He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled
The Blog
Pulling a Geographic 
From the Electric Literature blog, Letters from a Young Novelist #3: In recovery language, we have a phrase called “pulling a geographic,” which is an illogical belief that switching locations will solve all of one’s life problems, when in fact the problems are rooted in the person and their substance abuse. I have pulled a […]
Read More Barry Hannah on First Person vs Third Person POV From the Barry Hannah interview in Paris Review: “Third-person singular, past tense, is most natural and inevitable, I guess. But you’d best beware the monotone in it and the temptations toward false wisdom, cleverness. First person is where you can be more interesting as a fool, and I find this often leads to the more delightful […]
Read More Roberto Bolano’s 2666 I’m rereading Roberto Bolano’s 2666, and I love this passage so much I’m going to share it with you: “It was raining in the quadrangle, and the quadrangular sky looked like the grimace of a robot or a god made in our own likeness. The oblique drops of rain slid down the blades of grass […]
Read More “Making a Literary Life” This is from “Making a Literary Life,” by Carolyn See: “Your ego is a big, messy, undisciplined, anxiety-ridden dog. It barks and whines and pees on the floor and sheds all over the furniture and takes nips at passing strangers and goes crazy when it see another dog that might be bigger or smarter or […]
Read More How To Give Up A Novel Spend four hours reading your novel. Feel abjectly depressed about its suckitude. Wrestle with 1) the feeling that you should give it up 2) the feeling that you have nothing else going for you. Mope around the house. Frown at your twins. Rethink your life and career. Consider being a house husband and nothing else. […]
Read More Walden, a Video Game about Henry David Thoreau If you’ve ever wanted to play a first-person game based on Thoreau’s Walden, here’s your chance. The teaser below shows some clips from the game where you try to live like Thoreau:
Read More Should I Go To Grad School? From an article by Joshua Rothman in The New Yorker about whether or not to go to Graduate School: Last week, one of my college friends, who now manages vast sums at a hedge fund, visited me. He’s the most rational person I know, so I asked him how he would go about deciding whether to […]
Read More Interview with Peter Levine, author of “The Appearance of a Hero” Peter Levine recently published “The Appearance of a Hero,” a collection of linked short stories revolving around the central character of Tom Mahoney. In an unusual move, none of the stories are told from Tom’s perspective, but only from the perspective of those surrounding him. It’s really a fantastic collection — alternating between tender and […]
Read More 33 Mistakes You Can Make While Attempting To Write A Short Story Trying to cram a novella into the space of a short story Knowing that you’ve tried to cram a novella into the space of a short story space yet refusing to write the novella Writing five, non-overlapping drafts without reaching a workable story Reading “Heart of Darkness” eight times while writing this story before realizing […]
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