Spreading wings in a perplexing world
February, 2025 James P. Hurd
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Contents
- Writer’s Corner
- Blessed Unbeliever
- This month’s story: How does a widower work a washer?
- This month’s puzzler: Sherlock Holme’s age
- WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
- Wisdom
Writer’s Corner
No matter the genre in which you write, your published work can transform you into a change agent. When your words get read, you have an impact in your readers’ lives that ripples out into the world.
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu, or The Conspiracy
“Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Tip for writers: Most writing can be improved by tightening. But how? Try going through your piece and eliminating all the adverbs and adjectives. Then go back and insert only as many as you absolutely need.
Writing task for you: Write an opening line or two for a novel or a short story. I will include some of your efforts in the March WINGSPREAD. Here are some things to help you:
- Introduce the protagonist
- Give a hint of time and place
- Never start with a backstory or flashback, or with a dream
- Introduce a problem/conflict/mystery facing the protagonist
- Introduce your “story-worthy problem.” If you don’t have one, you don’t have a story.
- Signal the genre of your story (your title may help do this).
- Reveal your voice. Things like: what “person” you write in (1st, 3rd), what tense (present, past), what dominant point-of-view?
- Foreshadow: give hints of trouble to come, for example, “But things were not as they seemed.”
Book of the month: David G. Myers, How Do We Know Ourselves? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. 2022. 253 pp. I have read this with great profit. Myers uncovers secrets of human behavior—egotism, paying attention, two-brain processing, judging others, divisions and a host of others—and briefly explains each one. A gold mine for the non-professional who is curious about understanding, and even changing, others’ behavior and even their own! Short chapters. The book does seem choppy and many times the reader would desire a deeper discussion.
BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel
Sean McIntosh left his Fundamentalist childhood and walked the road toward atheism—while attending Torrey Bible Institute! Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out very well. Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.
New story: The Widower and the Washer
Housekeeping has always been a mystery to me. Right up there with how you deal with small children. I don’t even remember actually meeting any of my children until they started kindergarten. My loving partner unselfconsciously assumed childrearing tasks while I concentrated on more important problems such as “How do we fight climate change?” Or, “How do we end the war in Afghanistan?” . . .
To read more, click here: https://shorturl.at/SXrN8
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This month’s puzzler
Holmes and Watson were sitting in Holmes’ study at 221B Baker Street when Watson said, “Holmes; I’ve been rooming with you for several months but you’ve never told me how old you are!”
Holmes replied, “The day before yesterday I was 35 and next year I’ll be 38.”
“Impossible!” replied Watson.
But Holmes was correct. The question is, how would that be possible?
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)
Answer to last month’s puzzler:
Recall I left something at my friend’s house and he mailed it back to me. However, I cannot now use it nor use it in the future. What is it?
It is a stamp on an envelope I had left at his house. He mailed it back to me.
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Wisdom
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
—Emily Dickinson
“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naiveté. Maria Popova
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Elmore Leonard
Why is ‘abbreviated’ such a long word?
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Why is it that doctors call what they do ‘practice’?
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Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
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Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
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Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
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Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
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Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
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Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
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You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?
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Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?
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Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
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If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?
Wingspread 
