Let’s start with the basics, in the ever-reliable format of the numbered list. If I am fortunate enough to continue posting on our blog, there are a few things you might find helpful to bear in mind. And here they are:
1. I’ll try to be informative.
2. Failing that, I’ll try to be funny.
3. Failing that too, I’ll try to use needlessly esoteric verbiage and confusing syntax. (It’s good to set achievable goals for yourself.)
4. I will occasionally use words that don’t, technically speaking, exist. We generally try to avoid that sort of thing in the magazine, but the internet is a wild, lawless frontier where occasionally really good storytellers are described as raconteuriffic and that’s just how it is. On the other hand, did you know “crapulous” is an actual word? Look it up!
5. You don’t have to look it up just because I tell you to. Seriously, it’s the internet. How am I going to know?
6. I’ll know.
7. Expect a lot of thinly-adapted song lyrics or literary quotes or other things other people have already created, because thick and fast they’ll come at last, and more and more and more, so to speak. Those references usually won’t be attributed to their originators like Lewis Carroll (that one’s a freebie). It’s a habit I picked up from reading P.G. Wodehouse, so at least it has cachet.
8. My posts generally won’t be this self-congratulatory, and will (hopefully) be about some actual topic or other. Fingers crossed.
That should do it for now. Hey, thanks for reading Slice’s corner of the internet – hopefully we can make Bits & Pieces worth your while to keep an eye on.
STEVE GILL is unusually tall, has a B.A. in Letters and a minor in Classics from OU, drinks a great deal of coffee and openly delights in writing, editing and catching the occasional typo for Slice – especially since his dream career (millionaire layabout in a P.G. Wodehouse novel) is notoriously difficult to break into. He's probably trying to think of a joke about pirates right now.
