Only a few pins were struck in the making of these photos.
Happy Triskaidekaphobia Day a/k/a Friday the Thirteenth. May even your thirteenth pin fall for you today.
Category Archives: 2015
Photo finish Friday: “Happy Strike-a-deck-a-phobia Day”
Filed under 2015, photo by David E. Booker, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Tickle”
Grass grows green somewhere. /
For now lawnmowers slumber. /
Rakes tickle the dead.
Filed under 2015, Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Writing tip Wednesday: “New Millennium Writings”
New Millennium Writings contests
Details at: http://submit.newmillenniumwritings.org/
To apply online, follow these guidelines:
- $1,000 Award plus publication for each category – $4,000 total awards.
- November 15, 2015, Midnight (all U.S. time zones) – Fiction, Nonfiction, Short-Short Fiction, Poetry deadline.
- Payment is $20 per submission and includes your free copy of the anthology.
- Pay by credit card, debit card, or echeck with PayPal (following Upload).
- We accept the following formats: Microsoft Word (.doc), Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), Rich Text Format (.rtf), and Plain Text (.txt). Please note that the Word format (.docx) is not accepted at this time, so if using Word, please save your file in the (.doc) format, also called Word 97-2003 Document under “Save As” options.
- No restrictions as to style or subject matter. (except for Love Wins essays)
- Multiple and simultaneous submissions are welcome.
- Fiction pieces must be 6,000 words or less.
- Nonfiction(all types welcome) pieces must be 6,000 words or less.
- Short-Short Fiction must be 1,000 words or less.
- Each Poetry entry may include three poems, up to five pages total. Poetry Honorable Mentions will be published.
- Paypal provides contact information with each entry, so cover letters are not necessary. If you wish to include a cover letter, please include it on a separate page in your file. The NMW screening process is blind, so please be sure that no identifying information is displayed anywhere else in the file.
- Entrant retains copyright of his/her Entry.
- Mailing addresses outside the U.S./Canada may require additional postage fee to receive anthology.
Additional information: http://submit.newmillenniumwritings.org/
Filed under 2015, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Monday morning writing joke: “Juggling”
There once was a struggling writer in town /
Who made ends meet by being a clown. /
He could be quite the performer, /
Juggling balls on the street corner. /
But in his stories the balls always dragged the ground.
***
I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn’t find any.
Filed under 2015, Monday morning writing joke, poetry by author
Amazon Killed the Bookstore. So It’s Opening a Bookstore
Store opening in University Village in Seattle, WA. Twenty years after Amazon started selling books online.
by Issie Lapowsky
Source: http://www.wired.com/2015/11/amazon-killed-the-bookstore-so-its-opening-a-bookstore/
Bookstore owners already loathe Amazon for gutting the cost of books online and driving so many brick and mortar shops out of business. Now, the online retailer is both beating them and joining them, with the opening of its first physical bookstore today in Seattle.
Amazon Books, as the new store is called, will be like any other Main Street bookstore (remember those?), except that Amazon will use the troves of data it collects from its online customers to stock the shelves. That means its book displays will feature real Amazon book reviews, and the store will showcase books that have amassed the most pre-orders online. The books will also come with Amazon’s trademark low price tags.
It can afford those cut-rate prices, of course, because Amazon Books is as much a bookstore as it is a billboard. Amazon’s not suddenly betting big on the bookstore business, and it certainly doesn’t need the store to be a success in order for Amazon to succeed. It’s better to think of Amazon Books as a giant advertisement. If it makes a little extra money for a $294.7 billion company, all the better.
The one silver lining for the book enthusiasts forced to watch their industry turn into a gimmick is that, according to the Seattle Times, Amazon is hiring from other retail stores and libraries that may be struggling. Well, silver lining for those hoping for Seattle-area book store jobs. For Seattle-area book store employers, it’s probably not pleasant watching their employees get poached.
For now, Amazon says the store won’t be serving double duty as a warehouse or pickup center, and the vice president of Amazon Books, Jennifer Cast, tells the Seattle Times the company doesn’t yet have plans to open a second location. “We’re completely focused on this bookstore,” Cast said. “We hope this is not our only one. But we’ll see.”
