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Habits

MikePerry — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:59:18 +0000

Going through manuscript deleting the word “little.” A little this, a little that, a little-little-little, ad infinitum. #1 writing tic.

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Tree Tweet

MikePerry — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:30:47 +0000

Easy to be angry at a tree, harder to understand why. #LowLimbHeadBonk #LizardBrain

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Oops! Visiting Tom Numbers and Initials

MikePerry — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:33:15 +0000

Just sent in some minute final tweaks for the paperback version of Visiting Tom (due out in August, last I heard):

Fixed this (and changed 357 Chevy engine to 327) and this, also per Tom’s direction changed FDR to LBJ.

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“Roughneck Grace” Column Online 3/11/2013

MikePerry — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:42:42 +0000

Every week the Wisconsin State Journal runs “Roughneck Grace,” a weekly column written by Mike (many of the columns will be adapted from Mike’s Tent Show Radio monologues). Today’s column (about big trouble with the snowplow) was printed on sturdy newsprint this Sunday and can now be seen online here.

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When You Don’t Pay the Rent

MikePerry — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:25:19 +0000

Your website could end up cat-egorized under “Cat Hair Balls”:

Thanks Mom, for letting me know. A paperwork oversight, centered mainly on, um, me.

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Chain, Chain, Chain…

MikePerry — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:52:11 +0000

After my last snowplowing episode I bought chains. The good news? They work great (as the photo below indicates) (and thanks, patient local parts store guys who helped me order them). The bad news? They come in a rinky-dink plastic case with little plastic tabs that refuse to open in, umm, cold weather, effectively locking them away no matter how you pray or pry. Until finally, with the kids already late for school and the driveway still impassable, you raise the whole works high above your head, and with all the rage you can muster, you go into gorilla slam-dunk mode and…well, see the second photo, which was actually taken prior to the first.

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The Dangers of Recycling

MikePerry — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:56:18 +0000

Started the day by doing the turtle-flop into a puddle of freezing rain while unloading green bins of tin cans.

Subsequently re-started the day.

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How Not To Do It

MikePerry — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:51:07 +0000

For the first time in years, I was actually prepared for the deer season opener. All my gear laid out in the pole barn, everything in its proper pocket, all outerwear hung in the fresh air and de-scented, a new stand set up in the spot I’d been eyeing for the past three years but hadn’t gotten to, shooting lanes trimmed, everything done. When the alarm beeped at 5 a.m. (or, as we call it, “O’dark-thirty”), I didn’t hit snooze but rather rose and dressed and set out through the trees for the far valley where my stand stood. When I arrived, I arranged everything to be easily at hand, settled into my seat, switched off my headlamp, and looking to the east, marveled that I was actually set to hunt before the horizon had even begun to gray.

As a side note–and this may or may not mean anything to you, but it’s huge for me–because for once things had gone as planned and I hadn’t had to lumber-jog to the stand in order to get there before sunrise as per usual, I wasn’t starting the day as a steamy mouth-breathing sweat-ball.

Nope, I was just sitting there at room temperature and resting heart rate, rifle across my knees, waiting for sunrise. By lifelong habit, I slid my hand along the rifle stock to check the safety.

And discovered that I had forgotten to remove the trigger lock.

Envision now, if you will, a muttering, self-loathing gorilla clad in blaze orange as he clambers down the stand and embarks on a thudding half-mile jog a half-mile uphill through burdock, brush, and pine trees until he reaches his office above the garage where he keeps the key, unlocks his trigger, then thuds back downhill through the dark and back to his tree stand where shortly he sits with sweat dripping down his back and steam rising from his bald head, the high-pitched whine of his blood pressure audible over the sound of the morning’s first birds.

At 7:30 a.m. a doe entered the clearing, followed by a six-point buck. Had a tag for each, filled each.

Modest deer, trophy venison.

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Oops! Visiting Tom: Ford or Chevy?

MikePerry — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 19:35:14 +0000

Reader Chris C. has sharp eyes and points out that on page 162 of Visiting Tom I refer to Tom’s car as a “long-gone Ford convertible” despite the fact that it was introduced on page 5 as “a white ’49 Chevy convertible.” I have checked, and Chris is quite right. I’m pretty sure it was a Chevy, but I’m going to check with Tom.

Chris also raised a question about the size of the engine. I will ask Tom about that as well.

If you’re new around here, you know I enjoy it when readers contact me with errors they’ve spotted, with one caveat: Anyone who notifies me in the tone of gotcha!, will be dinging on deaf ears. The tens of thousands of words in each book go through rigorous edits, revisions, copyedits, proofreadings, and generalized scrutiny – when something slips through it is despite all the best efforts of a whole team of good folks and as a matter of principle I stand up for the hard work they do.

That said, I want to get things right. And Chris was most congenial. Therefore, he will now have his observations tagged “oops!” so you can find them with all my other errors, literary and not. (Sometimes I even find them myself.)

Thanks, Chris.

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Mmm…gahh!

MikePerry — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 16:09:49 +0000

Absently drinking from an empty coffee cup while writing with eyes on the screen is the equilibrial equivalent to missing the nonexistent top stair-step while carrying laundry.

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