Michael Korda (b. October 8): “Finish your first draft and then we’ll talk.”

8 Oct
Korda

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Michael Korda, born 8 October 1933, is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.

Quotes about writing:

  1. Finish your first draft and then we’ll talk.
  2. Ask a book publisher how many copies a book has sold, and he or she, presuming you’re not the author, will probably try to remember the size of the first printing, then double it. If you’re the author, the publisher will try to remember the number of copies that were shipped and cut that in half in order to avoid encouraging you to expect a big royalty check.
  3. Escapism sold books, to be sure, but not nearly as many as were sold by exposing America’s flaws and making the average American reader (and book club member) look closely at his or her most cherished social assumptions. Americans might not be eager to accept integration, feminism, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency, and the drug culture – or to shoulder the blame for the existence of these problems – but they were certainly willing to read about them.

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I’m sorry for all the things I said…

8 Oct

ME-rx-regrets

…when Mercury was retrograde

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William Zinsser (b. October 7): “Writing is a craft not an art” & other quotes on writing

7 Oct
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William Zinsser, born 7 October 1922, is an American writer, editor, literary critic, and teacher. He is best known for the book, On Writing Well.

10 quotes on writing:

  1. Writing is a craft not an art.
  2. You learn to write by writing.
  3. Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other.
  4. Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost.
  5. Writers must constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don’t know.
  6. Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.
  7. Nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.
  8. The reader will notice if you are putting on airs. Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself.
  9. Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.
  10. Many people assume that professional writers don’t need to rewrite; the words just fall in place. On the contrary, careful writers can’t stop fiddling.

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Simon Cowell (b. October 7): “Ending the animal trade would leave more time to trap popstar wannabes.”

7 Oct

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“The end of the animal trade would leave more time to trap or beat to death pop star wannabes.”

~ Simon Cowell, b. 7 October 1959

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Last week to bite someone…

6 Oct

Bite & blame MErx - crop

It might not be true, but you heard it here first.

Sextile.com

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Thus Spoke Kamasutra: “By getting a hand under her, you will get a leg over her.”

6 Oct

nietzsche

“By getting a hand under her, you will get a leg over her.”

~ THUS SPOKE KAMASUTRA, Friedrich Nietzsche

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Clive Barker (b. October 5th): “Horror is the wild-dog genre” & other quotes on writing

5 Oct

barker

Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English author, film director, video game designer and visual artist known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. He is best-known for his short stories which were adapted for film as the Hellraiser and Candyman series. He has also written 18 novels.

Eight quotes about writing:

  1. I firmly believe that a story is only as good as the villain.
  2. Books should make somebody look at how they feel, be honest with themselves.
  3. Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.
  4. Gather experience… Look at what you should not look at. A feeling of anxiety is the sure and certain evidence that you should do this.
  5. Horror fiction shows us that the control we believe we have is purely illusory, and that every moment we teeter on chaos and oblivion.
  6. By and large, horror fiction is the most difficult to domesticate because part of the point is that it’s one step ahead – or behind – everybody else’s taste. And I’m not really convinced I’d like it to change. There’s something very healthy about horror fiction being always a little bit on the outside. It’s the wild-dog genre.
  7.  One of the things I’m trying to do over and over again in my books is create new mythologies, create new ways to understand the complexity of the world. I think what mythology does is impress upon chaotic experience the patterns, hierarchies and shapes which allow us to interpret the chaos and make fresh sense of it.
  8. Movies are much more fascist than books. They tell you what to feel, when to feel it. Popular movies manipulate you. Music tells you when it’s a sad part and when it’s a happy part. You’re obliged to watch them at the speed the filmmaker has created for you. That, I think, is one of the reasons why they’re so popular – because you don’t have to think very hard. The filmmaker has done all the thinking for you.

 

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Dr Cowgirl will join you soon. Please assume the position.

3 Oct

lab sex - cropSex and back pain 

People with back pain are known for their grouchiness, and it is not helped if they are also starved for sex. Although sex makes serious demands on the spine, no one has taken the time to study how different sexual positions can accommo­date different back problems.

But Stuart McGill and Natalie Si­dorkewicz of the University of Waterloo in Canada rose to the challenge. They brought ten heterosexual couples with healthy spines into the lab and asked them to have sex using five randomly assigned intercourse positions.

These included two variations of the “missionary” position, where the man is on top of the woman and facing her; two variations of the “doggy” position, where the man is behind the woman on all-fours, and the “spoon”, which involves both participants lying cupped together on their sides. The last of these is often recommended by family doctors as the safest for sore backs.

missionary sex - cropMost back problems in younger folk are triggered by bending forward, a movement called flexion. But as people age, reaching up and back, known as extension, becomes a more common cause. The researchers wanted to see how various sexual positions differ­entially taxed the spine, so people would know what to avoid.

They used eight infra-red motion‑capture cameras to track the movements of reflective dots placed strategically on the participants’ bodies. The cameras monitored the movements for 20 sec­onds of sex in each position.

doggy sex - cropVolunteers were then observed while standing straight, bending forward, extending backwards, bending to each side and twisting at the waist. This was to establish their maximum range of motion, so that the strain involved in each sex position could be calculated.

When the data were crunched, the researchers found that – contrary to pop­ular belief – spooning was not a good idea for men with bending-induced lower back pain. Nor was a variant of the missionary position with the man supporting himself on his elbows.

durex - cropHolding himself up with his arms extended was a more spine-sparing option, along with one of the doggy variants. For men whose back problems are made worse by extending up and back, the opposite was true. A separate study on women with back problems is nearly complete.

The research, published in Spine, will be developed into a fuller guide to sexual positions. The team plans to study other options, such as the man lying on his back (the “cowgirl”). People with back pain find ways to do all sorts of activities, says Dr McGill, and sex should be no different. But five positions in one session is pretty arduous, he points out. “You can only do so many.”

~ courtesy The Economist, 13 September 2014

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Keith Richards on running a mom-and-pop operation

1 Oct

“Mick has to get up in the morning with a plan. Who he’s going to call, what he’s going to eat, where he’s going to go. Me, I wake up, praise the Lord, then make sure all the phones are turned off. If we were a mom-and-pop operation, then he’d be Mom.”

~ Keith Richards

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My sex life is like a Ferrari…

16 Sep

ferrari-sex-lifeeCard reposted by Alan Annand, writer and astrologer

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