The Man Bill Murray

"I bet Mafia kids get bummed when they find out the tooth fairy doesn't take other people's teeth or when they find out there's no horse-head fairy at all."

                                                                 ~ Bill Murray

Trees and Hermann Hesse

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them."

~ Herman Hesse

Christmas For Writerly Sorts

Premium loot for writers and readers and anyone, really: 

Psychic Distance and the Novel

I've been spending a fair amount of time working through the "psychic distance" of my narrator in my novel this past month. Not a topic I've specifically considered in the past, but now that it's on my radar it's difficult to read someone else's work without noting its value in a narrative.

Disclaimer: psychic distance is not about Dionne Warwick or The Amazing Kreskin. It is about the placement of your narrator in a story, where they stand in relation to a character, what information they are privy to. It links to who the narrator is and from when they are speaking from. More importantly it identifies a line of sight for the reader.

What I Need in My House

Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Not all lies are morally wrong. At the Barber's this past week, a tubby, mouth-breathing hair-cutter in his 50's asks me what I do.

He asks me this while he fiddles with his iPad before moving to his iPhone for extra fiddling. The plastic poncho for my shoulders almost forgotten when he picks up his scissors.

I tell him what I do...and immediately - before he even responds - swallow a strong instinct to bolt. This guy is not my usual barber. He's a horrible facsimile of a barber. In fact, he may not even be a barber. What if he's a Larper?

I notice a poorly inked yin-yang tattoo on his forearm. Are Daoists offended by bad yin-yang tattoos?

The Hawk is Dying But Not in My Backyard

Yesterday afternoon, while sitting in the back gardens with Sandra, we watched as a small sparrow hopped from a nearby tree branch onto the ground close to us.

A common enough event that neither of us gave any remark of its passing. In fact the event itself is only remember because of what happened next.

A hawk, lean and fast, tore talons-first out of the sky and landed right where the sparrow was a moment before. It did not catch its prey, and perhaps was surprised to find us sitting there, jaws agape, watching. No eye blinked. And then, with a silent movement of wings, it took off back into the sky.