another steve and other things

i'm feeling quite a bit better, as of yesterday. i still have some soreness of the throat in the mornings and some sniffling throughout the day, but there has been a marked improvement. kara's much better too. yay.

here's an interesting article about the f-bomb by one of steve's namesakes. it's not short, but it's worthwhile, in my opinion.

i've decided not to do the novel-writing marathon this year after all. i just don't feel like it. so for those of you who've received a spiral-bound rough chunk of my fiction the last 2 christmases, i have to say that you're out of luck this year. sorry.

i've been reading these murakami short stories, and while the stories themselves aren't really much to talk about (they're quite flimsy), in his introduction to the collection the author writes rather engagingly about his writing habits, how he goes from novels to nonfiction to short stories and back.

i'm going to focus my reading, at least in the immediate future, on short stories. i'm going to reread some raymond carver first, because he was inspirational when i started writing fiction in college (and i recently read an article somewhere about an unedited edition of what we talk about when we talk about love appearing in bookstores in the coming months). and there's jean thompson and lee abbott, neither of whom i've read yet, but who i want to read, and oh my - lots more. so i've been feeling excited about that as an idea.

of course i haven't acted on it yet, i mean in terms of writing, but that i currently blame on my now-resolving illness. probably by friday, my next day off work, i will be altogether out of excuses not to write. so by christmas 2008, with due diligence, there might be a collection of my short works spreading around the place.