I was going to post this in our Lit Drift Twitter account, but it’s just too good not to share on the main site. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, arguably the Internet’s most whimsical quarterly journal, has a syllabus up for a fake new course for Internet-Age Writing, called ENG371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era. Planned lectures include such topics as “Reading is stoopid,” “The Kindle Question,” “140 Characters or Less,” and “I Can Haz Writin Skillz?” Also note that attendance is “unnecessary, but students should be signed onto IM and/or have their phones turned on.” Delicious.
Coincidentally enough, I was recently messing around in my Scrivener, experimenting with structure and new styles of writing, and found myself trying to write a scene purely in text/IM speak. Uh, it shouldn’t come off as a surprise that it really sucked. Won’t be trying that again…until, of course, some more accomplished writer does it and somehow makes it work, in which case nose will be back to (digital) grindstone.
As an aside: I actually had to put this post title through an LOLspeak Translator because I just don’t know any better. Fail?
Imagine if Florentino Ariza from Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera had professed his love for Fermina Daza through e-mails instead of letters. Or if Homer’s Odysseus had a Twitter account (Oh, wait…). Or if Romeo and Juliet could text message each other:
Juliet: Fakn death. C U Latr.
Romeo: gud plan.
It’s reasonable to assume that if Romeo and Juliet really did have cell phones, they could have just texted their way through all their star-crossed struggles and misunderstandings. And ergo, no story. Matt Richtel of the New York Times points out that while technology may be doing wonders for the fiction and publishing industries, the fiction itself is having a hard time adjusting. Read more »
In an inspired example of collaborative, cross-media storytelling (or at least of creative marketing), RCRD LBL and Virgin Books have teamed together to release Tim Molloy’s debut novel How to Break Bad News—as well as its soundtrack.
The novel follows a twenty-something news producer as he goes on an undercover assignment at fast-food restaurant. The soundtrack, composed by Molloy’s friend and former roommate Eric Steuer, complements the story, much in the way a soundtrack will complement and heighten emotions in movies, television shows, and video games. Tim says: Read more »
I spent the other night hanging at home with my friends, chatting and drinking dirt-ass-cheap champagne (because we’re classy, you see). For one reason or another our conversation drifted to the Kindle. I’ve always wondered why I never warmed to Kindle like everyone else seemed to. My friend Kenna provided a succinct, practical response to that question that I wanted to post it here.
While everyone else’s parents just adored the Kindle, all four of us hated it. Kenna reasoned:
“I think we’re the generation who knows how to use technology right. It’s so much a part of our lives that we feel comfortable finding new ways to use it–like Twitter or Facebook. But our parents can only understand it if they use technology to replace something else that they’re already familiar with. So they feel comfortable reading books on a Kindle, but we don’t.”
The blogosphere has lately been all a-flutter about Twitter. Twitter poetry! Twitter book clubs! Twitter books (“Twitterature,” perhaps?)! Twitter ghost writers!
I’m just going to say it: as much as I love technology, I feel uneasy about the Kindle.
Yes, I realize there are some good things about it: compared to printed books, digital books are better for the environment; you can virtually carry around an entire library in your pocket (no pun intended, heh); and you can even read blogs on the device. For example, you might want to use the Kindle to read a certain blog you are viewing now…? Read more »
I was going to post this in our Lit Drift Twitter account, but it’s just too good not to share on the main site. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, arguably the Internet’s most whimsical quarterly journal, has a syllabus up for a fake new course for Internet-Age Writing, called ENG371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era. Planned lectures include such topics as “Reading is stoopid,” “The Kindle Question,” “140 Characters or Less,” and “I Can Haz Writin Skillz?” Also note that attendance is “unnecessary, but students should be signed onto IM and/or have their phones turned on.” Delicious.
Imagine if Florentino Ariza from Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera had professed his love for Fermina Daza through e-mails instead of letters. Or if Homer’s Odysseus had a Twitter account (
In an inspired example of collaborative, cross-media storytelling (or at least of creative marketing), RCRD LBL and Virgin Books have teamed together to release Tim Molloy’s debut novel 
The blogosphere has lately been all a-flutter about Twitter. Twitter poetry! Twitter book clubs! Twitter books (“Twitterature,” perhaps?)! Twitter ghost writers!
