Category Archives: WordPunk

Sitting on a Script Professor Domain Squatter

May 10, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , , 10 Comments

On February 6, 2012 I wrote — David W. Boles is THE Script Professor — because some unsavory person in another country created a new domain based on my ScriptProfessor.com domain by merely adding a “the” before “ScriptProfessor.com” to create “TheScriptProfessor.com” and I was outraged:

Let there be NO DOUBT on the Internets that I, David W. Boles, am, are, and forever shall be, THE Script Professor!  I have been  THE Script Professor since November 28, 2005, so let there be no question to my authenticity as pale imitators and purposeful thieves step forward and try to wrangle in private and modify in public my mark to serve their selfish ends by fogging reality and futzing legal authority.

This week, I was able to reclaim that illegally registered domain and “TheScriptProfessor.com” now rightly redirects to “ScriptProfessor.com” and the world is right and good again as you can see in this partial screenshot of some of the domains I own and operate:

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Be Blunt and Cruel, it Saves Time

April 26, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

As a proud, but inveterate, INTJ — I have a philosophy of life that few people understand: “Be Blunt and Cruel, it Saves Time!”  I never use that philosophy with others without permission.  That philosophy is fully how I prefer to be treated, but few people are willing to abide the terms of what they perceive to be “rough language.”

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The Curious Case of the Missing “C” and Why David Has to Edit My Punctuation

March 7, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

For economic reasons, I decided I was not going to ship my once state of the art gaming computer to Portugal when I moved.  ”The Beast,” as she was known, would have almost doubled my shipping costs by the time all the relevant insurances had been applied.  It was simply not worth it.

She was sold to friend with whom I hear she is very happy.

This meant that when I got here I shared a computer with Mr P.  As anyone knows, sharing a computer is a delicate affair at the best of times and although we did not come to blows or even utter a cross word it soon became apparent that we needed another computer.

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Writer’s Bloc: From a Piece of Mail

February 28, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

As a part of the writer’s group I work with, aptly titled “Writer’s Bloc” — the “k” omitted on purpose — I set out to put something down out of a long distant memory. The subject of the assignment was “a piece of mail.” The memory I eventually picked was not entirely accurate or truthful perhaps, but in spirit one of my favorites. The time I chose was WWII. The experiences are still vivid to me and it was a period of history I was curiously fond of, in spite of the “seriousness” of it all.

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The Written, Rising, Art: On Writing Writing Prompts

February 19, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , 12 Comments

A great joy of teaching is when your students surprise you with something unexpected.  One good way to find out what students are thinking is to ask them to respond to a writing prompt.  My favorite writing prompt for Playwriting students is to ask them to write a dramatic scene that begins with this line: “I’m going to kill you!”  30% of students will immediately write, as a second line, “Just kidding!” — but for those students who believe in the threat first line, the rest of the story tears off.

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Hoping to Find Answers in the Silence of My Growing Dementia

February 12, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , 7 Comments

I have reached a moment in my life when my various mental functions seem to have gone south, or at least are heading in that direction. At going on seventy-seven years old, many of my old abilities of past celebration have indeed deserted me. As a member of a small writers group, I am faced once a month, with an “assignment” to fulfill. It has become something of a difficult task of late. It is, however nothing I find discouraging in any way. And so last December I decided to tempt fate and go where what remaining creativity would take me. The subject of the assignment was something like “Humphrey Bogart revisited.”

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Relearning English in the USA

February 5, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , 6 Comments

I was pretty confident about my language skill when I came to the USA in 2004 from India, but it took a nose-dive within 20 minutes of my landing there. It was amazing to hear the responses for all the “thank yous” I offered. From the regular “no problem at all, and my pleasure etc.” to a slightly unusual “no probs and you bet” to a stunningly musical “hmm…hmm” almost swept me off my feet.

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Self-Publish and Prosper or Mainstream Publish and Perish?

January 29, 2013 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

Getting your writing published in book form has long been the penultimate goal of authors across the world.  I’ve made my fair share of money in the publishing marketplace and one thing I can confirm is how much the industry has changed over the last 20 years.

Fifteen years or so ago, you could easily get a $15,000.00USD book royalty advance from a major computer book publisher.  You knew going into the job that, at the end of 90 days, you’d be fifteen large richer.  It was a great way to earn a quick living.  Once you had a book or two, the major computer magazine publishers would come calling, and you could write a 10,000 word essay and make $5,000.00USD for that weekend effort.  It was a rich and rewarding life, but then the chain came off the sprocket with the rise of the interwebs, the internets, the web.  Many book publishers were consolidated with other houses, or entirely demolished in bankruptcy, and all the great computer magazines are as dead now as the tree pulp they were printed on.

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Best of Boles Blogs Volumes 1, 2 and 3 Now Available on Amazon Kindle Direct!

January 11, 2013 By in Dramatic Medicine, WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , 10 Comments

As you may know, over the past few weeks, I have been working on a “Best of…” series for the Boles Blogs Network to give you a way to find our work in the palm of your hand via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.  You may now read The Best of GO INSIDE Magazine and The Best of Urban Semiotic Volumes 1 and 2 using your Kindle, or smartphone or tablet or desktop — and now, today, you are also able to read three mighty volumes from the rest of the network in Best of Boles Blogs Volume 1, and Volume 2 and Volume 3 – all via Amazon!

Here’s the PR blurp for Volume 1:

Welcome to — “Best of Boles Blogs, Volume 1 (2007-2012)” — where we provide to you a unique, redacted and added value reading experience from the following fine blogs found in the 14-blog strong Boles Blogs Network: WordPunk, Memeingful, Celebrity Semiotic and Panopticonic. Weighing in at over 57,000 words and 155 standard typewritten pages, you are now able to read the keenest, edited, and reconstructed, works of David W. Boles in this exclusive Kindle Direct Publishing edition!

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Following Kurt Vonnegut to Write a Great Story

December 14, 2012 By in WordPunk Tags: , 2 Comments

I love Kurt Vonnegut with a passion of a thousand fires and was devastated when he passed away five years ago. He wrote some of the best short and long fiction that I have ever read including Player Piano as well as some amazing advice for writers, all of which I positively love. One of his best pieces of advice came in the form of eight tips for writers, which I read about once a year to keep it somewhat fresh in my mind.

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Life is Loss: We are Our Deficits

November 29, 2012 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

As we continue to mourn the death of Dr. Howard Stein, we are left to ponder the joy of knowing him and, in missing him, we begin the healing process by remembering the important lessons he taught us.

One of the most poignant conversations I had with him in the last few weeks of his life dealt with age and growing older.  Howard reversed an important expectation for me, and I appreciate the reality of that sobering.

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Is Handwriting a Dying Art?

November 9, 2012 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , 14 Comments

Let me give you a few questions to ponder. When somebody tells you that they want to give you their phone number, do you reach for a pen and paper or do you open your contact list in your phone? If you want to remember an appointment, do you write it down on a calendar with a pen or pencil or do you set up an e-mail reminder? When you have an idea that you don’t want to forget, do you write it down in a journal of some sort or do you digitally record it, perhaps e-mailing it to yourself?

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Betraying the Wishes of Charles Schulz

October 26, 2012 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , 9 Comments

When I was a child, Peanuts was one of my favorite comics in the Sunday newspaper — for that was the only day of the week that my father bought the newspaper, as it had plenty of coupons for our bi-weekly grocery shopping trips. I also got collections of the comic from when my father would go to garage sales — so even well before you could find hundreds of the comic online for free, I had access to strips from the fifties and sixties.

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