Category: articles
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Breakfast of Champions, The Muad’dib & Hospital Visits
Thursday last I ventured with an older gentleman to some local hospitals. We called on the elderly and infirm in hopes to raise their spirits. This guy’s a pro—he’s been doing this for years, visiting sick people in the hospital, praying for any who request it, listening to them ramble about stories of the old…
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Free Comic Book Day
When I woke up early on Saturday to a barking spaniel, it took me a moment to realize what day it was. Since Mark was on a shoot and Ryan moved to Nome Alaska to watch huskies race across the arctic tundra, that left me and Nate to brave the waters of f…Fr…FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!…
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Open Letter to Adolescents (or Adolescence)
To any adolescent it may concern: When you grow up, your old friends will do different things. One will go to prison. Another will get married and have twelve babies. A third will join a group of anarchists in Seattle only to quit the group later. Another will become a career politician who accepts bribes…
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Gangs and Pickpockets
In my Storyssentials post on Research, I talked about how a storyteller must assign himself homework. Mine involves a decent amount of gilded age reading (and viewing). Some might assume I want to write steampunk. Though this coming series employs some steamy elements, I wouldn’t classify it that way. For one, few use steam. For another,…
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Oh My God
Since this is a platform first for my business, I try to keep spiritual/political/inflammatory things from here. I typically fail in an epic sort of way. However, as many of you saw on the sociable networkings this week, I — a soon to be twenty-five-year-old man — came down with THE SHINGLES. I capitalize it…
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Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry
I used to be a poet. Of sorts. At least I used to think of myself in that way when I was young. Now as an adult I rarely find time for poetry, rarely make time to think high thoughts and enjoy language for its primary purpose: intimacy. We tend to favor language for persuasion…
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Titanic: The Real Heart of the Ocean
Took Kiddo to the centennial showing of Cameron’s Titanic Saturday. I got my money’s worth-it held up well after all of these years. Not the boat, the film. Boat still sank. I expected the post-production 3D rendering to ruin the experience for me, but I conceded to take Kiddo anyway. After all, she never saw…
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Automate Second Drafts
If you’ve ever written a paper, story or speech, you’ll want to learn how to do this. Elsewhere I’ve ranted about the benefits of reading your words aloud or having someone read them back to you. Things sound different when spoken into the air, when you hear words exist as they were intended – audible…
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Why I Never Check the News
I can hardly regret having escaped the appalling waste of time and spirit which would have been involved in reading the war news or taking more than an artificial and formal part in conversations about the war. To read without military knowledge or good maps accounts of fighting which were distorted before they reached the…