The earth is lonely /
when filled with my thoughts only: /
love’s empty alone.
Monthly Archives: June 2014
Haiku to you Thursday: “alone”
The earth is lonely /
when filled with my thoughts only: /
love’s empty alone.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
cARtOONSDAY: “hOLE iN oNE”
Bigger than a pot hole. Deeper than an incomplete sentence. More powerful than a null and void. It’s a plot hole.
Filed under cartoon by author, CarToonsday
▶ Jim Carrey on how his late father inspired him to follow his dreams – YouTube
▶ Jim Carrey on how his late father inspired him to follow his dreams – YouTube.
And what are you doing to do what you love?
Filed under dreams
Monday morning writing joke: “A-musing”
Simply a-musing
I’m a writer and I don’t get no respect. Not even from my muse.
The other day my muse showed up after leaving me high and dry for months.
He said, “Guess what? To make it up to you I’ll grant you three wishes.”
I said, “Okay, first, I want this novel manuscript to be done. Second, I want it to be a best seller and make lots of money. Third, I want it to be made into a movie and make even more money and fame. Go it?”
My muse nodded.
I waited. Three days. Three weeks. Three months. Three years. It did not happen.
When I finally saw my muse again, I asked why my wishes hadn’t come true.
“But they will,” my muse said, “but first you have to die.”
Filed under Monday morning writing joke, no respect
Amazon Is NOT the Vladimir Putin of the Publishing World – The Daily Beast
Amazon Is NOT the Vladimir Putin of the Publishing World – The Daily Beast.
by Nick Gillespie
In its battle with Hachette, Amazon is being compared to Putin and the Mafia—by critics who want you to pay more for books.
Can you believe those…those…those…sons of bitches at Amazon? After launching almost 20 years ago and making virtually every book—new, used, dead-tree, electronic, audio, and I’m guessing any day now, olfactory—available to everyone in America at good-to-great prices, the company’s true character now stands revealed. It’s not pretty, folks. Despite a huge market share, Amazon apparently still wants books, especially the e-books that everyone agrees are the future of the medium, to be cheaper than what publishers and big-name authors want you to pay for them.
Just who the hell does Amazon think it is? Maybe a bare-chested tyrant who used to work for the KGB? Amazon is “like Vladimir Putin mobilizing his troops along the Ukrainian border,” a proprietor of an “e-book discovery site” tells The New York Times. “A bully,” offers Richard Russo, the novelist and president of the Authors Guild (which knows exactly how to bully mere “writers”). Amazon, says author James Patterson, who published 13 detective books last year, is waging “war” and doing unspeakable things for which “the quality of American literature will suffer.” No, wait. That’s all wrong. Amazon isn’t like a Russian despot waging a war, says Dennis Loy, proprietor of the small publisher Melville House. It’s more like “the Mafia.”
Filed under Amazon, book publishing, publishing
Sixteen quarts and whadda ya get?
Another 16 quarts and whadda ya get?
Picked 16 quarts and whadda I get?
Another day older and deeper in pits.
Saint Peter dontcha call me ’cause I can’t go
Pitted 16 quarts; I got 16 more.
[With apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford and “Sixteen Tons.” http://youtu.be/L2tWwHOXMhI]
Picked all these cherries and more from one tree.
Stephen Colbert Gives Jeff Bezos the Finger — Twice
Stephen Colbert Gives Jeff Bezos the Finger — Twice.
Amazon is messing with the wrong guy.
A few days after best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell came out against the online retailer for raising prices and delaying shipments of his books because of a dispute with publisher Hachette, Colbert has done the same. Colbert’s plaint, however, is funnier.
During a segment on Wednesday night’s Colbert Report, Colbert announced he was “mad prime” at Amazon for its latest actions. In particular, Colbert mocked Amazon’s suggestion that consumers in the market for his books should buy a used copy.
[Editor’s note: I think writer Sherman Alexie is correct. This is a battle between two big companies and the person(s) to support are the authors, who are getting smashed by both sides in this battle.]
Source: http://mashable.com/2014/06/05/stephen-colbert-amazon/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJfbDN3ZHQ3eDIza3NsOXdmZCJ9
Filed under Amazon, book publishing, publishing
Photo finish Friday: “Honestly”
Ol’ Abe and his axe.
After years of chopping down trees, Abe came to his first flower garden and, honestly, wasn’t sure what to do. It was the first time in a long time he had had to axe himself a question. So, he stood and stood and stood, and waited for the answer.
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Eternal lie”
Sunlight, eternal lie /
says no other in the sky. /
Nightly suitors shine.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Writing tip Wednesday: “Vonnegut’s rules”
Kurt Vonnegut
(1922 – 2007)
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possible.
- Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
- Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
- Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
He also noted: The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.
Filed under writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday, writing tips
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