Jacob Wren

"Thank you, God, for having made my life possible, for allowing me to write up until the last orgasm, and to have written this novel in your honor."
– Silvina Ocampo, The Promise

"Anything can happen for some weird reason; yet also, without any reason, nothing at all can happen."
- Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia

“Number one is that the world we live in is governed by the most revolting bunch of crooks to ever defile the soil of this planet.”

“I couldn’t agree more. And number two?”

“Number two is that you must never take them seriously, for that is exactly what they want.”

- Albert Cossery, The Jokers

"We needed to be in the world as it was and not in our hopes for some otherwise."

I’ve decided to serialize my novel-in-progress Faithful Unbeliever on my Patreon. The above line is from the third instalment.

For the indefinite future all posts will be free: www.patreon.com/c/jacob_wren...

There were many books I wanted to read this year that I did not in fact manage to read.

“and everything is lacking
but injustice”
– Najwan Darwish, To Cristo

“and everything is lacking
but injustice”
– Najwan Darwish, To Cristo

Your semi-regular reminder that I have a new book out. The title is Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim. It got some really nice reviews: radicalcut.blogspot.com/2024/11/some...

"Writing is the art of disorganizing an order and organizing a disorder."
– Severo Sarduy, Cobra

“Against the background of general freakishness the case of my particular freakishness was lost.”
– Witold Gombrowicz, Ferdydurke

"For at heart man depends on the picture of himself formed in the minds of others, even if the others are half-wits."
- Witold Gombrowicz, Ferdydurke

Money isn’t real. It’s a fiction, a story. But money can do things that nothing else can do. So in that sense – at the level of power – it has some sort of greater reality.

I was trying to get myself to wait until closer to the new year, but it seems I’m too impatient.

So here it is, the list it seems I do every year: Some favourite things from my 2025

radicalcut.blogspot.com/2025/12/some...

Idea for a novel about two friends who both decide to become counterfeiters, one of whom decides to make counterfeit art while the other decides to make counterfeit money.

Working title: A World Without Money

I really do like lists: radicalcut.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-mo...

“These ethics are foundational in that they create worlds that view private property, prisons, punishment and greed as terrible mistakes.”
– Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Theory of Water

"The difficulty of translation from a language that doesn’t yet exist is considerable, but there is no need to exaggerate it. The past, after all, can be quite as obscure as the future."
– Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home

"Literature – even though people usually study it author by author – is always a dialog amongst many voices which intersect and reply to each other within literature and outside it."
– Italo Calvino

“When people start acting stupid I usually stop reading. Those people aren’t ready to be characters yet. You can’t have just any figment be a character. They should have to pass a test.”
– Renee Gladman, My Lesbian Novel

“In the past I could start writing without knowing what I was going to say

But now…

“I haven’t got anything to say” has become a reason to never begin

I’ve stopped taking that leap of faith”

– Jackie Wang, Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun

"What I'm interested in is happiness with a full awareness of the tragedy of life, the potential tragedy that lurks around every corner and the tragedy that actually is life."
- Wolfgang Tillmans

The last Bandcamp Friday of the year is this Friday (Dec 5th) so I thought I would once again share my mid-year list of favourite records of my 2025 (so far), in case you want to support some of these amazing artists: radicalcut.blogspot.com/2025/10/some...

I'm starting to work on my 2025 list. So, with a month left to go, I thought I would post my 2024 list one last time: radicalcut.blogspot.com/2024/12/some...

I always feel better when I’m writing. But when I’m not writing it never really works to force it.

I thought my quotations on failure list had capped at thirty quotes. But it seems I've now added two more making it thirty-two quotations on failure. Apparently you can never say too much on the question of failure: radicalcut.blogspot.com/2014/08/seve...

“We are tied down to a language that makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.”
- Tom Stoppard

When I think about how many stupid things I’ve done in my life, I think I’ve done a normal number of stupid things.

From "We Don’t Know Where We Will End Up…" prisonculture.substack.com/p/we-dont-kn...

"Not everyone is rising to the occasion because the times you live in do not immediately shape who you are and what you do. The other truth, I believe, is that you rise to the level of your training and practice, not to the level of your imagined self."
- Mariame Kaba

"Even in our worst times
some part of us –
finds each other."
– Pat Parker