Comments on: Write Boldly Badly! https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/ THE NOVELS OF JILL MORROW Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:23:10 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Jill Morrow https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178127 Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:23:10 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178127 In reply to Michelle.

Michelle, I’d be afraid that something I wrote might turn up in a blog post like mine!

]]> By: Michelle https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178095 Tue, 25 Jun 2024 11:19:44 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178095 I’d be afraid to win!!!

]]> By: Jill Morrow https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178081 Mon, 24 Jun 2024 16:44:19 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178081 In reply to Kristina Riggle.

Same, Kristina! I also wonder how influential PEANUTS was in connecting the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night” with “bad writing” in our minds … although the rest of that sentence is admittedly a lulu…

]]> By: Kristina Riggle https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178068 Sun, 23 Jun 2024 20:45:00 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178068 NO! I had no idea he coined “the pen is mightier than the sword”!

“It was a dark and stormy night” will forever make me think of Snoopy typing (somehow) on the roof of his dog house

]]> By: Bob DiNapoli https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178061 Sun, 23 Jun 2024 11:47:21 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178061 It’s very Anthony Burgess: measured and completely OTT/theatrical at the same time (I think most ‘bad’ openings are trying for something like this when they trip over their own dangling modifiers, malapropisms and clause insubordination). The book is definitely a good read. Middle-highbrow potboiling at its best. I think my copy was another find from the Towson Public Library remainder sale.

]]> By: Jill Morrow https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178046 Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:06:38 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178046 In reply to Bob DiNapoli.

Bob – interesting opening. Definitely a hook or two (or three) in it. Is it “bad,” or “intriguing”?

]]> By: Jill Morrow https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178045 Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:05:34 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178045 In reply to Bob DiNapoli.

Bob, I’ll leave it to you to investigate and report back!

]]> By: Bob DiNapoli https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178026 Sat, 22 Jun 2024 00:36:27 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178026 I wonder who your anonymous scribe could be? There’s a winged figure obscurely visible in the top left corner. If it’s supposed to be the idealised/spiritualised human figure who traditionally represents the evangelist Matthew, its very reduced presence is puzzling. Just a stray angel for an unidentified scribe? An errant muse . . . ?

]]> By: Bob DiNapoli https://jillmorrow.net/write-boldly-badly/#comment-178024 Fri, 21 Jun 2024 23:34:01 +0000 https://jillmorrow.net/?p=1494#comment-178024 You’re going to get scads of favourite good/bad passages on this one, I expect! So I might as well get my contribution in first. This is the opening of Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers:

“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.”

]]>