Len Boswell's Blog
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Sep.22.2011
The waves crashed again and again against the side of the ship, sending up a warm salty spray that soaked us to the bone as we struggled to hold on . . .
Wait, it wasn’t exactly like that.
We were sitting in the front row in a small conference room where folding metal chairs had been arranged...
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Sep.15.2011
The vampire myth has been with us for ages, from Lilitu (Babylonia), to Lilith (Hebrew), to Striogi (Romania), to Chupacabra (Puerto Rico), to upir (Czech/Slovak), to vampir (Serbia), followed in 1734 by the first use of the word “vampire,” which was popularized in a travelogue, Travels of Three...
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Sep.13.2011
“Never wander into a paragraph,” she said, scolding me. “Give your thought some thought.”
It was 1972, and I was being taken to task by Olive Mills, our senior editor and my writing mentor. The same admonition would be repeated over and over again until I got it right. Paragraphing did not come...
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Sep.08.2011
Mark Twain called it “so grand, so solemn, so vast!” Henry James thought less of it: “A structure not supremely interesting, not logical . . . but grandly curious.” John Ruskin thought even less of it: a cathedral that steals “from every style in the world, and every style spoiled.” Oscar...
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Aug.19.2011
A rerun from an earlier blog, but it seems to fit this week’s topic . . .
Imagine a happily married man standing at an elevator, watching the doors slowly open to reveal a lone passenger, a young woman who looks exactly like a young Natalie Wood, with the possible exception of her hair,...
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Aug.03.2011
In my previous post, I described the process by which I was able to name a lane in West Virginia. The resulting name, “Sleepy Look Lane,” was a compromise chosen from a lengthy list of possibilities, from bland to bizarre. The clerk responsible for such things finally said yes to the name. And we...
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Jul.25.2011
By a quirk in the law, I obtained naming rights to a county road in West Virginia. Okay, it’s not a “road.” Neither is it a “street.” And although the county calls it a “lane,” it is nothing more than a rutted dirt driveway. The kicker is that it is more than a quarter of a mile long, which makes...
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Jul.07.2011
Am I a patriot? I wonder. Do I meet the dictionary definition, i.e., “one who loves, supports, and defends one’s country?”
Why yes—yes I do. I’ve done all three.
And yet I am reluctant to take on that title. Too many adverbs and phrases have attached themselves like lampreys to the word,...
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Jun.29.2011
I am both pleased and alarmed to announce that my alter ego, Simon Silverback, has decided to run for President in 2012. Campaign slogan: “We’ve elected nuts. Why not a squirrel?” Campaign bumper sticker: “It’s about the nuts, stupid!”
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Jun.29.2011
The excitement of finding an agent for my novel has worn off, replaced by a feeling of having fallen in a deep hole, one deep enough to permit me to see the clouds drift by, but nothing else. Even when the plane flew by dragging the agent’s next message—“Now writing a pitch letter and assembling a...
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Jun.20.2011
I received this e-mail from my son Ben yesterday, and was just blown away.
Heya, Dad.
It was awesome hearing from you yesterday as always, and I definitely hope you have the chance to be in the area again sometime soon... it'd be great to see you and really catch up. It's been great hearing such...
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Jun.14.2011
The Nielsen Company just released some fascinating statistics about where and when Americans use their connected devices, including tablets, eReaders, and smart phones. Turns out, 70% of tablet owners use their device while watching TV, which is about on par with smart phones (68%), but way ahead...
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Jun.09.2011
My wish is that every person classified as a “member” on Red Room will one day receive a call like the one I received from an agent yesterday afternoon. Long story short, I now have an agent for my new novel, Flicker, a paranormal mystery about a haunted diner. The search for a publisher is on!
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Jun.08.2011
Shakespeare would no doubt have a blog in which he would skewer and otherwise insult critics, politicians, actors, and other people “false of heart, light of ear, and bloody of hand.” And he need not write a single new jab. He could string together a list of already crafted gems, for example:
Lump...
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May.27.2011
EXCERPT FROM Skeleton: A Bare Bones Mystery
Leaf, distraught, sat on a low brick wall and watched the flow of students as they crisscrossed the mall, all but a few ignoring the paved sidewalks in favor of straight-line crossings that would save them precious seconds as they raced from one class to...
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About Len
Born in a hospital that has since been torn down, grew up on a street that has since changed its name, in a house that has since changed its number. Everywhere around me my life seems to be erasing itself. Before the eraser finishes its work, however, I spend...