a more likable and genuine best-selling writer out there than Neil? At a glance, he seems to be the brooding, black-clad writer persona defined, but he is definitely no Hank Moody. Sincere, funny, lacking the ego, and one hell of a storyteller.

fortuneandglory:

Based on sales from May 2010 to April 2011:

1. James Patterson, $84 million
2. Danielle Steel, $35 million
3. Stephen King, $28 million
4. Janet Evanovich, $22 million
5. Stephenie Meyer, $21 million
6. Rick Riordan, $21 million
7. Dean Koontz, $19 million
8. John Grisham, $18 million
9. Jeff Kinney, $17 million
10. Nicholas Sparks, $16 million
11. Ken Follett, $14 million
12. Suzanne Collins, $10 million
13. JK Rowling, $5 million

And who says there is no money in writing?!