Funfare for the Common Man

And Part 1 (of 2) of ‘A life in quotations’: The electronic version We’ll see how this goes. In my last post, The Writing Process, I mentioned my attitude towards using quotations in my writing, and how I never seek out ones to use, but instead rely on those I’ve discovered in the course of my reading.  This is part 1, where I take you through my e-book notes, dating from 2011-present. As much as I love to rant and rave about the evils of technology, I have many a time waxed lyrical about the splendours of my Kindle. There’s nothing like the real thing – a good old-fashioned hardback or paperback – but when it comes to highlighting passages or making notes, an e-book really makes the gathering process fairly easy. Still, nothing beats the real thing. On the other hand, when you’ve got hundreds of books and seemingly thousands of highlights, it’s easy to lose track of them, and many of them are probably floating around in the cloud, waiting to be shared.  There are some absolut...

Notes from my notebook, circa early 21st century Thoughts pop into your head at the most unlikely times: in the middle of the night (not so unlikely, actually), while working out, in the shower, on the toilet, walking down the road, playing with your child, right after your cat has settled in comfortably on your lap and your notebook is out of reach. Whatever the time, no matter, you’re all-too-often not in a position to get your thoughts down somewhere. And then when it comes time to sitting and writing… …your mind goes blank. The thoughts get lost. From an otherwise unremarkable article, this opening sentence: ‘A bleak fact of writing is that honing sentences is often far easier than honing the thoughts they convey. A corollary fact is that polished, elegant prose serves as a useful, if not always intentional, hiding place for half-baked ideas.’ (The Literature of the Pandemic Is Already Here, The Atlantic ) The more I write, the more I want to write, the mor...