Writes all the things. Most of the things never write back.
You’ve probably noticed my distaste for inapt figures of speech in writing or in the news. The one that caught my attention today was a news report that said the heroin problem ‘was hitting too close to home.’
Which led me to wonder, would they be satisfied if the problem was JUST a LITTLE further away? If it was JUST FAR ENOUGH AWAY from home?
I’m working on a Wizard of Oz sequel where Dorothy, having gotten a taste of power, raises an army to conquer Oz.
Imagine this: MAD MAX: YELLOW BRICK ROAD.
If you go to Turkey Hill for ice cream, do you go to Ice Cream Hill for turkeys?
“As a writing man, I have felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment.”
~ E.B. White
Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.
~ Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
I saw a report of an entire baseball game suspended by rain.
How do they even do that? I can’t even suspend MYSELF by rain.
Every time I attempt it, I keep falling from the sky. Maybe I need a taller ladder. That must be it.
Stephen King once said, “The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
There’s a reason for this. This is when all the monsters and murderers and evil spirits converge in hopes that the next story is going to be about THEM.
And when it’s not – well, some of them are very disappointed indeed.
I wonder if storm warnings would be taken more seriously if they were put in Biblical terms.
“Soon, and very soon, I shall smite thee,” saith THE STORM. “And thou shall be sore afraid. I shall smite thee with the winds that destroyeth, and the hail that flatteneth, and the lightning that burns with the heat of a thousand suns.”
Ah, ambiguity. The gift that keeps on giving.
I jotted down a note. It says “trying your beast.” Now I’m trying to remember what I meant by that.
Did I want to write a few sample paragraphs involving the beast, to see if the story was going to go anywhere?
Did I intend to take the beast to court?
Maybe I was thinking about getting a beast, and I wanted to borrow yours to see how it would go. Who knows? I might decide it’s not a practical idea after that. “Thanks, but TOO MUCH WORK,” I might say. “All the grooming, the long flights, the immense quantities of fish? No. Not for me. Although it IS a lovely beast.”
I admit: writing advice of “raise the stakes” has led me more than once to want to write this:
“He’d screwed up odd-even parking for the last time. When he found the ticket on his car windshield, he knew he had three days to clear himself, or it would mean the end of the universe, all life on Earth, and it would be impossible for him to keep his date with Cassie this Friday night.
It had taken him a LONG time to get that date.”