http://www.onestarwatt.com You too can be an unemployed writer. Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 1. Try not to speak in sound bytes, because they will be stolen. 2. Would you interrupt a supercomputer when it's cracking a code? Would you interrupt a jumbo jet when it's refueling? Then don't interrupt a writer when she or he is napping. 3. Sometimes it seems like your writer ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/15/10-tips-for-dating-a-writer/ The truncated calf springs upward as if summoned by the ceiling. Mom said it's like a teenage erection, bounding from the hospital gown-- a body part under no one’s control. So grandma's got a stump now. And she can't harness or subdue it like the horse she once cantered, her two legs gripping the girth, her two legs ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/14/an-ode-to-her-amputated-leg/ I am surprised that my 300th blog post slipped by without anyone sending me chocolates or balloons. But I am equally, if not more, surprised that I unintentionally wrote my 300th blog post (according to my blog stats) about R.L. Stine writing 300 novels. Spooky, huh? What if this whole ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/09/strange-coincidence-or-the-universe-telling-me-i-should-kill-a-cheerleader/ I just finished watching Season 3 (the final season) of Veronica Mars. I would have watched that TV show until the lead actress Kristen Bell died of old age. I would have consumed every second of Veronica’s life until her funeral, and then I would have looked down and discovered ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/09/veronica-mars-i-accidentally-lived-your-life-instead-of-mine/ Whenever I write a post for the Virginia Quarterly Review, a little voice in my head tells me that I'm neglecting my personal blog. So I come here to write, but then I realize that I blew my whole wad on the VQR. So I try to buy back my ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/09/the-vqrs-sloppy-seconds-plus-a-clubhouse-grand-opening/ Even though I skipped R.L. Stine and went straight to Stephen King before I cut out the middlemen and just started murdering cheerleaders myself, it sounds like Stine gives good tea. http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/07/i-have-written-300-books-with-this-finger/ The Existential Diet Excerpt from Chapter Two: The Very Hungry Caterpillar I ate a banana. I ate it slowly, in small bites, folding down the stiff peel as I went. I let the fruit coat my gaseous stomach. I washed down each bite with cold tap water from a faded Burger King ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/07/a-fruit-themed-excerpt-from-my-novel-alternative-blog-post-title-the-angstful-banana/ Makes me miss my people before they're gone. Makes we want to document more moments like this: The bbf and I kick a blue rubber ball around the yard after his long day at work and my colossal afternoon nap. I collapse on the grass. "I'm exhausted from all this soccer," I ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/07/joan-didions-the-year-of-magical-thinking-and-how-it-relates-to-my-own-life/ Gawker is compiling a guide to "New York's modern eccentrics." The list includes Mr. Purple: Is Mr. Purple from the Upper West Side still around? I first saw him in 1978 on West 86th St. He wore flowing purple robes and a live boa constrictor wrapped around his neck and waist ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/02/the-homeless-hipsters-and-the-marriage-of-style-icons/ Monday - I considered committing an egregious act of email stalking. The boy thought he shook me and my obsession years ago when he graduated college and moved across the county, but no, I still Googled him the morning after he appeared in my dream. I assumed that he'd want ... http://www.onestarwatt.com/2008/05/01/highlights-and-lowlights-of-my-four-day-workweek/