More on My Private Summer School

While I was reading Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular by Rust Hills hoping to find out what the heck I've been doing wrong all these years, I was also reading The Art of the Short Story by Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn. The Art of the Short Story is an anthology of short stories and "insights on writing" by "52 Great Authors." It definitely seems like a college textbook.

I can't say I got a great deal out of the "insights on writing," but I was exposed to writers I've never read before, including Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ha Jin, Katherine Mansfield, Alice Munro, Leslie Marmon Silko, Alice Walker, Eudora Welty, and, of course, Franz Kafka, which I wrote about earlier. I've read Kafka! I probably shouldn't be writing about this because I think it's probably a terrible indictment of myself because I'd never read anything by these writers. But I'm so excited because now I've read Alice Munro! I've read Alice Walker! Eurdora Welty! And did I mention Kafka?

Will any of this reading make me a better writer? I don't know. But I've read
Kafka!

And on the Writing Front

I have reason to believe that I will not be distracted for a few hours tomorrow and may actually do a little work. Last week I changed the breed of a dog in a book I'm working on, named it, and wrote a good sentence. Hope I can do as well this week.