By Paul Ford
Ftrain.com, I've been unfaithful to you. I went and had an affair with print publishing, and the result is a novel published
by Plume Books (a division of Penguin), and available all around the nation. I hope you will forgive me.
This is how it happened. I'd long been a web-only writer (a pejorative term which I wore with pride) with a little radio thrown
in here and there. I love the Internet and the unique textual experiments it allows me to perform, and for a long time I had
been interested in seeing what it would be like to write a serial novel online. I had a suspicion that people might like a
funny story on the installment plan.
So I began a novel on The Morning News, and the fellows there also let me publish it under a pseudonym, because that makes everything more fun. I've done it before
on this site with Scott Rahin and Rebecca Dravos, and a few other fictional folk. And doing this on The Morning News led to a novel deal.
Gary Benchley, Rock Star is a comic novel about a callow, indie-rocking youth who must find a way to live--and rock out--in the hipster neighborhoods
of the East Village and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. If you like Ftrain.com you'll probably like this novel. I worked hard on it
and I hope you'll purchase a copy, take it home, and read it, and either pass it on to your friends or else tell them to pick
up a copy. Feel free to let me know what you think.
I'm giving a reading in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Thursday, October 6. I hope you'll come out and say hello.
More Ftrain.com starting Wednesday.
. . . . .
More about Gary Benchley, Rock Star
The official website for the book.
Buy the book from Amazon.com.
An explanation of the hoax on The Morning News.
The original serialization of the novel on The Morning News.
PEEK
Ftrain.com is the website of Paul Ford and his pseudonyms. It is showing its age. I'm rewriting the code but it's taking some
time.
FACEBOOK
There is a Facebook group.
TWITTER
You will regret following me on Twitter here.
EMAIL
About the author: I've been running this website from 1997. For a living I write stories and essays, program computers, edit
things, and help people launch online publications. (LinkedIn). I wrote a novel. I was an editor at Harper's Magazine for five years; then I was a Contributing Editor; now I am a free agent. I was also on NPR's All Things Considered for a while. I still write for The Morning News, and some other places.
If you have any questions for me, I am very accessible by email. You can email me at ford@ftrain.com and ask me things and I will try to answer. Especially if you want to clarify something or write something critical. I am
glad to clarify things so that you can disagree more effectively.
«Gary Benchley, Rock Star
»
POKE
Syndicate: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Links: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Contact
© 1974-2011 Paul Ford
Recent
@20, by Paul Ford.
Not any kind of eulogy, thanks. And no header image, either.
(October 15)
Recent Offsite Work: Code and Prose.
As a hobby I write.
(January 14)
Rotary Dial.
(August 21)
10 Timeframes.
(June 20)
Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out.
(April 10)
Why I Am Leaving the People of the Red Valley.
(April 7)
Welcome to the Company.
(September 21)
“Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings?”.
Forgot to tell you about this.
(July 20)
“The Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.
An essay for TheMorningNews.org.
(July 11)
Woods+.
People call me a lot and say: What is this new thing? You're a nerd. Explain it immediately.
(July 10)
Reading Tonight.
Reading!
(May 25)
Recorded Entertainment #2, by Paul Ford.
(May 18)
Recorded Entertainment #1, by Paul Ford.
(May 17)
Nanolaw with Daughter.
Why privacy mattered.
(May 16)
0h30m w/Photoshop, by Paul Ford.
It's immediately clear to me now that I'm writing again that I need to come up with some new forms in order to have fun here—so
that I can get a rhythm and know what I'm doing. One thing that works for me are time limits; pencils up, pencils down. So:
Fridays, write for 30 minutes; edit for 20 minutes max; and go whip up some images if necessary, like the big crappy hand
below that's all meaningful and evocative because it's retro and zoomed-in. Post it, and leave it alone. Can I do that every
Friday? Yes! Will I? Maybe! But I crave that simple continuity. For today, for absolutely no reason other than that it came
unbidden into my brain, the subject will be Photoshop. (Do we have a process? We have a process. It is 11:39 and...)
(May 13)
That Shaggy Feeling.
Soon, orphans.
(May 12)
Antilunchism, by Paul Ford.
Snack trams.
(May 11)
Tickler File Forever, by Paul Ford.
I'll have no one to blame but future me.
(May 10)
Time's Inverted Index, by Paul Ford.
(1) When robots write history we can get in trouble with our past selves. (2) Search-generated, "false" chrestomathies and
the historical fallacy.
(May 9)
Bantha Tracks.
(May 5)
![[Top]](art/EndFleur_40x21.gif "Top"){kind=small}
