This 2013 book by Roy Peter Clark, which is subtitled “Word Craft for Fast Times,” is apparently already considered a classic text. Somehow, I didn’t discover it until 2024. (Well, not “somehow,” I was busy practicing what it preaches.)

When I spotted this book on the shelves at Unabridged, I was immediately hooked by the title of the introduction: When Words Are Worth a Thousand Pictures. Now that’s a philosophy that I can agree with!

Clark begins the book with the advice that a test reader or editor can come to the writer’s rescue for the final polish. I was always delighted when my editors — Wendy and Susanna in particular — would cut an additional word or two from my own work.

The book is made up of short chapters that discuss and demonstrate each strategy, and which end with writing exercises that drive the points home. In all, there are 35 chapters. It would be difficult for me to narrow down the list to my favorites; I enjoyed each of them.

Writing short, Clark teaches, is the result of wit, focus, and polish. These are the literary values of textual brevity:

Remember that great writing in an informal style is the product of a set formal practices, including the intentional deletion of function words; the use of contractions and other abbreviations; and the employment of slang dialect, and other idioms.

Here are just a few of the many tidbits that spoke to me:

• Practice writing plain sentences that contain a grace note — one interesting word that stands out.
• Miss Belinda Blurb is an eponymous fictitious character whose exaggerated praise was used to sell books and magazines.
• Silence — or white space — creates the canvas on which the best work can stand out for full appreciation.
• While reading, notice how patterns of two and three emerge. Two elements divide the world for analysis; three expand and encompass the whole.
• The shorter the passage, the greater the value of each word.
• Brevity comes from selection and not compression.
• SEO is killing the craft of writing and is replacing it with algorithmic blandness.

I highly recommend this book for any writer. Your local bookshop probably has it, but you can also find it at the Amazon, of course.

PS: Note how the clever design of the cover utilizes forced perspective to create an optical illusion.

I recently visited Disneyland, and I meant to send you a postcard from there, but I couldn’t. Literally.

Much to my disappointment, there are no more postcards available at the Disney compound. Not at the Magic Kingdom, not at California Adventure Park, not at The Grand Californian, not at the Disneyland Hotel, and not in any of the Downtown Disney stores.

Zip. Zero. Zilch.

I searched. I asked. I couldn’t believe it. There are plenty of mailboxes around, but these are clearly just left over from a bygone era.

I did find some postcard-like objects that are better described as “art prints.” They could be mailed, but they’re oversized and would require First Class postage, and they cost an eye watering $8 each. (No kidding.)

Such a shame.

No, really, it has a battery that needs periodic replacement. All my life I have assumed that the outside-on-the-wall garage door keypads are wired into the garage door opener.

Nope, it turns out they are just an extra remote control stuck to the wall.

Who knew?

Not me. Fortunately, I figured it out before I embarrassed myself by calling in a service technician.

On a related note, today I discovered that my garage door control keypad lights up when you push the buttons. (Provided the battery is not nearly dead.) Will wonders never cease‽

A good friend of mine wanted to buy a used thingamajig, so he posted that desire on Facebook starting with the phrase “Wanted to buy: thingamajig.”

When I saw this, I thought he made a typo and meant to write “Want to buy,” and I told him so via Messages.

Nope, he replied, that’s what people write these days. Seriously‽ (But he did acknowledge that it’s ungrammatical.)

Not wanting to believe him, and exhibiting a naive faith in humanity, I checked Google, and sure enough, it’s common. I also searched Google ngram, and though it was more common in the 1940s, it is also experiencing an uptick in the printed word.

Goddamnit, he’s right. Also, you kids stay off my lawn!

I’ve been using the Day One journaling app for ten years. It’s where I keep track of my daily Story Cube writing exercises (occasionally shared on my Instagram account), and it’s also where I maintain a travel journal.

I ignore most of Day One’s numerous features (Too many, frankly) but the one that matters to me the most is automatic location metadata logging. Being able to recall where I was when I created an entry is why I started using Day One all those years ago.

But in a recent update, Day One began changing the location of journal entries that I had made several days before. It was doing this on its own, and was frequently changing them to an incorrect location!

This was completely unacceptable to me. Day One tech support was not helpful — when they eventually responded to requests — and my plea for help to the users’ forum on Facebook mostly garnered responses from company sycophants.

Eventually, though, a fellow frustrated user suggested that the cause might be a new feature called “Auto-Apply Points of Interest.” (This setting is turned on by default. It is buried in the “Location History” pane of the app’s settings.)

When this feature is turned on, Day One will decide that even if you carefully and specifically set an entry’s location, if that location is near a landmark it knows about, it changes the location to that of the landmark. Crazy, right? But here’s how it gets worse: the app goes through old entries, which you’ve never gone back and edited, and it changes those locations too!

So that note you created while standing in front of a great restaurant now says, after you save the note, that you were standing a few blocks away.

Turning off “Auto-Apply Points of Interest” fixed this problem for me. How in the world did Day One decide that silently altering old entries would be a good idea? If you’re having similar difficulty (and you probably are but haven’t noticed it yet) turn off this misguided feature.

This flashlight is amazingly bright — and heavy enough to be a weapon. But when you turn it on, just a few seconds later it blinks its lights then turns off. What the hell‽

Solution: Out of the box, it’s in “auto-lock” mode. To get out of this mode so the flashlight actually works as it should, hold down the power button for three seconds.

This is a crazy anti-usability feature that is supposedly for “demo” purposes, but really it just prevents customers from using the device. I bet their return rate is sky-high because there is no indication that the damn thing isn’t broken.

I got a decent deal on this flashlight at Costco, but it’s also available at the Amazon. It has some nice extras, like the ability to recharge via USB and even charge other devices, such as your phone. Did I mention it’s very bright? “The light of a thousand suns” is barely an exaggeration.

