Month: May 2015

Summer Coat

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

There’s been some debate about the emphasis of story structure before you even begin writing over the years. As usual, it comes down to what kind of writer you are. The biggest knock against it is that having too much of your story beats planned out takes the fun out of writing it in the first place. It becomes too formulaic. Too dull. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I need to label myself into a writing category, I’m probably most like a “plotter.” I need an outline to show me where I’m going and as a resource to collect all of the random scraps and pieces and I can’t use in my current scene but I know will show up later. My outlines tend to be detailed in some places and incredibly vague in others. It’s my road map that gets me where I need to go.

This is the first time that I built in actual story structure beats right into the outline. Up until now, I’d like to think that I had an intuitive notion of what needs to go where. I wasn’t always right, but that’s kind of the point. So this time, I have the thing divided into the four typical parts with a few notes to myself at each junction to remind me not to make the protagonist too awesome yet or remember, the guy should be scared at this point.

It’s definitely helping keep the story on track, but more than that, all of these beats give me something to shoot for. Normally, I’m driven by A.) the ending and B.) at least one really cool scene that I’ve been thinking about since I’d even begun writing. But now, in addition to A and B, I have all of these smaller destinations to gear up for. If anything, I feel that it’s helping my pacing and lets my story breathe as I work up to such and such and then fall back down again for the effects. Established writers, you may be smacking your foreheads right now and saying “duh,” but I wanted to point this out for anyone else who’d been teetering on the fence with me. This whole novel so far has just been chock full of revelations for me.

So much so that I was able to convince my wife to let me write when we go away next week. When it comes to our Disney vacations, I write like a maniac beforehand and then make up my lost work afterward. Usually, we’re too busy during the trip for me to get any time to actually sit down and write. If anything, the only battle I pick is to go running a few mornings before whatever else she has planned starts. This time around, we have next to nothing going on. That’s the whole point. We want some rest and relaxation and with her being uber pregnant, she’s going to want to take it easy. It was her idea for me to bring the netbook this time!

Another thing I wanted to mention …

It’s shedding season, so that’s awesome. I pulled all of this off of my dog last night.

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Here’s a closeup and a sandal to show the scale.

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I’m seriously considering saving all of her fur and stuffing a pillow. Then I will send that gross pillow to my brother because who really wants a pillow stuffed with dog fur?

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Regardless, she looks pretty happy.

I probably won’t be posting next week. All of that time will be used for writing, running and probably eating instead. Hope you all have a good week and I’ll see you when we get back!

Other Worlds Than These

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

Time has been in short supply these days, but I’ve usually managed to carve out some space for writing. I’m still coming up on the midpoint of the novel and damned if I’m not excited about it.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised at myself at how much I’m enjoying working on this book. Who would spend so much time writing something you didn’t want to, right? I think a large part of it is comparing this novel to my last one. The last book was a fantasy adventure story. It had some great kernels in there that really got me going in the beginning. When I go back and look at the worldbuilding, what at the time felt lush, I see now is really only half baked. There are a few things though: a magic system, a religion maybe, definitely some of the animals, that will show up in my later works. They’re just too cool not too.

The other novel was also the first time that I tried writing a book from multiple perspectives. That ended up being a mixed bag as more than half of them were on the same crew together. Oh right, yes, they were on a sailing ship looking for an ancient secret. When it’s laid out like that, it sounds kind of dull doesn’t it? Anyway, so there were only so many times when the crew would split up – usually fight scenes – that would require different viewpoints to tell the story. Other than that, they often had the same objective. I was just telling it from a different angle each time.

I spent a long time on that book. So much that a third of the way in I felt like I still wasn’t getting the characters right. I scrapped everything and started over. It only added to the overall time commitment. I’ve mentioned before that my rule of thumb is to hit 1k words a day. That’s a minimum as the story progresses. Well, as the book was drawing to a close, I was hitting my 1k, but it was broken up into 500 here, 500 there as I fluttered around it like a hummingbird. I couldn’t bring myself to crank out everything in one go. Whatever had drawn me into that world initially, I had lost by the end. What should have been an exciting build to a conclusion I’d spent months working toward was just some event I couldn’t get to fast enough.

“What happened to that novel?” you ask …

It’s sitting in a digital trunk somewhere. Normally, I dust it off again a few months later for some editing, but that one is still only the rough draft. One of these days I may go back and see what’s what but for now I have other things to do.

