There is a type of person I run into once in a while. They’re a rare breed, but I’ve met six or seven of them in my life. I don’t know how to classify them, but they have some things in common. They’re all extremely capable people who seem indifferent to the traditional trappings of […]
We all have a list of words and phrases that we’d just as soon cut from the language. I already talked about giving 110%, 24/7, and coeds, but the following words and phrases are just as annoying and just as meaningless. Intestinal fortitude ties my guts into knots. I suppose with all the indigestible food that we […]
The first Christmas changed the world.
We all have a list of annoying words and phrases that we’d just as soon cut from the language. Here are some words I’d like to expunge, starting with a hundred and ten percent. If I hear one more person say he is giving a hundred and ten percent, I think I’ll scream or vomit or […]
Writing a book is not easy; the writing life isn’t easy. But if we’re writers, that’s what we do. Encouragement for the writer’s life…
I recently checked a book of pulp reprints out of the library and read a few of the short stories, including a fairly long Saint story by Leslie Charteris, one by Dashiell Hammett, and one by Steve Fisher. I was a big fan of the Saint stories in my late teens and I was a […]
My mother died almost exactly three years ago. To understand the humor rather than the pathos behind that sentence, I’ll have to tell you a bit about my mother. She spoke with perfect diction, in unstilted, unaccented English, and she loved words and word games, especially the kind of game where you take a word […]
I like Time, but it often flees from me. Is Time your friend or an antagonist in your life?
The book publishing industry is losing customers at an unsustainable rate. I suspect that “high-concept” books that turn out to be poorly written are part of the problem. I know the combination has caused me to cut back on book buying. I’m not sure how to deal with that, at the personal or the industry […]
We talked about setting up a blog for the Writin’ Wombats and now we’ve done it. Are you ready to join in?
