writing

1. Paul Krugman says something will be lost when newspapers and their wordage restrictions disappear in favor of the web. Confining your thoughts to 800 words can be excellent training in writing and reasoning, he says. Funny; where I write on the web, we're asked to keep our concert reviews down to no more than 800 words, normally. The internet isn't going to run out of space; it's simply that my editors believe people are unlikely to read anything much longer than that on the web.

2. Speaking of training in ... something, I've just finished boiling down an 800-page, completely disorganized book on Tolkien into a coherent evaluation for the Year's Work project. Now I want to soak my head in brine for a week.

3. Wow, something I wrote has been linked to by the Christian Science Monitor which calls it "a fine bibliography." (And the novel they're discussing? You can sample it at its web page. It's bad. It's baaaaaaaad. Surely the line "this lion of letters trudged in fear" should win some sort of purple finger of fate award.)

4. For better prose, try these guys: the Nebula nominees have been announced.