Books, books, books: It's time to show us your shelves!

A few of my favorite things: But watch out for the gargoyle... So what's on your bookshelves? Jilanne Hoffmann and I would like to know. What you see (above) is a corner of my decent collection -- decent, but definitely not crazy. I followed a strict diet a few years ago and passed along multiple boxes of books to a very grateful local library.

photo(4)I know, this post is supposed to be about pictures, not words, but forgive me for adding just a small bit of commentary. See those three large volumes, the ones in brown and blue? They're from the Nonesuch Dickens Collection, and they reproduce Dickens' novels in the exact format, with illustrations, that Ole' Boz saw in his lifetime. There's also a signed reader's galley of "The Unknown Terrorist" by the wonderful Tasmanian novelist, Richard Flanagan. And, what bookshelf wouldn't be complete without a gargoyle? He's on guard, night and day, to protect my collection from browsers who want to become borrowers! (If any other titles intrigue you, let me know and I'll give you more information than you wanted.)

So, just to repeat, what's on your shelves? Drop Jilanne a note at her blog, or leave one for us in the comments field and send us to your page for a look!

The Dogpatch Writers Collective is already on board. We hope you'll join us, too!

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Stop the presses

The sidewalk internet, circa 1902. Considering the hits that the print media business has taken in recent years, it shouldn't come as a surprise that CareerCast.com has identified newspaper reporting as the worst job of 2013.

It's never been an easy job -- you're constantly on call and on deadline -- but that's what makes it such an honorable profession. But the other aspects of the business today -- less job openings, constant threat of layoffs, squeezing the life out of shrinking staffs of writers -- were the deciding factors in CareerCast's assessment.

I read the item with a feeling somewhere between relief (my own relief) and sympathy for colleagues still on the front lines. And I couldn't help thinking of all those great mythic figures in art -- from Penn Warren's Jack Burden to the unnamed reporter questing after Rosebud's identity in "Citizen Kane" -- that partly inspire you to consider that profession in the first place.

What are some other reporter-characters in literature? Lucien Chardon in Balzac's "Lost Illusions" -- does he count, even though he's just a hack? Peter Fallow in Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities"? The character of "John Berendt" in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"? Who else? Lend me your thoughts.

I envy -- and worry about -- all those young college grads with journalism aspirations. They're entering a world where headlines aren't the brightest about their chosen vocation, and yet it's an occupation that's needed the most -- without reporters, how else do you keep the rest of the world honest?

Big expectations are a two-edged sword, er, wood chisel

Edge of a chisel blade, detail. Well, the Siren hasn't been calling over the past few days -- too much playing catch-up with tasks and goals for the new year.

I'm sure that plenty of you can relate to that (although you have been far more faithful to your blogs than I, my dear friends).

Yesterday, in the middle of a hectic day, I dropped everything and turned to David Esterly's book for some mental relief. I wrote about Esterly in my last post -- he's a carver who tackled some daunting restoration work and wrote about it in his lyrical semi-memoir "The Lost Carving."

I just needed a mental palate-cleanser, and this passage did the trick for me:

Now when I break something the wood is usually sending a different message: the problem here, it's saying, isn't your technique but your design. The composition you've drawn asks too much of wood, no matter how adept you may be with a chisel. You've persuaded yourself that a spray of leaves has to arch across the grain just so, because it answers to that other spray over there, or because it adds richness to effect, or simply because it's beautiful; but an aesthetic triumph can't change the temperament of wood. When writers use similar arguments to justify an unneeded beautiful sentence, editors famously tell them to "kill their darlings." If you're a carver, the wood sometimes kills your darlings for you.

The grace of such writing is its metaphysical quality. Sure, it's about a woodcarver's experience, but the lessons he's learned can apply to any of us.

There's a temperament to more than just limewood: This realization comes easily when you're in the midst of filling out a to-do list (as yours truly has discovered).

So, as you're planning out a busy 2013, and piling the work on your plate, just remember: Be reasonable.

That's my advice to you, my readers. Take it easy on yourself.

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