Ah, the 5-paragraph essay.  It’s so great, isn’t it?  It creates a perfect essay, every time. And amazingly, no matter what you want to say – no matter what your point, how simple or how complex, you need exactly 5 paragraphs to do it.  It’s astonishing!  How to make pasta? 5 paragraphs.  Explaining how to calculate […]

Often, a couple days before my students turn in a piece of writing, I have them reflect on the process and product at that point. The reflection typically concludes with two questions: What are you going to not do that you will wish you’d done? What question are you going to wish you’d asked me? […]

But why? Why did it bother me? Sure, I always outline. (okay, generally not blog posts and, yes, I recognize the irony). My approach in writing is always I want to know exactly where I’m going, and I want to be wrong.

In other words, respect the arc and ending, but hope to have moments of inspiration that surprise and grow the narrative.

Continued from yesterday’s Part 1: The Past Comes Knocking. Max And The Argentinian Death Penguin, Part 2: Currying Favor Maxine looked at Paulson, then at the door – behind which the pounding had reached a thunderous level – then back at Paulson.  She smiled.  “Agent Paulson, do me favor?  Get the door?” Paulson tensed.  “Max…!” […]

Yesterday I told you things were going to get mixed up around here – well I hope you spent yesterday taking deep breaths, finding your chi and taking a lot of vitamin C, because this whole week here at The Byronic Man is going to be Choose Your Own Adventure Week!  Yes! Remember Choose Your […]

So I’m a big fan of Christopher Nolan’s films.  I’m particularly a fan of his collaboration with his brother Jonathan, because his brother is a prose writer, primarily, and lends a really interesting literary undercurrent to the films.  People who hated the end of Dark Knight tend to hate it because it wasn’t a very […]

Many years ago I tried to take a new approach to first dates.  Instead of dancing around the “getting to know you” questions, I tried to come up with some fun questions to just throw right out there.  Full disclosure: these questions were only field-tested once in an actual “date” capacity, and it was a New-Coke-level […]

So, here we are then.  Congratulations all around, everyone’s done a bang up job, and it’s going to be a great time, I’m sure, and I hate to be a “meeting guy” but, first thing’s first: some basic foundational points. Yes, look, I know we’re all excited to get going, but there are just a […]