Some Sentences I Hope to Never Write

The following are representative of the kind of things I would never want to write. I write them now only as a sort of cautionary lesson. Take heed, little ones, take heed.

1) The north forty lay fallow nigh on a year after Mummaw died; Paw had come down with what the townsfolk called, "the dry gripes," and thereafter devoted his attention only to the enduring comforts of the Good Book, and perhaps the occasional cup of hard cider when the rheumatiz got too bad.

2) " 'twere nothin' but a nor'easter," said old Pete Cudger, meaningfully, but with little animation. Lukie Ralscomb's deeply lined face showed not a whit of reaction. After a long moment, he cleared his throat softly, said, "Mayhap it were," in his stoic, noncommittal way, and returned to his whittling.

3) O! The tormenting tintinnabulation of those cursed alarum bells! Would I have no rest?!

4) Belflax X-2J-11 strode briskly through the spaceport. "The next spacebus leaves in six quarforts, and I only have nineteen zorkmids to my name. What to do, what to do?" he wondered. Down the corridor, a certain five-armed space raider from colony V-Omega wondered much the same thing.

5) Francine looked at the man sleeping beside her. Was this the man she'd met in Paris, what seemed like a thousand summers ago? Was this the man who'd sang to her, as the shadows crept along the length of the Champs Elysées? Francine, Francine, you are my dream… She decided it wasn't, and a slow, silent tear coursed its way gently down her alabaster cheek.

6) "Lawsie, I's din means nuffin ba it!" Ressie whimpered. Boss Murphy wiped a grubby paw across the back of his sunburned, bullish neck, gave Reesie a hard look, then picked up his whip. A flash in his hard, blue eyes told Reesie that somewhere deep inside, Boss Murphy was enjoying this. A lot.

7) Moira Donnelly was 7 years old when she saw her first angel. She was 41 when she saw her next, and oh so much had happened in between.

BONUS - The audio version!