Профиль

Congrats, Stan! Thrilled to see this story land in a good place.

I'm in the US, so I've never had an issue delivered by hand. But I'm enchanted by the idea of his Royle Mail stamps. Had no idea he did that.

Adventure is the one I earned the Certificate of Wizardry from, and one of the two that I saw in the thread. The maze of twisty passages all alike. Was there a third, on top of that one and Zork?

Love that this thread is alluding at once to two classic text games, both of which I obsessed over eons ago. Somewhere I have my Certificate of Wizardry.

^This. As a been-there Dad, I always try to support the parents around me in planes and stores, and never can I recall being the only person on scene with that mindset. Always seems to be a village.

Novelettes are just about my favorite length as a writer and as a reader. Love this move.

Oh, cool! You and Evernight are publishing short stories together now? (Love the Chemically Bonded theme and name.)

Ordered!

I would be interested.

Right. And he had been an English lit major, too. Somehow missed both Donne and Hemingway. Weird. It wouldn't have bugged me so much except that he loved to do that sort of thing in his own writing, when he got the references.

At another paper, the editor deleted one of my favorite ledes because he didn't get the allusion. The news was that a toll lane which previously waived tolls for carpools of 3 passengers would now charge them. My lede: "Ask not for whom the bill tolls, it tolls for three."

Not creative, but it may induce cringe anyway: back when I wrote for a community newspaper, I had an editor who insisted on inserting a "literally" into a metaphor about a funding cut leaving a kitchen-table-themed nonprofit with just two legs to stand on. ie, literally two legs to stand on.

The turn to imagining him as a child is so powerful here. Lovely poem.

Congratulations, Lindz!

Yeah, I think thats my pick for title, too.

Love that story. Looking forward to seeing it in a new medium.

Could always have a pedant as a visiting character say it for you and be laughed off :-)

I love how that may not change what your characters say; people in that time and setting call them pickerel. But then you're stuck knowing they're wrong. Curious how you've decided to handle it. (I am now terrified to factcheck my childhood, but I probably should follow your lead.)

Too damned common. Related: Some academics aiming for celebrity are reluctant to admit findings or research from other disciplines, even when it's clear they read them, and even when they cite the folks that they hang out with. "That other field that also researches this topic? Never heard of it."

I'm mad at myself for not coming up with it first, but also because I know I wouldn't have done it as well.