A few weeks ago, I reported that a book I was reading made me question my long-held belief that William Shakespeare, the man, and William Shakespeare, the playwright, were one and the same. Now before your eyes glaze over (“O, by Heav’n!” you say. “Not again!”) let me say that as a writer, I found this of great interest. Several people have tried to interpret aspects of my writing and deduce things about my background and history; this is exactly the same…except with a genius writer instead of me. Continue Reading »
It’s been seven months since I began this experiment, and I feel it’s been pretty successful. The interest from you all has gelled around a handful of topics–writing, food, reviews, Seattle–but I haven’t felt restricted or limited in any way. And to date, nearly a hundred of you have decided to keep tabs on my flow of opinions. Thank you; I find that gratifying and encouraging.
Oddly, one of the most popular posts has been my review of “Ripper Street.” That one post, still only a couple weeks old, ranks #4 on the “most viewed” list, surpassed only by the Home Page and other pages that have been here from the beginning. And most every day, it gets a couple hits, mostly from search engines looking for references to a “peeper’s dry plate.”
So, if you’re here looking for an explanation for that rogue comment, made by Sergeant Drake on “Ripper Street” (S1E1):
A “peeper” was Victorian slang for a mirror, but also (as today) for anyone who might be engaged in voyeuristic activities, such as a photographer of smut.
A “dry plate” is an improved photographic plate, using gelatin, that was invented in the late 19th c., and which had many practical advantages over the “wet plate.”
My thanks again, to you who read this regularly.
k
Posted in Television, Writing | Tagged blog stats, blogging, creative writing, peepers dry plate, Ripper Street, television, Writing | 4 Comments »
This article crossed my desk yesterday in which Chuck Wendig lays out in bold, unvarnished terms, just how rotten the publishing industry is. Thankfully, Chuck threw enough humor in there to keep us laughing while we cry.
Chuck hits all the high (aka low) points of the business, like why it’s absolutely insane to try to write to the market, and how unbelievably slow-moving the industry is (glaciers are hares in comparison).
Writerly-types, pay attention to #20, especially the link to Writer Beware. If you haven’t ever heard of Writer Beware, you have now. Go. Learn.
Posted in Writing | Tagged creative writing, editing, novel writing, publishing, self-publishing, writing tips | 5 Comments »
I rise early; dawn is just a hint behind the eastern hills. I slipper down to the kitchen for coffee, then, hot brew in hand, slipper back to the office. I snap on the worklamp, turn on the computer, then sit and sip while I wait for the heat to come up from the furnace,
Outside, dark grey clouds hang in an oyster blue sky. The rain has eased and all is quiet until, just there, from the south, down the street, I hear the call. It’s a faint “Honh!” Iike a French adolescent clearing his throat, first one, then another. I rise and step to the window. I pull aside the curtain and peer upward. “Honh, honh” gets closer, is repeated. Different voices echo the first, and craning my neck, I see them, a vee of dark wings just above the treetops. Black necks, white cheeks, beaks pointing north, they “honh” to one another. Passing instructions? Keeping tabs? Giving encouragement? They fly over my house, and I can see their fingertip feathers against the paling sky. Now past, continuing onward, their calls fade with distance as they travel, as they head north to their nesting grounds.
Every year, I hear them–south-bound in winter, north-bound in spring–and every time I smile. I live right along their route, right along the necklace of lakes and ponds that guide them: Green Lake, Bitter Lake, Twin Ponds, Ronald Bog, Echo Lake, and beyond.
They’re a bit early this year. A mild spring, then, and an early summer ahead.
k
Posted in Seattle | Tagged canada goose, creative writing, geese, migrating geese, nature, quiet living, Seattle, simplification, stress management | 1 Comment »
Apologies, folks. Last week I was “on call” for work, and didn’t get to my “The View from Here” installment. And I’m not going to post it now, either. Other things on my mind.
Namely, the new Windows 8 phones.
After a long campaign, my wife has succeeded in dragging me into the Smart Phone Era. Last week, we turned in our old pay-as-you-go clamshell phones and spent some times trying to decide between iPhone, Android, and the new Windows 8 phone.
iPhones are expensive. Android was a “possible,” but Verizon had a deal on the Win8 phones. The deal was for a package with phone, case, and screen protector for $50 (cost $100, with a $50 mail-in rebate). Not bad. We listened to the spiel about how the phone will synch up with all our contacts and calendars in Outlook (a must, for me), and how the “SkyDrive” (the MS version of the iCloud) could hold all our documents, music, photos, etc. We played with the demo phone, customizing it, navigating the new interface. It all looked pretty slick, and having heard good things about the new MS_OS, I (as resident “techie” and thus the person who’d be setting this all up) decided to go Win8.
Posted in Hi Tech | Tagged Nokia Lumia, win8, win8 vs iphone, windows 8, windows 8 phone review | Leave a Comment »
People have told me that I’m too tough in my critiques. Privately, I’ve been told that these “The View from Here” posts are too harsh, too critical. “New writers will make mistakes,” I’m told. “That’s what editors are for.” Poppycock.
A number of years ago, I used to read slush for a magazine. It was unpaid intern-type-stuff, but it taught me a great deal (as all good unpaid intern-type-stuff should). It taught me about deadlines and time-management. It taught me a lot about publishing, as I was able to see a lot of it from behind the scenes. It taught me the truth of the adage: The only way to make a small fortune in publishing is to start with a large fortune.
But most of all, it taught me to think like an editor.
An editor is like an alcoholic in a 12-step program–Let’s skip right over the joke about how most of them actually are alcoholics in 12-step programs and move right to what I mean by that.–i.e., editors read MSS one page at a time. Screw up on Page One, they’ll never read Page Two. After all, why go farther? Why read any more if page one just sucks? They won’t. Screw up on Page One–hell, screw up in Paragraph One–and you’re done.
So yes, I’m tough. And now, onto the next item I see a lot in some of the fiction posted out there: Bad metaphors and stupid similes.
Posted in Writing | Tagged bad writing examples, creative writing, editing, metaphor and simile, metaphors and similes, novel writing, publishing, the view from here, Writing, writing mistakes, writing techniques, writing tips | 1 Comment »
One thing I adore about Seattle is its proximity to the natural world.
This morning, en route to work, I got off the bus at Convention Place Station (as usual). CPStation is at the north end of the transit tunnel, through which many of the downtown buses (and eventually light-rail trains) travel. The station is not in the tunnel, but at its northern entrance, and so when you leave CPStation, you climb up not through a series of underground passages, but up staircases in the open air.
The architecture of CPStation is primarily tubular steel and glass. Sort of an amalgam of I.M.Pei’s Pyramid at the Louvre and the Crystal Palace of Victorian England. Well….sort of. A really small-scale sort-of.
ANYway… Continue Reading »
Posted in Seattle | Tagged convention place station, Seattle, seattle metro, urban wildlife | 2 Comments »
