My favourite writing dude

There are a lot of authors that I hold in the greatest of esteem. If I had to pick a favourite it'd probably result in a four-way WWF-style cage match between Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Stephen Donaldson and James Clavell. The two 50s sci-fi writers would probably have an edge because they've been dead for a number of years and would therefore be possessed of some super zombie powers. Though, come to think of it, when you hold people in great esteem, you probably shouldn't exhume their corpses and reanimate them to amuse the lowest elements of American 'society'.

Even hypothetically.

Anyway, I feel like I'm losing the thread of the original point I wanted to make. And that point is this: most of the authors that I admire write in a style that I could never hope to emulate. I'll never have the effortless knack of 'clear glass' writing that Asimov does; nor could I build tension or evoke sympathy for an anti-hero like Donaldson.

But then there's this guy, Chris Onstad, who's responsible for what I think is the cleverest writing I've ever seen on the 'net. He's the creator of the Achewood comic strip (awesome in its own right), but like a lot of online comic writers I actually enjoy his blogs even more than his comic strips. His style is idiosyncratic, but I can't help thinking it's achievable. I could write like that if I really wanted to, and made repeated concerted efforts. At least, that's my theory. So have a read of his stuff, particularly this amusing little golf memoir, and revelations about his ancestry

A final thought: what a dynamic, thriving little blog this is turning out to be! My favourite alliteration for today is "predeliction for this particular pleasantry". Possibly the best thing that Alice has ever written; my earnest hope is that she somehow managed to slip that phrase into her thesis.