Last Thursday, around midnight, my wife was hauled down a long, lonely corridor, knocked unconscious, and stabbed five times.
At least that’s how her surgeon described it.
Posted in Culture, Writing | Tagged career change, freelancing, job search, medical insurance | 14 Comments »
Autumn arrived in Seattle a few days ahead of schedule. This weekend, a low-pressure system cruised in with gusts that rattled the windows and whistled through the trees. Standing at the window, watching the maples dance, I thought to myself, “It’s a blustery day.”
Blustery.
The word brought back a memory of the first time I encountered it. I was a child, reading a Winnie-the-Pooh book — The House at Pooh Corner — when I came across the word describing a very fine “Winds-day.” It was the perfect word, filled with plosives and sibilants, and from that moment on, Milne’s word was my word, too.
Now, fifty years later, standing at my window, I remembered that word, that book, and that moment, and it all got me wondering: Decades of reading has increased my vocabulary, no doubt about it, but are there other words I got from specific books?
I pondered it for a few days and found other words I got from specific books. Continue Reading »
Posted in Books | Tagged learning new words, Reading, vocabulary | 8 Comments »
Last Friday, a bumptious ignoramus hit me with a corollary to the old “Information just wants to be free” mantra, and I’ve been on a slow boil ever since.
“Information just wants to be free” has been the call to arms for every digital anarchist in the last three decades, and it is used as the justification for everything from hacker attacks to electronic piracy.
The corollary, with which I was hit on Friday, came in the form of a troll-post berating an artist who (gasp!) was charging a fee for her creative services. The outraged boob publicly shamed this artist, telling her that her “gifts should be given for free,” not hawked on the streetcorner.
In other words: Talent just wants to be free, too.
The idiocy of both of these rallying cries is blatant, and I’m bloody sick of it. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture, Hi Tech | Tagged information wants to be free, intellectual property, Internet, piracy | 7 Comments »
As a writer, I’ve always been fascinated by so-called “famous last words,” but not the pronouncements made heading into battle or climbing the gallows steps. In those situations the speaker has prepared, is aware of what is likely to come, and has given their words some forethought as “famous last words.” Lines spoken at times like these are spoken for posterity, and are likely to contain not a small amount of “spin” for the history books.
No, the final utterances that intrigue me are those made suddenly, spontaneously, where the speaker may not be fully cognizant of her surroundings or the situation. At times these last words are puzzling, but while they are possibly no more than the product of a dying brain, they can be quite beautiful. In other cases, however, I believe we can glimpse the true nature of the speaker’s personality. Was she angry? Was he compassionate? Were the last words of love or of rebuke? Last words—when you don’t know they’re last words—can be the most meaningful, the most significant.
Here are four examples of last quotes; the first two are enigmatic, more evocative than illuminating, while the second two pretty much define the person who spoke them. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture | Tagged bob hope, building believable characters, Characters, emily dickinson, famous last words, robert f kennedy, stonewall jackson, Writing | 3 Comments »
It’s been an interesting week, writing-wise, and while no, it wasn’t “interesting” in the sense of “Oh God Oh God We’re all going to die!” it was interesting in the sense used by the old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.
This week I received:
- validation on my writing
- several rejections on my writing
- bad news on the job change front
- an invitation to submit a book to a trade show
Posted in Writing | Tagged America Star Books, career change, creative writing, editing, job search, Miami Book Fair, PublishAmerica, rejections, short stories | 1 Comment »
You’ve noticed it. Websites are more in-your-face, lately; in some cases, they’re downright adversarial. Navigating them can be an education in frustration. Ads, videos, pop-ups, overlays, log-in requirements–it’s ridiculous. Advertisements are no longer passive; they’ve even moved beyond passive-aggressive. They’re just plain aggressive, now.
Well, I’m sick of it, and I’m fighting back. Here are my rules for websites. Flout them, and the site goes on my no-fly list. This is the internet, and there’s nothing any website has that I can’t find elsewhere and with less hassle. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture, Hi Tech | Tagged advertising, clickbait, pop-up ads, websites | 3 Comments »
It’s the end of an era in Seattle. Our last great hometown pitchman, one of Seattle’s best-known faces died this week, though most people don’t know his name. Show his picture to any person on a Seattle street and they’ll tell you: “That’s Vern Fonk.”
Except, he isn’t. Or, now, he wasn’t. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture, Seattle | Tagged hometown pitchman, jack roberts, robert thielke, Seattle, vern fonk | 6 Comments »
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 