Big Cat, Little Cat: Feel Better Description Four identical panels sit in a group, two above and two below. In each, a large orange cat with darker orange stripes sits next to a smaller gray with darker grey stripes. The orange is looking down at the grey with an expression of contentment, while the grey…
Tag: Adam
The Fourth Wall (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat: The Fourth Wall Was the Fourth Wall Always There? Back in my dissertatin’ days, one of my particular interests was: the occasions on which an epic poet talks in the first person. You might say: times when the poet breaks the fourth wall. For example, the way Homer does at the…
Jokes in Bad Taste (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat: Jokes in Bad Taste What is it about Jokes in Bad Taste that I can’t Quit? I’m a big believer in making jokes that punch up, not down. I will make jokes about transphobia or racism. But never about a trans person or a Black person. One of the canards you…
Sharing (Caturday Questions)
Big Cat, Little Cat: Sharing Timing a Joke Did you ever go through a period of maybe a few months or maybe… twenty years… in which every time you tried to tell a joke nobody laughed? And it took until you were in your mid-twenties to early thirties before people started actually laughing when you…
Exactly the Same
Something I don’t yet understand.But wish to:When I write a poemI put my heart into it.Think deeply into a questionScratch out revision after revisionRage for days, months, yearsFinish only when I can whisper:This is how I felt.This is how I and only I felt at this one unique momentThis singular combination of circumstances that never…
Playing Telephone (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat: Playing Telephone Playing Telephone: Mistakes and Fiction This is one of the most interesting and thorny subjects. It’s hard to imagine a bigger difference between fiction and life than the issue of mistakes. In life, we make mistakes all the time. We act against our self-interest. And of course we just…
Merry Christmas! (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat: What, to a Cat, is Christmas? Description Three identical images side by side. In each, two cats sit on a cushion. On the left sits a large orange with darker orange stripes. He smiles down at his companion, eyes closed, face placid. On the right sits a small grey with darker…
What I’ve Learned this Year (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat: Happy Anniversary What I’ve Learned about… Learning If you try things, you’ll learn things. That’s the essence of what I’ve learned from running the 2 Rules of Writing website this year. I guess it’s the positive version of “fuck around and find out.” It’s also what I went into the project…
Artistic Integrity (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat: Artistic Integrity What is Artistic Integrity and How Much does it Cost? What happens to an artist who is commercially successful? Or a politician for that matter? People talk about how “so-and-so went to Washington and forgot who voted them in.” Or “So and so got big and now just makes…
NaNoWriMo: Conflict (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat Feeling Conflicted about Conflict I find that establishing and escalating conflict is the hardest thing to do for a new writer. Picture it: you’ve got your setting and it’s a good’n. It’s somewhere familiar to you, either based on the place where you grew up or on somewhere you’ve been that…