"He who is ambitious will never write well; but he who tries to say simply what he feels and thinks, what religion demands, what faith teaches, what the Gospel promises, will be eloquent without intending it, and will write better English than if he made a study of English literature." -- John Henry Newman

So, according to JHN my English degree really will be useless. Oh well. Mere Comments cites Newman's other rules for writing here.

Two posts on subjects that have been on my mind lately:

Amy Welborn waxes poetic about the virtues of soup. Nothing better on blustery winter days. I've been eying some delicious ideas from Nourish Me; I'm thinking of trying out the mung dal with cashews and carrots.

A few (five, to be exact) rules for effective writing, courtesy of George Orwell. Rules are made to be broken, but I like to review infrequently, just to be sure which ones I'm trouncing on.

David Louis Edelman offers some savvy tips on how to help pimp your favorite author (and ways not to).

I wonder, does it matter if most of your favorite authors are already reposing? Perhaps not. In that case, I'm off to pimp Jane Austen. (My, that sounds wrong.)

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again won the 2007 Aurealis award for best short story.

It's written, of course, by one of my favorite authors, Garth Nix.

(cow: if you haven't read it, you should!)

Oh yes, a bit of Father Ted before I head off to sleep. Or, rather, Father Noel . . .

Tip o' the hat to a coworker, who happens to be the queen of nifty net finds. She makes me covetous of far too much.

Exhibit A:


Exhibit B:


And, for good measure, this was featured a while back on Bookshelves of Doom:


Oh my!

Well, hello there Livejournal. Perhaps it's time we get reacquainted.