j. h. woodyatt


Location san francisco
Occupation computer professional
Website http://jhw.dreamwidth.org
IM (Jabber) jhw@conjury.org

About Me

I tend instinctively to guard my personal information, so let me just throw down a quotation here and let readers puzzle over it.

"[...] Despite my relatively early disillusionment with Platonism, I am very glad that I spent all those years reading philosophy books. For I learned something that still seems very important: to distrust the intellectual snobbery which originally led me to read them. If I had not read all those books, I might never have been able to stop looking for what Derrida calls 'a full presence beyond the reach of play', for a luminous, self-justifying, self-sufficient synoptic vision.

By now I am pretty sure that looking for such a presence and such a vision is a bad idea. The main trouble is that you might succeed and your success might let you imagine that you have something more to rely on than the tolerance and decency of your fellow human beings. [...]"

—Richard Rorty, _Trotsky and the Wild Orchids_ (1992)

Why do you write?

At the moment, I'm mulling what to do with a first draft of a 8000 word short story. I've had more than one person tell me it's the prologue that I should make sure to cut from the next novel I write. Grmf. I am not in a big hurry to write more novels after the first one didn't sell.

My current plan is to distract myself from these personal failures by writing more stories and posting the occasional flash here.

Any favorite authors? Books?

I read a lot of non-fiction, and some commercial genre fiction, specifically fantasy and SF. I'm interested in writing commercial fantasy and/or science fiction, but it would appear that I'm not good enough at it yet.

j. h. woodyatt's Wall

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA – Mar 14, 2010

Thank you for your comment. Glad to read your brilliant texts.

M.H. – Mar 12, 2010

Thank you so much for your generous (and hilarious) comments, J.H. :)!

David Ackley – Mar 09, 2010

Thanks, J.H. for the doctrinally pure encouragement; enjoyed reading your statements above and expect to enjoy as well your stories...

j. h. woodyatt – Mar 04, 2010

Okay. Running out of old material that I'm willing to give away for free. Rather than go find more, I suppose I should write something new... hmmm...

Larry Strattner – Jan 07, 2010

Love that mindless drivel!

Kathy Fish – Jan 01, 2010

Thanks for the kind comment on my story, James, and welcome to Fictionaut!

Mary Szmagaj – Jan 01, 2010

Willkommen, dude! I'm glad you're here.

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