03 February 2012

Six-word memoir project

Re: this (worth a look)

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2012/02/writing-exercise-six-word-memoir.html

The tragedy: none truly knew him.


This is a cute exercise... much as I despise this sound-bite mentality we as a society seem to have adopted.  I mean, what happened to sitting down with an actual book and making the reading of it a priority? --not the TV or text messages?   And whoever convinced us that two chapters of exposition at the start of the book were 'bad' in literature and that 'all' popular books should begin with a murder, a sex scene and/or a car chase because 'people don't have the attention span for that; they want action'?  Why is a truly good 215,000-word novel considered 'unmarketable' but a badly-written, inadequately-researched and imperfectly-edited one of 115,000 'deserves' to be printed in mass quantity?  And what is so wrong with expecting an agent to actually SELL a book on its essential merits rather and expecting the author to toe the line and write one just like everything else out there? --even if it's 'a little long' by the standards of the day? --sheesh.  Don't get me started.  :)

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