BITS ‘N’ PIECES

Some dos and don’ts from famous writers According to Elmore Leonard, aspiring writers should avoid using adverbs (“a mortal sin”). Zadie Smith says they should “work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.” Roddy Doyle tells them, “Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.” And William Faulkner once famously said that anyone who wants to be a writer should be a reader first: “Read, read, read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read!” Some authors, like Roxane Gay, offer advice on Twitter; others, like Stephen King and Anne Lamott, have written entire books on the subject.Earlier this month J.K. Rowling posted some tips on her website. “I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did,” she wrote. “The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.”Rowling listed the various qualities a writer needs to have - discipline, resilience, humility, courage and independence - but stressed, like Faulkner, that anyone serious about writing books should also be a voracious reader. “You can’t be a good writer without being a devoted reader.”Christopher Paolini, whose new novel, “The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm,” enters the Y.A. list this week at No. 1, devotes an entire section on his website to advice for budding authors. He’s also a big believer in the importance of reading; fans can find lists of his favourite books, which include Brian Jacques’s Redwall series and Ursula K. Le Guin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea.” Cats living largeTwo cats, Tina and Louise, are living large at a $1,500-a-month studio apartment their owner rents for them in Silicon Valley, where a housing shortage has sent rents skyrocketing. They moved to the studio in San Jose after their owner moved away to college.The student’s father, Troy Good, was unable to keep them and asked friend David Callisch to rent him the kitchen-less studio so he could keep his daughter’s beloved cats. It was a deal because an average studio apartment in San Jose rents for $1,951 a month. Callisch feels bad that he is wasting valuable living space on animals during a housing shortage, but he wanted to help a friend. 

from The News International - US http://bit.ly/2ROPHmf