Occasionally I’ll write a drabble, a short story of exactly one hundred words. One year the only stories I submitted to Pocket’s Strange New Worlds contest were drabbles. Why not? I thought. What editor wouldn’t want to buy a story for ten dollars instead of a few hundred? Well, it didn’t work out that way.Continue reading “On "Making Minds Free"”
Monthly Archives: April 2007
On Great Characters
Sometimes you find a character who is an absolute joy to write. Arrogant, prone to speeches and bombast, quick-witted, and an all-around asshole. I love writing this character! I am so going to miss him when I’m done with this. :/ (ETA: 11:30) I’d gotten stuck in a particular scene. I knew how it began.Continue reading “On Great Characters”
On Looking Back Four Years
I like to read Tom Tomorrow’s cartoons. He’s a political cartoonist, and his weekly cartoon–entitled This Modern World–are usually carried in the alt-weeklies. In Raleigh I read them in The Independant. Here in Baltimore I find them in City Paper. If you have an alt-weekly, chances are you can read Tom Tomorrow. Alternatively, you canContinue reading “On Looking Back Four Years”
On Trade Shows and Booth Babes
My sister came to town. She had a trade show downtown to attend, and she asked me to tag along which was, in the final analysis, very probably a good thing as my sister’s sense of direction is not that good. So I went to a trade show this morning for framers and such. JustContinue reading “On Trade Shows and Booth Babes”
More on a Music Meme
Yes, I did this music meme yesterday. I said, at the time, that I’d gone the easy way out by picking the Beatles. “Do something challening,” a reader wrote in by e-mail. “Blow my mind,” she wrote. Alrighty, then! Learning of Bobby Pickett’s death two days ago reminded me of one of the all-time greatContinue reading “More on a Music Meme”
On Bobby Pickett
You may not know the name Bobby Pickett, but you almost certainly know his music…. I was working in my lab late one night When my eyes beheld an eerie sight My monster on the slab began to rise Suddenly, to my surprise He did the mash He did the Monster Mash The Monster MashContinue reading “On Bobby Pickett”
On Perfection
Allyn’s Rules of Life. Number 43. “When it comes to lunch there is nothing in life more perfect than a peanut butter and banana sandwich.”
On the Absent Liddy Dole
When I lived in North Carolina my two senators were Liddy Dole and Bob Burr. I’d write letters to both, pester them about supporting non-Republican causes (which was, itself, a non-starter as both are loyal Republicans). Burr, at least, would write back. Dole, except for one letter on a proposal to raise the Minimum Wage,Continue reading “On the Absent Liddy Dole”
On a Morning Music Meme
For once, this is David‘s and Dayton’s doing: Pick a band and answer all the following questions with the titles of their songs. Chosen band: The Beatles. Yeah, we’re going easy. Are you a male or female?“Nowhere Man” Describe yourself:“Yer Blues” How do you feel about yourself?“I’m So Tired” Describe where you currently live?“Here, There,Continue reading “On a Morning Music Meme”
On the World Next Door
I was thinking about this last night, and I thought I’d share. 🙂 Larry Niven said in “All the Myriad Ways” that there’s an infinite number of alternate worlds out there. Every decision that happens happens both ways, but we never know because there are universes where the decisions we know went the other way.Continue reading “On the World Next Door”