BOOKS – WRITING – HUMOR – ABSURD
I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears. Shelby Foote Imagine you walk into your friend’s apartment on a dark, cloudy evening – head bowed and hands trembling. You sigh softly and say, “Friend, I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like to hear first?” Now, people have their different ways of approaching this kind of question. To most people,...
I’ll be blogging Monday (3/05) and Thursday (6/05), then I’ll be off for 7 – 10 days: the last check of Almost Faithful thriller. The publishing date, I hope, 🙃 in the middle of June (eBook and paperback). The story is commercial, without any gore descriptions, violence. There’s some sexual content, but I’d say – could be read by anyone from 16+ ☕️📚 I’m looking for rural crime or bush/outback noir, written by...
#takeaway keys from the book “BECOMING a WRITER” by Dorothea Brande (first published in 1934, currently republished) Dorothea Brande was teaching a creative writing course. Her focus was: a) the imaginative power of the writer’s mind; b) the belief that “genius can be taught.” PART II #1 On Imitation You can imitate but you should not adopt the philosophies, the ideas, the dramatic notions of other writers. Always go back...
#takeaway keys from the book “BECOMING a WRITER” by Dorothea Brande (first published in 1934, currently republished) Dorothea Brande was teaching a creative writing course. Her focus was: a) the imaginative power of the writer’s mind; b) the belief that “genius can be taught.” John Gardner wrote a foreword for this book. I used his humorous phrase as the title for this post. PART I #1 The Four Difficulties No...
We need criminals. Before you grab a fistful of rocks to haul at me, hear me out first. I’m not one and have never willingly partaken in crime… (Well, apart from that one time as a little kid, when mum caught me stealing some ice cream from the refrigerator). Why fridge doors choose to creak so loudly at night, I’ll never quite understand. Might as well use a loudspeaker while...
You can be too rich and too thin, but you can never be too well read or too curious about the world. Tim Gunn Three books from the past. Or goodbye, February: Let’s start with the largest book on the list – Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Are you aware that the octopus is the closest alien you can meet on...
A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. John A. Shedd Autumn is here, pitch-black evenings and mornings, the true season of Weltschmerz. The darkness is not the only reason to feel despair, isolation, or angst. The stream of political and healthcare crises is destroying the world of our dreams, but unfortunately… this is what we’ve got today. The word Weltschmerz has a German origin...
written by Ogunwumi Abimbola My friend had a breakup today (don’t worry, Suzy has a break up every other week; two cups of ice cream later, and we’ll be hunting for her next boyfriend 😉). Anyways, in between tears and sky-high scoops of ice cream, this was the summary of her ranting. “If I had known Dylan would have been worse, I would have just stayed with Jack”. “If I had...