Roger Ebert may not yet have his voice back, but since his thyroid cancer surgery left him mute he has been blogging the hell out of the internet. If you haven’t been following his blog at the Chicago Sun-Times, or at least passing through every so often to catch up, he has been penning some really incredible posts not just about movies but about life in general. About a week ago, he published a great piece called Books Do Furnish a Life concerning his near-obsession with collecting books despite the fact that he may never read them again. We’re with you, Roger.

He speaks of a minimalism he enjoyed in his youth, a minimalism that has escaped him since he has aged, become successful, lived a full life. He yearns to return to that minimalism, but realizes that his massive library refuses to let him. He posits that maybe he could live with only a handpicked 200 books… but then, what if he needed one of the others?

We have to accept that books are moving into the digital age, just as music has. The Kindle may take over mainstream book media consumption as the iPod did with music. But vinyl never truly died with the advent of CDs and mp3s, and books will live on in the face of the e-reader. Too many people love having their own library to look through, amassing a collection of ephemera that can be traced to specific moments and feelings in their lives. Sure, even the most ardent bibliophile may keep a library of thousands on their Kindle. But may they never give up the paperback. A reader’s home library isn’t just a needless collection of dead trees that will, in time, wilt into ash. It is a personal history, a reminder of who we are and who we may become. And having shelves overflowing with books looks pretty cool, too.

A friend of mine, we’ll call him Bernie, just returned from a summer in Paris. Luckily, his working life allows him to produce remotely; it doesn’t matter where he is, the work can get done. I remember chatting with him after he had been there for a month or so and his lamenting of the summer literary scene in Paris. “It’s like the literary scene shuts down in summer,” he told me. “Everyone goes out to the countryside or lays on the beach all day. Nobody’s writing or reading all summer.”

Let he or she who is not guilty of this sin speak now and chastise us; the indolent writers who give in to the beauty of summer, cast their laptops aside, and instead of filling themselves with coffee and banging away at the home row for hours on end, opt to fill themselves with blonde ales and kick off their flipflops at the beach. But, in case you were unaware, we are now into the ninth month, September, and the summer she is drawing to a close. The nights, at least here in Chicago, have become breezy and chilly, no longer do we talk of taking trips to the dunes, and I have begun to wear socks again. Yes, whether we would like to admit it or not, the summer is ending and it is time to return to the task at hand.

But how does one do it? As any writer knows, if you avoid writing long enough it becomes harder and harder to start back up again. This is why so many novels go unfinished, so many stories languish in your computer’s “To Submit” folder, so many readings go unattended. The truth is, and one of the hardest things for writers to overcome, is that it doesn’t matter what you write as long as you’re writing. Quality will come in time. We all know this, yet we also all expect genius to pour out of our fingertips every time we sit down at the keys. So let’s start off with…

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Just Write

Do it, dammit. Just make time and sit down and write and forget everything else. You’re a writer. What else is there but writing? Don’t make excuses. “But I have this project at work coming up,” “But I can’t think of any thing to write about,” “But my keyboard is missing the S key,” “But Top Chef is on.” Really? C’mon. It doesn’t matter what you write as long as you’re writing something. You’ll be okay, I promise.

After taking the summer off and feeling a bit rusty, I’ve personally decided to take part in National Novel Writing Month. In the past, my opinion of NaNo has been tepid, something I thought wasn’t particularly for me. But it does actually offer a great community of writers for you to lean on. I’m still not sure if I will sign up on their website and take part in the social aspect of it (maybe I could be convinced), but I think it’s a great goal for one to set. Write 50,000 in one month. It took me a year to write my novel, and that’s only 70,000 words (after some generous cuts). If you’re unfamiliar, NaNo takes place in November, starting at midnight on the 1st and going all the way through the 30th. You’ve got plenty of time to decide if it’s something for you. If you’re having trouble getting started, November and NaNo could help turn that around.

Read A Book

Yeah, you’ve probably been reading all summer. But don’t just read any book. Read your favorite book. There’s nothing to get you started better than reading a book that made you want to be a writer. One of those books for me is Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut; it’s a short book, I can usually finish it in a day or two, and something about it is so weird and awesome and inspiring. It’s one of those books that gets better as you turn each page, you fall deeper into the rabbit hole, strange stuff happens, it’s just pure creativity. If you asked me what my favorite book is, I don’t think I’d say Cat’s Cradle, but Cat’s Cradle is a book I have read over and over throughout the years whenever I’ve needed to remind myself what it’s like to be a writer. And being so obsessed with books-as-ephemera, my copy of Cat’s Cradle is one of my favorite vintage books in my collection; I love it so much that a description of my copy actually made it into my own novel. I love holding it, I love reading it.

