Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
January 7, 2016

The first word . . .

Neil Gaiman (1960- ), short story writer, novelist, and author of comic books, graphic novels, theater scripts and screenplays . . . on writing: “Only by finishing the story and writing the next one do you get good.”

Who’s up next . . .

January 12: Carol Hornung (???), Rebecca Rettenmund (chapter 3 rewrite, Lookout), Holly Bonnicksen-Jones (???), Randy Slagel (short story, part 1, “Watered-Down Witch”), and Jen Wilcher (scene, “Hibiki meets Sydney”).

January 19: Bob Kralapp (???), Kashmira Sheth (chapters, Nina Soni), Pat Edwards (???), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), Randy Slagel (short story, part 1, “Watered-Down Witch”), and Jerry Peterson (chapters 25-28, Killing Ham).

January 26: ?

February 2: Lisa McDougal (chapter 48, Tebow Family Secret), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), Judith McNeil (???), Millie Mader (???), and Kashmira Sheth (chapters, Nina Soni).

 Contest Information

An online version of our 2015 Hal Prize publication can be found here:  http://issuu.com/doorcountyliving/docs/2015-pulse-lit-issue. Submissions are now being accepted at thehalprize.com.

And talking about HAL…

“I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do”

-HAL, 2001 A Space Odyssey

Great word . . .

From Word Spy Paul McFedreis:

iHunch
Meaning: (noun) The forward curve of the upper back caused by constantly looking down at a smartphone or similar device.
Other forms: iHunch (verb),  iHunching (preposition)

Etymology: iPhone (iPad, iPod, etc.) + hunch

Examples:
“If you’re in a public place, look around: How many people are hunching over a phone? Technology is transforming how we hold ourselves, contorting our bodies into what the New Zealand physiotherapist Steve August calls the iHunch.”
– Amy Cuddy, Your iPhone Is Ruining Your Posture – and Your Mood, The New York Times, December 12, 2015

“Or how about something you can use in a variety of positions so you can avoid that iHunch altogether?”– Glenn Hart, glennzb’s Gadget Gift Guide (Volume II), Newstalk ZB, November 25, 2015

“The iHunch is known as a Dowager’s Hump in people in their seventies and eighties, but health professionals are now seeing it in students.”
– Josie Cochrane, iHunch affecting ill-postured student masses, Critic, May 4, 2014

Before the iHunch, there was the BlackBerry prayer which McFedreis first spotted in 2001.

Blackberry prayer
Meaning: (noun) The head-down, slightly hunched position that is characteristic of a person using a BlackBerry or similar device.

Here’s are two examples, one from 2008, the other from 2007:
“Without a doubt, the biggest workplace changes involve computers and communication. Employees are linked to their jobs practically around the clock. There’s been a revolution in smart phones like the Treo and BlackBerry that allow people to communicate by E-mail and IM (which your kids will soon explain, if you don’t understand) and access the Web from soccer fields and doctors’ waiting rooms. If you haven’t used them yet, you’ve almost certainly been to a dinner party or school event where someone’s hunched over in the ‘BlackBerry prayer,’” thumbing an E-mail response.”
– Kerry Hannon, What’s Changed at Work While You Were Out, U.S. News & World Report, February 1, 2008

“What’s clear is the BlackBerry prayer position – head bowed, hands together, thumbs going – is a solipsistic emblem of our age. As the New York-Washington shuttle touches down, 93.5 percent of those on board go into the prayer stoop.”
– Roger Cohen, Turkey Tune-Out Time, The New York Times, November 22, 2007

The last word . . . with rhyme and reason!

My hair is grey, but not with years,

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men’s have grown from sudden fears:

My limbs are bow’d, though not with toil,

But rusted with a vile repose,

For they have been a dungeon’s spoil,

“My hair is grey, but not with years,

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men’s have grown from sudden fears:

My limbs are bow’d, though not with toil,

But rusted with a vile repose,

For they have been a dungeon’s spoil.”

-Lord Byron, The prisoner of Chillon