Category Archives: Writing

Reading Well: Everybody’s Autobiography by Gertrude Stein

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Well. I mean, who am I to comment on Gertrude Stein, right? The wildly inventive mother of modernism, the wellspring of so much of modern American poetry (and painting, and dance, and sculpture, and …). Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography was published … Continue reading →

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Writing Goals, 2016

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I don’t really believe in goals as a fixed entities. As I am way too fond of saying, any damn fool can have a plan. The key is the re-planning, the adjustments that happen along the way. But I do see … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Station Eleven is delightful and complicated and a well-needed antidote to the brutal banality of much post-apocalyptic fiction. Emily St. John Mandel has posited a world where a horrifically virulent disease has wiped out something like 499 of every 500 people. … Continue reading →

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Traiting Places: A Writing Trick that Worked for Me

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Section three of In Time has been the longest, sloggiest sloggy slog I’ve ever worked through. That includes the interminable chapter of my thesis that lasted over a year (at least there I was actively, consciously, and quite effectively avoiding … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Painter by Peter Heller

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Daniel (@MKNN)

{This is the first in an occasional series, inspired by the concise brilliance of @TheMovies With PopPop. I am often reluctant to review books, as I don’t want to speak ill of future peers (he said, hopefully). That makes this … Continue reading →

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You Can’t Live in the Songs of People Who Do Not Know Your Name

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Daniel (@MKNN)

The quote–which I love–comes from a comment on Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s Dust, which I very much enjoyed. This comes from the always impressive Africa Is A Country folks: http://africasacountry.com/lots-of-little-kenyas-a-conversation-with-yvonne-adhiambo-owuor/ I have not listened to the interview, but I was struck by the … Continue reading →

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Pain & Excitement

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Chapter 3 of In Time has been a slog. It’s been a slog because, fundamentally, I kne/ow that something was very wrong with it. It was too slow, too drunk, and too unclear in getting Elliot acting on his primary motivations. … Continue reading →

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Two Down, Said Sisyphus

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Daniel (@MKNN)

This morning, I finished chapter two of In Time (working title only). Finished is an odd word: the chapters are in what I call roughs, meaning they are barely fit for consumption, and I would suspect bear little resemblance to whatever their … Continue reading →

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Earth Matters: The Post

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I’ve been asked by a few people if my thesis was available online. Now, it is. Earth Matters [The Whole Shebang] Currently, I think the total population who have claimed to read it is fewer than a half-dozen. I can’t … Continue reading →

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