Additional article: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-opens-first-bricks-and-mortar-bookstore-at-u-village/
Photo finish Friday: “Mugged”
Out of the darkness it stared at him, mocking his every desire.
Bob. That’s what we’ll call him now: Bob. He doesn’t remember his name and he doesn’t remember much else — except for that sock monkey mug. He said it was a gift, but he doesn’t remember who gave it to him, only that one day he found in among his — well, you know — socks.
He said he tried giving it away. First to friends, though he can’t remember any of their names or where they live or what they do for a living. He then tried to sell it to a collectibles shops, but nobody wanted it. They didn’t even want to take it for free. If you could have seen how matted and grimy and foul-breathed Bob was when the police picked him standing on a corner of Central Street trying to give the mug away, you’d know why nobody wanted to take it from him. And the harder he tried to give it away, the less anybody wanted it.
Only when the officer agreed to take the mug from Bob, did Bob willingly, even politely, climb into the officer’s patrol car and the officer took him to the special intake center. And that’s how we wound up with Bob and his mug.
We tried on several occasions to get rid of the mug. All attempts failed. Either the mug mysteriously (magically?) reappeared, or when Bob noticed it was missing, he refused doing anything until it was returned. This despite him saying he wants rid of it. He says, “If I could, I would never see it again.”
But somehow Bob is linked to the mug and the mug to him. He says in the middle of the night it tells him things, such as the two handles aren’t handles and they aren’t ears either. They are arms the sock monkey controls and uses to strangle people.
We have asked him how he knows this and he says since the mug doesn’t really have any ears, it talks a lot without knowing what it is saying.
We asked Bob if the mug has told him the names of those it has killed and where the bodies might be found. Bob says not yet, but he is listening for any hint or clue the sock monkey might give him.
So, we all sit and wait. There aren’t as many of us now as there once were. We’re not sure where the others went. Bored and quit we think. Tired of waiting.
Did you hear that?
That low….
Filed under 2015, photo by David E. Booker, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Journal”
Too long, no entry: /
bad, bad writer, no doughnut. /
Sprinkles word this page.
Filed under 2015, Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Writing Tip Wednesday: “NaNoWriMo”
National Novel Writing Month Rules 2015: 10 Tips For A Successful NaNoWriMo
Started in 1999 in San Francisco Bay area by Chris Baty. It’s not too late for you to start.
by Christina Silva
Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/national-novel-writing-month-rules-2015-10-tips-successful-nanowrimo-2164339
That novel you’ve been talking about writing for years? It’s time to just do it. November is National Novel Writing Month, an annual challenge where writers put together 50,000-word novels between Nov. 1 and midnight on Nov. 30.
It’s not too late to start your novel.
The rules of NaNoWriMo are simple. Just write until you finish, and then if you finish early, keep going. From the website: “National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30. Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel.”
Participants can earn badges on the website when they meet word counts, share their progress with the #NaNoWriMo hashtag and share the experience with other writers. Novels of 50,000 words include “Of Mice and Men,” by John Steinbeck, and “The Notebook,” by Nicholas Sparks.
Below are 10 tips to have a successful NaNoWriMo:
- Just focus on writing a draft, not a literary classic.
- Come up with a plan. Do you want to create a plot first or just write whatever comes out? It’s called plotting versus pantsing.
- Make the challenge a priority. Ignore Netflix. Stop hanging out with friends if need be. Just get it done.
- Decide on a daily writing goal. You could aim for 1,667 words a day, or write more on the weekends and take it easy during the workweek.
- Create a writing schedule. Will you hit your daily word count in the mornings or at night?
- Figure out where to keep your writing. Google Docs seems easy. Or will you email yourself a draft or use a storage site like Dropbox?
- Don’t worry about writing a book that will get published or that people will buy. The goal is just to get into the habit of writing.
- Ignore any doubt. Just keep going.
- Edit sober.
- Drink wine. Wine loves writers.
Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/national-novel-writing-month-rules-2015-10-tips-successful-nanowrimo-2164339
Filed under 2015, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
cARtOONSdAY: “hOW-tO”
Willard also spotted one syntax and two grammar errors in the first paragraph.
Filed under 2015, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
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