Happy Solstice, Everyone!

I'm going off to do the family thing visiting relatives with limited computer access, so there will be no Sunday post on December 26th.  I'll be back January 2. I hope you're all having fun holidays. 

Just for grins, here’s a little verse I wrote a few years ago—updated for current trends. (Sorry about the seriously clunky rhyme. Anybody have a better rhyme for “zombies?”)

Yes, we all need to learn the rules. Then we need to learn how not to follow them.

THE WRITER’S REWARD

…with apologies to Dorothy Parker

Writer, writer, never pen

Background story till page ten.

Use no flashbacks—no, nor prologue.

Never start your book with di’logue.

Set the hero’s hair on fire.

Keep the situation dire.

Write in genres tried and true

From a single point of view.

Tell your tale in linear time.

Avoid a plot that strains the mind.

No dead kids, bad priests, abuse

Or politics in your debuts.
Stick to sleuths with cutsie hobbies,

Teenage dating, clockwork zombies.

Make it light but never funny.

(Humor’s too subjective, honey.)

And if that gets you published kid,

You’ll be the first it ever did.