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Punning Walrus: a Wise-Ass Just Like His Creator

October 23, 2023

art, creativity, home for fiction, writing

Punning Walrus is a linguistically self-aware cartoon character I’ve created. You might have already seen him visiting the updated Home for Fiction main site – and here is a post describing that experience.

Punning Walrus began as an inside joke, the details of which probably don’t interest you. Suffice to say, however, that Mr Walrus shares a lot of qualities with his creator, yours truly: He is endlessly critical, linguistically self-aware, and intelligent – being modest though isn’t one of his strongest points.

Mr Walrus spends his time annoying others, being perennially grumpy yet ultimately good-hearted. But doublecross him and he’ll murder you – with words.

Punning Walrus cartoon — Punning Walrus, a wise-ass as critical, linguistically aware, intelligent and modest (cough, cough) as his creator

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The Place of Style in Thinking about Literature

October 16, 2023

Experiencing, Literature

creativity, guest post, Igor Livramento, literature, writing

Today’s post – “The Place of Style in Thinking about Literature” – is authored by Igor da Silva Livramento. He’s a fellow academic from UFSC, fellow author, fellow creative-writing advisor, and overall a great fellow. He’s also a composer, music theorist, and producer. You can find him on LinkedIn and here is his own blog.

Art is contact with the inhuman that dwells in all of us: be it the animalistic and abject subhuman – as in Lautréamont, Clive Barker, Artaud, Pierre Guyotat – or the angelic and sanctified superhuman – as in the biblical psalmist, Rōdhakī, Hāfez or Petrarch. Style, therefore, is not a form of individual expression, externalization of the soul, exposition of a supposed interior, but the making up of a just form (fair, as in Law, fit, as in Fashion). This form is just because it is homologous to the world, it follows the same logic as the world (homo-logos): as obscure, dense and impenetrable as the matter of the day.

Style, therefore, is the way to make things – ideas, beings, moments – last in time, which means that language also lasts to allow this lasting. It thus opens up the chance for a reader to place their own time transversely in the timed chronometer of work and routine.

style and thinking about literature — Style, thinking, literature. Art. Language.

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Literary Analysis of Three Excerpts I Like; of my Own Fiction

October 9, 2023

Fiction

book, creativity, criticism, fiction, literature, writing

Ah, yes; another egotistical post. A bit like the one where I essentially reviewed my own work. But as there was value in that, there is value in this one, too. A literary analysis of three excerpts of my own fiction can be revealing to you for two reasons:

As a writer, it shows you how to critically approach your own work; why you like something, how it made you feel. Doing so helps you gauge your writing and move past the “first book” stage (with or without quotation marks).
As a reader, you get a “behind the scenes” of writing. Not only does this offer you unique insights in regard to the writing process, but – which is more important – makes you a better reader, too.

Naturally, in order for this post to be accessible to anyone, whether they have read the books or not, I have selected the excerpts in a way that they don’t depend on their context. Not too directly, at least.

anime image of woman and man. Literary analysis of three excerpts — If *The Other Side of Dreams* were an anime, Anna and Ahmed – the two main characters – would perhaps look like this, walking the streets of Rome on a summer evening

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