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April, 2025
April 30 Yesterday, Michael Dean recommended that I read Brian Doyle's "Joyas Voladores." Today, I did, and I absolutely loved it — a top-tier lyrical essay, masterful. The American Scholar hosts an archive of his blog, Epiphanies. So, then I also read "Craft" and Final Resting Place.
I have already found that I love a few things about this man's essays, which are also reasons why his writing is so economic and concise:
- He packs sentences with info by using punchy and delightful dependent clauses.
- He uses repetition skillfully, most notably anaphora.
- His conclusions ramp up to a cliff's-edge finish; Doyle leaves you right at the moment in the essay where the view of the landscape is most clear and vast. There is this coda in your head where everything rings and resonates.
I ought to read a lot more of Brian Doyle's essays. Here is The American Scholar's full archive.
Why does lily (the flower) have only two L's? Or, given its spelling, why is the flower, lily, pronounced with a short vowel rather than a long vowel?
April 25 Reaching the cervix, a man is the closest he could possibly be to God: the fountainhead of life. Receiving cock, a woman is the closest she could possibly be to God: the fountainhead of life.
April 24 Ideally, I sell all my books through my own site and Bookshop.org, and IngramSpark (to booksellers) — no AMZN.
April 24 An allegory is a story that exists in service of (as evidence for) a philosophical argument. At root, allegory is a type of metaphor — an extended metaphor that renders claims and evidence as characters and events in fiction, which fiction makes the argument feel more true. Compare the verity of the following two claims (where one is explicit and literal and the other implicit and metaphorical): (1) "Freedom can be intoxicating and blinding and, therefore, treacherous." (2) "Icarus flew too close to the Sun." The story of an allegory ought to be compelling and entertaining, but its real value comes from being a way to understand and remember an idea.
The challenge with allegory is misinterpretation. Many understand the story of Icarus to be a cautionary tale against hubris and that the moral is to stay within your bounds and listen to those who know best. But that is not the message. It's about the danger and lightness untempered freedom (lacking meaning to keep you grounded).
The perfect example to teach implied subjects (and the grammar of commands/imperatives vs. declarative in general):
"Thank you." is only a complete sentence because it's subject is implied: I, as in "I thank you." Implied subjects are most common with commands, but for all imperatives, the implied subject is you, as in "Say thank you." In the case of "Thank you," you is not the subject but the object of the transitive verb to thank.
April 23 Not everything is a metaphor, but anything can be made a metaphor.
A rock balanced on one point of contact is like a top: twirling and, unlike a ballerina, bound to fall. With two points of contact the rock is stable on one axis but loose on the other, like a man walking on stilts. It is only with three points of contact that the rock can stand still and stack into harmony with the rest. Those three points of contact are necessary and sufficient.
April 23 When I'm working on the interior of my book, I ought to pay for, or get the free trial for, the Chicago Manual of Style Online (18th Edition) and read the whole first section, which is all about book publishing. For now, this quiz is a good reference.
Some takeaways:
- The right-laying side of a page is called the recto, and the left-laying side of the same page, once turned, is called the verso.
- All rectos should be odd-numbered and all versos even-numbered.
- A colophon is a page at the end of a book with a statement about the book's production, which may include details about typefaces, cover design, etc.
- Another sense of the word colophon is that it is the publisher's logo imprinted on the spine of a book (whether paperback or hardcover).
I am so impressed by The Chicago Manual of Style's website. They have a blog called Shop Talk and, there, quizzes called "Chicago Style Workouts".
April 23 Soon, I want to create my own "house style guide." I will use the Chicago Manual of Style as a primary reference, and my style guide will list both the most common questions as well as all exceptions from the CMOS (like that I prefer en dashes for attributions rather than em dashes).
When I go to do that, this will be a great resource: all notable changes from the 17th to the 18th edition of CMOS. The most recent edition was published in Sept. 2024, and the 17th edition was published in 2017.
When it's time for my kids to teach my kids about fractals, I'm going to have them cut the florets off of a stalk of broccoli.
April 22 It's Best to Make Your Structure Simple
To best convey a complex meaning, you need a simple structure. This applies at the levels of the chapter/essay, the paragraph-level, and the sentence-level. If you have a simple meaning, for instance within a sentence, consider spicing it up with a complex structure.
The campsite was still colorful but half-barren, like a maple in mid-autumn.
