Friday’s Odds and Ends

On Monday,  I shared a few pictures of the glorious cloud formations that I get to enjoy here in my little corner of East Texas, and I have a couple more today. These are some thunderheads that formed the other day, but unfortunately passed on by without leaving anything behind. Still, they were lovely to look at.

So, what is it with the Republican party? First John Boehner stuns everyone with an abrupt resignation as Speaker of the House, and the front-runner for the position, Kevin McCarthy, drops out of consideration.

One reason McCarthy stepped aside might be the flap over comments he made earlier this week about the Benghazi committee, referring to it as a weapon against Hillary Clinton.

Trying to backtrack and save face, he said that the committee is a genuine attempt to get to the bottom of what happened in the 2012 attacks in Libya. This despite the fact that there had already been a number of bipartisan investigations that found no wrongdoing.

There has been even more backtracking since Wednesday, with much of it not making much sense. McCarthy was quoted in an article by Michael McAuliff in the Huffington Post, “At any given time, somebody could always say something better. Over time we’ll prove that we have a very good message,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of members in this conference that lead a very good job of getting the message out.”

Huh? He spun the spin too far.

I sure wish the politicians would stop with all the bull…. and talk about the issues facing the country. But the chances of that happening are about even with the odds of me winning the lottery.

Still hope springs eternal, and I may buy a ticket.

Friday’s Funnies As long as my friend keeps sending me these jokes on aging,  I’ll keep sharing them. They are pretty funny.

AS I AGE, I REALIZE THAT   …

I talk to myself, because sometimes I need expert advice.

Sometimes I roll my eyes out loud.

I don’t need anger management. I need people to stop pissing me off.

My people skills are just fine. It’s my tolerance of idiots that needs work.

The biggest lie I tell myself is “I don’t need to write that down, I’ll remember it.”

When I was a child, I thought nap time was punishment. Now it’s like a mini- vacation.

Even duct tape can’t fix stupid, but it can muffle the sound!

Wouldn’t it be great if we could put ourselves in the dryer for ten minutes; come out wrinkle-free and three sizes smaller.

If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would’ve put them on my knees.

At my age “Getting lucky” means walking into a room and remembering what I came in there for.

I’ve heard that last one before, but it cracks me up every time. Too close to the truth for me.

Writing Wisdom This is from a post by Lisa Cron at Writer Unboxed, one of my favorite sites to visit for posts about writing from many viewpoints.

 …to talk about writing is to talk about the method. The technique. The format. The genre. To talk about story is to talk about the juice, the point, the content, the thing that hooks readers from the first sentence.

Lisa has written a book, Story Genius, as a step-by-step method to go from the first glimmer of an idea to a finished first draft by focusing solely on story.

After all, writing and technique is born of story, not the other way around. This is good news for writers. Because story is story regardless the format, the technique, the genre.

This was really a terrific article about how stories influence readers, with some fascinating info about a government study on story. I do hope you will hop over and read the whole thing.

And now, I’m out of here. Hope you have a terrific weekend. Do come back on Sunday for a book review. Also, let me know what your plans are for the weekend, which one-liner you related to, and what you think of Lisa’s article.