This month’s book selection really skewed heavily towards nonfiction- the book I talked about in the subtitle was fiction, but now I realize that there is a nonfiction book that I may finish as well, both books I’m really enjoying.

That is good for me because earlier this month I was in a bit of a fuzz when it came to fiction. Nightmare in Pink by MacDon…

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But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has b…

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When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

― Ernest Hemingway, author

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In just a few hours, I’ll be recording the first podcast episode I’ve ever recorded with another person. I’ve made attempts at recording things before, but have always felt like they were lacking. The idea that I could have someone else’s voice shape and color the co…

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Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.

― Jack Kerouac, novelist/ poet, “On the Road”

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I grip my shirt and pant like a mad dog. It’s a furry like thunder and a boisterous coming together of mind and fingers and thought, not unlike the tumultuous amalgamation of butter, eggs, and flour that eventually come together to make brea…

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The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

-George Lucas, filmmaker

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I do not see myself stopping my practice of writing. But perhaps, being restricted to the page is not helping my work flourish.

There is a reason silent films are not released to wide audiences today. People have no time for the bespoke and curious nature of art when they…

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“Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.”

― Terry Pratchett, author, “Thud!”

I’m busy enough today that if someone put chopped-up penguin in a cup labeled oatmeal I would have eaten it for breakfast and not noticed. Luckily, today, it was oatmeal.

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“Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!"

― J.R.R. Tolkien, author, “The Hobbit”

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I have a strange interest in looking back on what I’ve done and wallowing in how good or how bad of a job I had done. It’s almost as if I become more attached to my analysis of the thing than really looking at wh…

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It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books

― Ray Bradbury, author, Fahrenheit 451

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How can a class of people reading F. 451 grasp the concepts of the book? It’s purpose focuses on a world without books, yet their world is full of them- so many books, that the student begins to despise reading fiction as if it were grain-of-san…

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I felt like an amputated leg

-Raymond Chandler, author

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Raymond Chandler, for the uninitiated, is a writer of pulp fiction, in the hardboiled detective/ noir style that was at its most popular in the 1920s through the 1950s. His whole life, he wrote poetry while working other jobs, and in his forties, when he was fired during the Depression, Chandler turn…

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More and more we are into communications; and less and less into communication

-Studs Terkel, writer/historian

How many shitty podcasts exist with studio-quality audio and video? How many people are more into the communication method of how their work is delivered, as opposed to the message they are sending out and communicating?

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I’ll be there someday, I can go the distance.

-David Zippel, lyricist, “Hercules: Go the Distance”

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I suppose that delayed gratification is the proper way to look at why things take the time that they take. If we got everything we wanted, right when we wanted, that would end up being pretty shitty, right? Some things are obviously nice to have right when y…

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You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces — just good food from fresh ingredients

-Julia Child, author/host

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Last night I watched Rocky. It was a good movie for how simple and real it was- the whole idea being how people identify with themselves, and how that works with the people around them. For a movie named after a single guy, the other …

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“Writing is flying in dreams. When you remember. When you can. When it works. It's that easy.”

― Neil Gaiman

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When there is a lot going on, writing can seem like a dirty thing to do. Why do I get to have fun when so many other people are struggling? Shouldn’t I be spending my time doing other things? I’m not that good at writing anyway!

Yet, I know, deeper …

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It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?

-Arthur Conan Doyle, author

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Puffery around what you don’t want to highlight can smudge the dramatic effect of what you are trying to …

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The greatest poison of our time is indifference.

-St. Maximilian Kolbe

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Being indifferent leads to inaction, and inaction is a form of death. If someone isn’t able to make a decision based on stated beliefs and opinions, then they are not really a living, actuating person. The idea that it is better to just coast and have no opinion on things because it is…

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“Things do not change: we change.”

― Henry David Thoreau, author

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I feel as though my writing could do with more influence from my experience, but thinking about things like that seem to make my writing worse and not better. When I try to plan anything too far ahead it seems weak and dull to me. My good spot is to have a long-term arching story and try and…

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“How did it get so late so soon?”

—Dr. Seuss, author and cartoonist

I kept having this feeling last week- it’s 9:00 pm already? I think once we cross the summer solstice the shortening of days sneaks up on you.

I had a fun w…

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We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.

-Carl Sagan, astronomer

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My first instinct when reading this quote was apprehension. I know how to build a computer, I thought, …

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“The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.”

-James T. Kirk, captain, TOS 1x17 “Shore Leave”

It can be surprising to those who love the works of the masters that those creators are/ have not…

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