Sweet Team Tolstoy

     You know sometimes you read about or find out about an idea that’s so simple and inspired that you wish to God that you’d thought of it first? I had that last week. Dove Grey Reader are running what is surely the simplest and most compelling of schemes for Tolstoy fans and other book aficionados: a group reading of the infamously long and difficult War and Peace, with monthly updates and discussion of the previous 100 pages. Such a great idea, and probably the ideal impetus to get through to the very last page of that legendarily long tome.







Lessons I Have Learnt From Gaga This Week

• Use your wit to celebrate difference, rather than mock it or demean it. The bad guy with the icy put-downs might be memorable, but is anyone else really singing along? 







*Sigh*

      If you were hoping to come here today and find it free of romance, I'd afraid I'm going to have to disappoint. My love of poetry has got me bad, and I ain't afraid to show it.

      So, even if no-one's sent you flowers today, or no-one's kissed you yet (or ever); even if tonight will be spent alone with some soup or giggling raucously with friends, pitying everyone else; even if you're going out tonight and are not really sure you want to be; 

read this poem and *sigh*







Book Quote Friday: Making Your Mother Blush

     If we're really thinking about it (let's do that. Yawn, stretch.), I guess one might liken fiction writing to the laying out of the contents of your mind, experience and imagination on the tablecloth, and then obscuring it from sight by applying layers of narrative, characterisation or style. 

     Ideally this adding of layers generalises it, allowing it to transcend the writer’s individual experience, making it palatable and accessible and, all being well, moving it from the realm of the confessional into the realm of art. Some writers layer thickly, others less so. The thinnest veils come inevitably with biography or memoir, when the writer themself is the story and there is no extra narrative or characterisation added as a disguise. This is known as letting it all hang out*.







Approaching the Big One

       At the end of last week I spent some time wandering through the lush jungle of blogging, writing and book blogs that exists on the internet, trying to decide which of the ones I like to add to my blog roll, and I stumbled across a short post on Block or Not about the link she’d made between time taken to edit a 640 word article, and how much time that would mean she’d need to spend editing her novel, which could feasibly end up around the 60,000 word mark. It’s scary stuff indeed: 94 hours straight, at the same rate, she worked out, although of course in reality editing throws up more writing which throws up editing which requires writing to fill in the gaps, so really, how long is a piece of string? To me, in my fragile, sapling state, it looks vaguely like enough of a challenge to stop you starting in the first place.







Tolstoy's Got A Brand New Look...

     Ta da! Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it airier and more eye-catching and easier to read? I hope so anyway. I’ve been very excited about re-designing this blog for a while now and it’s lovely to have it finally done. Thanks to the gorgeous new logo goes to Elaine Tang (@minirice_uk) who draws and designs beautiful things and was awesome through the whole process of me figuring out what I wanted and how exactly I wanted to represent myself and the whole Tolstoy is my Cat brand (of all the narcissistic things you thought you’d never do, Batman…). Incidentally, I think Tolstoy likes it, as he just added a whole line of ‘i’s to the text whilst I turned my back to fetch tea. Bad cat.







How Pathetic is your Fallacy?

     Pathetic fallacy is a somewhat clichéd device, most often seen when a distressed person walks around in the rain or a happy couple frolic in the sun, but something I like to do as a reader is create my own i.e. read books in locations that reflect their content, location or tone to enhance my enjoyment of them.

     I spent the last week in a tiny Austrian village near Salzburg and it was as you might picture it – epic mountains, rustic detailing, piles and piles of snow. You might think of this is the ideal place to splash out on winter sports kit and go play in the snow, but seeing as I definitely do not ski, and everyone else in the party does, for me it is the perfect place to read. So, rather than packing skis and helmets, I packed my snow boots, a notebook and oodles and oodles of books.