Pen to Paper: Advice For Younger Writers

Posted on by bryon

With school well underway across the land, here’s something for Catsignal’s younger readers and writers.

John Scalzi tweeted yesterday: “Just found a bunch of short stories I wrote when I was a teenager. Oh my. They are NOT good.”

This comment is virtually a follow-up to an essay he wrote in 2006 giving advice to teenage writers. While much writing advice is good for novice writers of any age, this piece is directed straight at the 13- to 19-year-old crowd. Keep reading past Number 1, no matter badly it annoys you. Scalzi hits various nails squarely atop their heads, and this is advice you can bank on.

Follow that up with wisdom from John Steinbeck and a variety of useful things from Ralph Fletcher. That’s enough for now; I don’t want to keep you from your homework.

OT: Labor Day

Posted on by bryon

The official unemployment number came out Friday: 9.1 percent. That’s 14 million Americans without work. Not counted are the underemployed who can’t make ends meet or the people labeled as discouraged workers, more than 200,000 unemployed people who have tried so hard and for so long to find a job that they’ve given up, at least for now. The Congressional Budget Office does not expect the unemployment rate to fall below 8 percent for two more years and says we won’t see 5 percent unemployment until 2017. Further, mass layoffs – when 50 or more workers lose their livelihoods at once – rose 3 percent in August.

Continue reading “OT: Labor Day” →

Fiction: Bad Brake

Posted on by bryon

Maureen’s fear of driving had never abated, and her foot constantly rode the brake of her two-year-old ’62 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. She had had the brake lights replaced twice. The mechanic didn’t know about Maureen’s bad habit and chalked it up to bad bulbs, missing an opportunity to warn her about the impending consequences of her actions.

Inevitably the day came when it did not matter how hard Maureen pushed the brake pedal or how near to the floor it came: the car would not stop. She was too flustered to think to use the parking brake or to shut the car off. Death and property destruction ensued, but Maureen survived and was released from the hospital after two weeks.

Maureen finally embraced the bitter truth: even when using the brake full time, driving was – for her – unsafe. From now on, she vowed, on those occasions when she had to go beyond walking distance, she would rely on her lucky friends and on taxi drivers.

Some people just seemed to float through traffic, leading charmed lives, never suffering the problems of ordinary folks. It wasn’t fair, she muttered, but that was life.

Author’s Note: 420 Chars

Posted on by bryon

My friend Greg Bryant came up with a new format: 420 Chars. You can read about that at his blog, The Poet’s Eye (part 1, part 2). Cletis Stump, proprietor of The Book of Cletis, has collected what Greg wrote and added two of his own pieces plus a couple of my efforts; it’s part of his regular Creative Sunday spotlight. Pop over to Cletis’ place and get the full effect, to date. Then try your own. (This paragraph is way over the limit, if you’re wondering.)

Pen to Paper: Practical Haiku

Posted on by bryon

Dylan Tweney is (among other fascinating things) a popular modern haiku poet. You can read a few of his haiku at his Tinywords site.

Below is his slideshow, “Practical Haiku: How Reading and Writing an Ancient Form of Poetry Can Change Your Life.” This is a nice introduction or re-introduction to haiku, showing us in haiku-like brevity the value of this form of poetry. Enjoy.

Practical Haiku: How Reading and Writing an Ancient Form of Poetry Can Change Your Life

View more presentations from Dylan Tweney