I’ll begin my first blog post with a couple of tributes.  First goes to my good friend (and Bread Loaf roommate) Alan Stewart Carl, who can be found on the interweb at alanstewartcarl.blogspot.com.  Read his fiction, much of which can be linked to off his blog.  It’s really good.  And occasionally unsettling (in the best possible sense), steering us down strange avenues of the human psyche.   Alan is going to be a “I knew him when” kind of writer, so get on board now.

I credit Alan with urging me to get my writing identity on-line.  He brought me back to facebook after a long hiatus, and inspired me (indirectly) to start this, the blog you are now reading.  He’s also, though he may not know it, re-invigorated my own fiction, and has me excited to take more risks in my writing.  He’s a fantastic and twisted individual.  That’s high praise.

The second tribute goes to another good friend of mine, Mark Twain, the inspiration behind my blog’s title.  Twain wrote (and the exact wording fluctuates depending on who you ask, which I suppose Twain would have loved) that “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lighting bug and the lightning.”  I’ve always loved that.  It’s so Twain.  It’s funny.  And true in a way that feels self-evident and fresh at the same time.

Another fantastic and twisted individual.

By the way, did you know that Twain, when he wasn’t penning classic literature, was an inventor?  It’s true.  He invented and patented something called the “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments,” which, apparently, could make your shirts snug and was supposed to give suspenders the boot.