The Guardian had a wonderfully entertaining collection of rules from various writers on Saturday.

Many are prescriptive, and so, are useless. But many are quite helpful and charming bits of advice for writing fiction and living. Here are a few of my faves, but you can find the full list at The Guardian.

1. “Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.” –Roddy Doyle
2. “Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.” –Geoff Dyer
3. “Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you ­finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.” –Anne Enright
4. “You can also do all that with whiskey.” –Anne Enright
5. “Try to think of others’ good luck as encouragement to yourself.” –Richard Ford
6. “It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.” –Jonathan Franzen
7. “Keep in mind Oscar Wilde: ‘A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.’” –Joyce Carol Oates
8. “You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.” –Will Self
9. “If you have to read, to cheer yourself up read biographies of writers who went insane.” –Colm Tóibín
10. “Write.” –Neil Gaiman

The virtual tour continues with a stop on the other side of the pond at Neonbubble, conducted by Mark (the fake one, or actually the real one on his site).

While it can be confusing have one Mark interviewing another Mark (you might even say it could leave a mark, psychologically speaking), Mark does an admirable job of keeping us oriented (I almost said “on the mark”.) He also is quite interested in catering to his audience, which is composed largely of perverts, so the interview is laced with terms such as writing, publishing, and close-harmony singing. Disgusting!

If you haven’t had the pleasure of Neonbubble, you should definitely add it to your blogroll, or rss feed, or if you’re a pervert, your bookmarks.

The full interview is here. Feel free to drop by and join in the comments!

Marvellous Hairy is making its video debut at Book Screening today, a site devoted to showcasing great book trailers.

As always, I’m grateful to Webmonkees for helping me put something together.

You can find the site here.

From his Wall Street Journal interview, on the question if a 1,000-page book is too much?

“For modern readers, yeah. People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore and people need to get used to that. If you think you’re going to write something like “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Moby-Dick,” go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don’t care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different.”

What do you think? Are books getting shorter? If so, do they have to be? Are our brains and intentions demanding it?

Read the full (interesting and rare) interview at the Wall Street Journal. Photo of cover by Lissalou66.

Wow, it’s hard to believe that we’ve already got to the last two episodes. And here they are, without further blah, blah, blah:

Episode Fourteen — Part V (Chapters one and two):

Spider and Seedy finally come to the Kunfu-riffic conclusion to their kidnapping caper, learning all about Japanese sword-making, physics and why acrylic ski masks suck. In chapter two, the gang finally puts their plan into action, and they capture the King of the Gag, learning that he has some seriously lizardfish proclivities. And that two women kissing is not as hot as it first sounds.

An excerpt from the kidnapping, as Shute arrives at Helena’s apartment:

The idea was that Max and I were going to get into Helena’s closet and wait for their signal. They hoped to get Shute to agree to being tied up, as part of their little three-some. If that went off without a hitch, then it should make things considerably easier.

We all had another drink together, to kill the last twenty minutes before Shute was due to arrive. No doubt he would be fashionably late. By one pm, we were all keyed up. I don’t mind telling you there was an awkward psycho-sexual energy in the room, not at all dampened by another round of scotch. Honza Chodets was tasting better and better.

I was so wound up, I almost dropped my scotch, when at five-to-one, there was a knock at the door. Helena grabbed our drinks, poured them into the sink, and shooed us into her bedroom, where Max and I got into the walk-in closet. Ariadne waited in the bedroom, looking at me through the slats in Helena’s closet doors.

Helena let Shute in and his eyebrows actually arched when he saw what she was wearing. “Where’s Thipirous?” he asked. “I hope she’s not dressed as provocatively as you Borovich, or my heart might not be able to take it.”

Marvellous Hairy - a novel in five fractals -

Make the most of your inner monkey!

Episode Fifteen — Part V (Chapters three to seven):

After they move Shute, Helena and Max have an ethical discussion about kidnapping, medical malpractice, and branding. The media conference is more like a circus, as the media isn’t exactly on its best behavior. And then Rob gets to watch while the Ghosts have their revenge. In the end, they all live, happily, and ever after. Though Nick still has something to say through his lovely Titania3000.

An excerpt from Dr. Tundra and Helena’s discussion of branding:

“Seriously. You like scotch, right? So say you buy a cer-tain brand and we know that there’s this other brand that is just as good, but less expensive. We can help you find that other brand,” Helena said

“Hmm. Single malt kind of defies the brand concept, I think,” Max replied.

“No, not at all. In fact, single malt is a great example of the power of the brand. We all know that Glenfiddich is a good scotch, but there are lots of other single malts that are better. But everyone knows Glenfiddich — even people who don’t like single malt scotch — because of the strength of its brand. It’s not just the actual product, it’s about the feelings you have for the product. And that’s because they were branding their scotch before people even knew what branding was.”

“So what is Gargantuan’s brand?”

“That’s the problem I have with Shute.”

“That’s your problem? Not the fact that he’s just messed with Nick’s DNA?” Max said. He looked at Shute contemptuously, and for a moment Helena thought he might kick the partially conscious man.

“Well, that too, but he’s not building the Gargantuan brand.”

“You’ve helped kidnap him because of branding?”

“Oh, no, I have other reasons too, but that is my corporate reason for doing so.”

Marvellous Hairy - a novel in five fractals -

Make the most of your inner monkey!

You can find all of the released episodes here archived on my site. Or you may want to subscribe via iTunes.

And you can also listen to the podcasts at the wonderful Podiobooks.com.

You can buy the book at the publisher’s website, or at Amazon.com.