TV show on now:
“His blood pressure is 90 over 120.”
Wait, what? No! THAT’S NOT HOW BLOOD PRESSURES WORK.
Hard sparkling water?
Wait. Now someone has come out with HARD SPARKLING WATER? What is THAT? Like a vodka tonic without the distracting flavor of tonic water? Vodka diluted with bubbly water?
Paws.
My cat has his head cuddled into my toes and his paw hooked over my foot. We’re holding paws, sort of.
Food management for time travelers
Another of life’s complications for time travelers: managing food items in the pantry and refrigerator.
“May 2018. Wait. Has that happened yet?”
Talent, genius, and guile
Talent hits a target no one else can hit.
Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Guile finds the arrows and paints a bullseye behind them.
The horrors of “As”
“If you want a study of how to avoid those other prose crutches — though, but, however, yet, and even, too, just — read him line by line, then search those words in your own story files, then maybe ask yourself why you know his name, and nobody knows yours.”
Strangeness
Strangeness is the one quality in fiction that cannot be faked.
~ John Gardner, On Becoming a Novelist
Melting cheese!
Zero dark thirty
When does late night turn into early morning?
Write that first novel
“They say everybody has a novel inside them, and that’s usually the best place to keep it. Really.”
I think that’s snarky and facile and not helpful at all.
Keep that novel inside you, and you’ll never get to writing the second, third, or fourth book that hopefully will be better.
I, an unpublished nobody, say: write that first book. Just don’t expect too much of it, and don’t stop there.