BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF WRITING

"I didn't know you could do this! I didn't know you could write this way!  It was so open. So close to the bone. So convesational . The Catcher in the Rye showed me you could write to someone you'd never met as if you were talking to someone you'd always known."

Elizabeth Berg in The Book That Changed My Life, edited by
Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen (New York: Gotham Books, 2006)
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THE MOST TRANSLATED DOCUMENT IN THE WORLD

The most translated document in the world is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), created by the United Nations in 1948. Available in over 500 languages, this landmark text ensures everyone, everywhere, can read about their fundamental rights—even if it means translating it into Klingon. Drafted in the wake of World War II, the UDHR is a powerful reminder of the universal principles of freedom, equality, and dignity. Its widespread translation speaks to its global importance—though coordinating all those translations might have been a bigger diplomatic challenge than writing the document itself.
Source: United Nations
TRIVIA GENIUS (March 6, 2025)



WHEN ARTIE SHAW AND AVA GARDNER WERE DIVORCING

When Artie Shaw and Ava Gardner were divorcing
on account of cruelty, the judge asked Ava
what Artie had done that was so cruel.
"He made me read The Magic Mountain," Ava said.
She got the divorce right away.
(The story might not be true
but I love it anyway.)

Esther Cohen
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RAY BRADBURY ON ADAPTING  MOBY DICK TO THE SCREEN FOR DIRECTOR JOHN HOUSTON

"I never have given a damn for Fedallah. Houston and I discussed him the first day I arrived in Ireland. I said, 'Number one, do I  kill off Fedallah before I start the script?' 'Oh, God, yes,' said Houston, 'throw him out.' And so I did, and nobody will ever make me feel sorry. He bungles the works. It's a shame Melville didn't get rid of him too. There's more than enough in the way of mystic symbols and action in the book to carry the message, without Fedallah creeping out,
      "It's interesting to see that in two versions of Moby published, for kids, in the last two years, both have adopted my ending, rather than Melville's...."


Ray Bradbury in a letter to Sam Sackett (January 18, 1958)
Nathan R. Eller, Remembrance: Selected Correspondence of Ray Bradbury (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023)
**

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
—Tom Clancy
**

GEORGE ORWELL'S WIFE

"George Orwell's wife was a nasty snitch. The launch party for 'Lolita' was nearly a flop when censors threatened to spoil the fun. Saul Bellow was a needy fusspot. Mick Jagger could not tell a story. The biologist James Watson could, but he expressed such misogyny that readers, even in the 1960s, were alarmed. The anecdotes pile up in a new biograpy of George Weidenfeld, the founder of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a publisher"

unsigned review of The Maverick: George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing. in The Economist (September 23rd,2023)
**
ON THE EXCLAMATION POINT !

"Punctuation didn’t really get its start until the invention of the printing press standardized certain practices. Before that, a few scribes from the late Middle Ages used the interjection “io” at the end of sentences to indicate joy, or more generally, surprise or excitement. Like a lot of other things that were rolled out with positive associations, io got tied to a lot of other extreme emotions, but not before it started getting condensed into a sign that was less and less easy to parse as a pair of letters:"
T. Campbell. Email post. May 9, 2024
**
HOW MICHAEL CONNELLY, AT AGE 16, RENEWED HIS INTEREST IN CRIME & MYSTERIES 

 The following paragraph comes from the Wikipedia article on Bosch’s creator:

"At age 16, Connelly's interest in crime and mystery escalated when, on his way home from his work as a hotel dishwasher, he witnessed a man throw an object into a hedge. Connelly decided to investigate and found that the object was a gun wrapped in a lumberjack shirt. After putting the gun back, he followed the man to a bar and then left to go home to tell his father. Later that night, Connelly brought the police down to the bar, but the man was already gone. This event introduced Connelly to the world of police officers and their lives, impressing him with the way they worked."

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ON NIGHT OWLS & THE CREATIVE MUSE

Night owls who find the creative muse during the dark hours should learn the verb “lucubrate,” which means “to write or study, especially by night.” It comes from the Latin verb “lucubrare,” which specifies working by lamplight. Horror fiction author H.P. Lovecraft insisted lucubration was most suited to his craft: “At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.”

WORD DAILY (November 20, 2024)

https://worddaily.com/words/Lucubrate/
**
JOHN STEINBECK'S DOG ATE HIS HOMEWORK

A "minor tragedy stalked," Steinbeck wrote in a letter to his literary agent on May 27, 1936. "My setter pup [Toby], left alone one night, made confetti of about half of my ms. [manuscript] book. Two months work to do over again. ... There was no other draft." Yet whatever anguish the author initially felt over seeing his months of hard work reduced to shreds had clearly tempered by the time he sat down to write the letter. "I was pretty mad but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically," Steinbeck continued. "I didn't want to ruin a good dog for a ms. I'm not sure is good at all. He only got an ordinary spanking with his punishment flyswatter. But there's the work to do over from the start."

Fortunately, Toby's drastic edits proved but a temporary obstacle in the gestating story's path to completion. Inspired by his new surroundings, which included a study crafted to his liking, Steinbeck restarted his tale of codependent migrant workers George and Lennie and furiously plowed through revisions until submitting what became Of Mice and Men to his editors in August."

HISTORY FACTS (January 22, 2025)
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ON WRITING WITH A QUILL PEN

The use of quill pens dates back to the sixth century CE, when the feathers of large birds — primarily geese, turkeys, swans, and even crows — replaced the reed pens that had been used previously. Though it’s an obsolete writing utensil today, the quill pen remains a symbol of education, literature, and artistic expression. Many important historical documents were written using quill and ink, from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence, and white quills are still laid out every day the U.S. Supreme Court is in session. "

HiSTORY FACTS Website (February 7, 2025)

https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/article/we-tried-writing-with-a-quill-and-heres-what-we-learned
**


 
Whizz-bang--coined by Charles Dickens 

“Whizz-bang” was used in The Pickwick Papers to describe the sound of a gunshot. Today, “whizz-bang” (or “whiz-bang”) refers to a resounding success, as in, “She ran a whizz-bang campaign.” During WWII, it had a meaning closer to how Dickens used it, as a small-caliber shell.

WORD SMARTS (March 18, 2025)
**
ON WRITING POETRY

I have stood on the high ridges
Of abandoned mines,
Studying whatever Nature does
Under such conditions,
Half-singing to myself
"I am standing on the high ridges
Of abandoned mines."

If I were standing on a beach
Watching high waves
Crash against the face 
Of once rugged rocks,
Would I sing to myself
"I am standing on the high ridges
Of abandoned mines."

Of course, I would.

Louis Phillips