Do I regret it? No. There are some good ideas in there that I got to play with and will hopefully see again. I was disappointed for a while and felt like I had nothing to show for my efforts. I don’t make my living off of my writing so there’s only so much time in the day that I can devote to it. Every day that doesn’t produce results is a wasted opportunity. That said, I may not have a viable product with that old novel but it taught me a hell of a lot if only in lessons of what not to do. I’m definitely a stronger writer because of it.

We may yet see a future for Edison Pearce, Annika Draey and the crew of the Gallow’s Ticket, but for now, they were lessons in multiple viewpoints, characterization and running with what made sense over what the plot demanded. I wish them well on wherever their adventures take them and think of them often.

To 11 … well maybe 9

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I’ve been going strong now for a while with the latest book. I’m just shy of the midpoint. A few thousand more words ought to finish the current scene and then its off to the antagonist to ratchet up the stakes a little 🙂

In books past I’ve hit various walls that needed to be pushed through in order to continue. But this time around, I’m pretty much excited all the time. I’m taking that as a good sign. I’ve been aiming for 1k words a day, but I haven’t be religious about it. Sometimes I go so far as to write my word count down. If I’m 50 words shy today, you better believe I need to make that up tomorrow. That said, I think it’s time to crank it up a notch.

Work has been interesting to say the least. There’s this big scheduling deadline that’s been looming over my head for months now. I need to get the spring 2016 schedule of classes over to the Registrar’s office by June. It’s felt like a tightening noose for a long time. First, scheduling isn’t actually my job anymore and second, I’ve been waiting around for the department to hire a replacement. This replacement needed to be trained so SHE could turn in that schedule. Anyway, that’s a lot of back story to try and explain that this week and next one are the two weeks I’ve been dreading for ages. It’s my last hurrah as a scheduling officer, my last trudge through the trenches while I train the new person with all of the wisdoms I can muster. When it’s finally over, the wife and I are going to Disney World!

Seriously. We love it down there. We’re taking another last hurrah before we’re never alone again. Don’t worry, we’ll bring the little dragons back with us.

So I think I’ll wait for all of that to die down before I crank up my word quota. If I can get more in next week, fantastic, but I’m not going to make myself nuts about it. Otherwise, as soon as I fall into the groove, we’ll be off to Florida where I doubt I’ll get much writing done. Although, long car rides are great places to work on some outlining in my head and snippets of prose always seem to spring to mind. I whisper things into my phone while my wife naps in the passenger seat. She wakes up sometimes and asks who I’m talking to.

Oh, you know. Just the voices in my head.

Seahorse

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

Work is finally turning around, my friends. I mean real work. Work-work. It’s one of three times a year that constitutes crunch time in the truest meaning of the term. Normally, it’s a black hole sucking abyss that is all consuming. A mad dash where I work as hard and as fast as I can for a week and a half and pray I make it out alive.

This time around is a little different, though. I was driving into work feeling pretty pleased with myself. I ran 7.5 miles this morning and I was working on some prewriting in my head when I remembered what I was actually driving myself too. The black hole does not allow time for things like writing on the side or you know, lunch. I went from super psyched to super pissed in about one second. But then I remembered that I could finally start training. It’s taken two months, but they’ve finally replaced my old position at work with somebody else. All this work that has to be done for this looming deadline? Yeah, that’s her worry now, not mine. OK. OK. She doesn’t know how to do any of it yet … So I get into work, ready to give up all of my free time and start working with her. We’re at it maybe 45 minutes when she says she has a handle on things and I should go do something else and check in later so she can practice. Fine by me.

Black hole averted.

I got back to my office and for the first time in a long time had nothing to do. Looks like I was getting in some writing after all.

I got to expand on a scene I started over the weekend. After placing both my protagonists in mortal peril, the next bullet point on my outline has them recovering with a side of exposition. I realized, though, that if I did it that way, it felt too much like an info dump. Instead, I spent a thousand words just on having one of them wake up and take a shower. It sounds dumb, but I think that after everything they’d been through – the reader included – that all parties involved needed time to breathe. We could build to the exposition later, but for right now, we all needed a hot shower to calm the eff down.

When people talk about the writing process, the concept of pacing will sometimes get brought up. It falls right in there with scenes and sequels, but it’s often a judgement call. You can plot it and plan for it, but sometimes it just makes sense. The funny thing is that I first started to grasp the need for pacing when I started writing comic books.

