In this blog I discuss and model ways to shake a dash of literary on your life. (Or serve yourself a thick slab, if you’d like). I call it living literarily. There are a couple of ways to use and enjoy The Life Literary.
1. You can simply read things for the fun of reading. I’ll try to keep my pantry stocked with a good supply of well-written, interesting essays, stories, poems, book reviews, letters (from abroad and from home), narratives (of events), and journals (dated entries that follow the progress of something, like a garden or a grandchild’s birth and growth). I’ll put everything I write in a category (see the list of categories on the right-hand side of the page). Hover the cursor over the category for a description of what’s there. Click the category to see everything in a particular group.
2. You can get ideas and practical suggestions for ways to live literarily. The tabs just under the picture across the top are like chapter titles for a book that might be called Ways to Live Literarily. Click a tab, reveal the introduction to the particular subject. Each chapter has its corresponding category on the right-hand side of the page. You want information about conducting a Literary Event, memorizing poetry, or ways to include writing in your life? Click on the category that interests you and start gathering ideas. Or search for a specific thing using the Search field at the bottom of the right-hand column.
Here’s a tip. Each tab across the top is like the chapter of a book. All posts should fit into one chapter or another, either as an example of what the chapter is talking about or else a discussion of the chapter’s topic.
My quirks (thrown in free of charge): A. I am going to try to model good writing and techniques for literary living. I am not, however, going to explain everything I do. I’m just going to do it. For example, I wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times. I posted the first version with 343 words and the one I actually sent with only 150. I’m not going to say: “Hey! Look at this! Here’s an example of how to strengthen what you write by editing out extraneous words.” Similarly, for example, though I will write about writing a daily sentence, I’m also simply going to write one or twenty without saying, “This is a daily sentence. See? See? Ain’t it spiffy?” Maybe that’s at least part of why I haven’t written this how-to guide until nearly two months into this venture. The pursuit is vital to the capture.
B. I will not explain puns, picture captions, or any other word play. Unless someone asks me nicely. Maybe. I’m just going to put it out there. I love word play and I love not letting anyone in on the humor, at least not until they’ve thought about it a tad. Once again, part of the fun is the pursuit. (Plus, hopefully, I’ll do a decent enough job of the word play that you’ll get it.)
C. I really can’t stand over-used cliches like “work in progress.” A good writer ought to be able to express things cleverly and concisely without resorting to hackneyed, worn-out phrases. With that in mind, I want to say that this blog is a work in progress. That may bother you, but it is what it is. You may search this blog with a fine tooth comb, looking for what interests you, but you may not find it yet. Make no mistake! I am not going to run around like a chicken with its head cut off to get every category nicely filled. It’ll get done. All in due time.
A couple more things:
Links I Like: There are a blue million literary links on the Internet. The ones I list are the ones I read regularly.
Recent Posts and Archives: My goal is to add one or two posts every day. That means something that might interest you will get quickly buried in the archives. Take a look at the list of Recent Posts and Archives, both in the right-hand column, to see what you might have missed that you wish you hadn’t.
RSS Feed: At the bottom of the page, you can select to receive The Life Literary posts via RSS feed to your reader. That’s another option for using TLL.