Submit For Publication

It’s scary, I know. But autumn is when the universities resume session and the journals begin accepting submissions again. You know you’ve got a ton of stories hiding on your hard drive, stories that might just need another quick look before they’re ready for submission. I will be the first to say that writing, that being a writer, is not about publication; you shouldn’t write just to be published. If it’s not ready, if it’s not what you want, then so be it. But on the same token, giving yourself goals and deadlines, “I will submit this story by September 12th,” will provide an extraordinary impetus for writing. The worst that can happen is that you get a rejection letter — if you’ve never submitted a word and have yet to get your first rejection letter, let me assuage your fears: they’re not anything to fret over. Seriously.

Maybe you don’t even know where to begin when it comes to submitting. Let me, then, point you to an awesome resource for the submitting writer: Duotrope’s Digest. I’ve written about Duotrope in the past, but the site deserves a relinking. It’s essentially a search engine of journals, outlining what kind of work they accept, if they pay, their submission guidelines and dates, and everything else you might need when it comes to finding the perfect place for your work. Now that I’ve given you this resource, you have no other option but to start submitting.

Start A Blog (Or Just Write For One)

Maybe I’m a little biased. I think blogs are great. Who cares what your topic is or if a great number of people read your posts, just having a blog, having that outlet, allows the creativity to flow. Once you get serious about posting, that dedication to the project will provide the inspiration to get some words on the page. If you’re not the most tech savvy person in the world, plenty of blogging websites make it easy to start your own blog in minutes. Wordpress, Blogger, and Tumblr are just a few of the most popular platforms that will provide you with a completely free blog. Personally, I prefer the Wordpress engine (which is what Bookish Us runs on), but my experience with all of these different options has been positive. You’ll be surprised at the possibilities that may come from even the smallest, most esoteric blog.

Expand Your Horizons

Read something new, something that’s pushing the envelope or looking at things from a different perspective or taking you out of your comfort zone. About a month ago, I interviewed Andrew Zornoza about his recent novel Where I Stay. This book is a great example of modern literature that’s trying to show you something new, something in way you haven’t experienced it before. While you will of course have your favorite books and authors, things you’ll read over and over again (like me and Cat’s Cradle), you need to move forward and explore what some modern writers are doing. You might just find someone modern, someone alive and accessible, whose work inspires your voice to go places you didn’t consider going before. At the very least, reading a modern novel might inspire you to think, “This is all it takes it get published? I could do this!”

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These tips might sound pretty obvious but I think it’s important that we all hear them over and again because even the most obvious thing can be forgotten (or ignored). Whether you like it or not, writer, it’s time to get back to your work. Since this list was as much about inspiring myself to start writing again as it is to inspire you, what kind of tricks do you have to get yourself motivated? Maybe you’ve got a secret from which we could all benefit.

Granted, I come to this subject with a slight bias.  I am the editor-in-chief of the magazine in question, and I helped put this event together.  But what can I say: it’s a launch party on the lake, in the summer time, with tiki torches and live music and hot dogs!  You should come out!  Really!

As it turns out this isn’t just a literature-only journal.  Submissions are entered in three categories: Images, Sounds, and Words, so not only do you have a collection of (in this case seven) brilliant poems, short stories, and creative non-fiction, but you’ll also find paintings, photographs, songs, and, in this issue, a costume.

Presenting artists are: Elisabeth Blair, Katrina Blasingame, Elizabeth Bowman, Spencer Dew, Dion Mindykowski, Cecilia Pinto and Megan Williamson, Luka Vardiashvili, and Richard Whaling.

The complete list of artists published in issue #2 is: Elisabeth Blair, Katrina Blasingame, Elizabeth Bowman, Brian Chih-Chiang Lo, Spencer Dew, Meridith Halsey, Sally Hartzell, Alex Lippard and Roger Sprau, Sean Mahoney, Dion Mindykowski, Nova Moturba, Cecilia Pinto and Megan Williamson, Jasmine Robinson, Kamila Rymajdo, and Sonette Steyn, Richard Whaling, and Susan Widdicombe.

$10 gets you in, a meal (pop, hot dog (meat or veggie), and chips, and a copy of the issue #2 CD-ROM.  For an additional $5 there’ll be copies of issue #1 while supplies last, and, well, more details and RSVP at gothicfunk.org.

This past weekend, B and I attended the 39th Annual Book Fair in Oak Park, put on by the Friends of the Oak Park Library. This book fair is huge; it is hosted in the Oak Park River Forest High School cafeteria and brags over 100,000 books (I’d believe it). We decided to go on opening night, which is integral I think if you want to get the best books. Not that you wouldn’t be able to find some gems on the second night, but the first night is so busy and packed with book hounds, as well as retailers with their little computerized book guns searching for what they need by ISBN, that I feel by night two your chances of finding your own personal buried treasure will have drastically decreased.

