[Partial amazon.com screen capture, July 9, 2010] Funny thing is, for some books — not all of them “great” ones, either — I might actually hesitate before deciding to go the cheap route, even with a price spread as broad as this. (I’m talking about you, you thick-page, large-format “children’s” book on natural history whose [...]

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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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[Hat tip to Miriam over at Dancing with Dragons Is Hard On Your Shoes.] _______________________________ P.S. And belated auto-congratulations to Running After My Hat for the missed anniversary: the most recent whiskey river Fridays post was #500 here. Is there a cake? How can there not be a cake?!?

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The other day, Moonrat replied to a question about the acceptability of collections of “linked” short stories: stories united by a common theme, cast of characters, whatever. Along the way, she wondered what the state of short fiction in general might be, in these days when writers seem so focused on books.* (The comments surprised [...]

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In a recent blog post, loyal friend of RAMH Froog dredged up a name I hadn’t seen or heard for years: “cartoonist” Hugh MacLeod.* I no longer have any idea where I first encountered MacLeod and his interesting work. At the time, though, he was struggling to forge some sort of business from his creative output [...]

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From my tech-writing agent, in an email message yesterday: Did you want us to send you a check for the payment due, or did you want an electronic funds transfer to your bank acct? It took 7½ years, but my last tech book finally brought in more for the publisher than the size of the [...]

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…which I’m not, I’d say that the author of this book currently advertised on eBay will see none of the proceeds: Ha! And there are 5 available, even! Hahahahaha…! Omigod, thank you. I needed a good laugh.

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You probably already know the movie A Christmas Story, released in 1983 and based on the stories (and featuring the voiceover narration) of Jean Shepherd. And if you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you may also know of my own childhood Christmas memories — and if so, you’ll know I share what seems [...]

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A couple of stray tidbits for your daily (weekly, hourly, etc.) writerly use… —- First: You may have noticed agent Nathan Bransford’s recent contest, for which he invited readers to submit as contest entries the first paragraphs of their own works-in-progress. (He announced the winners yesterday.) Regular RAMH commenter Froog has been observing Nathan’s contest [...]

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…of the Be Careful What You Wish For Department: We’re clearing some stuff out in preparation for a garage sale. Aside from that, we’ve got a lot of stuff in boxes which we’ve never been able to take out of boxes — because of all the stuff on our shelves, stuff which we once imagined [...]

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