Coincidentally, over 10 years ago, I wrote about an Energizer flashlight that had a similar, inscrutable feature. Bad idea then, bad idea now.

This 2024 book by Amanda Montell is subtitled “Notes on Modern Irrationality.” I hesitated to buy a self-help book, but as someone with a professional interest in magical thinking, I took a chance. (As I discovered it’s not quite self-help anyway, but I don’t know what other genre I’d assign it to.)

I’m glad I ignored my first impression, as I enjoyed this book, and except for one serious flaw, it’s a great summary of cognitive biases and internal dialog. Briefly, I recommend it!

But since I’ve mentioned it, let’s address that flaw. Honestly, if the rest of the book wasn’t so good, I’d have stopped reading when I came to it. In the chapter about “overconfidence,” Montell is highly critical of Silicon Valley, but lacks the understanding of how technical breakthroughs are achieved. She also makes the bizarre and utterly incorrect assertion that when Jobs introduced the iPhone, it wasn’t capable of doing what he claimed (and demonstrated).

But a positive trait of the book is the interesting footnotes and endnotes that allow the reader to follow-up on the author’s citations. (Well, except for that iPhone statement, for which there is no citation because it’s bullshit.) Most books in the pop culture science-y category (I guess I do know what the genre is!) don’t bother with useful references. (See Scarcity Brain, for example.) Bravo, Montell.

All total, I made about 90 notations while reading, so what follows is just a small sample of things that stood out for me:

• Performative online personas are rewarded more than genuine artistic vision.
• Addiction and criminality are more strongly connected with celebrity worship than calcium intake with bone mass, or lead exposure with children’s IQs.
• “When the modern mind is starved of its nourishment, sometimes it tries to nurse in uncanny places where no milk can be found.”
• People look to others to figure out whom they, themselves, are. By elementary school, girls have already learned to compare themselves only to peers they consider superior. Boys, to those they believe inferior.
• Online, people who talk negatively — even if what they are posting is demonstrably false — are seen as more confident and get more engagement. Thus, they are algorithmically encouraged to carry on.
• All that’s left of the “good old days” are their highest-quality products, and thus, that’s all we’ll ever see.
• A “contronym” is a word that has two contradictory meanings. (Such as “bad.”)
• “Next time we have a question, let's hold out for as long as we humanly can before googling the answer. It’ll be erotic. Like edging before a climax. It's quite nice, I am learning, just to wonder indefinitely. To never have certain answers. To sit down, be humble, and not even dare to know.”

There are far too many other interesting tidbits for me to list here. The Age of Magical Overthinking is compelling, well-written, and very timely for the post-COVID, MAGA timeline in which we are all trapped. If you’re not sure that it’s for you, at least give the Kindle or Apple Books sample a try. I bought my copy at Writer’s Block, but naturally, you can find it at the Amazon too.

What could I possibly say about a Stephen King novel that hasn’t already been said? Particularly, when the book was published 19 years ago! Well, buckle up, because if you overlooked this book all those years ago, you missed a true gem.

The Colorado Kid is not your typical King book. It’s a mystery novel, it’s noire-ish, and it features a knock-out conclusion. I’m not going to offer any spoilers, but it’s the end that made me fall deeply in love with this book.

It’s an ending that has been controversial, and I’ve certainly seen other people online complain about it, but I think it’s a rare masterpiece of mystery writing. The prelude to the ending (as in, the story that sets it up) is good and interesting and entertaining, but it pales in comparison to the conclusion.

And I know some of you reading this are also mystery entertainers. If that’s you, read this book immediately. It has nothing to do with conjuring, but the lessons it teaches about mystery and not knowing are invaluable.

I’ve previously written about the book’s publisher, Hard Case Crime. As this was one of their early books, it’s one that turned me on to their catalog, which has been going strong ever since. Anything they release is worthy of your consideration.

Read it now, thank me later.

If you have the wonderful Balmuda Toaster Oven, then you’ll be interested to know that a “Quarter Sheet” silicon baking matt, cut in half, gives you two inserts that fit perfectly inside the tray. No more need to use tinfoil or parchment paper for easy clean up!

Here is a typical baking mat of the right size, which considering that you’ll end up with two after cutting, is nicely priced.

If you do the math, that means the Balmuda tray is One Eight Size, which you can find if you need a replacement tray, but probably not under that designation. See my previous post about Pans that Fit the Balmuda Toaster Oven.

Enjoy!

Published in 1970, this is the most contemporary book in my Dark Shadows collection. It’s lucky number thirteen in the series (of 32) so I have a long way to go if I choose to continue.

The title of the book is a bit of a puzzle to me — aren’t all ghosts mysterious? Nonetheless, the adjective was used several times in the story, so I guess my opinion was not shared by the author or editor.

As I have skipped a couple of volumes, I’m left wondering what happened to Victoria Winters, who is not only no longer in the house, she’s not even mentioned. Clearly, I missed some significant events.

In fact, there aren’t many Collins family members mentioned at all. This is definitely not a good place to begin reading the series; it would give a false impression of its gestalt.

Another thing that stood out to me is the more traditional vampire lore that’s reflected in this volume. And I do mean reflected, as a key moment occurs when Barnabas can’t be seen in a mirror.

I am pleased that the “wan drinking game” I proposed earlier would still be playable with this book. Cheers!

The writing continues to pull me in, and I found myself laughing out loud at the observation that “our own hippies wear clothes of ancient style,” in defense of Barnabas’ manner of dress. How 1970!

I’ll continue avoiding spoilers, but will note that the book sets up a fantastic treasure to be found in a future volume (I presume).