Footprints Of Your Characters In The Snow “Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be…
Schemes Gang Aft Agley In his poem “To A Mouse”, Robert Burns said, “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men, gang aft agley”. Murphy’s Law, named after Captain Edward A. Murphy in 1949, basically reiterates this: something will always go wrong. Take, for example, my last actual post. When it was posted on January 2nd, I was expecting to get back to something close to a schedule. Obviously, my schemes went awry. Between caring for the generation before me…
“A certain critic–for such men, I regret to say, do exist–made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names,’ He probably by now has been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elijah: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in…
Daylight Savings Time Parts of the world just experienced daylight savings time; I sure miss that extra hour of sleep. Thank you William Willet. Or was it George Hudson. It might have even been Benjamin Franklin who first suggested this travesty against dreamers. While Mr. Franklin is the one who first coined the phrase “Early to bed and early to rise…,” he never actually tried to implement the idea. It looks like old Ben is off the hook. In 1895,…
Pacifier Withdrawal Syndrome I am pretty sure my grandson is suffering from pacifier withdrawal syndrome. I also believe that there is a need for a support group—not for the little ones, but for the parents and grandparents. His pacifier has always been the one constant in his life, and now that it is time to give it up, he hasn’t found a new constant. He is more irritable than he has ever been and doesn’t seem to know how to…
Hairstyles I know when my wife is considering getting her hair cut when she begins showing me pictures of hairstyles. Our usual routine is for her to bring up the pictures on her phone, I will offer my suggestions and opinions, then she makes her decision. For the most part, the hairstyles she shows me are attractive, but there is one particular style that I absolutely detest. As far as I am concerned, it is the most unflattering hairstyles I…