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John Baker's Blog

Reflections of a working writer and reader

"Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won't keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music - and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody - which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can't ask for anything more. Next is harmony - the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow. Haruki Murakami

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sheep

i’m on a stationary train in the middle of a field en route to London to see Jessica Lange in The Glass Menagerie. We hit a flock of sheep, which were on the track and one of the diesel tanks was damaged and is leaking. Fingers crossed . . .

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