Friday Links

I’m excited. Lots of really great stuff to show you this morning.

It’s hard to get people to click on links. I know; I’m picky about the links I click, too. Your time is valuable, and I completely get that. At the same time, I feel like a little kid hopping up and down because he just found a buttload of pirate treasure and he’s like omg it’s pirate treasure and you’re like man, I’ve got a hair stylist appointment in thirty minutes and I’m all but there’s a gold ruby-studded peg leg over here!!!

Anyway. Here’s what we’ve got:

I totally heart this picture because it captures the entire reason I love books so much, and hence the entire reason I blog.

This guy is drawing a picture of every H.P. Lovecraft monster ever, and he’s really good, too. (Some pictures NSFW.) If you want an example that is safe for work, here’s his amazing rendition of Cthulhu.

A friend sent me this short film called “Validation.” I am a fairly cynical guy, but I found it very touching, especially since so much of the writing and publishing process is tied up in the idea of validation vs. rejection. The film is sixteen minutes long; the whole thing is worth your time, but if you only have a couple of minutes, the beginning alone is good for a click.

Not new, but (most likely) new to you: a great Paris Review interview with Salman Rushdie. He talks about his own ongoing struggles with writing. “Writing’s too hard, it just requires so much of you, and most of the time you feel dumb. I always think you start at the stupid end of the book, and if you’re lucky you finish at the smart end.”

Great article about an author who finally got an agent after months of rejection. Stories like this are everywhere. Skill, luck, and persistence: you need two out of three to get published, and guess which two you control?

Given my recent speculation about Norman Mailer’s scumbaggery, I found this Salon article “When bad people write great books” particularly interesting. Also, it’s just cool that Salon people are taking their article ideas from my blog, which of course is the only possible explanation.

This interactive iPad version of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” sounds totally boss. I’ve read The Waste Land before, but most of it was over my head. A version that explains all his crazy literary references as I’m reading? Yes please. Now all I need is an iPad…

Finally, this isn’t writing-related, but a friend of a friend made this website and it’s too great not to share: Yacht-or-Not.com. It is exactly what you think it is.

That’s all the pirate treasure I have for today. Have a great weekend!