Stuff from an author's notebook.

[AG31]

I got this from Snow Job by William Deverell.

"...he looked just like John Wayne, he had the same confident way of moseying..."

And while reading that same book, which features a nudist camp, I thought of something I'd put in my own writer's notebook if I were into humorous legal thrillers:

"...flipping and flopping, swinging and swaying of all sizes..."

 

[Comshaw]

A bit off-topic and I apologize, but I gunna' do it anyway.

I have a tendency to collect quotes that make me stop and think. Some come from surprising sources. I've read many a Louis L'Amour book. And to be frank I've enjoyed them all. So when I ran into this gem it made me step back and go hmmmm...

"Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself."

Louis L'Amour



Comshaw

 

[AG31]

Two from Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

"She was being reduced to a quivering heap of cliche."

" 'Yes, I'm good,' she said, clambering back into her brain."

I think those could have been conceived in isolation and waited in a wrtier's notebook for the write context, but they were so delightful in context, I'll try to give you a hint here.

One of the MCs is a somewhat sardonic police officer. She uncharacteristically falls for another character literally at first sight. This works, in part, because Atkinson is an exceedingly competent and literate writer, and things like this don't typically happen.to her main characters. The MC is struck three or four times by how "handsome" the guy is.and then there's this:

Reggie was disquieted to realize that Ben with a weapon in his hand was even more attractive than Ben without one. And that his knowledge of weapons was -- she could hardly bring herself to think the word -- sexy. She had hitherto thought of herself -- essentially -- as a pacifist, and furthermore untroubled by the idea of a man in uniform. Not that he was in a uniform, but he probably had one somewhere. And a dress uniform for reunion dinners and so on. She wondered what he looked like in it. Devastatingly handsome. She was being reduced to a quivering heap of cliche. She had to get a grip, she really did.

Well, I hope it came across a little bit.