I didn’t know that surfing was an Olympic sport until I saw a story with a fantastic picture. Surfing was included in the Olympics for the first time in Japan in 2020, and the competition this year is taking place in French Polynesia. It is a judged sport, as opposed to racing or throwing things [...]
Category: writing lesson
Reading weirdness
After some intense days last week, I wanted words to flow past my eyes. That often means Project Gutenberg, because if I’m going to be undiscriminating about what I read, it’s best if I don’t also pay money for it. One category on the Project Gutenberg website is the latest uploads. In January, 2024, that [...]
Am I going to like Russian short stories this time?
I’ve been reading a book about Russian short stories called A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. I can’t stand Russian writing in general, though I recognize that that is a highly personal taste. That is, I recognize that others have declared lots of Russian authors to be important and great [...]
Words vs Pictures
Over the past week I’ve been working on two large sewing projects (along with my writing). Each project has a pattern with very lengthy instructions. For one project, I’m trying to make a stole, and the fifty page instruction booklet has these words on page 38. Now we will try to make the stole. from [...]
Writing practice and a book recommendation
There’s a lot of advice out in the wild for people who are trying to write. Unfortunately, making this advice usable often requires figuring out what writing niche you belong in. Fiction or non-fiction? Poetry? Literary or genre? What’s the difference between the last two? Women’s fiction? Cozy mysteries? Why does ‘cozy’ sound so insulting, [...]
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