Tools and Craft

We are rushing through updates because the evil meeting gods have demanded tribute, and, frankly, we don’t have a thing to wear (but if we don’t post hourly, Jill worries, and we can’t have that, what with the fact she’s supposed to be writing and all). So rather than a carefully composed tribute (which normally we’d do), let’s just say there will be a new direction at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop to kick around. Frank Conroy to Leave Iowa Writing Program

Okay, maybe she does. We couldn’t write a title of this length if we tried. Tingle Alley (why use real names when the alter ego is so evocative) takes a long hard look at writing manuals and discovers the cold, hard truth. In the process, she also reveals the reason why magazines don’t cut to the chase on weight loss: the truth won’t sell ads. We actually have a weakness for purchasing books on writing. Look, right there behind us, shelves of the things. Remarkably few have their spines broken. A couple have receipts or those things that fall out

So Jill calls and wants to know why we haven’t updated Booksquare since this morning. She’s been checking and checking…and our lame excuse (“work”) didn’t fly. She expects far too much from us — though she didn’t come right out and say it, we think we’re supposed to, uh, write like three chapters and send them to her very soon. We can read between her silences. Always curious, we read the article referenced below with great interest. Is the novel dying, we wondered, a bit worried as we have quite a few piled around and if they’re going to keel

Our first thought on encountering this lament to the English language was, yeah, tell it like it is. Then we had a second thought. Those are the dangerous ones. Sometimes they lead to third thoughts, and we all know what kind of trouble that causes. We are extremely disciplined, however, and controlled our mind. If only we could exert the same influence over weather — it’s destined to be a scorcher and we’re headed inland. Right, we had a second thought (the problem with thoughts is they tend to snowball). Perhaps we’ve read too many novels. Or perhaps we’ve spent

Now some would suggest we’re just trying to find ways to work our obsessions into your consciousness. They would be right. Hence this article — it marries our love of anime (we keep the husband up late at nights downloading* episodes of Samurai Shamploo (note: the husband says it’s Samurai Champloo; we’ll go with either spelling), which has become our new Cowboy Bebop, though Spike remains number one in our heart) with our belief in subverting tradition, especially as it relates to promotion. We frequently write about making content free and how it can build a buzz; we remain convinced

We made a major mistake recently. During our conference, we allowed our friend Jill to peek at our statistics. No, now that we think back, she looked without permission. The nerve of her. As it turns out, our detailed information sparked the hidden bell curve of her soul, and she’s become a woman obsessed (sample conversation: “I see you haven’t updated Booksquare today. Why not?” Us: “Because we’ve been on the phone with you talking about your site’s statistics.” Her: “What about before that?” Us: “We were responding to your fifteen emails about your site’s statistics.”). One thing that continually