Author: Lancelot Schaubert
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The Prettiest Woman
Interviewing my Grandpa every Tuesday morning for this new novel. I thought he was ornery. I thought my brother and I were ornery. I thought my father was ornery. But apparently we’re in the minor leagues beside my great-great grandpa who once told a widower he could order a new wife out of…
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Cliché Vindicated: Concessions to Ms. Eberhardt
Two kinds of people argue with themselves: maniacs and metaphysicists. The maniac argues with himself the way a divorced couple argues: hashing up old arguments that lead nowhere simply because he’s in the habit of doing so. In that endless cycle, he becomes unsure of how he exactly he lost his way. The metaphysicist — the…
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My Writing Toolkit
What should you charge? The number one resource I’ve created that other writers ask to see is my personal spreadsheet that lays out what I charge for different classes and categories of writing projects. It’s comprehensive, it’s easy to read, and it gives a middle-of-the-road estimate for virtually every project you could work on as a writer,…
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give each other visions
“We are all patriots and rebels, at war with one another and ourselves. And we give each other visions.” — Gary Wills
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Trump Towers Kill Trump Windmill Idiocy : 100x More Birds Than Windmills
Again with the Trump windmill idiocy. Donald Trump recently said: “Alternative energy is so expensive. And honestly, it’s not working so good. The wind power kills all your birds. All your birds, killed. You know, the environmentalists never talk about that.” This is hilarious. So hilarious that shortly after I meditated on the numbers behind all…
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Book Club Calendar (for people who don’t have time for book club calendars)
After much deliberation and discussion, the Book Club for People Who Have No Time for Book Clubs decided to have more structure and schedule. I wanted to keep our leisurely pace — a book a month is a bit too much for us all and we’d prefer to reflect on them a little bit more. So…
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Celestial Consequences
Some of your bubbles drifted up through the branches, even above the trees. You two were too intent on the cat to see the celestial consequences of your worldly endeavors. They were very lovely. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
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The American Constitution is like The Spanish Inquisition — Chesterton
“The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that…
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thinking something
‘It is not much good thinking of a thing unless you think it out.’ — HG Wells
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Beautiful to Me
I really can’t tell what’s beautiful anymore. I passed two young fellows on the street the other day. I know who they are, they work at the garage. They’re not churchgoing, either one of them, just decent rascally young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and there they were, propped against the…
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Rio Sunset Park
Ghosts in the gold, ghosts in the late Grate growing wet from grey waters. Ghosts in the water gushing its spray: Men in it which men aren’t mainly, Shadows and shades, shadows in spades Twinned and twining, twisting liquid Pining from physique, from playing rain: Where are the men within? White water at Nighttime walks…
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A Defense of Pokémon Go
Three multi-millionaires. A father of four. A PhD in agricultural science. An Oscar winner. A crowd of twelve-year-olds outside a custard joint in St. Louis. A retiree. A CTO. A teen who hadn’t seen the sun in months. Professional artists — a filmmaker, a novelist, a painter, a stylist, a musician. All of these…