Author: Joseph Carrabis

Be Cool, Clarence

Our visitors from The Wild are varied.

We get all manner of life. Bear to deer to fox, wolf, coyote, turkey, hawk, hummingbird, hummingbird moth.

We haven’t had skunk in a while.

Not an issue.

Years ago Larry, a young juvenile who hadn’t mastered scent control yet, and Ferdinand, a grand old gent with a white band broad enough to land a cesna on.

They passed, as does everything, even Mountain and Ocean, Star and Universe itself, given enough time.

One wonders, considering things as a kind of hierarchy, who lasts longer than time. Or who created time.

Some philosophers – even some cosmologists – consider Time to be a human invention.

Bah.

I’ve met Time, had many enjoyable conversations with it. I tell it what philosophers and cosmologists say and it laughs.

Ever felt a ripple in time?

That’s Time laughing.

Enjoy.

 

June Casagrande’s “It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences.”

“It had been being the best of times, it had been being the worst of times.”
Really?

 
This is a small, short book that will so heavily impact your writing…no, scratch that.

It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences. is a small book that will impact your writing.

Yes, much better.

If you don’t recognize the second sentence is better than the first – you may not understand why it is, but if you recognize it is – this book is a necessity.

If you do understand, you’ve probably read this book.

I didn’t write “…don’t recognize that the second sentence…” because It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences. teaches lots about when to use that. I didn’t write “…probably already read…” because it also teaches lots about flabby speech and misuse of adverbs.

And how to subordinate for effect, such as “If you…”

And lots more, all with examples.

Casagrande’s mantra is “Write for the Reader.” Writers who say they write to please themselves first miss the point (almost wrote “are missing the point”); they write for a one-reader audience (rewrote that clause three times). Write to be read. Start with one reader, get more by developing your writing. (a missing conjunction, fix it (she demonstrates how)).

 

Greetings! I’m your friendly, neighborhood Threshold Guardian. This is a protected post. Protected posts in the My Work, Marketing, and StoryCrafting categories require a subscription (starting at 1$US/month) to access. Protected posts outside those categories require a General (free) membership.
Members and Subscribers can LogIn. Non members can join. Non-protected posts (there are several) are available to everyone.
Want to learn more about why I use a subscription model? Read More ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes Enjoy!

The Goatmen of Aguirra, Part 12

The Goatmen of Aguirra is one of my favorite stories and, based on comments, popular among my readers (thankee!). It appears in my self-published Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires, as an individual ebook The Goatmen of Aguirra: A Tale Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires, and was serialized in Piker Press in 2019.

I’m sharing it here because a friend is having some challenges using 1st Person POV, and The Goatmen of Aguirra uses 1st Person POV throughout.

Read The Goatmen of Aguirra, Part 11.

Hope you enjoy.

The Goatmen of Aguirra (Part 11)

 
I don’t know how long I’ve been here at this point. I’ve been making records as often as I think to, always when I wake up, but have no idea of how long it has been.

Hepob and all the other females of kid-bearing age are due soon, if not today. I wonder who Hepob’s mate is, or if she even has one. For that matter, why are there only two sexes here? Why not one, or ten? There is a life form on Chalderon that was at first thought to use seven hosts before it could reproduce. We discovered too late there were seven sexes and each played a significant part in the fertilization and development of the embryo.

Unfortunately, only the last sex was sentient, and when your life cycle is several thousand years and your planet is colonized right before the end of your mating period?

It is too horrible to think about.

Tenku is here. It’s black root time.

Greetings! I’m your friendly, neighborhood Threshold Guardian. This is a protected post. Protected posts in the My Work, Marketing, and StoryCrafting categories require a subscription (starting at 1$US/month) to access. Protected posts outside those categories require a General (free) membership.
Members and Subscribers can LogIn. Non members can join. Non-protected posts (there are several) are available to everyone.
Want to learn more about why I use a subscription model? Read More ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes Enjoy!

Three Young Ones

Behold three young raccoon kits.

Whenever we see young of The Wild without adult supervision we grow concerned.

Children are a challenge to the best of us. More so in The Wild, me thinks. We have many predators in our woods and we understand evolutionary cycles and principles.

Still…

He’s a Two-Legger, but he’s okay. Don’t let him touch you, though. You don’t know where his hands have been.

 
Mother Raccoons we’ve fed all along are watchful of their kits around us. They tell them to stay in the trees until they see Mom interacting with us. She shows them the rules then lets them approach. As I’ve written before, you can almost hear, “He’s a Two-Legger, but he’s okay. Don’t let him touch you, though. You don’t know where his hands have been.”

Enjoy.

 

Robert Newton Peck’s “Fiction is Folks”

Robert Peck’s Fiction is Folks was a difficult book for me to get through on my first read and an entertaining book on my second read. I’ll read it at least one more time before I’m satisfied I’ve sucked all the marrow from its pages (that odd phrasing is one of his suggestions. Such odd phrasings wake the reader up. You may not like that one, that’s fine, and learn the technique. Practice it. The technique useful even if my example is not).

My initial challenge was the reason I was entertained on my second read: Peck is homesy and folksy. He is direct, clear, honest. He’s a native Vermonter and it shows in both his prose and his examples.

An important point about his examples: most of them passed over me on my first read because this entire book is an example. He explains something and read his explanation again. It’s an example of what he’s explaining. Now look at the example he uses for his explanation. Yes, it’s an example and it contains a thread to the next example.

Also (and like most Writers’ Digest books I’ve read) he covers a broad range of topics well beyond character (the main item in this book). A partial list includes:

  • Blurbs
  • Plot
  • Character
  • Covers
  • Story
  • Marketing
  • Structure
  • Language
  • Exercises
  • and this doesn’t touch on the general stuff you need to know to get your work published

Greetings! I’m your friendly, neighborhood Threshold Guardian. This is a protected post. Protected posts in the My Work, Marketing, and StoryCrafting categories require a subscription (starting at 1$US/month) to access. Protected posts outside those categories require a General (free) membership.
Members and Subscribers can LogIn. Non members can join. Non-protected posts (there are several) are available to everyone.
Want to learn more about why I use a subscription model? Read More ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes Enjoy!