GREEN BANANA

Florida beach condominiums need serious work. One condominium building collapsed and suddenly people [insurance companies] are paying attention to a problem that has been "building" for decades. The Florida building boom really took off after WW2, and for a long time there has been inadequate oversight of building on land that is itself artificial. That's …

4FUN

Several recent attempts at reading have been... depressing? discouraging? demeaning? Delight might be what I am after. I am wide awake in the middle of the night. Eight hours last night, tonight just four? I don't know, maybe it's time for some serious funny. Just now, our son Ian is making short films. (The ballet …

WHY I READ [science] FICTION

Finally getting cell phones (yes, two, one for each of us) and putting together a simple Ikea bookcase on the same day was probably not a good idea. We took long naps, each had two drinks, and went to bed early. I did not read or work on my novel. This morning I ran two …

PARAPROSDOKIAN, EXERCISE #5

Yesterday morning I was reading the Brevity blog, one of my favorite sites. Jeanne Bonner explains "The Obituary We All Need (To Write)" citing the one she wrote for her father. At 250 words it utterly failed to capture her father, the person he was, the parent, the complications of their relationship, her grief at …

#3 DEBRIEF

Yes, I am writing this part of my Monday post early so that by the time you read it I will be someplace else and doing something other than writing. There, see how I did that? Present tense and future in a single sentence? I ran two miles, only some of it uphill, on Friday …

#3 of TEN, TIMES CHANGE

I began writing this on Tuesday, three days ago, and you won't read it until Friday morning. It was a chilling, damp morning but we walked north to the headland, zig-zagging back home. We spotted the little shore birds on our way north, found sea glass walking both directions (35 pieces by the time you …

#2 EXERCISE: DEBRIEF

2. The monster sentence. Begin with a simple short sentence—“I baked bread”—subject verb object—and then turn it into a “monster sentence” of at least 100 words. This exercise is straight out of Stanley Fish's playbook. Use every trick you know to ensure that the sentence is grammatically correct and not a run-on, use long dashes …

[no] EVACUATION

On Wednesdays, the local coastal alarm system broadcasts a cow mooing. This is followed by a man explaining it's only a test. It's impossible to ignore, sounding loud even inside the house. The system exists to warn about potential danger, especially tsunamis. During a genuine emergency, we would first hear a siren and then receive …

#2 of TEN SENTENCE EXERCISES

Writing Good Nonfiction Sentences… one exercise each Friday. First the necessary introduction. NOTE: several of these exercises are inspired by How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish, Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, and other sources. A good essay has a goal—to convince, delight, enlighten, instruct, warn, or to review and question. …

GO FOR WALK?

I start this post sitting on the sofa just before 8am. It's wet out but no longer dark. A reminder: If we were on DST all year around, it would be dark here until almost 9am. Apparently golf courses would make a bundle from after-work greens fees and candy companies are certain that a longer …