Thursday 18 November 2010

THE ONE SECOND NOVELIST

That's me, the one second scribbler. That's why there has been a deep dark silence from me since my initial flurry. Little and often is the way, in blogging as in creating works of lasting genius. Sadly I am one of nature's splurgers, and just as I tend to down too much red wine on a Friday, I am a word binger as well.

News from the land of literature today? Good to hear that Nick Hornby has started a new creative writing school for kids, aided by Zadie Smith and other luminaries who are working for nothing. We need these people. Creative writing gets a bad name, as if it is media studies for shy people. But with the Lib-Cons slashing humanities funding (clue in the name, guys) we still need to learn what it means to be human. Medicine, Science and the Law may fill in some of the picture, but there is a soul-shaped gap in the middle. Sometimes I think that as we become technically ever more savvy, our emotional common sense gets more blunted.