Here are my latest publications and writerly activities:
The Nervous Breakdown
I’m back, baby! After an eight-month hiatus, I finally wrote something for TNB.
- The Fear Factor: One Man’s Mission to Scare Himself Every Day. I interviewed my brother about his Scare Yourself Every Day project.
- 51 Hours, There and Back Again. I recalled my train ride from San Francisco to Chicago, and back again.
Work
Blog, blog, blog! Here’s the word-nerd stuff I’ve been blogging about:
- For the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, I wrote about icebergs and other Titanic words. My favorite is bergy seltzer, the sound that glaciers make upon melting. Tap Milwaukee gave the post a nice shout-out.
- For Easter, I wrote about rabbit words. For instance, did you know an old word for rabbit was coney, and that Coney Island translates as Rabbit Island? Neither did I!
- Japanese baseball words were up at bat for opening day.
- For the 49th anniversary of the closing of Alcatraz, I wrote about prison terms.
- Finally, for St. Patrick’s Day last month, I rounded up some lucky words, which also made an appearance on Mental Floss.
Novel
Still working away. Right now I’m revising the present-day sections. I decided that the plot I had set up was too complicated, or at least too boring. At first I ignored the advice from the agent speed dating thing, but then as I was reading over what I’d written, I realized that the sections that occur in the past were much better than the present-day ones, and that the present-day parts were boring as fuck. In a nutshell, I got rid of the fiance and made the main character, Lucy, a quirky alone, someone who’d rather be alone than just date willy-nilly. However, a reason she doesn’t date is she’s afraid she’ll be hurt again, as she was when the love of her life left her.
Anyway, hopefully that’ll work.
Memoir
I have a big birthday this month – okay, this week – and to ease the pain celebrate, I’m giving away PDFs of my memoir. Just go to Lulu and download it. Should be easy but if you have any trouble, let me know.
On a side note, I just noticed today that the email address attached to my Contact page has been wrong all this time. GAH!!! I doubt anyone contacted me, but if you did, I apologize for never getting back to you.