How to write better than I do.

I just finished the first leg of my epic flight to Portugal and even though I got off to an inauspicious start, what with my flight being delayed for ten hours, so far things have actually been quite good. Mostly because I used the little extra time I had to find a good book and discovered a writer who creates the kind of imagery I wish I could.

The book is 'Pipsqueak' by Brian M. Wiprud. 

Here's a sentence from page 82, describing a room: "There was enough headroom to bone up on your model rocketry, though they'd opted to use the extra space to keep the velvet industry solvent via curtains billowing down from the apex to the floor."

Do you see what he did there? Not simile. Not metaphor. Description. Description with personality and a sense of humor. 

For that sentence alone, Brian M. Wiprud gets to hang out with Michael Chabon –– whose books are full of stuff like that –– preferably in my back yard, with me pouring wine and listening and I mean that as an open invitation to the both of them. 

Any time, guys. I'll be back from Portugal on the 2nd.