Shmorgh is Bored – the Interweb Home of Randy Henderson

In my social media feed, a lot of people were sharing this post about City on Fire, a book with sentences so bad they are funny (much like entries into the Bulwer-Lytton “Dark and Stormy Night” contest but not intentionally so).

I laughed.  Then I learned about the author, and the history of the book.

I think we can learn a lot from this example, but not just about bad sentences.

WHEN I FIRST READ THE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE SENTENCES:

First, yes, these sentences are pretty bad.  As in, this is a master class in bad sentences. I think an annotated version of this list that breaks down just why each is so bad would be very helpful for writers.

The examples range from pretty common writer errors like:

“But that was where the drawing ended. Below was just white space.” The problem here is stating something so redundant and obvious that it becomes ridiculous. So we can take this, and learn from it to make sure, for example, you don’t write something like “His heart beat in his chest,” because if you are human, where else would it be beating?

To a wide range of other issues as in these examples:

“Just then, a horripilating Scaramouche appeared at her elbow.”

Or

“Breasts like bronzed mangoes.”

In fact, there appears to be a lot of bad breast descriptions in the book.

HOWEVER:

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Happy New Year!

Rather than simply share events from my past year, I thought I’d again offer a bit of encouragement and advice to help with the coming year.  While this is aimed primarily at my fellow writers, the same advice can also, I think, be applied to most any goal or creative pursuit, and to life in general.

This weekend, I encourage you to sit down and do three things:

1) Create a calendar/schedule for your goals and tasks.

2) Create, or update, your list of goals and tasks.

3) BELIEVE, and do what makes you happy.

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My social media feeds are chock-a-block full of posts from writers promoting the books they’ve written and published or had published.

I just want to pause a minute and point out why this is actually frakking AWESOME!  And say how AWESOME all of you writers and artists and creators are.  And what an awesome and wonderful time we live in!  And no, I’m not (just) high on caffeine and sugar right now!

And now, I’m going to get deep for a sec to explain why I think you’re all awesome.

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Brainergy.  It’s not a new agey thing, or a result of midichlorians.  It’s just my word for measuring how fresh and alert and energized my brain is feeling.  And I believe learning to organize your writing schedule around your brainergy is very useful for writers.

Basic Writer’s Brainergy Chart (more below)

Alas, I am not independently wealthy and writing this from my Super Writer Cave hidden beneath stately Henderson Manor.  I have to work full time, and I try to spend quality time with the people (and pets) I like.  I also have myriad other little life distractions.

So people sometimes express surprise at the amount of writing that I get done (not that I’m anywhere near Jay Lake levels or anything).  And it isn’t just the writing, of course, but the fact that I actually find time to finish and polish and submit my writing, and do all the other work that goes with being a writer.

One of the tricks I’ve learned is to not simply make a “To Do” list of things I want to get done, but to schedule them, and more importantly, schedule them smartly.

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Happy New Year!

Rather than share events from my past year, I thought I’d offer a bit of encouragement and advice to help with the coming year.  While this is aimed primarily at my fellow writers, it also, I think, can be applied to life in general.

This weekend, I encourage you to sit down and do three things:

1) Create a calendar/schedule for your goals and tasks.

2) Create, or update, your list of goals and tasks.

3) BELIEVE and do what makes you happy.

Read more