For years, that was all I wanted to do. I’d do anything to break into the comics industry. I remember showing my first full length script to a friend and a professional in the biz and after padding my ego, the first thing he said was that it needed at least one splash page. I thought those were just for the artists to show off or something, but he explained that no, it allows the story to breathe. Yes, they’re usually big, dramatic moments, but it’s really just a place to slow everything down for a minute and let the reader take it all in. They’re like a visual pause.

I’ve taken that advice to heart. It’s a little different to have a splash page in a novel. At this point, they usually fall under the wow category instead of the reflection one, but it was thinking about stories visually that helped me wrap my burgeoning writing brain around the concept of pacing in general. You can’t always be rush-rush-rush, hell, even Sonic stopped and had a chili dog every once in a while.

Over the weekend, my wife and I sat through an all day intensive baby basics course at the hospital. We got to meet some personnel and see what the rooms look like for the big day in a couple of months. It helped alleviate a lot of worry and put some more excitement in the hype tank. It’s not that I wasn’t looking forward to them before, but now I’m really excited about it! We also sorted through some baby clothes people had loaned us.

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We have a lot. And that’s just for the boy.

And when we were at the hospital, there was one part of the class that had all of these physical activity stations. Most of which were places to practice hand and hip massages for when she’s in labor and has nothing to do but sit and wait through the pain. She got to relax for a change and I pushed and pulled on stuff I didn’t know could go those directions but I guess they helped reduce pressure somewhere. Go figure.

Oh and I got to try one of these on. She said she was getting tired so I told her I’d carry the babies for a while.

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A Chapter on Chapters

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

Something that has troubled me as a writer for years now is the chapter. Well, more importantly the length of the chapter.

I’ve done a lot of sleuthing and reading about chapter construction, scene-sequel, story structure, the whole nine yards and even googled the question “how long is a chapter” to see what other people think. It’s not necessarily that I feel like I need to hit this magical target number. But for a while, I’d be going through my outline, writing along and get to what I consider to be a good scene break/intended chapter ending and when I got back and check the word count of the section, it only came out to a few thousand words.

To give you a little bit of backstory, I used to try and pad my chapter lengths if I felt they were too short by adding more description or extending dialogue. The reason I’m even writing about this is because I just ended a chapter today that would be the second short chapter in a row. It capped out at the 3k mark.

The concept of chapter length has been on my mind lately because the sequence I just finished writing was originally intended to be one chapter seen through the eyes of the primary protagonist. It wasn’t until I sat down to start it did I realize that it would carry a whole lot more weight if I did it through the eyes of the secondary protagonist. She was the outsider to this world and had recently lost someone so there was more emotional baggage to play with. This all sounded great until I remembered that the whole point of the sequence was to have them encounter this supernatural entity, she needs to be knocked unconscious and he needs to drive the creature off to set up stuff for the future.

Ending the chapter with her going unconscious was a little Deux ex Machina for me. It would have the nice cliff hanger ending, but then she’d wake up and the other dude would have miraculously saved her. Option two would be to have her go out and then the next chapter would be showing how he saved her. The only problem with that route is it would make her chapter longer and make his even shorter. I ended up finding a happy medium where her chapter is the rest-let’s-collect-ourselves sequel from the previous scene. It ends with dread and the creature’s arrival and then the following chapter is the new action scene of the guy dealing with it.

So what does all of this have to do with chapter length? Most of the reading I’ve done on the subject says something like, “Don’t worry about length. A chapter will be as long as it needs to be.” Well, what the hell does that mean?

I’ve done a lot of self exploration and I’ve come to a few conclusions over the years. Many of these only actually solidified today. A lot of it is probably the concept of scene-sequel finally clicking in my head. Chapter endings sound great on paper but when it comes to the writing aspect, it’s not even what you’re writing, it’s why.

This isn’t a comic book or even a movie. You can’t just cut away to a snapshot of something foreboding or action packed that’s happening out there. You can show events, but they’re just that, events. There’s a beginning, middle and end to every chapter. The beginnings and endings of the scene can be played with for pacing, but just write about the event you need to write about.

If you’re too focused on getting from point A to point B then your problem isn’t your chapter length, it’s your prose. You’re not fleshing out the scene. You’re not making it real. You’re writing events because the plot told you to do so but there’s no emotion. There’s no story. At the end of the day, it’s how well you tell your story that’ll be what makes or breaks your book.