April 19 Every word a snowflake, every page a winter, every book a glacier
April 16 As your editor, I have a reason behind every suggestion I make. Of course, I am happy to concede to your preference — the author's preference — as long as you have a reason behind it.
April 15 Short post for the Self-Editor's Survival Guide: 'If' vs. 'Whether' — e.g.,
Incorrect: "I was able to enjoy myself regardless of if I'd finished my work."
Correct: "I was able to enjoy myself regardless of whether I'd finished my work."
April 13 Another example of an oxymoron (from a client's book chapter, which I suggested editing out): "overnight process".
This is an oxymoron, which makes the whole thing confusing. If it's a process, then it didn't happen overnight (because "overnight" implies that it happened suddenly).
April 11 Unlike Pokémon, we humans have no final evolution, which is to say that we are always at some stage of adolescence.
Adolescence and adolescent derive from the Latin verb adolescere, which means "grow up, come to maturity, ripen" (Etymonline). Why would you want to escape adolescence? That means you stop growing, stop maturing, and start to rot.
We hope to halt the windmills of our minds. Make it stop! Get me out of here! No — the windmills ought to spin freely. Unblocked, unburdened, unhindered, the windmills will turn smoothly and in harmony with Nature.
April 11 I despise this type of virtue-signaling marketing:
NJ Transit celebrates Autism Acceptance Month.
(Seen on the platform of the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail)
No, NJ transit mentions Autism Acceptance Month to (maybe, I guess) gain the favor of its patrons — as if a corporate entity can celebrate or advocate for a group of humans anyway. Better copy might be:
We like trains too. Happy Autism Acceptance Month, from NJ Transit!
(Just kidding, sort of — that copy is better but also way more controversial.)
Being a self-published writer means being your own editor. Self-editing is the skill that can turn you from an amateur to a pro.
April 9 Marriage is a philosophical and theological concept, but we don't treat it that way; we don't scrutinize it or critique it or question it or even much believe in it. We treat marriage like a transaction at gas station along the freeway, as if it is required to continue the journey.
When I'm doing a line-edit, I read through the draft linearly, without any skipping or skimming. I want to put myself as squarely as possible in the reader's shoes, so that I can sense where she might slip. But when I'm doing a developmental or structural edit, I will often skim as my first read, to get a sense for the full arc before diving into paragraph-by-paragraph reading and editing. I skim by reading the first and final sentences of each paragraph, which gives me all the context I need to comment on the structure throughout.
April 9 Title for a short essay explaining latin abbreviations: "To Use 'i.e.' Or Not — 'e.g.'?"
April 8 I'm writing a travel memoir that reads more like a cross between an essay collection and a novella.
April 8 Group Subjects Into Clauses, with Commas & Conjunctions
Wherever possible, group subjects into clauses, with only one subject per clause. This happens naturally in almost every sentence construction: subject + predicate (+ complement). But if a sentence looks or sounds off mechanically, it may be because two subjects are occupying the same clause.
Example with two subjects:
"It was 2018 and I had just sold my first company."
The above is not acceptable, because with a single comma it could be made so much clearer:
"It was 2018, and I had just sold my first company."
Example with one subject:
"I had just turned 30 and I had just sold my first company."
The above is acceptable, since the subject is the same for both verbs, even though both clauses contain an explicit subject (the "I" repeated). Although this is acceptable, I would prefer there be a comma, since the conjunction is followed by an independent clause.
The below is a more concise and stylish option:
"I had just turned 30 and had just sold my first company."
Note about commands: Commands almost always have an implied subject of "you," which means they are an exception in that the sentence, or clause, does not require an explicit subject for it to be considered grammatically complete.
Hence, this subject-grouping question comes up often with commands.
If there are multiple commands for one subject, group them together within the same clause (no comma with the conjunction):
"Wash the pots and dry the pans."
If there are multiple subjects in a sentence that contains a command, organize them into separate clauses to make that relationship clear, as in the following (note the comma):
"The Sun has risen, so draw the blinds."
I think to be truly happy in my life, I must detach from my desire to be a father. I still ought to pursue it as a goal and exert my will to bring it about, but what I have at the moment is an attachment to fatherhood as an outcome, a sort of destination. I ought not sacrifice my experience in the present for the promise of "arriving" at that destination.
