From whiskey river: It was almost dark on an early summer eve, and the forest was never more enchanting than now, at dusk. At dusk the mountain begins to withdraw its force back into itself and become quiescent. If you too can become quiescent, so still that you can’t think of your name, you can [...]

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From whiskey river (except for the last five lines; numerous other differences vs. the alternate source linked below): Exercise First, forget what time it is for an hour do it regularly every day then forget what day of the week it is and do this regularly for a week then forget what country you are [...]

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In a comment on yesterday’s Towel Day post, Marta said: The miracle of the towel! The man who realized this was a man to be reckoned with indeed. That got me thinking: how cool it would be to come up with a… a something — an in-joke, an idea, a catchphrase, a little fictional detail, [...]

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Remember The Querulous Squirrel’s 100-stories-in-100-days challenge? Ambitious, wot? Supremely well executed, eh? Okay, now start with a similar premise: Write a story a day for an entire month. Saturdays and Sundays included. Holidays, too. No limit on word count. Just write a complete story each day. Simple to say, hard to execute, right? Just as [...]

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[Image above from The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, which observes: "I guess if you don't just go grab a seat you may never get one."] From whiskey river: The swarm of words and little stories are just to loosen you from where you are stuck. (Shitou Xiqian) …and: O, how incomprehensible everything was, and [...]

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[Image: Forked Tongue at Window Rock, one of  a series of "Arizona Postcards" by Scottish artist James "Jimmy" Cosgrove. To view the entire collection, see this page.] A science-fiction story I read long ago tells of a visitor from another planet who simply cannot understand why human beings lie. I don’t remember much about the [...]

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Per Tim O’Reilly, on Twitter… To quote the site where he found it: To all of you nerds and geeks who — like me — have been unfairly and inaccurately labeled “dorks,” only to then exhaustively explain the differences among the three to a more-than-skeptical offender, I say: You’re welcome. The simple eloquence of colored [...]

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[Image at right from the Celestial Heavens/Might and Magic site] In a comment the other day over at the Querulous Squirrel’s treetop lair, I ad-libbed a suggestion for people facing what are commonly called “nervous breakdowns”: name them. Please forgive the self-citation (which feels to me like a breach of Interweb etiquette): Every “nervous breakdown” [...]

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I may never have to master anything more difficult than thinking, and thinking convincingly, like multiple characters. It’s not just a matter of the word choices and rhythms of their dialogue (although it includes that). And it’s not just a matter of the outward manifestations of their natures — gender, style of dress, and so [...]

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From whiskey river: A Way to Look at Things We have not yet made shoes that fit like sand Nor clothes that fit like water Nor thoughts that fit like air. There is much to be done – Works of nature are abstract. They do not lean on other things for meanings. The sea-gull is [...]

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