News Roundup 3rd Dec

Chip Ballard, writing for Sun-Herald.com is exploring "why writers write":

"Ask yourself what you would do if you knew you would never be published. Would you still write? If you are truly writing for the art of it, the answer will be yes. And then, every word is a victory."

True. True. Ask any blogger...

"During the years he spent in prison, French novelist Jean Genet wrote on the only paper he could get, toilet tissue. One day guards found his work, which would have amounted to hundreds of pages, and all his toil met a cruel fate not uncommon to toilet paper. He began again, rewriting from memory what was destroyed."

Ouch! Talk about your writing literally being flushed down the toilet...

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The New York Times takes a look at how corporations are adjusting to telecommuting.
"Still, more and more managers are being asked to manage faraway employees. Telecommuting becomes more common every year: about 13 million corporate employees in the United States will telecommute more than eight hours a week in 2008, compared with 6 million in 2000, according to Gartner, the research firm based in Stamford, Conn.

Virtual meetings involving several people can be tricky to arrange, particularly when employees are in different time zones. Some managers wind up talking late at night to employees in Asia and early in the morning to those in Europe."

Note: If you have telecommuting employees, hire managers with insomnia.

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Bryan Appleyard, writing for The Times, U.K., reviews the book 'Against the day' by Thomas Pynchon.
"After nine years, the publicity-shy American novelist has produced a new epic - but, on closer examination, does he deserve cult status?"

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