journal features

turkish delight on a nova scotia night

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Halifax, 2004.05.24

I had a really good day, today. I put a chapter of my printed novel into a small zippered binder I've got, and took the thing to a small Turkish restaurant on Spring Garden road. I worked on my novel for an hour or so while I ate.

The place is called "Turkish Delight", unfortunately, but they serve really good food there. I get the lamb kafta kebob, as a rule.

After that, I took my work on to the Second Cup down the way. I was working on one of the most important chapters in my novel. In it, the main character is dragged into a meeting. Doesn't sound terribly exciting, I realize. But it's one of those meetings where something actually happens. In this case, he's sent on a path into a territory somewhere between those of the works of Mick Farren and Phillip K. Dick.

Anyhoo, it was good to be able to pick up the writing again after some months and to be able to stomach what I've written in the past.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton