(And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.)
I just want to say that the latest episode of the No Story Is Sacred podcast — only coincidentally produced by my four offspring — takes on The Da Vinci Code, and is an absolute hoot.
Tag: other people saying interesting things
Hugo Nominations Close Today
I’ll admit to a certain amount of partisan rooting interest, here, since the No Story Is Sacred crew are, in fact, my own offspring:
It is the last day of Hugo nominations. I just want to say that @NoStoryIsSacred is eligible for Best Fancast. Even if you don’t nominate, I’d appreciate y’all listening. ❤️https://t.co/BotP2iOmFc
— Pippin (@skyfyre88) March 16, 2018
For Your Amusement
Found elsewhere on the web: Winnie-the-Pooh Noir.
Meanwhile, it’s domain-renewal time again for the Doyle and Macdonald web site, where there can be found links to all sorts of things, including sample chapters from most of our novels and a contact link for our agent, plus a lot of other stuff. Donations toward its upkeep – because web hosting doesn’t come for free – can be made via the Buy Me a Coffee link in the sidebar here.
Today’s Bit of Linguistic Amusement
From Texas Monthly online, a discussion of the phrase “fair to middlin’” (as in, “How’re you doin’?” “Oh, fair to middlin’ – can’t complain”), which wanders through the Texas cotton patch, the Texas oil patch, cotton-grading systems in Liverpool and cotton mills in Lancashire, the rivalry between Midland and Odessa, and the transatlantic popularity of country music.
This sort of thing is, as they say, my jam.
Happy New Year!
May the good parts of 2017 stay with us, and may the bad parts recede quickly in the rear-view mirror.
And may 2018 bring all of the good things that we need, and a fair share of the good things we may not need but would like to have anyway, because a little fun and frivolity are good for the soul.
(The best advice my father ever gave me was, “As long as nobody’s getting hurt, ‘just for fun’ is a perfectly valid reason for doing anything.” My mother, more practical, said, “Make your bed first thing in the morning after you get out of it, or you’ll never make it all day.” They were both right.)
Some Useful Thoughts from Outside the Field
Eric Owyoung is a composer and musician who performs with his band as Future of Forestry. Like many another creative type, he also does teaching gigs (hey, my co-author and I have done them; it’s a way to even out the income stream), and he blogs about a recent one here. It’s got some good insights, not least this one:
Do you have a creative goal like making an album of ten great songs? If so, the worst idea is to try to write ten great songs. Set a goal to write 60 or more songs… no matter how bad they are, just barrel through them. Chances are that 10%-15% of them might turn out pretty good. Learn from your mistakes.
Handy advice, I think, for the sort of writer who tends to obsess over crafting the perfect sentence in the perfect paragraph in the perfect story, only to end up crafting all the life out of it. (The fast-and-slapdash types have, I sometimes think, an easier row to hoe: They only need to learn how to do second and third drafts.)
And if you’re interested in Mr. Owyoung’s music, you can listen to some of it on his web site.
A Truth Universally Acknowledged
From the Sibling Cabal’s No Story Is Sacred podcast, this trenchant observation – now with accompanying graphic – is available for purchase on mugs and more at Redbubble.
How It Turned Out
Some of y’all may recall the post From My Mail a while back, requesting votes to get a grant from State Farm for Camp Mariposa in Nashua, NH.
Camp Mariposa is a mentoring and addiction prevention program for youth (ages 9-12) who are impacted by the substance abuse of a family member.
Well, today’s news is that Camp Mariposa is indeed one of the recipients of a grant. So, to those who voted, thanks. Good job.
Nostalgia Calling, However Briefly
Every once in a while, I run across something that makes me wish for a moment that I’d stayed in Academia.† Like this call for papers:
Inside Out: Dress and Identity in the Middle Ages, the 38th Annual Conference at Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies.
Not that I’d have anything to present — material culture was never my field — but my word, the papers should be fascinating.
†Not often, though, or for very long. I got out at just about the same time as Academia started devouring its own young.
Haec Sunt Mea Ornamenta
My offspring, they have a podcast:
It’s up at all the usual places.
(“Art in the blood, Watson . . . .”)
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