ThomasLitchford

Sometimes, fiction writers take themselves a little too seriously. I’m guilty of it, no doubt. The result is adjective- and adverb-laden prose that sounds pretty to the inner ear (i.e. in your head, not your actual inner ear) but has no concrete meaning.
Good journalists (and some fiction writers!) are really good at writing accurate, concrete [...]

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We’ve been making jam like pioneers laying in stores for a frontier winter. We made strawberry jam in June, raspberry and blueberry jam in July, and, yesterday, we made blackberry jam. Once the local apple season arrives, we’ll do apple butter. Maybe pumpkin butter in October. We’re crazy, I know.
The trouble is, once you’ve figured [...]

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I stumbled on this really excellent article in Travel and Leisure about Newport, the city in which I live. It’s a few years old, but still rings true in its assessment of the place:
Now downtown works as a model of New Urbanism, obeying all the pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use laws of that development movement without the unsettling [...]

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Sunday’s New York Times ran a great Frank Rich Op-Ed about the presidential race.
It’s finally looking like there will be some intelligent analysis of the two candidates. For the first time in my life I am seriously reconsidering my political stance. I’ve always voted Republican. Danielle has always voted Republican. Our parents vote Republican. Siblings, [...]

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I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be ordering James Wood’s new book, How Fiction Works, immediately. Thanks to our Amazon Prime membership, I had the book in my self-consciously sweaty hands a mere two days later, and I have now finished reading it.
The title of this book should perhaps be amended, thusly: [...]

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My latest Milspouse blog post is up.
I’ve known for a long time that I needed to have a will drawn up, but, as usual, I put it off. Beyond needing a lawyer, I had no idea what was involved, and, hey, lawyers are expensive, aren’t they? After Sean was born, though, I couldn’t keep putting [...]

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The kind folks over at The Orwell Prize have begun a remarkable project: a daily blog post corresponding to George Orwell’s diary entries of 70 years ago. Here’s today’s entry:
This morning all surfaces, even indoors, damp as a result of mist. A curious deposit all over my snuff-box, evidently residue of moisture acting on lacquer.
Very [...]

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OK, if that sounds like the petulant outcry of a scolded fiction writer, that’s because it is. I was innocently leafing through last week’s issue of Newsweek when I came across a review of James Wood’s new book How Fiction Works. The first paragraph of the review reads thusly:
James Wood’s new book, “How Fiction Works,” [...]

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My latest Milspouse.com post is available: Champion of the Back Deck:
We have indoor cats for a reason: we want to keep them safe. They’re less likely to get hit by a car, get fleas, get into fights, or get sick—in fact, I’m thinking about following the same policy with our son Sean.

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This is from the comments.

Thanks, Nancy! It’s so hilariously true I can’t even stand it.

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