I’m using “you” to make this something of a helpful post, but you can pretty much replace each one these with I. I was focusing more on making sure I hit all the right beats then I was on the function of the stuff in general. I’ll have to go back and play with some of the earlier chapters now, but I’m pretty sure I know what to do to fix a lot of pacing issues I already know are there.

I’m not so worried about chapter length anymore and I know this book is going to be stronger because of it.

Recipes for Success

On By Dan MelnickIn DIY, Food, PersonalLeave a comment

I had a pretty productive weekend. My wife and I ran a bunch of errands all day Saturday and then tackled the nursery. After cleaning it out and repainting what feels like forever ago, we’d only really turned the guest room into the baby junk room. But after Sunday, it’s 100% full on nursery time. I mean a baby could conceivably live there!

It went from this:

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To this:

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It only took all afternoon but it’s finished. It’s now a place where we can’t stop ourselves from peeking in the doorway as we walk by. Sunday evening, we spent an hour and a half just hanging out in there and soaking it all in. The dog joined us too which was probably good for her. She’s totally going to have first baby syndrome. I’ve tried explaining to her that just because we’re have two more babies doesn’t mean that I love her any less. In response, she usually rolls over and lifts her leg for a belly rub. I’m not sure she gets it.

There are still a few more things that need to go in there, but it’s basically done for the most part. Cross that item off the list and move down to the next hundred or more so to go.

We’re taking an all day baby class on Saturday at the hospital to brief us on what to expect during the birthing process. We could have gone for the three hours a week for three weeks version, but we didn’t have the time. Instead, it now feels like we’re cramming to have a baby. Hey, worked for all my tests, right?

As you can imagine, we’ve been thinking a lot about the future. How to be good people, how to be good parents, how to raise good kids, that kind of thing. Something always on the forefront of our minds is nutrition. I think it’s safe to say that my wife and I foodies. Well, maybe foodie-adjacent. We both love to cook and get really excited at a good farmer’s market, but if you come at me with crickets sauteed in peanut sauce on a brioche bun, my first impulse won’t be to immediately put it in my mouth. But I’d definitely think about it.

Anyway, we’re usually trying to eat better. Ever since we were serious about getting pregnant, we’ve switched to a lot of organic products. That’s not always affordable, so we do our best. But basically if we can get away with organic, we’re gonna do it. I bring all of this up, because we were already sort of against processed food but after watching Fed Up over the weekend, I’m convinced that processed food is the fucking devil. It lures you in with whispered words dripping with sugar (yes that’s a pun), but they’re all LIES!

If you haven’t seen the movie, I urge you to do so. I’ve never thought of myself as an activist, but this shit is seriously messed up. The stuff we put in our bodies in the name of food is absolutely atrocious. What’s worse though, and what makes me the sickest isn’t what the government is or is not doing, but just how powerful the almighty dollar really is. Time and again, the documentary shows when someone tried to step up and do the right thing, but ultimately the companies making us fatter and sicker are the ones who control the purse strings and strong arm these people into submission. It’s kind of horrible.

The film clearly has an agenda but I think it does a good job explaining its view point rather than just demonizing the food industry as a whole. It certainly doesn’t paint them in a favorable light, but there is actual fact, reason and scientific evidence backing up many of the filmmaker’s claims.

So now my wife and I talk about how we can make sure our kids are eating properly and how to show them vegetables are their friends. I mean if more people are going to die from food-related illnesses than from malnutrition for the first time in human history I’m pretty sure something isn’t running the way it’s supposed to. Food is what keeps us going. It shouldn’t be killing us.

That said, the writer in me is already filing this away for a killer story down the road. That wasn’t meant to be a pun, but what the hell, I’m gonna roll with it.

Culinary Mad Science

On By Dan MelnickIn FoodLeave a comment

Yesterday I was so excited to make dinner. I like to cook and cook often enough, but it was one of those nights where my wife and I were just out of ideas. All of the usual go-tos sounded boring. And I also really, really didn’t want to go to the grocery store so whatever happened had to be made out of the ingredients we already had on hand. It felt like a kitchen challenge TV show.

First was the easy part, the protein. Frozen chicken breasts would cover that. But How to spice them up? Most of the chicken we consume is either Tex-Mex style or some kind of Italian-garlic hybrid. I wanted something different. Good thing I always fight to have an array of Indian spices on hand. Shawarma seasoning? Perfect. I’d bake those in some garlic olive oil, the shawarma seasoning and a little salt and pepper at 375 degrees. I needed vegetables now.

