The captain, upon inspecting his vessel,
Found a suitcase too big yet to wrestle.
Finally shoving it aside,
He grabbed for Sleaze’s hide –
Chasing a man who did not take to stress well.
Tag Archives: writing
Did not take to stress well
Filed under limerick, poem, poetry, portmanteau, Random Access Thoughts, words, writing
Visit the web site
If you like the posts in this web log (blog), see some of my other writing at www.talltalestogo.net — a home for words in story form.
Filed under Random Access Thoughts, web site, words, writing
What would you name your characters?
If you were writing a story or novel and some or all of the characters were involved with the pornography industry, what would you name them? What would be the name of one of the movies they stared in?
Well, here is my suggestions:
Female: Annie Mall and Holiday O’Dare starring in the Shakespearean take off, The Taming of the Screw.
Co-starring that up and coming shemale porn star: Spenser Dick.
With a guest appearance by that male porn icon: G. Golly Wad.
Directed by: Buck Loins
Script by: Billy S. Spear
Produced by: Own Les VerGin
Best Grip (and yes there is such a position title in mainstream films): Howard Peterson
Shot on location in Simi Valley, CA.
With post production work at our world-famous Bangalore studios.
Worldwide distribution by BIMBO: BIg Man’s Britches Online.
Music by Howlin’ Jack and The Scratch and Sniff Quartet.
Filed under characters, names, puns, Random Access Thoughts, words, writing
Puns for the Educated
And as a writer, I enjoy a little play on words.
1. King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates , the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan. Croesus said, “I’ll give you 100,000 dinars for it.”
“But I paid a million dinars for it,” the King protested.”Don’t you know who I am? I am the king!”
Croesus replied, “When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are.”
2. Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. Unfortunately, all the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire …. and so we’ll never know for whom the Tells bowled.
3. A man rushed into a busy doctor’s office and shouted, “Doctor! I think I’m shrinking!” The doctor calmly responded, “Now, settle down. You’ll just have to be a little patient.”
4. A marine biologist developed a race of genetically engineered dolphins that could live forever if they were fed a steady diet of seagulls. One day, his supply of the birds ran out so he had to go out and trap some more. On the way back, he spied two lions asleep on the road. Afraid to wake them, he gingerly stepped over them. Immediately, he was arrested and charged with… transporting gulls across sedate lions for immortal porpoises.
5. Back in the 1800’s the Tate’s Watch Company of Massachusetts wanted to produce other products, and since they already made the cases for watches, they used them to produce compasses. The new compasses were so bad that people often ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California . This, of course, is the origin of the expression … “He who has a Tate’s is lost!”
6. A thief broke into the local police station and stole all the toilets and urinals, leaving no clues. A spokesperson was quoted as saying, “We have absolutely nothing to go on.”
7. An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, “The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on.”
8. A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his name missing from the town register. His wife insisted on complaining to the local civic official who apologized profusely saying, “I must have taken Leif off my census.”
9. There were three Indian squaws. One slept on a deer skin, one slept on an elk skin, and the third slept on a hippopotamus skin. All three became pregnant. The first two each had a baby boy. The one who slept on the hippopotamus skin had twin boys. This just goes to prove that … the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.
10. A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal Brujo who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the Brujo looked him in the eye and said, “Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don’t need enemas.”
The Slush Pile
This article in the Wall Street Journal has shown up in a couple of places, so I thought I would put it up here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703414504575001271351446274.html
From the article, it looks like book publishers, at least in the U.S. are no longer reading their slush piles and pushing that responsibility off on agents. While this article focuses on U.S. publishing, any more U.S. publisher are simply parts of larger international conglomerates, so I don’t see why this wouldn’t take place in other countries, too.
Unfortunately, it will only create further bottlenecks and a further push to find the next blockbuster. After all, agents only make money on commissions, and if they have to spend more time doing what publishing house used to do at least some of, it only means the agents are going to focus on making up for lost time/money by taking on those things they think are “sure bets” with an emphasis to be blockbusters, otherwise the publishers won’t bite on the manuscripts and the agents will have lost even more time/money. Much of this comes from too much vertical integration, i.e. one conglomerate buying another conglomerate buying another conglomerate buying another, and so on. It’s the larger cow syndrome, whereby a cow twice the mass of its ancestor needs a neck three times the size just to hold its head up.
Filed under agents, publishers, writing

