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I am going to blog about short stories today. These will be sentences I type to myself. I like the story "Wolf Dreams" by Ann Beattie (from "Distortions"). The story to me is similar in tone to the story "Graveyard Day" by Bobbie Ann Mason (from "Shiloh and Other Stories"). Both stories have narrators who are confused because their ex-boyfriend and husbands have all had the same first name. I have calm feelings right now thinking about these two stories. I feel friendly and patient and compassionate right now thinking about these two stories.

Before this I was clicking a lot of different things with no clear goal thinking things like "The caffeine has left me" and occasionally  typing emails with  sentences like "i keep covering face with hands in obviously fake display of exasperation."

I also like "Shifting" by Ann Beattie (from I think "Secrets and Surprises"). The story ends with a paragraph describing a woman lightly touching her body and looking at it in a mirror thinking something about statues. She thinks something about how if she was a statue she could enjoy  the sensation of touching  the gray, cold statue  lightly with her fingers. I'm doing this from memory so I might be wrong. Earlier in the story is a scene  that showed me that the woman was confused  and bored and maybe depressed and lonely and anxious, at this time in her life, and then it has the statue paragraph and then  it has a  paragraph break and the line, "This was in 1979, in Philadelphia." I think I quoted that wrong. I like that story.  read more »

Yesterday I said I would blog about my reading that is tonight. My reading hasn't happened yet. It is in five and a half hours. I'm in the library now. I want to read Mary Ruefle's new book and Chelsey Minnis' new book. They are somewhere in the library. It is difficult to leave the computer to go to the books. Many people around me are sitting at computers. Books can be read off computers. Bear Parade for example publishes books on the Internet. They should sell all the books in the library and buy more computers. They could buy one computer if they sell 1000 books maybe. It's worth it. Just kidding. The Internet is good though, I like it. Thank you to whoever made it.

I rarely pay attention at readings enough to understand what the readers are saying. Occasionally if the reader is unusually monotone or unusually expressive I will focus enough to process a sentence fragment. Or an entire sentence if it is direct and clear and not too long. I am always a little surprised when I hear people make little noises of acknowledgement at something a reader has said, even if the person who made the noise is staring directly at the reader. Sometimes I stare directly at the reader's face the entire reading but think about other things like their mouth or their teeth or their hair or what I will do after the reading.  read more »

Yesterday I said I would blog about Facebook today. It is today. What is Facebook? Is it good? Is it bad? Where did it come from? Who owns it? How do they make money? I don't know the answer to those questions. I am here to type about books. I'm not sure who reads this site. I don't get any reader reactions because comments sections are disabled. I feel like I'm typing to myself and three-to-four confused 68-year-old women who live in Alabama right now. The three-to-four women in Alabama are reading these words right now independently, they don't know there are two to three others just like them, confused and living in Alabama and 68. If you are actually a 68-year-old woman who lives in Alabama and you are reading this sentence right now don't be confused or feel that I have magical powers, it just happens sometimes. Things with low statistical probability still happen, it is not magic, it is the laws of the universe. Do not worry, don't think about this, maybe go to One Lucky Duck and order some organic vegan food if you are financially secure. If I am not financially secure when I am 68 I don't know what I will do. I'll probably have written around fifteen books when I am 68. Fifteen or twenty books. Maybe thirty books.

I think once you pass twelve books you become a writer that no one cares about passionately. Occasionally someone may write an article about you that expresses passionate care but anyone who reads that article will think, "They're just doing it to be different, this person has written over twelve books, no one cares about him or her passionately." Jean Rhys published five books I think. Richard Yates like eight books.    read more »

Yesterday I typed that I would type about Myspace today. Here is my Myspace page. I used a photo of me being with fruit and an energy drink. I think it is accurate. I spent a lot of time with fruit, sometimes in smoothie form. My "about me" section features blurbs my Miranda July and Matthew Rohrer, two people that I like. I like Miranda July. I like Matthew Rohrer. I like Jeffrey Brown. I like Joy Williams. I like a lot of people.

Tonight I had a reading at The Mercantile Library. My editor at Melville House, Dennis Loy Johnson, also the co-publisher and co-founder of Melville House (along with his wife Valerie Merians), introduced me. He said nice things. I read from my books. After the reading I went to Sacred Chow, an organic vegan restaurant by NYU's Bobst Library, where I am at now. I ordered an iced coffee smoothie and a wheat-free scone. While I was waiting the host asked if I wanted a free beer. I chose the hard apple cider. I said I would have a little beer. I used my fingers to show how much. It was about 3 inches of beer that I showed with my fingers. But he gave me a giant beer. I drank it and then I drank the iced coffee smoothie. I ate my wheat-free scone. My head hurts right now.  read more »

Hi. I am Tao Lin. I am here to type about what I did to promote my books. What did I do to get human beings to pay money for serious literature? As a young person, what did I do? Did I do bad things? Did I hate myself? Did I pay money to do things? I will talk about that. I think people from Knopf or FSG, old people, or something, want to learn, I'm not sure. They're rich and well-funded so probably they don't care what I did. I don't know why I'm talking about Knopf and FSG right now.

I was born in 1983. I went to middle school and then high school in Florida and then I went to New York University.I have a B.A. in Journalism.

Melville House published my novel, "EEEEE EEE EEEE," and my story-collection, "BED," at the same time on May 15, 2007. Today is October 1st, I just checked the computer's calendar.

I just used my fingers to see how many months it has been since the books came out. It's been four and a half months. I thought it was more than that. It felt like more, like eight months or something, I'm not sure why.  read more »