Can blogs build homes for long-form literary criticism?
I struggle with that question every day, trying to come up with an acceptable balance of smart content and speedy delivery. Like the first silent movie directors, we are playing with a medium that has no rules.
Someday all these debates will be settled, but until then, all fledgling writers should read this essay about blogged criticism up at The Reading Experience:
"If blog detractors were to sample, say, the shorter posts sometimes offered by Steve Mitchelmore (This Space) or on a regular basis by Jonathan Mayhew, they would surely see that "deliberate analysis" can occur in shorter, more compacted blog posts as readily as in the conventionally drawn-out critical essays they champion." (Thanks, Ed Champion)
How much should you write every day? The MFA Blog suggests we try the daunting, but powerful, goal of 750-1000 words every day. That's right kids. Every day.
Over at The Valve, Adam Roberts is debating novelist Cory Doctorow about the future of books. Roberts imagines a happy day when his books all fit on a delightful reader like music on an iPod. Dig it:
"I can’t imagine how I put up with such a wasteful and onerous method of music storage as CDs for so long. I could certainly imagine doing something similar with books; I’d buy an iReader, codeX, bookloader, ePod or whatever these devices will be called, store everything I need on a block-sized piece of memory hardware rather than on, well, three whole rooms of my small house."
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