“clay pots” by devi laskar

The writing may not be on the wall, so to speak, but it’s definitely in the air: Today’s posting is a mini-round-up of all the writing-related things that I’ve noticed recently, books recently published by authors whose works I greatly admire.

Writing consistently and forming a “writing habit” has been difficult lately, but I’m trying to outlast my increasing desire to quit, run away and open a lemonade stand somewhere in the South Pacific.

When you have a moment, check out NPR’s Steve Inskeep’s interview with Salman Rushdie. “Today, Rushdie is again living in the open, and he has finished a memoir about the experience, called Joseph Anton. . .an alias he created for himself when he was forced into hiding. “The police asked me to come up with a pseudonym, partly because I needed to rent properties and so on, and obviously couldn’t do it in my own name,” he says. “And I was asked to make it not an Indian name. And so, deprived of one nationality, I retreated into literature — which is, you could say, my other country — and chose this name from the first names of Conrad and Chekhov: Joseph Conrad, Anton Chekhov equals Joseph Anton.”

And then there’s one of my favorite writers, Junot Diaz, who just came out with his book, This is How You Lose Her. It took him sixteen years to write these interconnected stories about a man named Yunor who cannot remain faithful to any of his girlfriends. Click here to read or listen to the NPR interview.

Excerpt: This Is How You Lose Her: “I’m not a bad guy. I know how that sounds — defensive, unscrupulous — but it’s true. I’m like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good. Magdalena disagrees though. She considers me a typical Dominican man: a sucio, an asshole. See, many months ago, when Magda was still my girl, when I didn’t have to be careful about almost anything, I cheated on her with this chick who had tons of eighties freestyle hair. Didn’t tell Magda about it, either. You know how it is. A smelly bone like that, better off buried in the backyard of your life. Magda only found out because homegirl wrote her a fucking letter. And the letter had details. Shit you wouldn’t even tell your boys drunk.

The thing is, that particular bit of stupidity had been over for months. Me and Magda were on an upswing. We weren’t as distant as we’d been the winter I was cheating. The freeze was over. She was coming over to my place and instead of us hanging with my knucklehead boys — me smoking, her bored out of her skull — we were seeing movies.”

Doesn’t this want to make you run out to the nearest bookstore and snag a copy?

For my part, I will be adding these books to my list of things I’d like to read sooner rather than much later. And Rushdie’s and Diaz’s stamina and perseverance are inspiring me to not look into what the weather’s like in Guam or Tahiti just yet…..