It’s been a busy week: writing here, editing there, thinking deeply about this and that. I have written a story for this week; I just haven’t convinced myself to inflict it upon you for the sake of meeting my deadline. The situation and the characters are interesting, but nothing really happens.
I’ll try to have something wonderful next week. Meanwhile, click on fiction in the Categories list to the right and see what strikes your fancy. Any story you haven’t read is a new one.
Universal human experiences are a foundation of highly successful fantasy, mystery, historical, literary, women’s and romance fiction. Even literature’s most distinctive protagonists may seem like no others, but in fact what they go through resonates with us all.
– Donald Maass
just enough breeze
sprayer plane’s poison
wafts inside
I know this looks awfully lazy, but there have been a number of interesting things I’ve found in the past couple of weeks that I want to share with you. Thus, a links post. Enjoy.
* The five most stolen books.
* Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary turns 100.
* The New York Times’s Bill Keller says, “Let’s Ban Books, Or at Least Stop Writing Them.”
* Kurt Vonnegut explains drama. I’m guessing he was qualified to do so.
* Everything you need to know about undressing a Victorian woman.
* Interview with Ira Glass. He talks about his career, creativity, and being wrong.
* Steve Pavlina tells us how to make brown rice. It has nothing to do with writing, but it’s foolproof (so sworn because it works for me). As for what he does once the rice is cooked, I have no comment.
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Earlier today, Atlantis, America’s last space shuttle – America’s last means of reaching even low orbit – landed safely.
Now, our nation, like our astronauts, is grounded. The best we can do is to beg or buy a ride with the Russians who, despite their many problems, haven’t given up on spaceflight. Before too many years pass, the Chinese may be able and willing to take an American up with them.
We are too beaten down to lift our eyes to the stars and dream and dare. Where once our questing spirit rode rockets it now rides Rocinante and pines for a hitching post.
The last word goes to the Apollo-era flight director who oversaw our glory days:
I pray that our nation will someday soon find the courage to accept the risk and challenge to finish the work that we started.
– Gene Kranz
The lord looked out a window of his magnificent castle and nodded at the fluffy white clouds below him, all brilliantly lit by the winter sun. The clouds looked like snow, and that was all the more he needed of snow. A lackey had told him that it was snowing in the valley, which was the best place for snow.
Still, it was cold, and the fire in his bedroom would need tending soon. He walked across the expanse of the room so he could look out another window. He often did so to watch the endless line of peasants as they walked out of the clouds – or on a clear day, the treeline – bearing the things he required. They regularly brought food and water and wood, piled high on their backs. As each one deposited his load in the assigned place, he was given a small coin – and only one: the lord kept close track of his money, and none of his lackeys were generous with it more than once. Then the peasant joined the line going back down the hill. Strange how their backs were still bent even though they had been relieved of their burdens. Who could understand the ways of peasants?
The lord looked out the window.
* * *
There’s only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that’s a writer sitting down to write.
– Mignon McLaughlin
heat wave –
dog cools off
in the washtub
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.
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.