They approved my long-ass book SHOCKINGLY fast! Good thing it is, as David Wolin put it, "surprisingly socialist"--till you get to the dark and thrilling yet somehow amusing conclusion. ELEKTRA'S REVENGE is now available in the pre-cover-art, you-may-humiliate-me Kindle version, in which you pay me a cursory fee to not only behold the giant cosmic sitcom I have described/built, but also to tell me about all my typos. Consider it a kind of internship. You read this for the exposure. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CSXD5RT
Saturday, July 11, 2020
MY MISTAKE! The proofreading list for the first edition of Elektra's Revenge.
Find a typo in the pre-print version? You can feel smart as hell, even though it's almost a quarter of a million words that only one person has worked on. This is truly an accomplishment. Record it in the comments! Note: actual errors only, please.
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
There Is No Point to Envying the Young or the Old
Especially for the benefit of young people, how can I make the shortness of your life vivid enough for you to be properly warned?
It all goes by so fast.
Today, I turn 45 years old, and I have reached what will probably be the halfway point of my life. My grandmothers both lived to their late 90s, but I think 90 flat is probably my best outcome. The last 20 years of that, let's face it, I'll get limited use out of most of myself.
And my life so far has been so short it stuns me. Takes my breath away. I am still a child. OK, yoga helps with that. But there's also a negative aspect to being young at heart... my memories of being young are still so fresh, I could wake up and be told I have to go to high school tomorrow and I don't think I would miss a beat. You only begin to enjoy the song, and suddenly the record's almost over. And a man in a black cape with no skin is going to smash your record the minute it ends.
Some days seem very long. Some waits seem very long. They are not. I have so very many memories, bizarre and sad and beautiful and everything else. But they all took place in a single instant. They can all be put on a microchip the size of a bedbug.
If you try too hard to savor something it eludes your grasp. But I am telling you, try. It melts like ice in spring. No; it melts like ice in boiling water. Before you see it, you're looking at vapor, trailing away.
So don't envy the young. If anything, smirk at them, but not too vigorously; they'll know what you know, very soon.
It all goes by so fast.
Today, I turn 45 years old, and I have reached what will probably be the halfway point of my life. My grandmothers both lived to their late 90s, but I think 90 flat is probably my best outcome. The last 20 years of that, let's face it, I'll get limited use out of most of myself.
And my life so far has been so short it stuns me. Takes my breath away. I am still a child. OK, yoga helps with that. But there's also a negative aspect to being young at heart... my memories of being young are still so fresh, I could wake up and be told I have to go to high school tomorrow and I don't think I would miss a beat. You only begin to enjoy the song, and suddenly the record's almost over. And a man in a black cape with no skin is going to smash your record the minute it ends.
Some days seem very long. Some waits seem very long. They are not. I have so very many memories, bizarre and sad and beautiful and everything else. But they all took place in a single instant. They can all be put on a microchip the size of a bedbug.
If you try too hard to savor something it eludes your grasp. But I am telling you, try. It melts like ice in spring. No; it melts like ice in boiling water. Before you see it, you're looking at vapor, trailing away.
So don't envy the young. If anything, smirk at them, but not too vigorously; they'll know what you know, very soon.
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