What Can You Achieve in 48 Hours?

The Pleasure of the Text

In our very first podcast episode, numero uno, we talk about what can be achieved in 48 hours or a weekend to progress your writing forward. Please enjoy as we discuss the recommended coffee intake, available writing challenges, and the creative practices of other Writers.

Show Notes

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." - Henry David Thoreau

Ernest Hemingway

Many works by the late Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) are considered classics of American literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, “for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style” on 20th-century fiction. Some interesting facts on Hemingway: as mentioned in the podcast, Hemingway wrote standing up. He also survived two plane crashes, was an avid hunter and fisherman, and he loved polydactyl cats! If you happen to be staying in Regensburg, Germany, make your way to Hemingway’s (www.hemingways.de), where Shannen wrote some of her novel, Hemingway style, with absinthe. Hemingway’s works include seven novels, six short story collections and two nonfiction works.

• The Sun Also Rises
• The Old Man and the Sea
• A Farewell to Arms
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• A Moveable Feast
• Winner Take Nothing
• The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

George Plimpton

Widely known for his sports writing, the late George Plimpton (1927-2003) was an American journalist, writer, editor, actor, and the occasional amateur sportsman. Many of Plimpton’s works involved him competing in professional sporting events, and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. He is also known for establishing the Paris Review, a quarterly literary magazine, founded in 1953, which published works and hosted interviews of some of the greats; Italo Calvino, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Atwood, Dorothy Parker and Hilary Mantel, to name a few. Plimpton edited The Paris Review until his death in 2003.

• Truman Capote: In which various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career
• Paper Lion
• Out of my League
• One for the Record: The Inside Story of Hank Aaron’s Chase for the Home Run Record
• The Bogey Man: A Month on the PGA Tour
• Shadow Box: An Amateur in the Ring
• The Paris Review Anthology
• As Told at the Explorers Club
• The Best of Plimpton

Graham Green

English writer and journalist, the late Graham Greene (1904-1991), was regarded as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Strangely enough, he developed a reputation as both a ‘serious writer’, working on Catholic novels, and what he called ‘entertainers’ or thrillers. He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966 and 1967; however, in 1966, Nelly Sachs and Shmuel Yosef Agnon co-won, and in 1967, Miguel Ángel Asturias won the final title. He was recruited into MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6, or SIS), the foreign intelligence service of the UK, by his sister Elisabeth in 1941, where he met and befriended Kim Philby, a secret Soviet Agent; Greene later wrote the introduction to Philby’s 1968 memoir, My Silent War.

• Brighton Rock
• The End of the Affair
• The Quiet American
• The Heart of the Matter
• The Power and the Glory
• The Third Man and Other Stories
• Stamboul Train (Orient Express)
• Travels with my Aunt
• The Ministry of Fear
• Our Man in Havana
• Graham Greene: Complete Short Stories

Joan Lindsay

The late Joan Lindsay (1896-1984) was an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and artist. Her most celebrated work, Picnic at Hanging Rock, written over a four-week period, is predated by her literary work, Through Darkest Pondelayo (1936), which she wrote under a pseudonym at age forty, then her second novel, Time without Clocks (1962).

• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Time without Clocks

Steven King

Described as the “King of Horror”, Steven King has published 64 novels and sold over 350 million copies, dabbling in multiple genres: horror, suspense, crime, supernatural fiction, science-fiction and fantasy. Acceptance of Carrie by publishing house Doubleday, set King’s career in motion. As we discussed on the podcast, and openly mentioned in Stephen King’s memoir and craft book, On Writing, King developed a drinking problem in the early 1970’s, and then later a drug addiction. Yet, since the 1980’s, he has quit all drugs and alcohol, and later acknowledged that he didn’t need substances to engage in the creative process. Notably, King donates roughly $4 million per year “to libraries… schools, and a scattering of organizations that underwrite the arts.” There are too many of King’s books to list, but below is a list of my favourites. Additionally, a new fantasy book, Fairy Tale, is on track for release on the 6th of September. You can engage with Stephen King on Twitter (https://twitter.com/StephenKing), or on his website (www.stephenking.com).

• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
• It
• Misery
• The Shining
• Pet Sematary
• Salem’s Lot
• The Green Mile
• Misery

Michael Crichton

The late Michael Crichton (1942-2008) is most renowned for the Jurassic Park franchise, but, he has produced many other fantastic works, having sold over 200 million copies of his books worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. For those internally debating their choice of career, take a leaf from Crichton’s book (pun intended). Crichton received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, but never practised, instead choosing to focus on his writing. Crichton first started writing under the pseudonym “Jeffrey Hudson”, which was a reference to the 17th-century court dwarf and his own height (a towering two meters).

• The Terminal Man
• The Andromeda Strain
• Jurassic Park
• The Lost World
• Sphere
• Timeline
• State of Fear
• Dragon Teeth

Salman Rushdie

Sir Salman Rushdie’s work combines historical fiction with magical realism, often looking at migration issues, especially between Eastern and Western civilizations. Where to start? Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children, won the Booker Prize in 1981, and then won the Booker Prize for “the best novel of all winners” twice, both for the 25th and 40th Anniversary of the Booker Prize. If you hadn’t heard already, on 12 August 2022, Rushdie was stabbed on stage in Chautauqua, New York, where he was scheduled to deliver a lecture, More Than Shelter, focusing on “the United States as an asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression”. What sparked this event was the publication of Rushdie’s fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. This book has been incredibly controversial: a fatwā was ordered by the Supreme Leader of Iran on the 14th of February 1989; on the 7th of March 1989, the UK and Iran broke diplomatic relations over it, and a failed assassination attempt on Rushdie in August 1989. It has re-spa...