It is one thing to take inspiration from another's work for one's own creative writing, but it is entirely another to complete a work first conceived and named in another's fiction. What to make of such fictions within fictions?  

Blanchot (commenting on Priam's supplication of Achilles) says the choice in Homer is violence or speech. In Vergil, in the modern state, our choice is only violence or the silence, whether of Dido or Ajax, imposed upon us by our isolation within the emptiness of our dreams (Milton).

On the mythological and biological necessity of work: "You can only survive if you work, since so much is working against you."

When I was younger, in college and grad school, I'd read that someone my current age had won the lottery, and it just seemed so pointless. What would they do with twenty years of money coming in that could possibly make their, or anyone's, life better?

I began this as a reply to Timothy Morton's extremely helpful comment on entropy in letters and words (following Shannon, whom I've used elsewhere in discussing the editing of Shakespeare). In fact all the comments were wonderful, so let me say thanks. Thanks!

How can you use the market place to predict future classics?  How could you even bet on the literary future?  EBay has found a way -- a really interesting one.  The futures markets tell us that Darren Shan (author of the young adult series Cirque du Freak) is more than twice as valuable as of today than New Yorker darling David Mitchell.  But Ken Follett is a cut above that.How do I know?

Since being invited, after some coughing and ostentatious self-effacement, to contribute here, I've had a kind of blogger's block about it -- here, though not elsewhere.