Well, we had a half of a green bell pepper and a half of a red bell pepper left over from the last couple of nights so those were an obvious choice. I also wanted onion. We had plenty of uncut yellow onion, but I found a partially used red onion in the fridge. So the challenge-nature I put upon myself won out and I used the red. I still wanted a bit more and tossed some frozen green beans into the mix. These all went into a large sauce pain. Little olive oil so they didn’t stick. Some salt, pepper and a little shawarma seasoning of their own for flavor and consistency.

That was all great, but I wanted more. Even with the seasonings, it was the same seasoning and I didn’t want to run the risk of bland-town. That meant a secret sauce.

Something you should probably know about me is that I love Indian food. Seriously. I eat myself absolutely stupid whenever a curry dish and rice are involved. Naturally, I wanted a curry-like sauce. Here’s where it got tricky. First, I didn’t want to serve this over rice as we’d just eaten rice the previous two days and a third day in a row sounded old. Second, I wasn’t even sure we had enough rice to make if I decided to change my mind. And third, I wanted a thicker sauce that would act more like a gravy than the stew-like curry bowls like usual. This meant cooking the sauce separately instead of letting the chicken and veggies simmer in the liquid as it cooked down. This was also important in case the sauce sucked. Then I could dump it without having ruined dinner.

So with only ingredients on hand, I used the last of our coconut milk, a splash of half and half, some Madras curry powder, some turmeric and some ginger. I really wanted lime juice figuring it would compliment the shawarma stuff well, but guess what? We were out of it, so I settled for lemon juice instead. This concoction boiled for 20 minutes with constant stirring so it wouldn’t burn. It also didn’t thicken, so I added a roux with cornstarch. It totally did the trick.

I thought the whole thing would take maybe 40 minutes, figuring that’s how long the chicken would cook. I was thinking about the steps all day long as I kept looking up lemon curry recipes to make sure that those two flavors actually went together. I was so excited that I was going to take pictures of the whole process and if not outright impress all of you, then at least tantalize you with the awesomeness.

But nope. Took me an hour and a half. AND I was so caught up with timing and not burning the sauce, I didn’t snap a single picture. Not even of the finished meal. I was too tired and too hungry to remember. Instead, I tore into it like a savage.

The good news? It was freaking delicious!

I’ll make sure to take pictures next time …

Assemble

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

It’s been a rather momentous couple of days …

First and foremost, this morning, my wife and I went to the doctor’s for the monthly ultrasound. Although, this is the last monthly as we’re heading into biweekly territory from now on. Everything is great. Both of the little dragons are coming along nicely. Adequate limbs and digits. Hearts and spines. It was funny. I was watching the flickering images of the ultrasound, looking for the ghostly visages of my future children’s faces and it occurred to me that if I spotted something else: wings, horns, a tail … I don’t even think I would have blinked. That’s the kind of head space I operate in. Bat wings on my kids? Sure. That makes sense.

I’ve made a couple of deadlines for myself … things to accomplish before the babies are born in August. These are in addition to the usual house stuff: Fix the nursery, retile the kitchen floor, clean up the mess so we don’t look like hoarders anymore … you know. I’ve decided that I’m going to finish my current novel and run a half marathon before the babies arrive. I’ve worked it out with myself. I don’t necessarily need a sponsored event. I just need a day where I go for a run and end up hitting 13.1 miles.

I’m an avid runner and I’ve done it before, but I’m not really in half marathon shape anymore. So with the weather finally nice again, I’ll be out there more often than not. Actually, on Saturday, I hit a milestone. Since I’ve been keeping tracking of my running miles over the last couple of years, I hit my 1,000th mile on Saturday! That’s like running from New York City to Daytona Beach, Florida! (Yes, I Googled that distance. I tried for Orlando because I thought it sounded more impressive, but that was like 1077 miles instead … soon.) It’s only taken a few years and I know I’ve missed some runs in there, but seeing the number laid out like that makes me feel pretty damn good about myself.

Lastly, I saw the Avengers: Age of Ultron over the weekend like the rest of the world. I don’t need to post a review here because, hey, who didn’t see it, right? But I wanted to say that I liked it. I liked it a lot. And I’m glad I did.

