Daily Writing Tip #238: Wear A Baby Björn With A Hoagie In It

WRITING TIP #238:

Ron Carlson once wrote, "The writer understands that to stand up from the desk is to fail, and to leave the room is so radical and thorough a failure as to not be reversible." I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. A writer must stay in the room and face the difficulty of the task at hand without giving in to easy distractions. That said, if I stay at my desk too long, my blood sugar drops and I start to describe all of my characters as being “assholes” with “smelly faces.” That’s why I always wear a baby björn with a giant hoagie in it when I write. As soon as I start getting that urge to throw my protagonist down a spiral staircase or to have him be attacked by a swarm of eagles, I just reach down for some hoagie goodness, replenishing my blood sugar without getting up from my desk.

BONUS TIP: 

Try to avoid sandwiches with a strong odor, such as egg salad or grilled limburger. These can be distracting while you’re trying to write. Also, they will require you to clean out your baby björn with a pressure hose after each use.  

Das Kolumne #9

Oh, folks. Folks folks folks folks. You do not want to miss the new Das Kolumne.

As you might have guessed, it features a picture of a giraffe on roller skates heading toward the edge of a cliff and drinking out of a beer helmet. What else do you want from the internet? What else is there to want?

Click HERE to read it and click HERE to read it again.

Apocalypse Now

A short story from The Great Frustration has been anthologized in Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days. I'm honored to have my work featured alongside Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, Kelly Link, Brian Evenson, and tons of other great people. You can check out the full list of contributors here.

Laughter Is The Best Peer-Reviewed Medical Journal

As part of my long-standing mission to make the internet safe for non-meme related humor, I currently have an essay up over at McSweeney's. You can read it here.

Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Caged Birds

There is a brand new Das Kolumne ready for you over at Tin House. You can read it HERE. It will tell you what gifts to buy your pets for the holidays. After all, just because they are your terrified prisoners doesn't mean they don't deserve presents. 

I also want to encourage you to check out the Das Kolumne Archive, which is being maintained at the taxpayer's expense HERE. In the archive you will find my worldly and aggressively thoughtful advice on such topics as:

HOW TO GET AN AGENT
HOW TO WRITE EROTIC FICTION
HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL WHILE HIGH ON OWL URINE
AND MORE.