Writing up a storm

I finished Chabon’s and Dorrestein’s books on writing this week. They were both very inspiring in completely different ways, namely one informed me on how to write which is interesting, necessary but not always that much fun to read. The other one (Chabon’s) dealt with why authors write, what inspires them and how to develop your style. It wasn’t that “educational” but it was a great read, if books on reading and writing are your thing that is.

Anyway, I finished them just in time to get back to my own writing. I haven’t done any actual writing on the novel but I have done some fine tuning and corrected a few inconsistencies. The main thing is, I’m slowly but surely getting back in the fictional mode.

I have, however, done a lot of “non-fiction” writing because the assignments are pouring in again. This week I’ll be getting all artsy with Flor Bex about his new exhibit at Muhka and today I’ll be finishing of a text for Flemish photographer Nele van Canneyt who wanted me to write some texts for her upcoming catalogue. It’s been getting very artsy lately.

I haven’t had a lot of time to read the past few days but I did start in Jonathan Franzen's so called masterpiece Freedom. First impression: not bad, better than The Corrections but far from great, at least not yet. I’ve read worse books, I’ve read loads of better books but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt since I’m only on page 150.

The funny thing is that yesterday I found out that I’m actually the proud owner of one of Franzen’s misprints. Apparently Harper Collins, the British publisher of Freedom, accidently published an earlier version of the book instead of the final draft. Oops… 80000 copies will now have to be destroyed and those of us who have a flawed copy can either keep it (like I will) and hope it becomes a collector’s item or send it back to the publisher to have it replaced free of charge. What are the odds of this happening to the most hyped book of the year?