Friday, May 7, 2010

pride and asphyxiation (advice for murderers 3)


Yesterday, my horses ran away again.

There must be something more than a teensy-bit unsettling for someone, like, when you're driving on a narrow, uninhabited country road and you come around the bend and see two 800-pound horses running at a full gallop straight toward your car.

And I have to admit, I really like that sound.

Not of the horses' hooves clattering on the asphalt.

The terrified, anguished screams, the screech of brakes, the panicked cries of the person at the wheel, "Oh my God, they're going to kill me! They're going to kill me!"

Which reminds me. Tip number three for psycho-stalker-Twitter followers who want to kill me:

3. I would be too embarrassed to admit it if I started choking on a piece of meat while having dinner in a fancy restaurant.

Just in case it ever happens. Like, if you were a psycho-stalker-Twitter-homicidal-maniac, and you happened to be out to dinner with me, and said something to me, like, "Hey, Drew... I bet you a bottle of your favorite whiskey AND front-row tickets to Roger Waters doing The Wall that you can't eat this entire Polska Kielbasa in one bite."

Just sayin'.

It's a pretty decent murder strategy.

Now, what tip for writing goes with asphyxiation?

Naturally, the dreaded exclamation point. I'd like to point out that I used two of them in this blog post, but they were rendered harmless because they were enclosed in quotation marks. Quotation marks are like the Romulan Cloaking Device for exclamation points.

Go ahead, look for them.

Here's why a writer should never use exclamation points, by way of a crude experiment: I am going to rewrite the paragraph above, inserting exclamation points. Observe:

Naturally, the dreaded exclamation point! I'd like to point out that I used two of them in this blog post, but they were rendered harmless because they were enclosed in quotation marks! Quotation marks are like the Romulan Cloaking Device for exclamation points!

Kind of makes you want to slap me, doesn't it?

Kind of makes you want to kill me, eh?

[I think the use of the interrogative form, eh? also makes you want to kill me.]

Tip number 4 coming soon.