A different brain

I was out at a karaoke bar recently and someone sang 'What It's Like' by Everlast. This somewhat cheesy, quintessentially 90's song came out when I was a teen, and I've always known all the words but somehow I've never really heard them before. Or maybe it's that, being older and having a bit of …

Words to Control + F

When in the process of splashing out words for a new story, we all find ourselves writing words we don't need, repeating words, and being hacks in general. I've composed a list of these 'filler' words that I've found most often in my own work. Search for, and delete! Very: Delete any that aren't in …

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

Love, death, ghosts, and history. What a sad, funny, interesting and heart-squeezing novel. From Wikipedia: Many years ago, during a visit to Washington DC, my wife's cousin pointed out to us a crypt on a hill and mentioned that, in 1862, while Abraham Lincoln was president, his beloved son, Willie, died, and was temporarily interred …

365 posts

With this post I have gone 1 full year in a row of posting every day. And that, is the result. I've had almost double the number of views this year than I had on my last highest year. And I've had more LIKES than I had views last year. And... I don't see a …

Despair, by Vladimir Nabokov

Schadenfreude--pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. Nabokov, I am coming to find, is the master of this. The key to it, is to not identify too much with the person experiencing the misfortune, otherwise it becomes uncomfortable, cringy, awkward... but this, is not. You find yourself laughing with the most perfect satisfaction. And …