As a writer, you're only one best-seller or Pulitzer away from needing a tome of your influences for future scholars. For that matter look for a unifying theme and write a book on that. I'm all about patterns. p.s. DFW? I know that only as an airport abbreviation...
sorry yes, my lazy shorthand for David Foster Wallace; the guy who wrote Infinite Jest.
There is that ego satisfaction in all this preservation: I'm saving it for future biographers (steeples fingers). But that said, would future biographers petition the reddits and delicius of the world to gain access to their subject's bookmarks and the like? Somehow I don't think so...
Man, I thought I was the only one who hated reading off computer screens. If it makes you feel any better, Rino, I have piles of magazine articles and screenwriting notes that I've kept over the years. My wife hates the fact that I'm such a hoarder. I've promised (to myself, at least) to get a little more Zen in my approach. I started by getting a manila folder and writing "Read, Then Turf" on the cover. That folder is crammed with various articles that I've yet to read. About a month ago, I had a look through it and threw out quite a few articles that held no interest for me anymore. Not a perfect system, for sure, but you do get a chance to cull some of it, the theory being that you thin it out until there's nothing left and you only read the stuff that's really important or of interest. I did think about scanning these into my computer, but then, of course, I'd be back to having to read them off a computer screen. Yossarian would have hated that idea.
As a writer, you're only one best-seller or Pulitzer away from needing a tome of your influences for future scholars. For that matter look for a unifying theme and write a book on that. I'm all about patterns.
ReplyDeletep.s. DFW? I know that only as an airport abbreviation...
Since you printed pages out, there's an obligation to preserve them, in a way. Stuff (any kind) demands a kind of attention at some point. DFW?
ReplyDeletew/v: ismoses
sorry yes, my lazy shorthand for David Foster Wallace; the guy who wrote Infinite Jest.
ReplyDeleteThere is that ego satisfaction in all this preservation: I'm saving it for future biographers (steeples fingers). But that said, would future biographers petition the reddits and delicius of the world to gain access to their subject's bookmarks and the like? Somehow I don't think so...
(End wish fulfilment scenario)
My advice? Never, never, throw anything away that's in form of stuff you've written or articles you've noted. You will regret it!!
ReplyDeleteMan, I thought I was the only one who hated reading off computer screens. If it makes you feel any better, Rino, I have piles of magazine articles and screenwriting notes that I've kept over the years. My wife hates the fact that I'm such a hoarder. I've promised (to myself, at least) to get a little more Zen in my approach. I started by getting a manila folder and writing "Read, Then Turf" on the cover. That folder is crammed with various articles that I've yet to read. About a month ago, I had a look through it and threw out quite a few articles that held no interest for me anymore. Not a perfect system, for sure, but you do get a chance to cull some of it, the theory being that you thin it out until there's nothing left and you only read the stuff that's really important or of interest. I did think about scanning these into my computer, but then, of course, I'd be back to having to read them off a computer screen. Yossarian would have hated that idea.
ReplyDelete