Showing posts 1 to 10 (161 total)
Agency in Adult Fiction (May 19th, 2013 - No comments)
Yesterday I finished another of Sophie Kinsella's bestsellers in my ongoing effort to learn the secrets of comedy gold. Unfortunately, this time the only lessons I took away were negative ones. The book of the week was The Undomestic Goddess, which has four and a half stars on Amazon... More >>
The Great Telephone Interview Disaster of 2013 (May 11th, 2013 - 1 comment)
On Thursday I had a telephone interview that will be sealed forever in my memory as one of the most mortifying experiences of my life, second only to that time in my freshman year of high school that I impulsively hugged my crush... More >>
American vs. British Comedy (May 5th, 2013 - No comments)
In the interest of making Kagemusha as zippy as I can, I've been scouring the shelves for popular comedic novels. As I mentioned in my post bemoaning the modern predilection for Writing Novels Like Screenplays, nobody likes to write comedy... More >>
Disappointed Recycling Bin (April 30th, 2013 - No comments)
Yesterday my little MLS-holding self spent the afternoon taking pictures of pretty flowers for a webpage. I stopped in the library basement to rehydrate and found a kindred spirit. I feel your pain, bottle... More >>
Writing Novels Like Screenplays (April 29th, 2013 - No comments)
Yesterday I discovered that my local library subscribes to eBooks through Indiana Digital Media, which is powered through Overdrive. I went to town browsing all of the books I normally wouldn't look twice at if I had to pay for them through Amazon: horror novels, paperback romances, sci-fi and thrillers... More >>
Americans in International Fiction (April 22nd, 2013 - 1 comment)
I have occasionally been tempted to write characters from foreign cultures into my fiction. I've tried to set stories in countries I've never visited and mimic dialects I don't speak. The results have been silly at best and insulting at worst... More >>
Timeless Classics (April 21st, 2013 - No comments)
Timeless classics are so called because their plots and characters resonate with audiences decades or even centuries after they were published. But even "timeless" stories are inextricably rooted in the age and place in which they were written... More >>
Mystery Tropes I Wish Would Die (April 4th, 2013 - No comments)
I've always loved reading mysteries. Not only to they offer fun puzzles and a bit of mental exercise, but they're very reassuring. The detective/crime/mystery genre offers a dependable catharsis—no matter what injustices the universe throws at us, the truth will always come out... More >>
Job Ad Translations (April 1st, 2013 - No comments)
So I've been at the job hunting game for a while now. I've played it daily over the past year that I've been looking for full-time employment, but I've been dabbling in it ever since the summer of 2007, when I needed to earn the rent for my first sublet while taking Chemistry 101 (technically it was C117, but you get the idea)... More >>
Rejections (March 26th, 2013 - No comments)
Well, another job fell through. At least they had the courtesy to let me know personally this time; I've received too many slapdash emails from secretaries I've never met. After the third mass letter I received from the local public library saying they chose someone "whose qualification [sic] better fit the needs of the position," I shot back a disgruntled reply that the person they hired over me better have had more than one... More >>