Writerisms to Avoid
You all don’t need this, but its here, just to say we told you so. Writerisms: overused and misused language. In more direct words: find ’em, root ’em out, and look at your prose without the underbrush. am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been ?Ķ combined with “by” or with “by ?Ķ someone” implied…
continue readingSome Art School/Workshop Teacher Should’ve Put a Stop to this Nonsense Long Ago
In 1994, musician Todd Snider skewered the grunge rock movement with his satire Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues. The song made fun of the whole alternative scene where all you had to do was buy a flannel shirt, let the hair dangle down in your eyes, and act depressed and you’d make a million dollars.…
continue readingHilarious Headline
I have to admit that I’m still learning the snarky-jokey-witty turn of a phrase that characterizes most blogs. I try to play it straight until my inner comedian just can’t be restrained. But although I don’t do the jokey thing all that well, here is an AMAZINGLY hilarious title. First, lemme tell you about the…
continue readingReview: 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published…
Readers of Slushpile know how much I enjoyed Pat Walsh’s 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might, but I also reviewed it for PopMatters. Check out the full book review here. My one criticism is that damned title. Geez, I get carpal tunnel every time I…
continue readingGuy Better Get His Birkenstocks Ready
AJ Jacobs signed a deal with editor Geoff Kloske at Simon & Schuster for a book called The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Obey the Bible as Literally as Possible. Sloan Harris at ICM was the agent involved in the deal, reported to be worth between a quarter of a million…
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