The first story I wrote was Star Trek fan fiction. It ran about two-thirds of a page long and was about the Enterprise blasting the heck out of a Klingon ship. I proudly handed it to my third-grade teacher for review. She neither mentioned it nor returned it. I apologize to my biographers for not being more diligent on their behalf when I was 8 years old.
Author’s Note: Spelling Counts
That’s the reasonable determination of a study in the UK that shows millions of pounds in lost sales due to bad spelling. I see no reason why the principle wouldn’t be applicable everywhere. BBC News.
Fiction: Illumination
“The city’s swimming pools were full again today as we wind up our record-breaking third week of 100-plus-degree days,” the TV weatherman said over images of children splashing around. “My, doesn’t that look nice and cool! They’ll likely be there again tomorrow and the next day as there’s no relief in sight.”
Craig looked up from his tablet and scowled. He picked up the remote and muted the volume. It was bad enough to suffer the heat without listening to some idiot prattle on about it. Almost unheard over the window air conditioner, his children splashed happily in the horse tank he had filled for them to swim in. The nearest town with a swimming pool was ten miles away, and the water was too heavily chlorinated for Kathy to tolerate.
Jane glanced briefly at the now-quiet TV and her husband. She kept working to get the family’s dinner ready. The water for the spaghetti was about to boil. “It’s really too hot for this,” she said to herself. “Can’t live on sandwiches all summer.”
Quotable 60
Think of your readers as gifted third graders – if you bore them, they’ll start burning ants. If you challenge them, they’ll follow you anywhere.
– John Brandon
haiku 171
clouds approach
sky darkens, darkens more
tornado watch
Pen to Paper: Long Live the Serial Comma
Let me come straight out with it: I like the serial comma. It has an elegance and often a usefulness that I appreciate. Still, I don’t go into a meltdown when a writer doesn’t use one (unless it would have improved the sentence); there are bigger dragons to battle.
Fiction: Unnatural Selection
“And when she went to the drugstore to get more aspirin,” Frank said, “they told her she’d already bought the government-set limit for the month. Of course, her husband couldn’t buy it either.”
“Shhh!”
“What’s wrong, Janie?”
“Quiet!”
Outside, a soft drone quickly grew, and the children burst through the back door, screaming.
“Turtles! Turtles!”
“I hear them now,” Frank said.
“Make sure the windows are closed,” Janie said. “I’ll check upstairs.”
Quotable 59
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
– John Adams
haiku 170
birthday boy
drives the car
through the frosting
Pen to Paper: The Declaration of Independence
“It is the glorious 4th of July!”
– John Adams
And so it is. Today we celebrate the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration was written by Thomas Jefferson. John Adams had noted Jefferson’s “happy talent for composition” and “remarkable felicity of expression” and assigned the paperwork to him. Unlike young men today, Jefferson protested that he was the junior member of the committee; surely an older, wiser, more experienced man such as Benjamin Franklin or Adams himself should write the crucial paper. Adams responded that anything he wrote would be savaged merely because it came from him. Besides, he told Jefferson, “You write ten times better than I do,” which is something you wouldn’t hear from a lot of older, wiser, more experienced men.
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