Sometimes a little unincorporated Ditty is all you need.
Photo Finish Friday: “Ditty”
Sometimes a little unincorporated Ditty is all you need.
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Snake”
Love puts forth a leaf. /
In my garden of desire /
the snake has purpose.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Monday (morning) writing joke: “Under a spell (checker)”
Ode to the Spell Check
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It cam with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
Filed under Monday morning writing joke
Photo Finish Friday: “No Exit”
This way be madness…
John Sartre moved to town, running away from an existential crisis. he did not know what he wanted to do. He had tried his hand at art, play writing, film writing, essays, history, and philosophy. He felt he had succeeded at any of those. Then he came across the street sign and saw it as an omen, a talisman, a message — he would move in here and become a poet and he would not leave until he had succeeded. To date, no one has read the poems of John Sartre, and every time he sees the sign he sighs and wishes he were a sign maker. Then he could make sign to paste over this one and he could escape. Maybe then, there would be an outlet for his creative spirit.
[Editor’s note: now it is your turn. Take this image as inspiration and writing something funny, serious, sensible, or silly. Let inspiration be your guide and whimsy your muse.]
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “All embracing”
All embracing — /
flowers, raindrops, light gone wild — /
wonder fills the day.
July 18, 2013 · 4:10 pm
Writing tip Wednesday: “Three pieces of advice”
In his recent 2013 ThrillerFest session “The Series Character: How to Do it Right,” Michael Connelly (author of the Harry Bosch series) offered three of his favorite bits of advice that he’s collected from other writers.
“I’ve carried these with me for decades,” he said. “I think they really sum up where you should be if you’re going to do this”—especially if you want to write crime fiction.
1. The best crime novels are not how cops work on cases; it’s how cases work on cops.
–Joseph Wambaugh
In other words, Connelly said, it’s all about character. Character is key, especially in series fiction. Readers don’t return to your work because of a plot twist—they return because of character.
2. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
–Kurt Vonnegut
Regarding series characters, Connelly said this ties into a character’s sense of searching (which, he added, when unfulfilled, is what draws people to the next book).
3. When you circle around a murder long enough, you get to know a city.
–Richard Price
Connelly said this was Price’s reply when asked why a great writer would spend their time writing crime fiction. He pointed out that a writer should have a higher aspiration in their work—to use the form to say something about society, something about one’s city.
Filed under Writing Tip Wednesday
cARtOONSDAY: “mURDER mOST fOWL?”
Is this is what is known as a coop de grace?
Filed under cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Monday morning writing joke: “Watering hole”
A writer and a pink elephant walk into a bar.
The elephant walks up to the bar and says to the bartender, “The writer that came in with me tells me this is the writers’ favorite watering hole in town.”
The bartender nods. “Like to think so.”
The elephant glances around. “But I don’t see anything odd.”
The bartender points to a woman sitting in back corner where the light was dim. “There sits a poet whose only love left her thirty years ago and that’s all she can writer about. She comes in, drinks, and talks to him as if he never left.”
The bartender points to a young man sitting in a booth, a pile of half smoked cigarettes in a bowl in front of him. “Over there is a novelist whose first book as a bestseller and whose next two books were panned or not reviewed at all. Yet, he keeps saying the next one will be a winner, though he’s yet to write a word of it.”
The bartender points to yet a third person and relates his story, then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and was about to tell about the deaf, mute, and blind from birth writer sitting next to the elephant at the bar, when the elephant nods.
The elephant walks over to the table where the drunk writer is sitting.
“You win,” the elephant says. “Me seeing you as a delusion at my watering hole is nothing like the things these writers see here.”
Filed under joke by author, Monday morning writing joke
Sunday silliness: “The Ewe Conundrum”
by DAVID E. BOOKER
Said the lama to the llama,
“I know not where ewe stands.”
Said the lama to the llama,
“To know would be rather grand.”
Said the lama to the llama
As they stood under the ewe tree,
Said the lama to the llama,
“O’ beast, can’t you tell me?”
Said the lama to the llama,
“You’re not like the little ewe.”
Said the lama to the llama,
“I could tell her what to do.”
Said the lama to the llama,
“Won’t you please enlighten me?”
Said the lama to the llama,
“To enlighten is to set free.”
Said the lama to the llama,
“Just one simple, single sign.”
Said the lama to the llama,
“One little sign would be just fine.”
Said the lama to the llama,
“Oh why, oh why, oh why?”
Said the lama to the llama,
“My patience you do try.”
Said the lama to the llama,
“I want an answer now!”
Said the lama to the llama,
“I should have brought a cow.”
Said the lama to the llama
After the llama spit in his eye,
Said the lama to the lama,
“I guess this means good-bye.”
Filed under poetry by author, Sunday silliness
Photo finish Friday: “The torch is passed”
The “safe” Olympic flame
With concern over security growing and the cost of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia mounting, the Olympic Committee has taken the unprecedented step and decreed that the Olympic torch will be made out of construction paper, as well will the resting place of the Olympic flame.
“This should reduce security concerns on several fronts,” said an Olympic official, who asked that his name be kept out of the press until the official announcement is made. “It will also be lighter, easier to protect, and it will never go out. The only thing we have to fear is a sudden bucket of water of freak thunderstorm.” The official went on to say that the cost savings we have an immediate positive impact on the bottom line. “And if it works well enough for the Olympic flame, we may just start building our future Olympic villages out of cardboard, crepe paper, and the like.”
[Editor’s note: Now it is your turn. What bit of writing silliness or seriousness is inspired in you by this photo. Be as creative as you want.]
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday
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