April 7 Two seasons of television that were among my favorite TV seasons of all time, and for both of these shows, I stopped watching after the first couple episodes of their second seasons:
- Heroes ("The Devastating Fall of Heroes)
- Westworld
Honorable mention: The Leftovers, which I stopped watching after S3, E1
April 5 It's 7:08 a.m. on an overcast and windy early-spring Saturday, across the Hudson from New York City, and I just hit a new one-set PR for strict-form pull-ups (pronated grip, neutral width): 12 reps!
My previous personal best friend was 10 reps. At 178 lbs, I'm lighter than I've been in probably two years, with my weight averaging around 190 for most of that time.
"Strict form" means:
- Straight legs and a hollow body
- Pull to at least chin over bar
- Slow, controlled eccentric all the way to a dead-hang
- Brief pause at the hang
My goal, to accomplish before the end of the summer, is to get under 170 lbs and to get over 15 pull-ups for a one-set max.
April 5 *Shrinking* Season 1 Reflection:
The dialogue style of Shrinking does not at all match the way people talk, and it works wonderfully. Characters are almost talking over each other, starting their super clever responses by practically interrupting the other person. It gives the show a pace that you wouldn't expect from a private-practice drama, and it is the main reason the show feels more like a comedy.
There are such tense emotional moments around grief and guilt that to linger in silence too long around those beats would change the tone of the show completely. At times, admittedly, I think those emotional beats do need more space and time, but I understand that the creators have opted for a mixed-bag, variety approach to the story, where you never see any character or any situation the same way for long. It means the show moves, characters change fast, and many conflicts can get resolved within a single episode. And somehow (almost) all of those resolutions feel earned.
April 4 Am I actually going to try shiny hunting for a Torchic or Rayquaza or Trapinch in Pokémon Emerald? I feel like there are better uses for my time in life, but if I ever decide to try that, I have found a good resource (Pokémon Database discussion thread).
April 4 No environment or person or job can prevent me from growing. Whether I grow within a place, a relationship, a job, is entirely up to me; just as it is up to me whether I leave that place, that person, that job.
The circle is both self-limiting and self-evolving. You can only ever be who you are right now, and you could always become someone greater.
My personal philosophy could most succinctly be captured by the prefix self-:
- Self-awareness
- Self-knowledge
- Self-detachment
- Self-publishing
- Self-editing
- Self-evolving
April 3 Counterintuitive insight: Don't launch your business until after you have secured enough clients to cover your expenses. Neither a name nor a website means you have a business; you only have a business once you have paying customers. So, don't "launch" your business until you have a business.
Shit, E.B. White might be the GOAT.
April 2 Evidence of a circular causality and flow to life/Nature, from an unexpected source:
This world is spinning inside me / The whole world is spinning inside of me / Every day sends future to past / Every step brings me closer to my last
– Dream Theater, "Pull Me Under"
We're in an aesthetic recession. Our Gross Domestic Product of art has no doubt marked two consecutive quarters of decline. The great stuff is less and less a portion of the whole. It's still there, and it's not that hard to find, but greatness is in danger of being swallowed up by the great and powerful Mediocrity Conglomerate.
Here's an example of a no-bridge song, made exclusively to be clipped and "duet-ed" on TikTok: Stephen Sanchez's "Until I found You."
There are two verses, three choruses, and both verses are essentially pre-choruses. There is so little nuance, and a scarce message or meaning. Of course, it sounds great; the guy is talented, and the song is well-produced. But without an intro, without a bridge, without a single substantive verse, there's nothing there!
It gets to the chorus as quickly as possible and packs as many choruses into the track as possible — an impressive three full choruses within only two minutes and fifty-seven seconds. Beat one of the first chorus falls at 0:37. Some of the best songs ever written don't have lyrics at all until after the first 30–60 seconds.
[[God, Save the Bridge]]
April 1 Does Nature consume the old, for the sake of the new, or is the old intact but subsumed by the new? Yes, the new transcends but includes what has come before. The now is mostly what is old, and only a small part is new — but enough to keep it interesting (and unpredictable).
We are not headed toward any destination. This is a truth of reality that would enrich us to accept; it impoverishes us to deny and avoid it, for to do so, we must imagine destinations and give ourselves up to them to sustain them—sacrificing present experience at the altar of the future, to the deity Deliverance.
// There is this uncomfortable truth of reality that we would enrich us to accept: we are not headed toward a destination. It impoverishes us to avoid this truth, for to avoid it, we must imagine destinations and give ourselves up to them, sacrificing present experience at the altar of the future, to the deity Deliverance.
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