The Thing about Going to the Local Zoo

The thing about going to the local zoo is that, after you've been there a few times and gotten to know all the animals, you end up spending more time watching the other zoo-goers than the ostensible main attractions of the place.

After My First Game of Peeve Wars

I received my Grammar Girl's Peeve Wars card game in the mail (along with some other grammary goodies) this weekend, and through an unexpected twist of fate, I actually got to play the game with my sons on Monday morning. Now I'm here to report.

Ten Things I Found in an Old Notebook

Here are ten things I found in an old notebook of mine. Once you read them, they are yours.

Weird Al's Blurred "Word Crimes" Lines

I can’t not respond to Weird Al Yankovic’s new song “Word Crimes,” can I? So here goes.

Dusty Story Ideas

I have been doing some cleaning of late -- you know, when I haven't been busy searching for a job and sending out resumes and losing my hair over the whole kerfuffle -- and whenever I clean, I find all sorts of old story ideas. I'm sure many writers have the same sort of experience from their house cleaning.

They usually show up in the margins of pages of legal pads, and those have been piling up around here over the last couple years. But I also find plenty of (literally [literally literally]) scraps of paper with little ideas written on them.

Sometimes, they will be neatly separated from whatever meeting notes, stories, or doodles occupy most of the page. Occasionally, they'll even be labeled "Story Idea." Other times they're just a few words that might spark an idea -- or might serve as a good writing prompt. Like this:

Book characters meeting the actors who will play them onscreen

Can you just imagine what Captain Ahab would have to say to Gregory Peck or Patrick Stewart? Or Romeo Montague to Leonardo DiCaprio? Or Frodo to Elijah Wood?

Sometimes, though, there's more text but less explanation. This one especially caught my eye because it looks almost finished. Also because it was so obviously derived from Monty Python.

  "Hey boy! What are you doing there?"
  "Girl."
  "Sorry, but from the back..."
  Olivia vomited over the rail again. Watched her dinner fall some 200 feet to splash into the dark waves below.

I think this was supposed to be the beginning of a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

You ever find an old, dusty story idea from days past and turn it into something wonderful?

An Appearance Will Be Made

Though it doesn't have the flash, glamour, or legalized prostitution of Las Vegas, Indianapolis (at least this year) does have one thing in common with Sin City: Me as a conference speaker.

A Refreshed and Refreshing Ebook

This morning, I uploaded a brand new cover for my ebook, Seasonal Work, and dropped the price to $1.99. And that's for the whole book, not just the cover!

If you haven't bought it yet, now would be a great time. Especially for me! (See yesterday's post.)

It's available in multiple ereader formats. If you can't find a file that's compatible with your ereader of choice, then you've made a bad, bad choice for your ereader. But even then, you can download it as an RTF and read it on your computer.

It makes a great Father's Day gift (if you don't like your dad very much)!

Getting Fired 32 Ways: A Life Lesson

Fired, axed, canned.
Sacked, dumped and given the boot.
Shown the door and bounced out.
RIFed, outplaced, unhired, and decruited.
Given the pink slip.
Involuntarily separated and put on indefinite unpaid leave.
Transitioned out, laid off, and let go.
Right-sized, downsized, and lateralized.
Given a career change opportunity.
Restructured, removed from the talent pool, and relieved of duties.
Released, discharged, dismissed, eighty-sixed.
Given the heave-ho.
Terminated, but allowed to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities outside the company.

What Does Bladder Control Have to Do with Plate Tectonics?

Because I'm a writer and an editor, I go through a lot of words on the average day — the ones I read, the ones I write, the ones I think about writing, the ones I delete, and on and on. Words become the constant hum of the warp drives in my own personal USS Enterprise. Occasionally, though, that warp drive will hiccup and grab my attention, and I'll notice for the first time the strange connections between words that I've known and used for decades.

Today, the engine hiccupped.

A Sonnet for J

This peasant life, though pleasant be, it sours

Like ripest fruit, which gives so sweet a taste

That from the vine the sated mouth devours

Yet over time decays to naught but waste.

My roots within her earth — she has a hold

On me. I grow in dreams, in fertile lands

Of queens and light and cliffs of glass and gold,
Forsaking stalk and stem and their demands.

My plight and plot: a slow death by ennui,

Light-starv'd in this suburban oubliette,

But in my mind a meadow, light, and She. . .
I dwell within, I wilt without, and yet,

Although my blossom withers here, I know

My heartwood's safe with her. She makes it grow.