Good Writing

At the Trident Bookstore in Boston? My eye happened upon a title I hadn’t seen or read about. No advance notice, just there, at a bookstore.

Good Writing co-authored by a personal favorite, Anne Lamott.

Good Writing

Can it capture the essence, and can one be married to a partner that comes all rolled up with 35 writing guidelines?

“Writing is a vehicle for my life to play out.” Page 14.

I’ve borrowed a similar expression to explain a personal obsession.

“Luckily, I was still drinking at the time.” Page 35.

Editors. What can I say? If you don’t need a reason to drink, find a good editor.

Terminology:
The single word? “Enthymeme,” which refers to a kind of logical exposition that really isn’t as logical, and an example I’ve enumerated for decades, in my horoscopes.

The lessons? Chapters? The organization is a single tip, 35 in all, and each tip is posited by her husband and then discussed amongst themselves which makes for lively back and forth and wondrous good content, as much about relation as rules. Guidelines.

Good Writing

On character?

“was a funny writer who (like most writers) had equal proportions of grandiosity and shaky self-esteem.” Page 107.

Seeing it in print, when a characterization fits me so well.

“Isn’t the whole point of writing to figure out something you don’t already know?” Page 134.

That is the point of the bulk of my writing.

Good Writing

While other’s nothing new or groundbreaking, as a concise guide to what makes good writing better, as a way to improve craft? The handy guidelines work well, and framed in conversational manner where some points are discussed but not always agreed upon.

Good Writing

Boss? I won’t be at work on Sunday.

“Why? What happened?”

Little medical adventure, I’m fine, in the words of Mark Twain?

“Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Best Get Well card

Get Well card Get Well card

Best Get Well card

Kiss and Tell Sitcom

Personally, I’m a sucker for a story of redemption. I have to believe.

Sitcom by Chuck Lorre

Drugs and alcohol.

“Curiously, when I finally started to make some real money, I drank more, not less. You’d think with the economic pressure off, it’d go the other way, right? Sadly, addiction doesn’t work that way. If it did, there’d be a lot fewer dead rock stars.” Page 47

Make fun of serious stuff?

Sitcom by Chuck Lorre

The stories behind the stories, and a singular point of view, one I’ve always maintained, the series, listed, the stories themselves, they are told with bold, crisp, writing.

Which is what it’s all about.

Sitcom by Chuck Lorre

Statement on the Use of AI on this site

Statement on the Use of AI on this site.

To eschew obvious obfuscation and to make the fine print more legally legible?

I don’t use iterative, reiterative, large language model, generative, or regenerative software to write or rewrite the material on this site. No AI.

There are two parts to this. “AI” gained notice in 2018, and a tech-buddy urged me to include a chat-bot box on my site. He demonstrated one, suggested it would make my life easier, and what it did? The “bot” would scan the text and formulate a quick answer.

That was seven or eight years back. I passed on the “as a test and greatest in web technology” because I have no need to be at the bleeding edge, not any longer. I like simple.

But digging back even further, I’ve long since tried to make the page look less “digital,” and to include a handwritten portion with everything else. The various glyphs and headers I’ve employed? A testament to that.

The new horoscopes rolled over, and that is automated to a certain extent, but that’s also simple website technology, not terribly complex, and certainly no software agent or AI is running that. I suspected my sites are scraped, but there’s nothing I can be done about that.

So the typographical mistakes, grammar problems, holes in logic? Those point to me as the author, not AI.

The hand-drawn, handwritten headers and glyphs? Again points to there just being me in charge.

Statement on the Use of AI on this site

Finally, a tiny comment leftover from rudimentary early works?

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
(Pablo Picasso)

Excerpt From
Pink Cake: The Quote Collection

Pink Cake

Pink Cake: The Quote Collection

pinkcake cover

Pink Cake: A Commonplace Book

Righteous Indignation

Came up in conversation, about the luxury of “righteous indignation,” and how, for some of us, me, that’s a luxury I can ill-afford.

Brought about a pause, because I know I’ve used that expression before. A casual search of the horoscopes? The search term was “righteous indignation?”

For example?

There are more, and there are more recent, but as a bit of fun, I collected what I had. Pointers, as much for myself as for others. Reminders?

I would back up to those last two entries I’ve selected. Not the only occurrences of the terms, but the framing in the horoscopes is useful, and some of this? Still useful, even now.

Righteous Indignation

It’s “mercurial,” huh.

the Portable Mercury Retrograde

portable mercury retrograde

Fellow Sagittarius

Part of the “27” club. 28 club? Saturn?

“As the body is ravaged
the spirit grows stronger.”

Morrison, Jim. Wilderness, vol. 1. NY: Vintage, Dec. 1989.

Fellow Sagittarius

Wilderness page 119

Morrison, Jim. Wilderness, vol. 1. NY: Vintage, Dec. 1989.

3 cm

Transit URANUS opposed natal Sun
This represents Uranus at the halfway-point in its orbit and planetary cycle. The consistent expression heard, owing to this particular influence? “No one saw that coming!” There’s the inherent sense of the rebel within, and that usually creates a situation wherein one — or another — demands greater freedom and autonomy from a given situation. This also highlights stress-related disorders, as the urges foisted upon the Natal Sun don’t always find the most healthy of outlets.

3 cm

Transit PLUTO square natal Neptune
Because the outer planets, like Pluto and Neptune, are such slow movers, this is more along a break that occurs within generations. The potential is for obsessions to get blown out of proportion. Little problems become nothing more than larger problems, trying to escape. The obstacle, happens with Neptune, is that this can also seem to be a “Rose Colored Glasses” time, wherein an obvious issue is completely ignored. Pluto softens up the natal Neptune, and makes it an easy target for manipulations and the object of subterfuge. In isolated situations, such maneuvers push surprised emotional content to the surface — Plutonic Energies — and that erupts like a volcano, spewing molten rock in every direction, seemingly at random.

(Text is from Kramer Wetzel’s little book of transits)

3 cm

The stone, it was over 3 cm long, and that’s why there’s an extra big hole in my gut.

Kramer Wetzel’s little book of transits

Scion

Crossed the old in box as cyberpunk, and picked it up on an off afternoon. Great fun, old school, in my mind. Computer enhanced people, and the question of essence, and really who is in charge?

Scion