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Dave Purcell's avatar

Great post -- and congrats again on landing in Ellery Queen! I'd forgotten about the Steve/Del McCoury thing (I was, of course, very much on Team Earle at the time). I learned over the years how, in both teaching and my white-collar work, a well-time F-bomb can really get the point across. But they're like 7th chords in that you can't overuse them. ;-)

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Tom Andes's avatar

Lolz totally. I guess I’m kind of on Team Earle, too. But it’s still kind of funny. Yea, you’ve got to deploy them carefully!

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Keith R. Higgons's avatar

One "fuck" per 20 pages?! Fuck that. ;)

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Tom Andes's avatar

Seems fucking stingy, no?

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Sonny Rane's avatar

Congratulations on getting into Ellery Queen! That is fucking badass.

Btw, I agree with you a hundred fucking percent.

I’ve learned through my scribbles over the fucking years that relying on swear words to get your fucking point across can get pretty fucking distracting pretty fucking quick. It pulls the reader out of the fucking story, instead of letting the story do the fucking talking.

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Tom Andes's avatar

Fucking right, man. I couldn’t fucking agree more.

Thank you! And thank you for reading.

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