A few months ago, a good friend of mine, David, had a heart attack while running. He was 51 and as far as I knew, in pretty solid shape. He was actually actively reforging that shape into something better. He loved running and he loved Marvel. My god, did he love Marvel. I’ve been reading Spider-man and his buddies for almost 20 years now, but David rekindled my inner fanboy like noone else. He was just a passionate guy. Every little snippet, tease, image or rumor just made his day and he loved to talk about it. There were other things going on in his life and Marvel was exactly the wish fulfillment and escape he needed. He’d been counting down the days for the Age of Ultron release.

It may sound silly now, but after his accident, my first thought was that he’d never get to see how this grand experiment ended. He had so much emotionally invested in this franchise that this revelation actually hurt. Time has passed and the blow has softened, but watching the newest Avengers movie in the same weekend I hit my 1,000th mile got me thinking. If he’d been around, we probably would have grabbed a beer and engaged in a discussion along the lines of:

David: Dude … Awesome!

Me: And when he-

David: So awesome! God and when-

Me: Loved it!

Rinse and repeat.

I miss ya, buddy, but I’ve read comics long enough to know that no hero is every truly gone. Even though I couldn’t share the events of the weekend with him directly, I know he would have been both proud and excited. It really has been a great couple of days.

Until next time. Excelsior!

It’s the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

On By Dan MelnickIn Day Job, Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I got some pretty solid writing in today. I’m happy with the results. It almost didn’t happen too. Well, I had the time for once … but I was driving and brainstorming my prewriting stuff like I usually do and it was just pouring out of me. My muse or whatever was riding shotgun grinning the whole time as some great stuff came bubbling out  while I was talking to myself. I typically use my phone for quick notes, the voice to text equivalent of a jot down but this was the real deal. I showed up to the test in my underwear. Looking to my muse, helpless, all I got in return was “It sucks to suck.” Thanks. Now you show up.

I raced to work and by work, more accurately, I mean a computer. I knew exactly where I wanted to start and then … it was pulling teeth. I had seen the promise land, but the doors were shut. Knowing that I’d done better off the cuff … in my car, made everything I wrote feel stilted and junky. Well, the hell with that. If the promised land slammed it’s doors shut, I’d rip ’em the hell open!

I soldiered on, gradually finding my pace and rhythm and then another funny thing happened. Whole sections just popped in there. Like Ray Stanz, they just popped in there. It must have been what every writing instructor ever has ever said about “developing your voice.” Normally, I write how I write and don’t try and alter it in any way. I mean, I want it to sound good and be creative and whatnot, but the words that came pouring out of me belonged to some other guy this morning. And I gotta say, I like that guy. I hope he comes back. I’ll be waiting around in the trees for him. Plenty of bananas to spare.

So today went great. Monday and Wednesday, though, they were a wash. Too much job-work got in the way and after 10 hour days of something else, my brain wasn’t exactly up for any more thinking. Before the muse played its little trick on me – I’m going with it. I know the muses were female in myth, but who am I to judge where my inspiration comes from. – I was thinking about two days gone when I could have been writing and it got me thinking about where the expression “That’s a wash” comes from. What’s being washed? I’m sure I could Google it and find out in a manner of seconds because we live in the 21st century, but where’s the fun in that? I’ve always been fascinated why we say and do the things we do. Like how in every post-apocalyptic setting there’s something they do because Reasons but really it’s just a misconstrued holdover from a previous era. I live for that shit!

Thinking about the wash expression and why we say it reminded me of my dad and his own idiosyncrasies. For as long as I can remember, he’s always used the expression, “six one half does the other.” Just like that. I intuited that it meant two choices being the same thing. I remember asking repeatedly what it means anyway in the hope that he’d explain it better, but he pretty much just reiterated what I already knew. Only years later – and I’m talking maybe high school or even college – did I come across the expression “six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

Suddenly it all made sense. He knew what he was talking about. He was just lazy. Don’t even get me started on his usage of “Murphy’s law.” So here’s an expression that had meaning to him and he wasn’t even saying it correctly. Didn’t matter though. Signifier and signs my friends.

And just as quickly as all of this came to mind on my drive in, I began thinking about my writing for the day and my muse appeared. I shoved all of the intellectual stuff aside to make headroom for the creative stuff. I may not have the most robust vocabulary or even be a good speller – spoiler alert: I suck at spelling – but I do love language. The entire concept is simply fascinating.