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William Gibson on Blogging

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the stuff-to-read dept.

The Ape With No Name writes "With Pattern Recognition now out, Gibson talks to the Guardian about blogging, which ones he's looking at and why he may have to quit blogging himself. He's quoted as saying '...if I'm ever going to write another book, I'm going to have to quit doing my blog as I have a hunch it interferes with the ecology of being a novelist.'"

11 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. The article is not about blogging by MoThugz · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...but the internet in general. His fav sites, his thoughts on the blogging phenomenon, even googling, while we're at it.

    In fact, the gist of the article is about sites he likes and visits often...

    Err, and it's not even an article per se... shouldn't this be categorized under Interviews instead?

    --
    Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
  2. Re:Blogging ruining his flow as a writer... by noewun · · Score: 3, Informative
    Possibly, but it depends on the writer. We're all different, and what works for one won't necessarily work for the other.

    Personally, I find that I don't blog or anything like that because I don't have all that much interesting to say on a day to day basis, and what I do have to say I put into other forms.

    --
    I am a believer of momentum and curves.
  3. FYI by Wicked+L · · Score: 5, Informative

    William Gibson's blog is located here: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp

  4. Re:steganography, reviewers and dictionaries.... by Afrosheen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't waste your time. Actually, if you're a big fan of his older stuff (Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Burning Chrome, etc) then you'll probably hate it. I thought he started losing it around the time of All Tomorrow's Parties (but I doubt anyone here would agree with me) and this book continues in the same wandering, aimless, boring prose. Gone is his trademark mile-a-minute, high tech crime and criminals, ultra-cool underworld, replaced with a cleaner view of tomorrow.

    Come on. It's based on the premise of someone releasing video clips onto the internet and people finding them. There's a whole cult following, and a marketing mogul catches wind of it and finances the main character so she can get to the root of it. Bor-ing. But since ATP was so bad, I decided to give him another chance. Never again, Mr. Gibson. At least I have the older books to remember when he was great.

    BTW nazi mods, this isn't a troll. Take it with a grain of salt.

  5. Re:blogging gets in the way of writing? by samael · · Score: 2, Informative

    Neil Gaiman's latest journal entry touches on this very topic - inspired by Bill Gibson's interview.

    --
    My Journal
  6. The Guardian by aeolist · · Score: 4, Informative

    The article's small and content free because it's designed to be not much more than a sidebar: the Guardian (Britain's major left-liberal daily) publishes one of these micro-interviews every week, with the same sort of blah questions ("Most useful site?" "Google", invariably). It makes more sense in the print version of its tech supplement, where it acts as normal space-filling journalism, and usually a plug for book, album, site, whatever.
    Also, The Guardian is absolutely obsessed with blogs. Every week, the supplement will feature one of the following articles: "Are Blogs the new Journalism?", "Wi-Fi Blogging - Is this the Future for Reporting?", "Blogging - Journalism for Everyone?", etc., ad nauseam.
    The last decent one I remember is Dave Green being cynical.

  7. Re: Blogging ruining his flow as a writer... by Omniscient+Ferret · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't think the stream-of-consciousness thing is the problem, although I'm sure lots of preparation is useful for those sections.

    At a signing, Gibson said that he felt that stories were more convincing when drawn from reality; lots & lots of detail lead to a more immersive work. He's writing about something he finds an interesting detail either way. What he writes in the blog could well have gone into a novel instead, & so the blog sort of interferes.

  8. Re: TAKE OFF EVERY BLOG by A+non+moose+cow · · Score: 2, Informative

    In your search string, add the term -blog

  9. Pournelle proves you can... by [amorphis] · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't see that anyone's mentioned Jerry Pournelle yet.

    Somehow he finds time to write novels while running a very insightful blog, writing a column for Byte, keeping active in the amatuer aerospace community, and generally having a life. I don't know how he does it, epecially at his age.

    He proves that blogs and more, the internet, can coexist with real life(tm)
    (for authors at least).

  10. Re:Blogging ruining his flow as a writer... by ketamineX · · Score: 1, Informative

    Naked Lunch by Burroughs is a similar book. I read it cover to cover a few times. With that said, it is one of those books that you can:

    1. Open
    2. Randomly pick a spot in the book
    3. Read for a few pages
    4. Close
    5. Repeat

    Turns out just the same as if you read all the pages in between.

    To quote the Simpsons: After seeing the movie Naked Lunch, Nelson says 'I can think of at least two things wrong with that title'

  11. Re:Blogging ruining his flow as a writer... by ProfKyne · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm not sure how the web factors into "On the Road", which was certainly a log, I don't know about blog.

    --
    "First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."