Lessons The Palate Cleanser 20 Dec 202120 Dec 2021 Changing Gears) Last week I posted the last section of my story The Salt Worms. While this piece was not the most words I've put into a short story (due…
Lessons A Deadly Entitlement 13 Dec 202116 Jun 2022 One Layer) The villain in the James Bond novel and film Goldfinger is pretty easy to understand. Mr. Goldfinger loves gold, and all of his schemes are to inflate the…
Lessons The Grand Reveal 6 Dec 2021 Front and Center) When Star Wars burst onto the scene in 1977, audiences were almost immediately exposed to the imposing figure of Darth Vader. The film has its famous title…
Lessons Never, Ever Head Hop 29 Nov 2021 A Common Rule) There are a few pieces of advice that always turn up when you start learning how to write. "Show, don't tell," is a famous one, meaning that…
Lessons Form in the Function 22 Nov 2021 Higher and Higher) We will soon be in the Christmas season, during which time innumerable Christian churches will be putting on a performance of Handel's Messiah, an oratorio that tells…
Lessons Well, Isn’t That Convenient? 15 Nov 202117 Nov 2021 The Wonderkid Chet) When I was young I loved reading the Hardy Boys mystery stories. This famous series began in 1927, first conceived of by Edward Stratemeyer but written by…
Lessons I Am Your Aggravator 8 Nov 2021 The Indisposed Villain) Who is the one, great source of opposition in The Lord of the Rings? Of course the answer is Sauron. It is his will that compels every…
Lessons The True Character Revealed 1 Nov 20213 Nov 2021 Dodging the Truth) At the start of the 1999 film The Matrix, Neo already knows that the world is hiding something from him. Somehow the life that surrounds him seems…
Lessons Pay the Price 25 Oct 202110 Nov 2021 Committed) The 2006 film The Prestige is about 19th-century magical performers, Alfred Borden and Robert Angier, who will go to any lengths for their art. At the beginning of the…
Give Me Pen and Paper 