The prices for books at the book fair are outrageously low, and since I stick mostly to paperbacks I was able to acquire a considerable haul for only $16. But there are people who go there with dozens of bags, people who bring little wagons (I’m surprised I saw no wheelbarrows), and people who fill wine boxes until the books are spilling over. And the aforementioned retailers, well, they and their overflowing collections, stuffed duffels and canvas sacks, are everywhere. The cheap prices and the vast number of titles call to the bibliophiles, and if you attend this book fair you’ll be face-to-face with the ravenous humanity of all those who think books are worthwhile.

The book fair is an excellent place to people-watch; consider a hot and stuffy high school cafeteria on a summer night, over 100,000 books, and hundreds of people, many so absorbed in their search that they have no qualms with backing their rear-side into you, knocking you over with a bag of books without uttering any apologies, or forgetting that because they are attending a large event, with hundreds of people, in a stifled cafeteria, they might want to shower beforehand. There are books that everybody seems to want — before we arrived, B’s mother (hi Bonnie!) asked us to keep an eye out for Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife; throughout my time at the book fair, I encountered a handful of people wanting the same book. At one point, two different women asked one of the book fair volunteers, almost simultaneously, if she had seen that very title. And then there were books that nobody seemed to want. I have never seen so many copies of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections in my life. There were so many copies, both hardcover and paperback, I almost considered buying one myself (almost).

My own personal haul is eclectic, I think, as even though I told myself I could spend whatever I wanted, however much it took, I held back and only got what I thought I would really need and really read. Responsible, no? But I have to admit to you that I purchased three different copies of Moby Dick; I couldn’t help myself. One copy, in my defense, is going to be tore up and have its pages lacquered to the top of our coffee table. The other two, though, will reside on my shelf next to my other vintage copy of Moby Dick, donated to me by my own high school English department some ten years ago when they were clearing out their storeroom.

Keeping with the Melville theme, I also picked up The Portable Melville; this book contains pretty much everything Melville wrote besides Moby Dick, including Typee and Billy Budd, as well as stories and poems and personal letters and more. From another of my favorite authors, I bought All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy; those who know me know I love McCarthy and it may come as a surprise that I haven’t read this, one of his most famous books. I admit, I avoided Pretty Horses for a while as my writing mentor, Stephen Wright, once referred to the novel as “Cormac McCarthy lite.” Despite this prejudice, I think it’s also good to hold off on reading every book by your favorite authors and maybe save some for later; I haven’t read any of the Border Trilogy (of which Pretty Horses is included) nor have I read No Country for Old Men. That leaves me a couple books for the years to come, giving me a chance to continue to explore, for the first time, McCarthy’s oeuvre.

I picked up a few more modern books with Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, a novel that retells King Lear but on an Iowa farm and has been recommended to me a number of times, as well as Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America. I remember once sitting in the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, killing time before class, reading from Birds of America. Keeping with the ladies, I also bought an excellent vintage copy of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, a book all of those interested in post-modernism should read, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I haven’t read much Morrison, only Beloved, but I’ve heard such great things about The Bluest Eye I couldn’t leave it.

Speaking of the bluest eye, I purchased Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter; I met Ford once when he came to speak to my writing class in undergrad (he attended my alma mater) and dude has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen; he was a dreamboat. I was excited to get Grendel by John Gardner; I’ve heard so many good things about this book and I love Gardner’s how-to book On Becoming a Novelist, it was a perfect acquisition. I can’t give any reason why I haven’t read this book before. Another good buy was Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird; Being There was given to me a few years back by my friend Rachel and I flew through that novel in a few hours. Here’s hoping Kosinski’s seminal World War II novel is as powerful, painted with his own brand of dark humor, as Being There is.

As a Faulkner lover, I can’t pass up a good vintage copy of one of his books and at this particular outing I was able to get a fabulous condition As I Lay Dying; I love this novel and it’s actually quite strange to me that I didn’t already have it. If you haven’t read Faulkner, or you read The Sound and the Fury and struggled, give As I Lay Dying a shot. Then you’ll see why Faulkner is one of the best authors the US has ever had. From the same period, I got Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood. Barnes is an author whom I’ve never read, and I say that with my tail between my legs. This book has been on my list for a few years now and I think it pairs well with As I Lay Dying and To The Lighthouse, and certainly I anticipate seeing shades of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Gotta love the expats.

Finally, we have Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. Yes, another author who I am sorry to admit I’ve never read. I could not let this copy of Swann’s Way lie; it is a beautiful vintage hardcover, Modern Library edition. The dust jacket is still in great condition for its age and the pages have yet to brown. I’ve been meaning to read this for years and I can’t wait to tear into this copy.

Overall, a great collection of books for a very small pittance. I love book fairs, despite all the people, and if you’re in the Chicago area and are only now being introduced to this annual book fair, make sure to put it on your calendar. The book fair is always the first weekend in August. Maybe I’ll see you there next year.

On Monday, Mike Stephen interviewed me for Outside the Loop Radio. We talked about bookish.us and the Chicago literary scene. Tonight’s show will air at 6 PM CST on WLUW 88.7 Chicago. You can also download the show here after it has aired.