Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Paradoxical Gym Entrance


I remember seeing this photo of an entrance to a gym a number of years ago and was reminded of it again today. I'm reading a book called The Black Swan and in it he mentions gym members riding an escalator to get to the gym and then going straight on to the stair climber.

I had always been puzzled as to why there would be escalators leading up to the entrance of the gym and I think that I now have the very boring answer. The escalators actually lead from the parking lot to the level where the gym and other shops are - not just the gym. Another explanation that I came up with was that the gym rented the space after the building was built and the escalators were there before. Boring but I'm happy after years of worrying about this that I now have an answer.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Writing a Damn Good Novel

A number of years ago I wrote a novel called Wild Fiction and it was this novel that started this blog although this blog doesn't have anything to do with the novel, it just shares the name and the idea that you can't always trust what you read here.

If you want to read the novel you can do so for free online here: Wild Fiction

I never had the novel published in print (although I know that it is ridiculously easy and inexpensive to do so now) so don't go looking for it on Amazon.

While I was writing Wild Fiction I read a ton of books on how to write a novel. The two best books out of all of them were:



and



These books were also the shortest of any of the "how to" books but don't have any waffle - they are all 100% quality content.

What I love about these books is James Frey's attempt at trying to help you overcome writers block in the first book and then telling you that it doesn't exist in the second book and to just get over it and stop being so bloody lazy.

Enjoy and please post a comment if you've read either of those.

Sandpipers on Solana Beach California

I thought that these Sandpipers that we came across on Solana Beach in California were pretty cool.