I read a fair amount of Irving in high school, all at once, and then stopped completely. I liked a fair amount of what he wrote (up to that point), but was never blown away by it or felt it had the kind of significance it ought to have to me.

Actually, although it's not what people usually mean when they say "beach reading," Irving is the kind of author I would read on a beach. He passes the time and has reasonably involving characters and themes, and I forget him entirely when I go home.

Oh, I'm entirely prepared to accept totally being in a phase of looking for a drug deal or a fallen body every couple pages...Irving and I may get involved again once the smoke clears from all the fictional gage.

I read a fair amount of Irving in high school, all at once, and then stopped completely.

Nutty is me. Now that I'm almost 20 years older than I was when I first read Irving, a lot of his writing strikes me as so so SO self-conscious, as though it has an undercurrent of "I *know* you're reading this -- isn't it clever and moving? Go on -- keep reading!"

I don't like my fiction to be more self-aware than I am.

This had me giggling madly: Feedback From James Joyce's Submission of Ulysses to His Creative-Writing Workshop.

This had me giggling madly

AWESOME.

Corwood, you were the first person I thought of when I read it.

"Caught some allusions to The Odyssey. Nice."

"Think you accidentally stapled in something from your playwriting workshop for Ch. 15."

"Typo: last word capitalized."

::snerkity::

BWAH:

Remember last week after workshop, when we got trashed on Guinness and came up with the ludicrous idea of a 700-page novel that puns every few words on the name of a river? Maybe there's something to that.

You should also read the one that's about the fiction prompts.

"Snotgreen" = hyphenated.

Man, coffee hurts when it goes up the nose.

You should also read the one that's about the fiction prompts.

Okay, I'm probably hurting myself by trying to stifle my laughter over these:

Write a short scene set at a lake, with trees and shit. Throw some birds in there, too.

Imagine if your favorite character from 19th-century fiction had been born without thumbs. Then write a short story about them winning the lottery.

Write a story that begins with a man throwing handfuls of $100 bills from a speeding car, and ends with a young girl urinating into a tin bucket.

(I think I've read that story....)

A man has a terrifying dream in which he is being sawn in half. He wakes to find himself in the Indian Ocean, naked and clinging to a door; a hotel keycard is clenched in his teeth. Write what happens next.

I can't help myself -- I actually like that last one.

I expect to see it on Lost sometime next season.